Reverend John Hamlet Gittens

Resident clergyman in Barbados, awarded the compensation for 35 enslaved people. Father of John and George Duncan Gittens (both of whom q.v.). Dates of birth and death are approximate. He was one of the only members of the extended Gittens family of whom LBS has found any trace in Britain in the 18th or 19th centuries.

1. John Hamlet Gittens was baptised on 13 Jan 1788 in Saint Philip, Barbados. He was the son of John Hamlet Gittens (c.1763-1802) and Margaret Gittens née Archer (c. 1746-1832).

2. Admitted as a 'pensioner' (age 18) at Trinity college, Cambridge, 15 April 1805. School, Hackney, London (Dr Heathcote). Matriculated (admitted to the university) Lent term, 1806; B.A. 1810. Ord. deacon (Bristol) 6 October 1810. R. of St John's, Barbados.

3. Married (26 September 1812 at St Gregory's, Dawlish, Devon) Lucretia Hall (nee Ostrehan) (29 September 1792-14 January 1859), who had been born in St Michael, Barbados.

4. John H. Gittens owned Pilgrim estate in St Philip, Barbados, in 1826. Presumably following a legal dispute, the enslaved people were sold by William Gill, Master of Chancery, to John Sheafe Gaskin, by 1829.

Barbados no. 3019.

1. Joanne McRee Sanders, Barbados Records: Baptisms, 1637-1800 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984) p. 204, Ancestry.co.uk [accessed 25/03/2013]. Gittens family history [accessed 25/03/2013].

2. Cambridge University Alumni 1261-1900.

3. Diocese of Exeter, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1812 https://devon-cat.swheritage.org.uk/records/DEX/7/b/1/1812/322 [accessed 23/06/2020]. There are some brief notes on John Hamlet Gittens and other members of the C18th Gittens family in Barbados - Colonel John Gittens (1712-1768), Joshua Mayers Gittens (1741-1819) and Colonel Benjamin Gittens (1730-1790) - at Gittens family profile, website of a Gittens family history researcher.

4. T71/544 pp. 256-261.

We are grateful to Martin Beavis and Tom Wright for their assistance with compiling this entry.