Alexander Hoyes

Alexander Hoyes, awarded compensation for one claim in Clarendon as judgement creditor for £1062 11s 1d and as a co-claimant with John Ranken (q.v.) for another Clarendon claim, apparently as trustees. Wrote to the Compensation Commission from Liverpool in his capacity as agent for R. Fotheringham for a claim in St David.

1. Given as "storekeeper" in a list of summoned jurors (also including "ironmonger" Thomas McWhinney) in Kingston 24/12/1825. The same list of Kingston jurors is also summoned in March 1828, again with Alexander Hoyes a storekeeper of Kingston.

2. There is nothing in the London Gazette to suggest that Alexander Hoyes was a merchant in Liverpool or in the UK, however, Hoyes was certainly in Liverpool in the 1830s: in 1837 the electoral register shows him with an address at Rodney Street, a commercial address. The Liverpool Standard and General Advertiser 09/12/1836 has him auctioning 120 tierces of Jamaica coffee at Jones, Mann and Foster Dale Street on the same day - described as Mr Alexander Hoyes, merchant. His first wife, Eglantine Katherine Balfour Wallace, daughter of George Wallace in Coalhill, Balbirnie, Markinch, whom he married in 1834, had died in Liverpool in 1837 leaving him with a son, John, born in 1835. The will of John Adams, merchant of Liverpool, written 1840 and proved 1841, gives him as Alexander Hoyes as "late of Liverpool now residing in North Britain merchant." The newspaper notices for Alexander Hoyes’s second wedding (it took place on 18/11/1840 in Edinburgh) state that he was “formerly of Kingston, Jamaica and of Liverpool.”

3. Alexander Hoyes, son of Rev. John Hoyes and Janet Reid of Kinloss, Scotland. The entry for his father in in Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae is as follows: "JOHN HOYES, born 1744, son of John H., farmer, Knockomie, and Beatrice Watson; educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen; schoolmaster at Alves; licen. by Presb. of Elgin 3rd Dec. 1771; ord. (assistant) at Alves 25th March 1777; trans. to Dalgety 16th July 1778; pres. by Francis, Earl of Moray, 1st April, trans. and adm. 27th July 1786; died 23rd Jan. 1818. He marr. 6th July 1781, Janet (died 10th April 1831), daugh. of James Reid, min. of Beath, and had issue – Bessie, born 1st May 1782, died 1st Feb. 1783; Agnes, born 28th Oct. 1783 (marr. George Panton 13 Aug. 1805, died in Cupar, Fife, 1847); Janet, born 24th May 1785; Beatrice; John, merchant, West Indies; James, H.E.I.C.S., drowned at sea, 1806; Alexander, merchant, Jamaica; William, min. of Forres; Robina (marr. Thomas Gillan, farmer, Castle-Stewart, Inverness); Christian (marr. John Finlayson, min. of Gaelic Chapel, Cromarty), died 21st Sept. 1834; and others. Publication – Account of the Parish (Sinclair’s Stat. Acc., i)—[Tombst.; Aberdeen Journal Notes and Queries, i., 160.]" In this case, he may be the first cousin of John Hoyes and Lewis Hoyes (both q.v., both of Grenada and Forres).

4. "Alexr Hoyes L[awful] Son to the Revd. Mr John Hoyes & Mrs Janet Reid was born the 13th & baptised the 28th October. W[itnesse]s The Revd Mr Alexr Cruickshank Minister of the Episcopal Congregation at Mutkie[?] & Miss Fenella Hoyes Jones."

5. Described as a merchant in Jamaica but then resident in Forres in the Moray commissary record entry for the inventory and confirmation of the Testament testamentar in 1827 for his brother, Rev William Hoyes (1796-1827) who had been minister of St Lawrence, Forres since 1824. (Note that his presence in Forres was probably more of a visit that a long residence, given his naming in Kingston for jury duty in December 1825 and March 1828.) Married first, to Eglantine Catherine (or Katherine) Balfour Wallace, of Coalhill, Fife, in Markinch in 1834. A son, John Hoyes, was baptised in Liverpool, 19/05/1835, son of Alexander Hoyes of 10 Rodney Street and his wife Eglantine Catherine Balfour Wallace. John Hoyes attended the Scottish Naval and Military Academy in Edinburgh 1849-1851 and became a cadet at the Est India Company Military Seminary in 1851 (when his father was given as of Bitterne Grove, Southampton).

