John Melmoth

1. John Melmoth was the youngest son of Jesse Melmoth (a schoolmaster) and Mary Parsons and was born 30/01/1798 and baptised 04/01/1799 in Sherborne, Dorset. He married Sarah Cunningham 01/01/1830 in St James, Jamaica, and they had two daughters, Catharine Eliza and Sarah Cunningham, baptised in Vere, Jamaica, in 1830 and 1832 respectively.

2. Melmoth was listed as attorney on Pusey Hall estate in Vere in the slave register of 1832. He was still in this position in 1836 when controversy arose about his refusal to allow a female apprentice to abstain from field work while looking after her sick child.

3. Melmoth owned enslaved people in St James, Jamaica, from at least 1826 to 1839. His landholding in St james in the Jamaica Almanac of 1840 was 348 acres.

4. He died in Jamaica in 1846. According to his death annoucement in an English newspaper he was the brother of J. P. Melmoth of Sherborne (that is James Proctor Melmoth the Solicitor / attorney).

1. Dorset OPC and Parish Registers (information sent by email 07/08/2014 by Dawn Good). B0016 Jamaica Parish Register Marriage I & II, 1826-1839, I, p. 255 (transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/r/Rme-mi.htm [accessed 29/08/2014]. Familysearch batch no. I04151-6.

2. T71/56 p. 107. Thomas C. Holt, The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica and Britain 1832-1938) p. 64.

3. Jamaica Almanacs (1827, 1840).

4. Hampshire Advertiser, 14/03/1846 (information sent by email 07/08/2014 by Dawn Good).

We are grateful to Dawn Good for her assistance with compiling this entry.