UCL

St Nicholas

Barbados | St Peter

Estate Details

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Associated People (10)

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
1746 [EA] - 1782 [LA] → Other
Lady Christian Alleyne (née Dottin)
1746 [EA] - 1801 [LA] → Owner
Sir John Gay Alleyne 1st Bart.

Alleyne's wife appears to have been the principal owner; Sir John Gay Alleyne had a life interest under a settlement of 1782. See biog notes on Alleyne.

1817 [EA] - 1821 [LA] → Joint owner
Lawrence Trent Cumberbatch
1817 [EA] - 1821 [LA] → Joint owner
Edward Carleton Cumberbatch
1821 [EA] - → Other
Sarah Cave (née Cumberbatch)
1823 [EA] - 1826 [LA] → Previous owner
Edward Carleton Cumberbatch
1823 [EA] - 1833 [LA] → Owner
Lawrence Trent Cumberbatch
1829 [EA] - 1834 [LA] → Enslaved
Coco Sandiford
1834 [EA] - 1887 [LA] → Owner
Charles Cave
1834 [EA] - 1835 [LA] → Annuitant
Edward Carlton Cumberbatch II

Edward Carlton Cumberbatch's annuity of £300 p.a. under the will of his uncle Lawrence Trent Cumberbatch was secured on the latter's real estate, which included St Nicholas Abbey

Associated Claims (1)

Barbados 4900 (St Nicholas)
£4,078 1S 5D

Notes

There is a brief history of the estate and its ownership at the St Nicholas Abbey website; see also the archaeological work reported at the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery

Originally established c. 1641 and developed by Col. Benjamin Berringer and John Yeamans, though theirs was a complicated history which included Yeamans murdering Benjamin Berringer and marrying his widow, Margaret. By 1716 ownership had passed, through the marriage of George Nicholas to Susannah, née Berringer, to the Nicholas family. (Henceforth, the plantation known as Nicholas.) In 1727 the estate was then sold to the Dottin family. Joseph Dottin, owner of several plantations in Barbados, then gifted Nicholas to his daughter Christian on her marriage to John Gay Alleyne in 1746.

The estate, and especially the period of John Gay Alleyne's 'improvement of it', is the subject of recent work by Bergman and Smith.

Sources

Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.

Stephanie Bergman and Frederick H. Smith, 'Blurring Disciplinary Boundaries: the Material Culture of Improvement during the Age of Abolition in Barbados', Slavery & Abolition, 35 (3) (2014), pp. 418-436, which acknowledges earlier work at the estate by a team including Jerome S. Handler.

Estate Information (8)

What is this?

1782
 

The only child of Sir John Gay Alleyne and his wife, Lady Christian Alleyne, died aged 12. As Lady Alleyne was past child bearing age, her husband surrendered his ownership and retained only the rights of a life tenant, exercised until his death in1801. Ownership reverted to the Dottin family but by 1810 there had been (a) an unsuccessful search for the dispersed members of the Dottin family and (b) the estate had incurred considerable debts. The property taken by the Chancery Court.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1811
[Size] 344  
 

Chancery Court sale: bought by Edward Carleton Cumberbatch and Laurence Trent Cumberbatch for £20,500.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1817
[Number of enslaved people] 173(Tot)  
[Name] Nicholas  
 

Return of Lawrence and Edward Cumberbatch, their own property.

 
T71/522 410-14
1823
[Number of enslaved people] 175(Tot)  
[Name] Nicholas  
 

Return of Lawrence T. Cumberbatch, the joint property of Lawrance [Lawrence] and the estate of Edward Cumberbatch. Previously 178 enslaved.

 
T71/531 347-8
1826
[Number of enslaved people] 183(Tot)  
 

Return of Lawrence T. Cumberbatch, late the property of Lawrance [Lawrence] and Edward Cumberbatch. Previously 175 enslaved. See also a separate return of Lawrence T. Cumberbatch, late the property of Lawrance [Lawrence] and Edward Cumberbatch of 6 enslaved: see T71/538, p. 236.

 
T71/538 223-4
1829
[Number of enslaved people] 202(Tot)  
 

Return of Lawrence T. Cumberbatch, his own property.

 
T71/542 235-7
1832
[Number of enslaved people] 186(Tot)  
 
T71/551 222-3
1834
 

1834 Edward Cumberbatch died in 1821, leaving his share to his daughter Sarah, who married Charles Cave. Lawrence died in 1832 at 91 and left his share to Sarah Cave.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.