Christopher Barrow

Native of Barbados and resident slave-owner at the time of Emancipation, but subsequently in Britain.

1. Christopher Barrow was described as the cleverest man in Barbados by Thome and Kimball. They also observed that he was of 'polished manners and very liberal views'. A member of the Barbados Council and acting attorney for about 20 estates. He claimed that 'he had always desired emancipation, and had prepared himself for it' and that 'it had proved a greater blessing than he had expected'. His apprentices worked harder than before and did so without the whip while also understanding the law and its authority. The exercise of violence and arbitrary authority over apprentices was unnecessary. He was also of the view that the cost of free men was no more than it had been to maintain slaves. Moreover, the enslaved did not need apprenticeship to prepare them for freedom: 'He should have apprehended no danger had emancipation taken place in 1834'. [But cf. the comments from The Colthurst Journal below.]

2. His son Christopher Brome Barrow was an English clergyman, living in 1891 at [11] Lansdown Crescent Bath aged 78 with 3 daughters, all born in England, and leaving £49,366 15s 10d in 1902.

3. Barrow's wife, Elizabeth Ann Brome, was the daughter of the Rev. John Brome. The marriage took place in Bathwick, Bath, 20 August 1811.

4. The will of Christopher Barrow late of 15 Marlborough Buildings Bath who died 29/12/1865 was proved 12/01/1866 by Rev. Christopher Brome Barrow, the son, effects under £9000. In 1841 he was living aged 64 at Leamington Priors with his wife and son; in 1851 he was a visitor aged 74 (and described oddly as 'nephew') with his wife (described as niece) at 8 Lansdowne Terrace with Sarah Arabella Martins who was head of household born Barbados aged 77, and in 1861 at the Rectory Barwell with his wife in their son's house.

1. James A. Thome and Joseph H. Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies: A six months' tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica in the year 1837 (New York, American Anti-slavery Society, 1838), pp. 258-259.

2. 1891 census online; National Probate Calendar 1902.

3. RootsWeb; Pallot's Marriage Index for England: 1780-1837 [database on-line], Ancestry.com.

4. National Probate Calendar 1866; England and Wales census online 1841, 1851 and 1861.

See also:

John Bowen Colthurst and Woodville K. Marshall, The Colthurst journal: journal of a special magistrate in the islands of Barbados and St. Vincent, July 1835-September 1838 (New York, KTO Press, 1977) p. 98: Mr Barrow, a member of Council and as attorney for an estate ordering non-observance of 11th August as annual holiday. Footnote p. 98 identifies Christopher Barrow as owner of Edgecumbe plantation in St Philip, attorney for several estates, and member of Legislative Council.

Ibid. p. 99: 'In this case, the love of gain, and an impotent attempt to cling to a lost authority exposed Mr B. to a defeat by his own negroes [who refused to work], which, above all things, should not be EVEN RISKED, and which no planter in his right senses would put himself in the way of, beside being utterly regardless of affording his assistance to the Executive as a member of Council, or, most material of all, civilizing his own people.'