Caribbean

Mercantile Traders in Jamaica

Other than a common surname that of Carver, the so named families of Jamaica, may have no relevance to the Carver family of Benjamin the highwayman and convict in Australia.

My research here is seeking connection through investigating the backgrounds of those petitioners who sought to send Benjamin Carver to the Isle of Saint Lawrence in 1792. These associates included ship owners and merchants trading in the West Indies and the Isle of Saint Lawrence. Commercial shipping sailed from Bristol harbour and traversed a triangle of trade first via the coast of Africa and then to the Americas including the West Indies.

The following person, by name John Carver, may be a plausible link to Benjamin Carver.

- Jamaica Almanac 1824 - Surrey / Port Royale -

Master of the Public School, Parish Clerk and Sexton, Mr. William Carver

Captain John Carver (1671-1724).

John Carver (1671 - 1724), also known as Captain John Carver and Rev. John Carver

John Carver, Esq. of Skirton, in the county of Lancaster had various occupations including "factor" or mercantile intermediaries and whose main functions were warehousing and selling consigned goods, accounting to principals for the proceeds, guaranteeing buyers' credit, and sometimes making cash advances to principals prior to the actual sale of the goods. Their services were of particular value in foreign trade, and factors became important figures in the great period of colonial exploration and development".^{[4] aka Captain and Reverend}

1. Factors for the African Company:- British interests lay with African produce and between 1553 and 1660 numerous charters were granted to British merchants to establish settlements on the West Coast of Africa to supply goods such as ivory, gold, pepper, dyewood and indigo. British interests in African with the slave trade were the most dominant between 1640 and 1807 when the British slave trade was abolished. It is probable than Carver, a factor in this later period, was involved as a slave trade agent in Africa and on leaving that position c. 1710), established:

2. plantation owner in Jamaica and Councillor of her Majesty's Council of Jamaica.

   1. 1. Refer records of the Royal African Company, catalogue reference: T 70/1623

      2. - British History Online - 7 July 1711 - A representation, proposing Mr. John Carver to be of the Council of Jamaica, in the room of Mr. Thomas Clarke, deceasd, was signed.

John Carver, Esq., married Mary, daughter of John Warner Esq., of Kirkby Overblow, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and lineally descended from Sir John Warner of Warner Hall, in the county of Essex, and Farham, in the county of Suffolk. They had one son, John Carver who married Margaret Elizabeth de Gury, daughter of the Marquis de Gury of the kingdom of France, by whom he had no issue legitimate.

John Carver Esq. had connections about London and the Midlands of England and the West Indies, and was twice maried, to Mary Warner and to Mary of Jamaica with whom He had three daughters:

1. Mary Carver, (c. 1726 - 1782) namely Lady Ward. Mary Carver is thought to have been born in Jamaica which implies her father was there too. In 1741-44, Lady Mary (Ward nee Carver), the daughter of the said Revd. John Carver, married John [Ward], Baron Ward of Birmingham, Staffordshire. Lady Ward and John Viscount Dudley and Ward had two children during their marriage. She died on May 31, 1782, in Hyde Park, Middlesex, England.

2. Elizabeth Carver, spinster of St James Westminster.

3. Grace Carver wife of Robert Barber, esq of Ashmore, Dorset, England.

By the Will of John Carver (1671-1724) and through his widow, Mary Carver, appointed Executrix of John Carver Esquire, deceased, the sibling on coming of age, were assured a sum of money. It was sufficient for a significant dowry to the three daughters while their half brother John Carver was given rights to manage his business affairs and estate thereafter. The estate comprised shareholdings in gold and silver mines in the West Indies and more than 7,000 acres of sugar plantations in Clarenden and Veer on the island of Jamaica.

John Carver (1714-1753)

On the death of the son and heir, the younger John Carver (1714-1753) in 1754, there arrived in England, a 12 year old boy from Jamaica, claiming to be John Carver, alias Guily de Chapelle, (de Guiry de La Chapelle) and with the help of his uncle, James Fenton L.L.B. (1716- c 1780) he submitted a plea via the Court of Chancery; Six Clerks Office, Zincke division:

C 11/1671/12, Description: Short title: Lord Ward v Carver. Document type: Bill and answer.

• Noted: (said Mary [Ward] Lady Ward, Elizabeth Carver and Grace Barber being three daughters of John Carver, esq., deceased, late of St George the Martyr, and formerly of Jamaica, West Indies, and (the three sisters are half sisters) and heirs of John Carver, esq., deceased late of Chettle, Dorset, the only son of first John Carver.

• Defendants: John Carver alias John Guiry De La Chapelle, infant ...by Samuel Reynardson, esq, senior Six Clerk (and originally presented by an Uncle - James Fenton L.L.B.)

