Thomas Orr

Early purchaser of land in Tobago, brother of Matthew and John Orr (each of whom q.v.) and almost certainly the uncle of Thomas Orr 'planter of Tobago' whose will was proved 12/02/1817.

1. 'Thomas Orr & Co.' appear as the owners of Barbados Bay (St George parish) Lots nos. 11 and 12 (bought originally by John Hunt 20/05/1765) in 1773. Together with Lot no. 22, the acreage became the Belmont estate (there were two Belmonts on Tobago in the 18th century and the Belmont estate in the compensation records has yet to be linked to either one of them).

2. Thomas and Matthew Orr were both signatories of the 1781 address by inhabitants to the departing Lt Gov. George Ferguson. Fowler (1774) shows a 'James Orr' as a then current member of the House of Assembly on Tobago.

3. June [1787]. At Tobago [death of] Thomas Orr, Esq: son of the deceased William Orr; of Barrowfield.

PROB 11/1589/203.

1. 'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); John Fowler, A summary account of the present flourishing state of the respectable colony of Tobago in the British West Indies illustrated with a map of the island and a plan of its settlement, agreeably to the sales by his Majesty’s Commissioners (London: A Grant, 1774), pp. 32-33, 34-35.

2. The Remembrancer Vol. 12 (1781) p. 250; Fowler, A summary account p. 66.

3. The Scots Magazine Vol. 49 (August 1787) p. 413.