James Barclay

The James Barclay who owned land in St Andrew and the James Barclay who owned a large estate in Westmoreland in 1753 have tentatively been identified as the same person but might in fact be separate.

1. Owner of 30 acres and 20 enslaved people in St Andrew in 1753. James Barclay was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 3149 acres of land in Westmoreland. Crowder and Barclay were listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owners of 300 acres of land in St Thomas-in-the-East.

2. James Barclay of Westmoreland esq and Mary Hall of same, widow, were married there 19/12/1753. Mary, wife of James Barclay esq, was buried 08/11/1760.

3. Will of James Barclay of St Andrew Jamaica proved 12/04/1765. In the will he left his estates in Scotland of Cainglass, Cairness and Invernorth to his nephew Charles Gordon, son of the deceased Thomas Gordon of Aberdeen, together with his [unspecified] property in Jamaica, which he ordered to be sold.

4. James Barclay of Westmoreland, Esquire. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1765. Slave-ownership at probate: 476 of whom 256 were listed as male and 220 as female. 91 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £77708.7 Jamaican currency of which £23813 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £427.63 currency cash, £45898.18 currency debts and £543.06 currency plate.

The Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen include MS 1160, Gordons of Buthlaw and Cairness: Estate and Family papers, which have material related to the Jamaica and Scottish estates of James Barclay; Douglas Hamilton, Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic world, 1750–1820 has a vignette of James Barclay's career in Jamaica c. 1727-1765.

1. CO137/28 pp. 169-175 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/1753Andrew.htm; A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm

2. Familysearch.org, Jamaican Parish Registers, Westmoreland Baptisms, marriages, burials 1739-1825, Vol. 1 pp. 23, 40.

3. PROB 11/907/363.

4. Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.