UCL

Charles Adamson

Profile & Legacies Summary

???? - 27th Mar 1881

Claimant or beneficiary

Biography

St Kitts slave-owner, initially an attorney in the early 1820s and then purchasing enslaved people in the late 1820s, born in Scotland either c. 1793 or c. 1798 and dying at Leatherhead Surrey in 1881. Benjamin Buck Greene in 1848 said that Adamson had arrived in St Kitts in 1819 and introduced ploughs to the island, 'and was a very successful planter for a number of years, till at length he purchased an estate for himself; he is now living in England retired, having managed his own property for some little time, and that of others, very successfully.'

  1. Will of Charles Adamson late of Cameron House Church Street Leatherhead proved 23/07/1881, effects £205 18s 6d.

  2. Death of Charles Adamson aged 88 registered at Epsom Surrey Q1 1881. The 1871 census showed him living at Church Street Leatherhead aged 73 widower born Scotland 'West India estate land proprietor', with his grandsons Alfred 4 and Charles 2.


Sources

Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting (1848), pp. 117-8, evidence of B. B. Greene, 05/04/1848.

  1. National Probate Calendar 1881. The probate will of Charles Adamson of Leatherhead and St Kitts dated 1881 was sold at auction 24/06/2012 http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1881-probate-charles-adamson-288420209 [accessed 07/05/2016]. The will reportedly showed a list of estates on St Kitts: 'The Lodge, Spring Grange, Brothersons, Lees, Tullibodies, Nesbies, Jakies, Orlon.'

  2. Ancestry.com, England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index, 1837-1915 [database online].

Further Information

Absentee?
Transatlantic?
Children
James Douglas Adamson

Associated Claims (2)

St Kitts 299 (Lodge)
£1,424 2s 4d
Awardee
Details
St Kitts 296 (Spring)
£1,242 4s 5d
Awardee
Details

Associated Estates (4)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

  • SD - Association Start Date
  • SY - Association Start Year
  • EA - Earliest Known Association
  • ED - Association End Date
  • EY - Association End Year
  • LA - Latest Known Association
1830 [EA] - → Attorney
Boyd's estate [ St Kitts | Trinity Palmetto Point ]
1821 [EA] - 1821 [LA] → Attorney
Diamond [ St Kitts | St George Basseterre ]
29/01/1829 [SD] - 1836 [EY] → Owner
Lodge [ St Kitts | St Mary Cayon ]

  1. Estate was purchased from David Elliot

  2. End year is latest date of association that can be varied by the available sources.

1828 [SY] - 1834 [LA] → Owner
Spring [ St Kitts | St Mary Cayon ]

The 1831 Slave Register shows that Adamson purchased the enslaved people on the estate from Elliot, but does not note the date. That he bought the enslaved on the Lodge Estate from Elliot on 29 Jan 1829 might give some estimation of when the purchase of the enslaved on the Spring Estate occurred. Adamson is listed as the owner of both estates in the 'New Map of St. Kitts by Surveyor William McMahon 1828'.

Addresses (1)

Cameron House, Church Street, Leatherhead, Surrey, South-east England, England
Details