Duncan Campbell of St Martin in the Fields

London merchant, slave-owner in Jamaica and entrepreneur in convict transportation.

1. Duncan Campbell of [the Adelphi] St Martin in the Fields, whose will was proved 09/03/1803, left an annuity of £300 p.a. to his wife Mary secured on the Saltsprings or Saltspring estate in Hanover Jamaica: he left the estate and enslaved people attached to it, subject to this annuity, to his son Dugald Campbell, failing whom he left half the estate each to his sons John and Duncan, with contingent remainder to his sons Mumford and William Newell Campbell. This Duncan Campbell is the same man as the man known as 'Duncan Campbell of Greenwich' (1726-1803), who in 1784 bought a property at West Kingsdown, in Kent, paying £21,458 for 2000 acres. The will of Duncan Campbell of St Martin in the Fields refers to pieces of this estate, including Brands Hatch, which he left to his son John Campbell, and Maplecomb, which he left to his son Duncan. His will included significant financial legacies totalling £49,000 to 8 daughters.

2. Son of Rev. Neil Campbell, Principal of Glasgow University. "As well as his plantations in the Caribbean from which came sugar and rum, Duncan's ships traded tobacco from the American colonies in return for slaves. The secession of the United States nearly brought him to ruin but he offset this by taking on the contract to house and transport convicts. His prison hulks became notorious but they kept him in business. He is said to have been the contractor for the voyage of the first convict settlers to Australia in 1788 - 'the First Fleet' - and to have cheated on the deal." His niece Elizabeth Betham (daughter of his sister Mary Campbell) married Admiral Sir William Bligh of the HMS Bounty.

1. D.M. Killingray, 'Kent & the Abolition of the Slave trade: a county study 1760s-1807' Archaeologia Cantiana CXXVII 2007 pp. 107-125, p. 111. PROB 11/1388/72.

2. Alastair Campbell, A History of Clan Campbell: From the Restoration to the Present Day (Edinburgh, 2004), p. 216.

We are grateful to David Arathoon for his help compiling this entry.