6. Alexander Hoyes was named as one of the executors of William MacBeath in 1827.

7. Alexander Hoyes remarried, to Elizabeth Adams, daughter of Andrew Adams, wine merchant, in Edinburgh in 1840. In 1841 he was living at Cowdenknows Mansion House, Berwickshire, age 40, "Gentleman Ind.", born Scotland, with Elizabeth age 30 born Scotland, John age 6 born England, 3 female servants, 1 male servant and a visitor, Rev.d James Gillan age 35, Clergyman, born Scotland. In 1851, 1861 and 1871 he was a South Stoneham, Hampshire, "Landed proprietor" and "Railway proprietor". He died at Bitterne Grove, South Stoneham, Hampshire, 15/05/1875 leaving effects under £60,000.

T71/859 Clarendon claim nos. 258 and 271; T71/866 St David claim no. 143. T71/1593 p. 348: letter to Alex Hoyes, Liverpool, as agent to R. Fotheringham on St David no. 143. T71/1608: letter from Alex Hoyes, stating that Mr Fotheringham has received the balance of his mortgage debt from the trustees. Alex Hoyes is no longer to act, but he can't withdraw the counterclaim without instructions.

1. Liverpool Standard and General Advertiser 09/12/1836; Royal Gazette (Jamaica) 07/01/1826 and 22/03/1828.

2. Ancestry.com, UK, Poll Books and Electoral Registers, 1538-1893 [database online]; PROB 11/1953/149; Evening Standard, 25/11/1840.

3. Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae Vol. 6 p. 425. Alexander Hoyes, son of Rev. John Hoyes (1744-1834) and Janet Reid in Kinloss, a merchant in the West Indies, is also given in David Dobson, Scots in the West Indies 1707-1857 (2 vols., Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, 1998/2006), vol. 1 p. 71. OPR Records for Scotland show 14 children born to John Hoyes and Janet Reid, the first 3 in Dalgety, Fife, 1782-1783 and the other 11 in Kinloss, Moray, 1787-1800. Alexander was the youngest; marriage of Agnes Hoyes and George Panton, GROS OPR Marriages 420 30 227 Cupar; death of Agnes Hoyes OPR Deaths 420 30 227.

4. General Register Office for Scotland OPR Births 138 010 232.

5. Moray Commissary Court, CC16/4/10; Elgin Sheriff Court Wills, SC26/38/1; GROS OPR Marriages 447 60 3 Markinch; Familysearch.org, Scotland Church Records and Kirk Session Records, 1658-1919 [database online]; Findmypast.co.uk, British India Office Births & Baptisms [database online].

6. Royal Gazette of Jamaica 18/08/1827.

7. 1841-1871 censuses online; National Probate Calendar 1875.

We are grateful to Jim Brennan for his assistance with compiling this entry.

Notes on the Hoyes Family in Forres, by Jim Brennan, following the Aberdeen Journal Notes and Queries

The main relevant figures are three of the sons of John Hoyes at Knockomie, east of Forres and Beatrice Watson:

I James Hoyes in Balnaferry, likely to have been the James Hoyes in Forres who married Margaret Adam in Rafford in 1747. His youngest son, John (q.v., as John Hoyes) married Mary Riviere Cuming, nee McGlashan, a carpenter’s widow, in Jamaica, where he died in 1808. John Hoyes was in turn the father of a son named John (1806-1885, q.v. as John Hoyes of Prospect).

II James in Balnaferry’s younger brother, William, merchant and Baillie of Forres, who married Margaret Logan and whose sons John and Lewis (both q.v, as John Hoyes of Grenada and Lewis Hoyes) made careers in Grenada

III John, the third brother, who according to Fasti Ecclesiae began as schoolmaster in Alves, was ordained there, assisted in the parish, and under the patronage of Francis Earl of Moray, was installed minister of Dalgety in Fife, and later, on the appointment of James Gillan, minister of Kinloss, to Speymouth was moved by the Earl to Kinloss, Morayshire. His wife, Janet Reid, was the daughter of the minister of Beath, in Fife, and her mother, Ann Dott, whose father had been convener of the shoemakers in Cupar, may possibly have been of Huguenot descent. Fasti Ecclesiae gives his birth year as 1744 – the OPR as 1739, and the Edinburgh Magazine report of his 1818 death gives his age as 74.

Rev John Hoyes’s eldest son, born in 1788, was also a John, also in Jamaica, and married in Kingston in 1816, Helen Petrie (q.v.), daughter of Ninian Petrie in St Thomas in the East dying in 1818, the year of his father’s death. In 1844 Helen Hoyes (nee Petrie) registered, and had accepted, an assertion in the Kingston register that her late husband had been of white origin entirely. Rev. John Hoyes’s youngest child was Alexander Hoyes (q.v.), born in 1800.