Betsey's Hope

Estate Details


Associated People (12)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

  • SD - Association Start Date
  • SY - Association Start Year
  • EA - Earliest Known Association
  • ED - Association End Date
  • EY - Association End Year
  • LA - Latest Known Association
Mortgage Holder
Mortgage Holder
Mortgage Holder
- 1788 [EY] → Owner

The Wm Young who was the original grantee of Betsey's Hope under St Paul nos. 1 & 4 has been identified as Sir William Young the 1st bart. with Robert Stewart (d. 1773) as Present Proprietors of the lots Barbados Bay (i.e. St Paul) nos. 1-4 c. 1773, and the original purchaser on 12/05/1766 as William Young (lot no. 1 for 300 acres and lot no. 4 for 200 acres: lot no. 2 for 400 acres and no. 3 for 100 acres, which formed Delaford estate, went to John Dearman Nanton, probably the first baronet's half-brother).

1788 [SY] - → Owner
1804 [SY] - 1808 [EY] → Mortgage Holder

In 1804 John Robley and Charles Brooke agreed to pay Alexander Donaldson £69,511 1s 6d for mortgage debt of £94,511 1s 6d secured on the estates (and the enslaved people) of Sir William Young bart. The estates were identified as Old Road in Antigua and Calliaqua and Pembroke in St Vincent. No cash appears to have changed hands upfront: instead John Robley & co. issued to Alexander Donaldson bills drawn on themselves. On 10 & 11 September 1804 Betsey's Hope on Tobago and the enslaved people on it were added to the security package underpinning the £94,511 1s 6d mortgage debt and any further advances Robley might make (up to £10,000 was envisaged for Betsey's Hope, it appears). In 1808 John Robley agreed to buy Betsey's Hope from Sir William Young for £45,000, subject to a pre-existing mortgage for £4000 to 'James Cuthbert Ramsay' [in fact, James Ramsay Cuthbert, MP and merchant (q.v.)]: the estate was conveyed to him 22/12/1808. In 1809 he bought the equity of redemption of Calliaqua and Pembroke under a sale by the Provost Marshall. In 1814 in a deed establishing an annuity of £200 p.a. for Portia Young, one of Sir William Young's sisters, Betsey's Hope was described as having since the death of Sir William Young become vested in John Robley 'in trust for himself and the said Charles Brooke, as tenants in common in fee simple.'

12/05/1766 [SD] - 1773 [EY] → Joint owner
12/05/1766 [SD] - 1773 [LA] → Joint owner
1808 [SY] - 1821 [EY] → Joint owner
1808 [SY] - 1833 [LA] → Joint owner
1804 [SY] - 1808 [EY] → Mortgage Holder
1804 [EA] - → Mortgage Holder

Associated Claims (2)

£2,574 4S 5D
£1,074 1S 7D

Notes

  1. The original grantee for Betsy's [sic] Hope was Wm. Young under St Paul nos. 1 & 4 and Robert Stewart under St Paul no. 45 [a footnote says: 'No such number on Byres' map']; Present Possessor John M'Call and others. The Owners in 1832 were shown as 'J. Robley & Co.'; the estate was still in cultivation in 1862.

  2. This is confirmed as the estate of Sir William Young by 1773, when the Present Proprietors were shown as 'Sir William Young and late R. Stewart.' (This list also has no Queens Bay/St Paul no. 45 but shows Robert Stewart as the original grantee of Queens Island 19/03/1767 and the Present Proprietor as 'late R. Stewart').


Sources

  1. '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).

Estate Information (5)

What is this?

1766
[Size] 520  
 

Betsy's Hope, sometimes known as Louis d'Or, at Queen's Bay. 520 acres bought in 1766 at auctions of crown land by Sir William Young in partnership with Robert Stewart (d. 1773). Further purchase at King's Bay left largely uncultivated. Betsy's Hope managed for both owners by Robert Miller. Young's half portion valued at £26, 905 in 1773. Inventories of buildings and of enslaved people with names are available for 1773.

 
Email from Peter Marshall, 04/09/2017, sourced to National Archives, Treasury Solicitor's papers TS 11/214-7 (notes this is a major collection of papers on Young's affairs assembled for the prosecution of him for the very large debt he owed as chief commissioner for the sale of crown land in the Ceded Islands).
1808
[Name] Betsey's Hope  
 

In 1808 John Robley agreed to buy Betsey's Hope from Sir William Young for £45,000, subject to a pre-existing mortgage for £4000 to James Ramsay Cuthbert [given by Bligh as James Cuthbert Ramsay]: the estate was conveyed to Robley 22/12/1808. It had earlier been added to the security package for a larger mortgage held by Robley and his partner Charles Brooke over Sir William Young's other estates.

 
Richard Bligh, New Reports of Cases Heard the House of Lords (1835) Vol. VII pp. 92 et seq.
1819
[Number of enslaved people] 306(Tot) 152(F) 154(M)  
[Name] Betsey's Hope  
 

In the 1819 Registration by the Hon. John Robley for Betsey's Hope 30/01/1819, the enslaved people are shown as 'belonging, or attached thereto, or usually worked, or employed thereon, and on the adjoining estates of Indian Point and of Bannockburn in the same parish.' The enslaved people were grouped into: (a) 217 (106 F,111 M) for whom the return is described as by 'Jno Robley owner and also as Trustee for Charles Brooke Esq,. of London'; and (b) 89 (46 F 43 M) for whom the return is described as by 'Jno Robley owner.'

 
T71/462 49-60
1825
[Number of enslaved people] 263(Tot) 137(F) 126(M)  
[Name] Betsey's Hope  
 

Arch. McMillan [no capacity shown]

 
T71/474 12-13
1829
[Number of enslaved people] 224(Tot) 120(F) 104(M)  
[Name] Betsey's Hope  
 

Duncan McConochie manager

 
T71/481 13