Sir John Blois

Sir John Blois bart. of Cockfield Hall Suffolk married Lucretia Ottley, daughter of Thomas Ottley of Nevis (in turn the son of the Drewry Ottley who d. c. 1760, q.v.). Their son Ralph [John] was apparently briefly in a London mercantile partnership with Thomas Oliver Anderdon (q.v.), and certainly died at Berbice in 1818. Sir John Blois and his wife Lucretia had in 1786 leased an estate to which she and her children were entitled to Clement Caines for £700 p.a. 'Smith and Piguenit late Sir John Blois' appears on an estate on the boundary between St Peter Basseterre and St Mary Cayon, next to Bayford's, in William McMahon's 1828 map of St Kitts.

1. J. Blois appeared in 1782 among the signatories of 'The Humble address and petition of the planters and merchants whose names are hereunto subscribed, on behalf of themselves, and others interested in the British West India Islands: Your petitioners, alarmed by the inefficacy of their former applications to Your Majesty's Ministers, humbly implore Your Majesty to enforce and extend the present assurances they have given us, and to direct, that without delay, reinforcements, naval and military adequate to the permanent defence of Your Majesty's West India Islands, may be sent out, so that by the blessing of Providence, those most valuable possessions may still be preserved for the British Empire.'

Vere Langford Oliver, History of Antigua Vol. II p. 375; Morning Post London, 08/07/1818, from 'Persons affiliated w/Guyana in British Newspapers', http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyggbs/Transcriptions/LisaB/DeathsTrans2015.pdf [accessed 04/04/2016; the marriage settlement of Sir John Blois of Cockfield Hall Yoxford and Lucretia Ottley aged 17, daughter of Lucretia Payne widow of Golden Square dated 18/04/1772, is in the Blois family papers at the Suffolk Record Office.

1. 1782 Whitehall Evening Post, London, 3 January, transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/1782PetitiontotheKing.htm