John Blyth

Owner of Kendal and Tweedside estates in Westmoreland, Jamaica, and possibly the same man as John Blythe or Blyth, a large-scale attorney in western Jamaica in the early 1820s.

1. Will of John Blyth of Hanover [made in 1832] proved 02/12/1836. In the will he left his estate to Mary Buddle and his two sons by her, John now at college in Glasgow and Henry. The money he had used to buy Kendal he had in trust from John Buddle Mary's father, so he acknowledged the estate was hers.

2. John Buddle Blyth, "a free child of colour about [blank] years of age son of John Blyth Esquire of Berkeley Square in Westmorland and Mary Buddle, a free woman of colour of the same parish was baptised at Mesopotamia in said parish on the 11th April 1816 by me Edmund Pope LLD Rector of Westmorland." John went to school in Dumfries and spent two years at Giessen University in Germany and six months studying in Berlin. He became a distinguished chemist and with August Wilhelm Hofmann, was the first person to use the term "synthesis" in the chemical sense. He worked at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester in 1847 and was the first professor of chemistry at Queen's College, Cork, Ireland, in 1849. He died 24/12/1871 and was buried at Blackrock, Cork.

3. Henry Blyth was baptised in Hanover, Jamaica, 20/11/1831. He matriculated at Glasgow University in 1847 and studied Greek, Logic and Ethics.

4. Another son, Charles Cathcart Blyth, was born in 1817 and baptised that same year but is not mentioned in John Blyth's will so had presumably died by 1832.

1. PROB 11/1869/412.

2. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online]; Robert Lancashire, “Jamaican Chemists in Early Global Communication”, Chemistry International, Volume 40, Issue 2, Pages 5–11, ISSN (Online) 1365-2192, https://doi.org/10.1515/ci-2018-0202.

3. Familysearch.org batch no. I03817-7; "Matriculated Students of the University of Glasgow", http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/bcarib02.htm; email from Robert Lancashire, 02/05/2018 sourced to Archive ref: R9/1/2, Class catalogue1838-1853.

4. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

We are grateful to Robert Lancashire for his assistance with compiling this entry.