Samuel Mitchell of Grenada

Samuel Mitchell was a long-term resident of Grenada, having gone out there around 1765. In 1790, or soon after, he purchased the Chemin plantation in Grenada, and changed its name to Hope Vale. There were other British plantation owners at this time, including Alexander Hamilton of the Retreat, Topsham, who owned the Samaritan Estate; his estate house still exists in the north of the island. The Chemin Estate was in the south of the island and although no trace of it remains, there is a village on the site named Hope Vale.

After the Treaty of Versailles, control of Grenada rested with the Governor, who represented the British Crown. Day-to-day matters were handled by the Island’s Council, headed by a President. Samuel Mitchell appears to have been an active member, and in 1790 he was appointed President.

When the Fedon rebellion against British rule erupted in Grenada in 1795, the rebels – led by Julien Fedon – captured British hostages, including the Governor Sir Ninian Home, who was subsequently killed. An Acting Governor was appointed, but he soon resigned. Samuel Mitchell then took over as Acting Governor. By the middle of 1796, Fedon’s followers were routed.

Samuel Mitchell’s plantation, like others on the island, was ruined, so he cut his losses and returned to England, where in 1798 he purchased the Newport estate in Topsham from Mr Thomas Floud, who was later twice Mayor of Exeter. On 7 September 1802 he got married in Topsham to Miss Mary Floud, sister of the same Thomas Floud, but he did not live long after that; he died in 1805.

In 1833 their daughter Mary Elizabeth Stewart Mitchell married Lt Gen. William James D’Urban, and in 1838 she built Newport House. R.W. Mitchell says (p.21) that their son William Stewart Mitchell D’Urban, then aged 2 and later to become the first curator of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, laid the first stone. By the time of the 1841 census, her mother Mary, then aged 65, was living there. Newport House was eventually demolished in 1980.

We are grateful to Peter Wingfield-Digby for compiling this entry.

Two useful sources of information are: Jan Betteridge (2018), 'Samuel Mitchell: From Plantation to Newport House, Topsham Times', Issue No. 21, pp. 24-35, Topsham Museum Society; R.W. Mitchell (1991), 'The History of Newport House, Topsham, Devon 1798-1980', (handwritten manuscript), West Country Studies Library, Devon Heritage Centre, Exeter.