Rev. Hamble James Leacock

Slave-owner and African missionary.

Born at Cluff's Bay, Barbados, on his father's estate in St Lucy. Second son of John Wrong and Rebecca Leacock. The Leacock family had been in Barbados since the reign of Charles I. Educated at Codrington College. Ordained a deacon 1827. Following this Bishop Coleridge sent him, first, to St Vincent and then to Nevis. Following the abolition of slavery he moved with his family (including his 2nd wife, married after the death of his first), to the USA where he settled in Kentucky, Tennessee, and New Jersey. In 1855 he sailed for Africa as a missionary of the West Indian Church Association and founded a station at Rio Pongas, Sierre Leone. He died in 1856.

His biographer claims that he gave the privileges of the Church to all enslaved in his parish and freed the enslaved he owned. However, he received compensation for the enslaved.

Rev. Henry Caswell, The Martyr of the Pongas: being a Memoir of the Rev. Hamble James Leacock (London, 1857).