Robert Stirling the elder

Younger son of James Stirling of Keir (d. 1749). Left Perthshire for Jamaica in 1742. Bought Frontier estate in St Mary in 1748, partly with money borrowed from his brother Archibald Stirling. Jointly bought Hampden in St James (later Trelawney) with his brother James in 1757; bought his brother's share in Hampden in 1761 for a £300 annuity. "He died in 1764, a financial failure; He owed £92,000. Of course, he was owed £68,000, mostly from his merchant career. His brother James returned [to Jamaica] to take control of the joint property and settle the family's affairs."

Had a daughter, Charlotte Stirling, with free quadroon Sarah Morris of Kingston.

Filed Crop Accounts for Spring Garden estate (Westmoreland, Jamaica) in 1764. At this stage Spring Garden belonged to Mrs Elizabeth Rutherford (q.v.) or her heirs.

Robert Stirling of Kingston, Esquire. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1764. Slave-ownership at probate: 750 of whom 419 were listed as male and 331 as female. 0 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £76,343.14 Jamaican currency of which £43,933.25 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £10.15 currency cash, £17,832.31 currency debts and £98.06 currency plate. Burnard put his personal estate at £54,531 'including 750 slaves located on several sugar estates in St James.'

Alan L. Karras, Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740-1800 (Ithaca and London, 1992) pp. 71-80.

Anne M. Power, 'Blocking legacies to negroes and mulattoes', A Parcel of Ribbons, http://aparcelofribbons.co.uk/tag/robert-stirling/ [accessed 12/10/2015].

1B/11/4/4 Crop Account 1763-1766 Jamaica Archive p. 127.

Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784; Burnard, Merchants, planters and slaves pp. 205-6.