John Austin

Awarded the compensation as co-owner of Land of Plenty and as sequestrator of Edward Austin on La Belle Alliance, both in British Guiana, and almost certainly the same man as the mortgagee of Best & Phoenix and Waller's Delight, two estates also in British Guiana which had belonged to Joseph Beete.

1. "This second son of Thomas Austin [1727-1806] and Mary Barker was a doctor of medicine, described as an ordnance surgeon and therefore must have been attached to the Army in Barbados for some time during his career. He was owner of Plantation Spring Hall on East Coast, Demerara and co-owner with his half-brother William of Land of Plenty in Essequibo and seems to have visited British Guiana from time to time. In 1833 he contributed 500 dollars (a quarter of the total cost) for the erecting of a chapel and schoolroom on the nearby plantation of Aberdeen. He was married three times, his first wife being Laetitia Whitfoot, née Dear, who died in Barbados in 1801... John Austin’s second wife was a Miss Carpenter, who died without issue soon after her marriage. His third wife, who he met and married in Demerara, was Mrs Mary Parkinson, née Reading, the widow of William Parkinson. William Parkinson (ca 1748-1803) was born in Delaware, but owned Plantation Grove, East Coast Demerara. From the reference to an American friend and the fact that John died in Philadelphia [in 1838], it seems likely that he and Mary settled in the USA. They had two children. Mary lived latterly in Stratford, Connecticut, with her son Thomas, where she died there in 1853. Her son Thomas was later buried next to her."

2. John Austin 'of Bath', father-in-law of Joseph Beete the elder and Charles Bean (each of whom q.v.), who had in sequence married John Austin's daughter Sarah. John Austin was executor of the will of Joseph Beete the elder (proved in 1847 but made in 1830). Charles Bean was a co-sequestrator for La Belle Alliance estate.

3. The will of John Austin [late of plantation Land of Plenty...Essequibo] MD of New York was proved in New York 26/02/1838 and in England 11/07/1839. In the will he made numerous monetary legacies, the most material of which were 25,000 dollars [presumably US] to his daughter Sarah Bean wife of Charles Bean late wife of Joseph Beete; 25,000 dollars to his widowed daughter-in-law Elizabeth Mary Austin and her two children; and 70,000 dollars in lieu of Dower to his wife Mary.

1. Website summary of Roger B. Austin and Timothy J. Smellie, An Old Colonial Family (privately printed, 2002) available at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/walk/rcr51/ThomasAustin/ [accessed 03/04/2013].

2. http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/walk/rcr51/ThomasAustin/tree/pafg04.htm#606 accessed 13/01/2014.

3. PROB 11/1913/61.