Barclay Farquharson

Slave-owner originally in Martinique, then buying for £120,000 estates and enslaved people on Tobago from John Balfour (in a transaction quickly reversed and alter subject to a suit in Chancery) and finally of St Vincent.

1. In a Chancery Court case, Farquharson v. Pitcher, in 1826 Barclay Farquharson related that he he had employed Augustus Edward Pitcher, a London solicitor, to enforce payment of considerable debts Farquharson was owed by Aeneas Barkly in 1815 while Farquharson was in Martinique; Farquharson assigned the debts to his friend (and Pitcher's brother) William Henry Pitcher in order that Augustus Edward Pitcher "might exert himself with more zeal". A legal dispute ensued regarding Augustus Edward Pitcher's fee and the remittance of Aeneas Barclay's debt.

2. Will of Barclay Farquharson [formerly of the island of St Vincent but now residing at] No. 31 Tonbridge Place New Road [made in 1826] proved 15/12/1831. He left £1000 [raised in a codicil to £5000) to his wife Mary Ann his estates and enslaved people in Tobago and Grenada (then subject, he said, to suits he had instituted in Chancery against James Seton and John Balfour) for his son, also named Barclay, then aged 3 years 7 months.

London Gazette 18335 13/02/1827 p. 346 shows that he had been in partnership on Martinique as a planter with John Allen M'Pherson and Louis Perras, the partnership apparently dissolving sometime between 1798 and 1803. Deeds for the transactions on Tobago are included in the National Library of Scotland's catalogue, 'Legal documents relating to properties in the West Indies belonging to Alexander Ellice and his descendants', Ch. 12633-12707, http://manuscripts.nls.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/3440#components [accessed 31/05/2018].

1. John L. Dunlop, Reports of Cases Decided in the High Court of Chancery... (1826-7) vol. 3 pp. 81-90.

2. PROB 11/1792/411.

We are grateful to Lesley Drake for her assistance with compiling this entry.