Nicholas Bourke was an Anglo-Irish planter in Jamaica who emigrated to the island around 1740 and acquired significant land-holdings there. He was prominent in the

House of Assembly of Jamaica The House of Assembly was the legislature of the British colony of Jamaica. It held its first meeting on 20 January 1664 at Spanish Town. Cundall, Frank. (1915''Historic Jamaica''.London: Institute of Jamaica. p. 15. As a result of the Morant Ba ...

from the later 1750s and speaker in 1770. Bourke argued in favour of the rights of Assemblymen of Jamaica during a dispute with the governor,

William Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton William Henry Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton MP (24 December 1724 – 14 September 1808) was a British peer, politician, and colonial administrator from the Lyttelton family. He was the youngest son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet. Bi ...

, over who should finance the defence of the colony. Eventually, Bourke won his argument that the British government should bear the cost of defence, and Lyttelton was recalled.Christer Petley, ''White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 101-2. He is thought to have been the author of a pamphlet, ''The Privileges of the Island of Jamaica Vindicated'', that was published in Kingston in 1765 and in London in 1766."Liberty and Slavery: The Transfer of British Liberty to the West Indies, 1627-1865" by Jack P. Greene in

References

Year of birth missing Speakers of the House of Assembly of Jamaica 18th-century Jamaican people Planters of the British West Indies Irish slave owners Year of death missing {{Jamaica-bio-stub

See also

References