Thomas Fitzgerald

Apparently owner and then co-owner with Laurence Fitzgerald (q.v., possibly his brother) of Richmond Hill in British Guiana, although there is some doubt about their precise relationship to the estate. Probably the Thomas Fitzgerald shown as a business associate of Thomas Naghten (q.v.) in 1807. Naghten & Fitzgerald acted as slave-factors in Demerara in the early 1800s.

1. Thomas Fitzgerald was said to be a merchant who became wealthy in the West Indies and returned to Ireland to seek a seat in Parliament. He bought Fane Valley near Dundalk August 1823: and had two sons, Thomas Christopher (01/08/1820-27/04/1871) and Percy Hetherington (1831-1925; the same source also gives 1834 as date of birth). This source shows Thomas Fitzgerald being returned as MP for Co. Louth, for which he sat 1833-34. Thomas Fitzgerald of Fane Valley was son of Christopher Fitzgerald and Anne Esmonde, and died in office around the end of October 1834.

Essequebo and Demerary Gazette No. 229 16/05/1807; data on slave factors suppled to LBS by Nick Radburn, University of Lancaster, for whose help LBS is grateful.

1. http://www.collonhistoricalsociety.com/Collon%20history%20Dorcas%20page%206.htm" [accessed 14/05/2014]; John Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage of Great Britain and Ireland (1839) p. 385; True Sun November 3 1834 p. 3, reproducing an entry in the Dublin Morning Register, presumably of a few days earlier.