John Hosken Harper

Awarded the compensation for 42 enslaved people in Montserrat.

1. John Hosken took the name Harper under the will of his father-in-law William Harper. William Harper (1749-1815) was a major slave-trader in Liverpool with 52 voyages between 1784 and 1799 and left £7000 at his death. John Hosken's first wife Ann Hosken (née Harper) died 26/02/1831 aged 45. (His second wife Hannah or Anna died in 1882 aged 81).

2. In 1861 John Hoskin Harper [sic] aged 80 born St Cuthbert's in Cornwall Magistrate and Deputy-Lieutenant for 43 years for the county of Cheshire was living at Davenham Hall, Middlewich Cheshire with his [second] wife Anna M.H., aged 61, born Ireland, and sister-in-laws Eliza Webster aged 59 and Margaret Webster aged 55, both also born Ireland.

3. Will of John Hosken Harper who died at Davenham Lodge in the county of Chester 31/03/1865 was proved by William Hosken Harper of Statham lodge in Lymm [Cheshire] the son 24/05/1865 effects under £3000.

4. John Hosken Harper's eldest daughter Helen married Thomas France, the brother of James France France (q.v.). James France France appears to have acted as trustee for the settlement on John Hosken Harper's second marriage in 1833.

Montserrat no. 61, which shows him as John Hoskin Harper.

1. 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 pp. 199, 211. St Wilfred's, Davenham near Northwich burials http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/j/o/h/Gillian-Margaret-John/FILE/0029page.html [accessed 19/03/2012]; Tony Bostock's History Notes: Davenham http://www.tonybostock.com/MERE%20HEATH.pdf [accessed 19/03/2012].

2. 1861 census online.

3. National Probate Calendar 1865.

4. John Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank, but uninvested with heritable honours (4 vols., London, Henry Colburn, 1835-1838), vol. 2 p. 32 France of Bostock Hall; Cheshire Archives and Local Studies DSS 3991/466 http://archive.cheshire.gov.uk/calmview/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=DSS%2f7%2f17%2f2&pos=1 [accessed 19/03/2012].