Thomas Graeme

‘A sugar baron…the son of a Barbadian sugar planter who had inherited estates in Grenada & Barbados’, purchased Oldbury Court Gloucestershire in 1799 and commissioned Repton to landscape the estate there. He is known to have sold the Pool estate in Barbados to Samuel Hall Lord in 1813, retaining a mortgage. The estate(s) on Grenada has not yet been traced but was probably Baccaye, sold in 1766 and renamed Westerhall.

1. Will of Thomas Graeme of [Oldbury Court] Stapleton Gloucestershire [made in 1818] proved 13/04/1821. In the will he left his entire estate in trust [his trustees were his nephews Valentine Jones and Jonathan Blenman [III]] for his wife, with she having the power to bequeath them in turn. He said that he would provide in a codicil [apparently never written] for the event that she predeceased him.

2. In the will of his wife Anne Graeme, proved 02/01/1822, she left Oldbury to her daughter Matilda, although there is then a confusing explanation for favouring her daughter Amelia over her other daughters. Neither her will nor her husbands mentions property in Barbados.

Madge Dresser, ‘Slavery and West Country Houses’ in Dresser & Hann (eds.) Slavery & the British Country House; The Hon. Thomas Graham [sic] of Oldbury Court, Gloucester, England sold the Pool to John Thomas Lord and Samuel Hall Lord, Barbados Department of Archives, Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.

1. PROB 11/1642/168.

2. PROB 11/1652/11.