James Holder

Owner of Black Rock or Holders on Barbados. Son of William Holder, who left him the estate in 1752, when James was a child, aged under nine. The James Holder shown as the owner of Holders/Black Rock in 1817 was probably the same man, although to date no will or probate or announcement of death has been traced for him in England. Sophia W. Rawlins shows 'James Aynesworth' Holder as the second son of William Holder (d. 1752) and of Ash [sic] Park Hampshire. A James Holder of Chilton House Wiltshire was named as an executor in the will of Richard Welch jun. (q.v.) written in 1806.

1. The Holder family were part of the broad social circle of Jane Austen. James Holder and his brother William Thorpe Holder took the tenancy of Ashe Park in 1770, and after his brother's marriage James lived on there. 'His West India fortune failed in the latter part of his life (probably c. 1808) and he died senile and in poverty [post-1813].'

2. Probably the James Holder of Walcot who was buried aged 73 26/10/1818 at Ewerton, Somerset.

Sophia W Rawlins, 'Descendants of Joseph Harbin of Barbados', JMBHS Vol. XX (1953) pp. 81-85 reproduced in Brandow, Genealogies of Barbados Families pp. 282-286.

1. Deidre Le Faye (ed.) Jane Austen's Letters p. 536.

2. Ancesrty.com, Somerset, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-1914 for James Holder [accessed 12/09/2018]