Robert Young of Auchenskeoch

Robert Young of Auchenskeoch, son of Lieut. Alexander Young of Auchenskeoch and brother of William Young of Auchenskeoch (q.v.). Charles Spearman of Thornley was his brother-in-law and Duncan Campbell of Bedford Square (q.v.) was his son-in-law; Robert Young's grand-daughter Jane Campbell married Alexander Young Spearman. Described as a 'West India merchant' in genealogical material although his firm (apparently in London, given the birthplace of some of his children) has not yet been traced in the London Gazette. A document on the 1798 sale of the Rosebank estate (q.v.) gives him as late of the Crescent in the Minories in the City of London.

1. Original grantee with William Young of the Auchenskeoch estate in Tobago, and possibly the grantee also of Parrot Hall (St John no. 20 under Robt. Young) and Calder Hall (St Andrew no. 1), as well as further lot in St Andrew no. 30. His widow Harriot sold the Rosebank cotton plantation and the enslaved people on it (Queens Bay division, St Paul parish, Lot no. 11) to Jacob Wilkinson of London in 1798.

2. The will of 'Robert Young of Crescent London' (made in 1778) was proved 08/05/1787; a codicil to it had been drafted in Bruges in 1787. The will takes the form of a letter to Mr William McCall, the Crescent, from Havre de Grace dated 28th January 1778, confirming that he (Robert Young) had his will by him, that his executors were Harriet his wife, Alexander William Young his son, David Young of Grenada, Robert Henderson of [illegible], George Chapman of Dumfries and McCall himself, and that he left £5000 [a note in the text reads 'I say four not five'] each to his 'other children' Robert, Harriot, Elizabeth and Douglas on coming of age and to be supported and educated prior to that, and £500 each to his nephews Alexander Young and John Spearman and to his wife's brother and sister Charles and Margaret Herries. In the codicil from Bruges he added a legacy of £5000 [again an interleaved note says 'I say four not five thousand'] to his son Robert Herries Spearman Young, to put him on the same basis as the other children. The will was proved by William Johnstone of the Island of Grenada but then residing at Bruges.

1. 'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Research/SubjectGuide/LandSlaveDeeds/tabid/191/Default.aspx?PageContentMode=1 [accessed 03/12/2013].

2. PROB 11/1153/80.