Bon Accord

The original purchasers of Sandy Bay (St Patrick parish) Lots no. 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 were Charles Simpson as to Lots nos. 9, 10 and 12 (12/05/1766) and William Gardiner as to Lots no . 11 & 12 (19/03/1767), which together became the Bon Accord estate; in 1773 W. Robertson was shown as the Present Proprietor (with A Symson). In 1832 the owners were shown as Rep. G & J Petrie, and 'Present Possessors c. 1866 were 'heirs of Hunt'. The estate was still in cultivation in 1866.

1. In 1792, what appears to have been the transaction by which Symson and Robertson purchased the lots from William Gardiner (for £2520 less £114 15s due to the Crown) gave rise to the case of Mason v. Gardiner, in which the son of the London agents for Symson and Robertson attempted to release the security of the bonds his father and his father's partner John Graham had issued to William Gardiner to secure the instalments of the purchase.

2. In 1830, the estate was put for sale pursuant to a decree in Chancery, in the cause of Codrington v Walker; it was then described in July in the London Gazette as near 7000 acres with 220 enslaved people. A correction, however, was published in August in the same newspaper: the estate was here described as "consisting of about 525 acres of land (and not 7000 acres, as stated by mistake in the former advertisement), with suitable buildings thereon, and about 208 slaves, and the livestock on the said plantation."

We are grateful to Gabrielle Fernandes for assistance with compiling this entry.

'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); John Fowler, A summary account of the present flourishing state of the respectable colony of Tobago in the British West Indies illustrated with a map of the island and a plan of its settlement, agreeably to the sales by his Majesty’s Commissioners (London: A Grant, 1774) pp. 58-59, 60-61.

1. William Brown, Reports of cases argued and determined in the High Court of Chancery during the time of Lord Chancellor Thurlow 1778-1794 5th ed. (1820) Vol. IV p. 437.

2. London Gazette 18708 20/07/1830 p. 1515. Ibid., 18714 03/08/1830 p. 1662.