Houston Stewart

Admiral Sir Houston Stewart RN (1791-1875), awarded compensation for ownership of 143 enslaved persons on Roxburgh estate, Tobago. The estate had been settled on him by his father Sir Michael Shaw Stewart c. 1821.

1. Obituary in the New York Times: "A telegraphic dispatch from London announces the death of Vice Admiral Sir Houston Stewart of the British Navy. He was a son of the late Sir M. S. Stewart, Baronet, and was born in 1791. Entering the Navy he served at Flushing and St. Jean D’Acre, and was second in command in the Black Sea in 1855 and 1856. For his services at Sebastapol in 1856 he was made a Knight Commander of the Bath, and in 1865 a Grand Commander. He also received from the late Emperor Napoleon III the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour for his services in the Crimea. He was in the House of Commons from February to July, 1852, representing Greenwich in the Liberal interest. He was Controller General of the Coast Guard from 1846 to 1850, a Lord of the Admiralty from 1850 to 1952, Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dock-yard in April, 1853, Commander in Chief on the North American and West Indian Stations in 1856, Commander in Chief at Plymouth from October, 1860, till November, 1863. He was appointed Governor of Greenwich Hospital Feb. 15 1862." 

2. "At Edinburgh, Captain Houston Stewart, R.N., second son of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart of Greenock and Blackhall, Bart., to Martha, youngest daughter of Sir William Miller of Glenlee, Bart., one of the Senators of the College of Justice". 

3. His brother Sir Michael Shaw Stewart 6th bart (1788-1836) was MP for Lanarkshire 1827-1830 and Renfrewshire 1830-1837; another brother was Patrick Maxwell Stewart (q.v.). In August 1837, Houston Stewart was the unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Renfrewshire and was the whig/liberal MP for Greenwich in 1852; his nephew Colonel Sir Michael Robert Shaw-Stewart, 7th Bt., was MP for Renfrewshire (1855-1865). 

4. Between 1814 and 1817 Houston Stewart served in the Navy at the Jamaica station. In the 1851 census, the occupation of his second son John Erskine Douglas Shaw-Stewart was given as "Merchant & W. India Agent". 

5. Houston Stewart died at his home, Dourie Bank, Port William, Wigtownshire, 10/12/1875. Wealth at death £53,664 2s 5d.

T71/891 Tobago claim no. 59 (Roxburgh); Kenneth E. Ingram, Manuscript Sources of the West Indies, p. 449 shows the Adrgowan Estate Records relating to Tobago (1821-25) at the NRA Scotland including the settlement (1821) of 'the Tobago estate' T/ARD 1/6/225 and the factory accounts of the Roxburghe estate (1825) T/ARD 1/6/475.

1. New York Times, 13/12/1875, available at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9506E0DD103BEF34BC4B52DFB467838E669FDE. 

2. "Register", Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, March 1819. 

3. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/shaw-stewart-sir-michael-1788-1836; J. K. Laughton, ‘Stewart, Sir Houston (1791–1875)’, rev. Andrew Lambert, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26475, accessed 08/06/2012]. 

4. Ibid.; 1851 census online (entry for J.E. Douglas Stewart at 67 Eccleston Square, Middlesex). 

5. J. K. Laughton, ‘Stewart, Sir Houston (1791–1875)’, rev. Andrew Lambert, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26475 [accessed 08/06/2012].