James Beckford Wildman (19 October 1789 – 25 May 1867) was an
English
English usually refers to:
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* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
landowner and
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...
politician
who served as a
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for
Colchester
Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...
from 1818 to 1826. His properties included
plantations
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
and
Chilham Castle
Chilham Castle is a Jacobean manor house and keep in the village of Chilham, between Ashford and Canterbury in the county of Kent, England. The keep is of Norman origin and dates to 1174; the manor house was completed in 1616 for Sir Dudley Di ...
[Burke, John (1832)]
"A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire"
page 111
H. Colburn and R. Bentley. in
Kent, England
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces the ...
, which he sold in 1861. The Jamaican plantation, Quebec Estate, was obtained by the Wildman family from
William Beckford. Beckford claimed to have been swindled by the Wildmans, who pressured him to sign over the property under threat of calling in outstanding mortgages.
Quebec Estate was one of the largest sugar plantations in Jamaica with well over 800 slaves (the average at that time was 200). The profits from this plantation allowed
Thomas Wildman
Colonel Thomas Wildman (1787 – 1859) was a British Army officer during the Napoleonic Wars, a draftsman, and landowner.
Life
He was the eldest son of Thomas Wildman of Bacton Hall, Suffolk, by Sarah, daughter of Henry Hardinge, of Durham ...
to purchase (and renovate)
Newstead Abbey
Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, England, was formerly an Augustinian priory. Converted to a domestic home following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it is now best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron.
Monastic foundation
The prior ...
from
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
.
In 1830, Wildman complained to
Viscount Goderich
Viscount Goderich was a title that was created twice in British history. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1706 in favour of Henry Grey, 12th Earl of Kent. He was made Marquess of Kent at the same time and was further honoure ...
about the treatment of one of his slaves, Eleanor James, by the proprietor of an estate called North Hall. (James was flogged for requesting payment for a hog.) In 1840,
Joseph John Gurney
Joseph John Gurney (2 August 1788 – 4 January 1847) was a banker in Norwich, England and a member of the Gurney family of that city. He became an evangelical minister of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), whose views and actions led, ...
visited the estate and described the trial of a
Myalist that took place there.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wildman, James Beckford
English businesspeople
History of the Colony of Jamaica
West Indies merchants
1789 births
1867 deaths
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
UK MPs 1818–1820
UK MPs 1820–1826
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
Tory MPs (pre-1834)
English landowners
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
Colony of Jamaica people
19th-century British businesspeople