Edward Clouston

Attorney in Jamaica, but returnee to Scotland at the time of Emancipation, awarded the compensation for 21 enslaved people in St Thomas-in-the-Vale Jamaica.

 Edward Clouston was born 27/09/1787 in Cross and Bowness, Orkney. His parents were Rev. William Clouston of Kingshouse (d. 1832) and Isabel Traill. Slave-owner and attorney in Jamaica. He was one of just 52 men on the island who met Higman’s criteria for a ‘large’ attorney (that is, responsible for managing five or more properties, usually for an absentee owner). In 1832, Clouston was responsible for eight properties (four estates, two pens and two plantations); in all they contained 1046 enslaved people.

Unmarried relationship with Eliza Fox; two children, Henry (1822- 1898) and Isabella (1828-1884).

Returned to Britain c. 1834, with his children from his relationship with Eliza Fox. He married Julia Gordan Thin in Edinburgh in 1838.

His son, Henry, was apprenticed in the merchant navy, aged 15. He migrated to New Zealand where (as Captain Clouston) he married and had a large family. His first daughter was named Eliza Fox Clouston after his mother.

In successive Censuses Edward Clouston was: in London in 1841 (‘Gentleman’) with his wife and daughter (then 12); in Birkenhead in 1851 and 1861. In 1849 his daughter Isabella married Robert Thin, brother of Julia Gordon Thin. In 1851, Edward Clouston was living in a large household in Exmouth Street, Birkenhead: Robert Thin, Head, 29, Provision Merchant. Edward Clouston (63, married, Retired Jamaica Planter, born Scotland) was simultaneously Thin’s brother-in-law and his father-in-law, but the Census has him as brother-in-law. In 1861 he was living with his wife, a visitor and a servant in Seymour Street; he was recorded as 73, married, Land and House Proprietor, born Scotland.

He died in in Birkenhead in 1866 and left around £300.

We are grateful to Mary Mill and David Barker for assistance in compiling this entry.

T71/855 St Thomas-in-the-Vale no. 298.

www.archive.org – ‘Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation’, by Huw Scott – Volume VII – Synods of Ross, Sutherland and Caithness, Glenelg, Orkney and of Shetland, the Church in England, Ireland, and Overseas [including the West Indies] – published 1928 – Orkney – Presbytery of Cairston – Sandwick and Stromness p. 253; S.D. Smith Gentry Capitalism, p. 341 shows Clouston leaving Jamaica 15/05/1833 for NY and in Edinburgh in March 1834.

 www.scotlandspeople – Edinburgh 23rd April 1838 – (Proclaimed 22nd April 1838) – Edward Clouston, Esquire, late of Jamaica, residing No 27 Howe Street, St Stephen’s Parish, and Mrs Julia Gordon Thin or McLaren, residing same place and parish, daughter of the late John Thin, Builder, and Widow of McLaren, Surgeon, have been three times proclaimed in order to Marriage in the Parish Church of St Stephen’s, and no objections have been offered. Married at Edinburgh 30th April 1838 by the Revd Dr David Ritchie, one of the Ministers of St Andrew’s Parish.

Dobson, Scots in the West Indies; BW Higman, Plantation Jamaica; UK, Apprentices Indentured in Marchant Navy, 1824-1910, 1838; Census 1841, 1851, 1861, London, St Giles and Birkenhead, online; England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1858-1995, Cheshire, proved 6 April 1867.