Rev. John Stainsby

Dispatched to Jamaica in 1818 by the Church Missionary Society. Served as Curate of St Thomas-in-the-East, member of the Jamaica Committee for the Promoting of Christian Knowledge and Secretary to the Society for the Conversion of Slaves. Baptism records suggest he was married twice. Firstly, a son also named John born in 1819 to Mary Stainsby; and secondly a son named Thomas, born 1831 to Catherine Stainsby.

His presence in the database is striking as he was renowned as a prominent campaigner for the improvement in conditions of the enslaved and for their religious instruction. In 1827 he gave evidence to the Church Missionary Society, which subsequently gave Rev. J.M. Trew, Rector of St Thomas-in-the-East, £50 p/a to pay for a master at a school for free people of colour at Port Morant. His memorial tablet records Stainsby as being one of the few members of the Anglican clergy who defended the enslaved. The Kingston Chronicle accused him of being 'worse than the Baptists'. His obituary recorded 'Finding Jamaica groaning under the terrible system of slavery, he took a decided part in mixing with the oppressed negroes, whose souls it was his object to seek and save.'

By 1836 he was clergyman at Lucea during which time he gave evidence during the trial of John Thomas for flogging to death a prisoner at the Lucea House of correction and subsequently Rector of the parish of Hanover. In 1839 Alexander Grant (q.v.) successfully sued him for libel and defamation, with the court ordering Rev. Stainsby to pay £2500 in damages. An outraged summary of the case was forwarded by the Baptist Western Union to the British Foreign Office: 'The verdict in the case "Grant v. Stainsby", in which the defendant was the Reverend John Stainsby, rector of the parish of Hanover, one of the most devoted and consistent ministers of the Gospel that has ever been in this island, who, in the conscientious discharge of his duty, has been involved by that verdict in damages to the extent of two thousand five hundred pounds, and a large amount of costs, besides being stigmatized as the author of a foul by any possibility, have been guilty; and that in the face of evidence which this meeting believes to have been as free from just exception as any that was ever brought before a jury, unless that jury assumed that "Negro evidence is unworthy of credit". His obituary reported that upon his death 'a multitude wept at his grave'.

The Missionary Register (1818).

Jamaica Births and Baptisms, available through Familysearch.org: https://familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Ajohn~%20%2Bsurname%3Astainsby~%20%2Bbirth_place%3Ajamaica~

Records of the Church of England in Jamaica. Available through Jamaican Family Search: http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/CofEfmMill.htm

The Jamaica Gleaner, 28/9/2013: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130928/lead/lead7.html

Missionary Register, Volume 15 (London, 1827), p. 525. Available through Googlebooks: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=R0UUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA525&lpg=PA525&dq=reverend+john+stainsby&source=bl&ots=YhAK2EAR7f&sig=h-Ki5YE3SaRsamFO6qVgrC7NBsM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDgQ6AEwB2oVChMImrGJtf2KyAIVRtoaCh3xog8E#v=onepage&q=reverend%20john%20stainsby&f=false

Accounts & Papers, Volume 12 (London, 1836), p. 304. Available through Googlebooks: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f3BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA304&lpg=PA304&dq=reverend+john+stainsby&source=bl&ots=Dms30uukkd&sig=56GvSceZSEZgx4sOhnceo9lwN_4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCkQ6AEwA2oVChMImrGJtf2KyAIVRtoaCh3xog8E#v=onepage&q=reverend%20john%20stainsby&f=false

Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command, Volume 35 (London, 1840), p. 66. Available through Googlebooks: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nl4SAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=reverend+john+stainsby&source=bl&ots=jyRhzQYmkv&sig=uefzZuNokoRrGQes_e1O-gArkCs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAWoVChMImrGJtf2KyAIVRtoaCh3xog8E#v=onepage&q=reverend%20john%20stainsby&f=false

North Wales Chronicle, 3/9/1839.

Obituary Rev. John Stainsby, Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser, 28/1/1854.

For a detailed assessment of Grant c. Stainsby see Adam Thomas (2019): '‘Outcasts from the world ’: same-sex sexuality, authority, and belonging in post-emancipation Jamaica', Slavery & Abolition, DOI: 10.1080/0144039X.2019.1594117

We are grateful to William Norton and Adam Thomas for their help compiling this entry.