William Ross

Resident planter, awarded the compensation for the enslaved people on Skeldon in British Guiana and almost certainly the same man as the William Ross who with Robert Robertson (q.v.) was awarded the compensation for Plantation Alness and one other smaller claim in British Guiana as the administrators of George Munro (q.v.).

1. Son of Hugh Ross III of Kerse and Skeldon Ayrshire. Went abroad as a young man of 17 or so; in Berbice when he erected a monument to his parents in Greyfrairs burial ground in Edinburgh August 1829. Married Inverness 1830 to Helen Elizabeth Drummond Ross, daughter of Lt Col David Ross. Already had 2 natural children. Died Berbice 19/02/1840. Younger brother Hugh Ross (b. C1790) was a Lt Col in East India Company's military service, dying 1838 in Kanpur. In 1833 he was Town Major at Calcutta. Hugh Ross's son was General Sir Campbell Claye Grant Ross, of the Indian Army. Campbell Claye Grant Ross's son was Sir Ronald Ross, Britain's first Nobel Prize winner. William Ross's son William Munro Ross (1832-1879) was a West India merchant in London, subsequently a partner in Cottam Morton & Co., who died 28/01/1879 'owing substantial sums' - this is borne out by the probate record showing him leaving personal estate under £100). William Munro Ross also of Stone Castle, Kent. Married Gertrude Maud, daughter of Thomas Bevan KP, JP, Sheriff of the City of London and with interests in cement manufacture (Stone Castle was owned until recently by Blue Circle Cement).

2. Will of William Ross of [Plantation Skeldon in the county of Berbice colony of British Guiana at present residing at] Portobello near Edinburgh [Midlothian] in Scotland proved 07/01/1841. The will confirmed the unstated amounts due to his wife under their marriage settlement of 1830, and left: £100 p.a. to his brother Alexander Ross of Edinburgh, and £500 each to William Ross's natural children Eliza Ross and Alexander Ross. His residual estate was divided equally among his then infant children.

T71/885 British Guiana claim no. 423 (Plantn. Skeldon): T71/885 British Guiana nos. 5 (Pln Alness) and 316.

1. Alastair Strathearn Gordon, A Sutherland Trail: A History of the Gordons of Dallagan, Griamachary and Drumearn (London, Alastair Strathearn Gordon, 2004) p. 133; National Probate Calendar 1879. Further information by email from descendant David Ross 23/12/2010. David Alston's Slaves and Highlanders site also carries information on William Ross of Skeldon with a credit to Chris Rathbone for the entry.

2. PROB 11/1940/22.