John Banister of Cavendish Square

Profile & Legacies Summary

???? - 1774

Biography

John Banister or Bannister 'of Antigua', but dying of Cavendish Square, London merchant and mortgagee of 'slave-property', including that of William Byam in Antigua. Two of his three daughters married into the English elites during his lifetime: Elizabeth married Sir George Osborn bart. MP of Compton co. Beds., and Henrietta Maria married Right Rev. Brownlow North, Bishop of Winchester. His third daughter Anne later married Rev. Edmund Poulter. He was possibly the Banister of Blizard and Banister, factoring enslaved Africans on Antigua c. 1755.

Will of John Banister of Cavendish Square proved 18/03/1774. He left £5000 in trust for his grandson John Osborn; an £11,000 mortgage from William Byam of Antigua upon his plantation to be made up to £15,000 and placed in trust to pay £400 p.a. to his wife Elizabeth and the residue to the children of his 'daughter North'. He made his daughter Anne his residuary legatee.
In 1770, John Banister was party to a deed with James Hammond and William Manning, and the Cranstoun family, presumably a mortgage of the latter family's estate on St Kitts.

Sources

Vere Langford Oliver, History of Antigua Vol.I pp. 32-33; Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade Vol. II p. 510.

PROB 11/995/322.
Deed between Lord James, Lady Sophia, and William Cranstoun and John Banister, James Hammond, and William Manning, of London, about grant and demise of lands and slaves for 99 years, 1770 June 21, Archives at Yale, British Caribbean Collection, https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/archival_objects/2192398.

Further Information

Absentee?

British/Irish

Spouse

Elizabeth

Children

Elizabeth; Henrietta; Anne

Associated Estates (4)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

SD - Association Start Date
SY - Association Start Year
EA - Earliest Known Association
ED - Association End Date
EY - Association End Year
LA - Latest Known Association

1773 [EA] - → Mortgage Holder

Cedar Hill [ Antigua ]

It is known from his will that John Banister held a mortgage of £11,000 from William Byam: it has been inferred to relate to the Cedar Hill estate estate there.

1765 [SY] - 1774 [EY] → Mortgage Holder

Fitch's Creek or [Martin] Byam's [ Antigua ]

Oliver History of Antigua Vol. I p. 106 shows an indenture of 1790 recapitulating a series of arrangements commencing in 1765 between Martin Byam and his mother Anne on the one hand and John Banister and James Hammond mortgaging an [unnamed] estate for £4600; it was then conveyed in 1768 to Edward Warner and Godschall Johnson of London, and in 1782 to Alexander Willock and in 1790 to James, John and Joseph Kirkpatrick and William Parsons. The estate was 517 acres and had 276 enslaved people attached. It was described as 'that plantation of Martin Byam in the division of New North Sound and parish of St George.' LBS has tentatively inferred it to have been this estate, Fitch's Creek which appears also to have been known as [Martin] Byam's.

1764 [SY] - 1774 [EY] → Mortgage Holder

Marble Hill [ Antigua ]

LBS has tentatively inferred that the estate described as Dickinson's Bay Plantation belonging to Samuel Nibbs in 1760 which was mortgaged to John Banister in 1764 and then redeemed by James Nibbs from Banister's heirs in 1787 became part of Marble Hill.

- 1757 [LA] → Mortgage Holder

Old Road [ Antigua ]

By indentures of 06/06/1757 and 07/06/1757, the mortgage held by John Bannister [sic] late of Antigua then of Chiswick was repaid by Robert Webb, who took on the mortgage.