Daniel Backhouse

Liverpool slave-trader, former partner of John Tarleton and Thomas Tarleton (both of whom q.v.). Erstwhile creditor on Rabot estate in St Lucia.

1. In the case of Hornby and others v Tarlton [sic] and others at the Lancaster Assizes in 1819, a charge of fraudulent conveyance against John Tarleton was upheld. The account of the case shows that Thomas Tarleton (q.v.) had been paid £68,000 on his withdrawal from the slave-trading and West India mercantile partnership with John Tarleton and Daniel Backhouse [at a date not given], and that subsequently Daniel Backhouse was to be paid £53,000 for his share in the partnership, later reduced to £40,000 in 1808, to be paid over 12 years. Backhouse died in 1811.

2. Will of Daniel Backhouse merchant of Everton Liverpool proved 15/02/1812. Of his reported personalty at death of £70,000, about half appears to have been constituted by debts from John Tarleton. Under his will he left 'all and singular my plantations [unspecified]...negroes...cattle...in...the West India colonies and in and upon the colonies of Demerara and Essequibo' and his property in Britain in trust [his trustees included his three sons-in-law and his daughter Elizabeth Backhouse] to secure £2000 each to his four unmarried daughters, with his residual estate divided into 1/8ths to each of his children or their issue. The will authorised his executors to settle with 'William Postlethwaite of the island of Grenada and also of Demerara heretofore agent of the late firm of Tarletons and Backhouse', and referred to his own 1808 settlement with his former partner John Tarleton.

1. The Times 13/09/1819 p. 3, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4070569/daniel_backhouse_slave_trader/ [accessed 12/06/2016].

2. PROB 11/1530/245; 2.David Pope, 'The wealth and social aspirations of Liverpool's slave merchants of the second half of the Eighteenth century', in Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery, ed. David Richardson, Suzanne Schwarz and Anthony Tibbles (Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2007), ch. 7.

We are grateful for the help of Sean Creighton with this entry.