John Stewart senior

Absentee slave-owner who owned sugar plantations in Berbice, Demerara, Grenada, Trinidad and 'elsewhere in the West Indies', and father of John Stewart (q.v.). Stewart senior was living, by 1818, in The Albany, London. He was briefly MP for Camelford 17 April-16 June 1819 but was unseated and disqualified from sitting in that Parliament for bribery and corruption. "In his will he provided handsomely for his natural children and for numerous Scots friends and dependants, directing that his Caribbean estates should be sold for this purpose: his heir was however still in possession of the sugar plantations of Annandale and Stewartville in British Guiana at his death in 1860."

1. Will of John Stewart of [the Albany] St James Westminster proved 03/02/1827. The will shows him as part of an extended network of absentee slave-owners and merchants, to many of whom he left small monetary legacies. It also shows his natural daughter Amelia Stewart living in Cadogan Place. It refers to but does not name his estates in Demerara, Grenada, Trinidad and elsewhere in the West Indies.

R. G. Thorne, 'Stewart, John II (?1755-1826)', History of Parliament online.

1. PROB 11/1722/26.