An introduction to the plantation journals of the Prospect ... - Microform

Barclays Group Archive? The solution to this mystery probably lies in Stephen
Oakeley Attlay Sr.’s response to the abolition of slavery, coupled with the decision of
his son and heir not to pursue a business career. In 1834, the parliamentary
commissioners charged with compensating slave owners valued Prospect’s 141
enslaved workers at £6,420 sterling. Oakeley Attlay Sr. assigned the resulting
compensation award of £2,809. 19s. 1d. to the merchant partnership of Jegon and
Rutherford, who had granted him a mortgage of £5,842. 12s. 9d. At the time of
emancipation, Prospect also carried an additional debt of £1,000 owed to the
merchants Langmead and Jordan. This second loan was also paid off as part of the
settlement with the compensation commission. 25 Though the net financial positions
of Stephen Attlay and his son at the time of their decease cannot be determined, it is
striking that by 1834 Prospect had itself become encumbered by debt, in contrast to
the position in 1786 when debts were owed to the Attlay estate from local planters.
Oakeley Attlay Sr. died in 1839, the year following full emancipation on
Jamaica. His son and namesake was the Revd. Stephen Oakeley Attlay Jr., vicar of
St. Stephen’s church, Norwich. 26 Portland had always been marginal land for sugar
cultivation and it was not to revive as an agricultural area until the banana tree (a
crop better suited to the region’s relatively high precipitation levels) was introduced.
By the end of the four year period of slave ‘apprenticeship’ in 1838, only 112 workers
were left at Prospect, signifying that sugar and rum production was in the process of
being run down. 27 It appears probable, therefore, that Prospect was disposed of
shortly after the death of Oakeley Attlay Sr. and that the plantation’s journals were
deposited with Ransom and Company during the winding up of his estate. If this
hypothesis is accepted, it is likely that the bank acted as trustees for the Revd.
Oakeley Attlay Jr. and was responsible for administering the various legacies
charged on Prospect that were assigned along with the compensation claim.
There are thus no direct links between Barclays Bank and the owners of
Prospect Estate. On Jamaica, Stephen Attlay’s business associates included a
George Barclay (Attlay’s partner in the victualling trade during the Seven Years’ War
was one George Barclay), whilst the list of debtors owing Attlay’s estate money
refers to a James Barclay. A plantation named Barclay’s was also in operation in
Portland parish in 1804. None of these circumstances, however, explain the
subsequent deposit of Prospect’s records in the Barclays Archive, and there is also
no evidence to link any of these individuals to the Bank. Barclays itself grew out of a
late 17th century London goldsmith partnership, as did several others in the decades
after the civil war. Sometime later the Barclays entered into a marriage and banking
alliance with another Quaker family, the Gurneys of East Anglia.
Prospect Estate represented a last link between the Attlays and slavery in the
Caribbean, but how long had this family connection existed? In 1832, the Bridgwater
and Somerset Advertiser recorded the marriage of the ‘Revd. Stephen Oakley Attlay
of Teignmouth’ to Catherine Robinson of Ilfracombe. As has already been noted,
Attlay’s father was a director of a Bridge Company at Teignmouth. The regional
connection is further strengthened by Oakley Attlay Sr.’s draft will of 1817, which
names as trustee the Revd. Henry Woollcombe of the nearby community of Ashbury.
Indeed, the surname ‘Attlay’ may be derived from the place name ‘Hatherleigh’,
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