Edward Hamlin Adams

30th Apr 1777 - 30th May 1842


Biography

Supplier of enslaved labour to the British state in Jamaica in partnership with Robert Robertson (q.v.) and possible the Earl of Balcarres. Second but surviving son of William Adams of Barbados, but himself born in Jamaica. Shown as Edward H. Adams when listed with Robert Robertson as the absentee trustees of Hungerford Spooner for Charlottenburg estate in St Mary, Jamaica, 1817-1823 but identifiable as Edward Hamlin Adams from the 1813 will of George Bogle (q.v.), under which Edward Hamlin Adams and Robert Robertson were executors in Jamaica.

Married Amelia Sophia MacPherson, daughter of Captain John MacPherson of Philadelphia, in 1796.

  1. MP for Carmathenshire December 1832-1834. Purchased Middleton Hall, designed by S.P. Cockerell for the East India nabob Sir William Paxton 1794-1796, in 1824, and died there in 1842.

  2. 'A retired partner in the Kingston merchant house that the elder Earl [of Balcarres, q.v. under the 6th Earl] had retained to manage [his] Jamaica properties.'

  3. Edward Hamlin Adams's grand-daughter Alice Abadam has an entry in the ODNB as a suffrage activist and women's rights campaigner that acknowledges her grandfather's slave-owning interests in Jamaica.


Sources

  1. Nicholas Kingsley, Abadam (Adams) of Middleton Hall [accessed 15/12/2016].

  2. James A. Delle and Kristen R. Fellows, 'Death and Burial at Marshall''s Pen, a Jamaica coffee plantation, 1814-1839: examining the end of life at the end of slavery', Slavery & Abolition 35:3 (September 2014) pp. 474-492 at p. 477.

  3. Hughes-Johnson, Alexandra. "Abadam, Alice (1856–1940), suffrage activist and women’s right’s campaigner." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 12 Sep. 2019; Accessed 16 Mar. 2020. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-112786.


Further Information

Absentee?
Transatlantic
Spouse
Amelia Sophia MacPherson
Children
3 daughters, 2 sons

Associated Estates (6)

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
1817 [EA] - 1823 [LA] → Trustee
20/02/1818 [SD] - → Mortgage Holder
20/02/1818 [SD] - → Mortgage Holder
1823 [EA] - → Joint owner
1817 [EA] - 1823 [LA] → Joint owner
1817 [EA] - 1826 [LA] → Other

Adams Robertson and Co. were contracted to provide enslaved people to work in military camps.


Legacies Summary

Commercial (1)

Partner
Atkinson, Hozier & Co.
Contracting of enslaved labour  
 
notes →
Partner in a predecessor firm of Atkinson, Hozier...

Political (2)

Local Government
 
office →
High Sheriff
1831 - 1831
MP
 
election →
Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire
1832 - 1834

Relationships (3)

Trustee → Beneficiary of Trust
Executor → Testator
Business partners

Addresses (1)

Middleton Hall, Carmathenshire, South Wales, Wales