Date of bill (or first document): 1754

Research Notes

1 ...John Carver (Carvet), Baron de Kerver, Britanique had a son John Carver, who was the father of Revd. John Carver, Rector of King's Swinford and Archdeacon of Surrey whose daughter married Dr. Charles Peter Layard, Dean of Bristol.

In research of John Carver of Jamaica, I have noted the following:

1. Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1879

2. about John Carver (Refer https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VHD6-F57)

Name: John Carver

Gender: Male

Parish: Clarendon

Baptism: Date: 1714

Baptism Place: Clarendon, Jamaica

Father: John Carver

Mother: Mary Carver

FHL Film Number: 1291704, Page Number: 34

Footnotes Evidence

Jamaica

• 1. Census Links - Caribbean / UK census entries for people born in Jamaica - Genealogy of Jamaica, West Indies

  2. Lords Journals, vol xxvii, pp9-21

  3. 1703 - Royal warrant to the Attorney General for a great seal for a grant of royal mines in Jamaica to Thomas Handasyde, Lieut. Governor of Jamaica, Peter Beckford senr., Henry Lowe, Charles Chaplain, Charles Long, Samuell Lovell, John Carver, John Livesay, Peter Beckford junr., John Gardner and Charles Gandy, inhabitants of Jamaica ; viz. all mines of gold and silver and all royal mines whatsoever for 31 years from date hereof at a rent of one-fifth of the net yearly product thereof. Queen's Warrant Book XXII, pp. 5-6.

  4. Same dormant to John, Viscount Fitz-Hardinge, Treasurer of the Chamber, to pay to Barbara, Viscountess Fitz-Hardinge, (who was Governess to William, Duke of Gloucester) the annuity or yearly pension of 600l. as from 1702 June 24 : whereof 450l. to be paid hereon forthwith for 9 months to the 25th inst. Ibid., p. 8.

  5. Parliamentary Archives - House of Lords: Journal Office [HL/PO/JO/10/6/290 - HL/PO/JO/10/6/560] / Main Papers HL/PO/JO/10/6/533 21 Nov 1746 - 13 Jan 1747 / Related information: Lords Journals, vol xxvii, pp9-21

  6. 1746 - Lords Journals, vol xxvii, pp9-21 (1747) -DIE Lunæ, 23 February - Carver & al against Polhill & al, Judgement - "After hearing Counsel, as well on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday last, as this Day, upon the amended Petition and Appeal of Mary Carver Widow and Executrix of John Carver Esquire, deceased, Jane, Frances, and Anne Thompson, Administratrixes of Richard Thompson Esquire, deceased, with his Will annexed, Theobald Taaffe Esquire and Susanna his Wife Administratrix of Samuel Lowe Esquire, deceased, John Cranch and Elizabeth his Wife, and Hannah Turbill, Executors of the last Will of George Turbill Esquire, deceased, complaining of a Decree of the Court of Exchequer, of the 6th of December 1745, and praying, "That the same might be reversed, and that this House would make such further Order, for the Appellants Relief, is to their Lordships in their great Justice and Equity should seem meet" As also upon the Answers of David Polhill Esquire, Charles Polhill Esquire, the Honourable William Ker Esquire, Alexander Wilson Esquire, Charles Otway Esquire, James Mendos Merchant, Thomas Sheppara, and Nicholas Street, put in to the said Appeal, and due Consideration had of what was offered on either Side in this Cause It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, That the said Petition and Appeal be, and is hereby, dismissed this House, and that the said Decree, therein complained of, be, and the same is hereby, affirmed And it is further Ordered, That the said Appellants do pay, or cause to be paid, to the said Respondents, the Sum of One Hundred Pounds, for then Costs by reason of the said Appeal"

References

1. John Morton v John Carver - APC v.2 [1287] p.735–736 (9 Feb. 1718 – 12 March 1718); Register - George I v.2 (2 March 1717 – 25 Aug. 1720) p.104, 114, 118, 131, 224, 230 (PC 2/86).

2. These are the central exchange of blows in the Carlyle-Mill debate on the "Negro" question."- http://cruel.org/econthought/texts/carlyle/negroquest.html -

   1. Thomas Carlyle's infamous essay, "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question", was published anonymously I n 1849 in Fraser's Magazine of London. Carlyle revised this essay and reprinted it in 1853 as a pamphlet entitled Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question.

   2. In response to Carlyle, John Stuart Mill published anonymously, his own "The Negro Question" in Fraser's Magazine. Carlyle did not, to our knowledge, respond. But in 1867, Carlyle published his Shooting Niagara -- And After? in Macmillan's Magazine, where he took aim at the Jamaica Committee, in which Mill was actively involved.

Important Dates in the History of Jamaica - Refer to list elsewhere on this site.

The list is based on one compiled 21 September, 1988 by Madeleine E. Mitchell and amended to suit my research.

Noted:- adjective: mercantile - relating to trade or commerce; commercial. "the shift of wealth to the mercantile classes"