Crawford Davison the elder

London West India merchant, dying in 1836, and a major recipient of slave compensation in Tobago and Trinidad.

1. Boyle's Directory of 1835 shows Crawford Davison, 67 Great Portland Street and Pierrepo[i]nt Lodge, Surrey, and C. Davison & Co., West India merchants, 33 New Broad Street. At the time he made his will, he said he was partner with his son, also Crawford, in Davison & Son.

2. Crawford Davison, merchant, was a partner in the firm Simpson and Davison of Threadneedle Street in 1790. This Crawford Davison was a partner with his uncle John Simpson (d. 1803), the MP for Mitchell, 1799-1802.

3. Crawford Davison bought Pierrepont Lodge from his father-in-law the MP Ralph Winstanley Wood after Wood encountered financial difficulties c. 1817. He also bought the nearby Highfield House where Wood lived for the rest of his life.

4. Davison, a bachelor, married Mary Wood, a spinster and a minor, 14/03/1796. The marriage bond is countersigned by her father Ralph Winstanley Wood. They had 6 children baptised in St Peter Le Poer, London: Mary Margaret (1796-), Elizabeth (1799-), Eleanor (1801-), Jane (1804-), Thomas (1806-) and Crawford (1808-), and another child baptised at St Luke's in Finsbury, Middlesex: Elizabeth Hartley Frances (1811-).

5. Davison funded the building of the north aisle to Frensham Parish Church in 1827.

6. Crawford Davison died 20/07/1836 age 76. Will of Crawford Davison, Merchant of Pierrepoint [sic] near Farnham, Surrey, proved 09/09/1836 (made 29/10/1835). In his will, he specified his assets, including: 'the estates of Arnos Vale and Providence in the island of Tobago in my own right with the negroes and slaves thereon'; and as mortgagee the Friendsfield and Hermitage estates in Tobago, the Golconda, Diamond and Fullarton estates in Trinidad. He had settled £4000 on each of his three daughters on their marriages, Jane to George Austin Moutrie of Aston Hall Salop; Eleanor with Dr Frederick Cobb; and Elizabeth with Edward Whitmore.

7. Probably the Crawford Davison, son of Thomas Davison, who was baptised in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, 14/05/1761. (His uncle John Simpson, with whom he was in business in the 1790s, was probably the son of John Simpson of Eyemouth, Berwick, see 2, above.)

8. The Crawford Davison who signed for the compensation for Trinidad claim no. 1876, possibly intercepting the compensation (and for a number of other awards where Crawford Davison was the claimant or awardee) could have been either man, but given the father's age and presumably health might more plausibly have been the son.

9. Monumental inscription of his daughter Eleanor in Fresham Parish Church, Surrey, reads: "SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF FREDERIC COBB M.D., F.R.C.P. BORN 1 FEBRUARY 1796, DIED 2 SEPTEMBER 1883 AND OF HIS WIFE ELEANOR, DAUGHTER OF THE LATE CRAWFORD DAVISON ESQ. OF PIERREPONT BORN 18 OCTOBER 1801, DIED 11 JANUARY 1875".

1. Boyle's Directory and Court Guide (1835).

2. Terry W. Lipscombe, ed. The Letters of Pierce Butler, 1790-1794: Nation Building and Enterprise in the New American Republic (Colombia, South Carolina, University of South Carolina Press, 2007) p. 38. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/simpson-john-1803 [accessed 02/11/2012].

3. http://crtinsurrey.org.uk/pierrepont-farm-2/pierrepont-%E2%80%94-a-potted-history/ and http://emuseum.huntington.org/view/people/asitem/W/154?t:state:flow=c728bc0f-9bd0-47ef-806b-77888f988b21 [both accessed 02/11/2012].

4. Ancestry.com, London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597-1921 [database online].

5. http://frensham-pc.gov.uk/parishwp/?page_id=65 [accessed 02/11/2012].

6. Times 30/07/1836 p. 7; PROB 11/1866/347.

7. www.familysearch.org batch no. I02272-5.

8. NDO4/12 Trinidad claim no. 1896.

9. http://www.frenshamchurches.org.uk/monumentalinscriptions.htm [accessed 02/11/2012].