James Laing

James Laing of Haddo and Auchleuchries, a doctor from north-east Scotland who returned to Britain from Dominica. Father of Allan Stewart Laing (q.v.). As well as estates and enslaved people on Dominica, he was almost certainly the co-owner of the New Hampshire estate on Grenada with Henry Stewart or Stuart, with whom James Laing had been a co-owner on Dominica. High Sheriff of Surrey 1815.

1. Will of James Laing of Streatham Surrey proved 13/05/1831. Under the will he confirmed his entailing of his estate of Haddo to his elder son William John Laing, and left the Union estate on Dominica to his younger son Allan Stewart Laing, and his estate at Streatham to Allan Stewart Laing for life. He also left in trust his half of Clark Hall on Dominica, his half of the Macoucherie estate, and the whole of the York Valley estate, to support annuities of £50 p.a. to Mrs Hamilton Hay of Edinburgh (identified as the wife of David Hay), £150 p.a. to Elizabeth Stewart Hay, daughter of Mrs Hamilton Hay and niece of his [the testator's] late wife, £25 p.a. to Isabella Henderson his housekeeper for many years; and £30 p.a. each to Charles and Isabella Laing, two illegitimate children of his late son James Bruce Laing, with the residue for the benefit of his sons William John Laing and Allan Stewart Laing. He also empowered his trustees to sell the estates and invest £10,000 of the proceeds in stock to service the annuities. He manumitted 'a young woman named Eliza the daughter of a mulatto woman named Sally (one of my slaves who has been a faithful servant).'

'A North-east Story': Scotland, Africa and Slavery': Fortune hunters in the Caribbean, http://www.abdn.ac.uk/slavery/4p2.htm [accessed 23/04/2011].

1. PROB 11/1785/310.