Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Is this how Edward Gray of Harringay House made his fortune?

A few days ago, quite by chance, I came across a project being conducted by University College London and was somewhat taken aback to find the following entry in the database

UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership

I did a bit more research and discovered a number of references to Gray, Whitworth and Gilbee and their connection to the slave trade.

Manuscript Sources for the History of the West Indies 1776

A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica

Jamaica Almanac 1921

Register of British and Foreign Shipping

And also entries in the Slave Registries from 1817 until about 1832

The partnership was dissolved in 1829 but Gray still continued his involvement until he was compensated in 1835.

Tags for Forum Posts: harringay house

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Permalink Reply by Angela on March 12, 2014 at 12:38

Hi Yvonne, glad to see you have joined HoL!

The Slave Registers can be found on the Ancestry.co.uk website. Go to the Card Catalogue and then enter Jamaica as the keyword.  Jamaicanfamilysearch.com also has lots of info.

Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on March 13, 2014 at 22:06

No, Yvonne, certainly not a pittance at all. I'm just tickled that, in my earlier comment on Angela's original post, my fantasy joining of the dots on Edward Gray's life and times turns out to be not so fantastic after all.

Perhaps it's time you came over to Harringay Ladder to stake your claim to Harringay House site, if not all of Harringay Park. You may be the rightful owner of a chunk of Hewitt and Allison Roads at least. Hugh is already consulting his lawyers, just in case!

Permalink Reply by Hugh on March 13, 2014 at 22:11

Bugger the lawyers. I'm on my hotline to the mob.

Permalink Reply by Yvonne Field on March 14, 2014 at 8:01

Well as a relatively new resident of Haringey I would at least like a walking tour of the areas the labour of my descendants helped purchase and create! And then I will have a better sense of the potential scale of any claim! Given how many slaves Gray  was compensated for, there will be I suspect be quite a few of us!!

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on March 14, 2014 at 9:40

Meet at Fairland Park on Sunday at 9:30 for a "walking" tour of the ladder. £5.

Permalink Reply by Yvonne Field on March 14, 2014 at 9:47

  1. Hi John,  thanks for the offer.  I am busy this Sunday but should be free next weekend. How much time should I put aside?

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on March 14, 2014 at 9:56

Oh I was being cheeky. See here. :)

Permalink Reply by Yvonne Field on March 15, 2014 at 8:26
Shows that I don't know the area well...I thought that there was a code in the message! Thanks for the link.Will check out the local area very soon.
Permalink Reply by Bethany Burrow Atherton on March 14, 2014 at 19:11

OK folks, here's some light reading for the weekend.  One completed transcription of Edward Gray's Last Will and Testament.

A couple of things to note about this:

  • The pages in the pdf that Hugh linked to are not quite in the right order (probably because of the way they've been recorded at the Public Records Office); I have done the transcription in the order that the pages appear in the pdf, so that if you want to read the two side by side, you can hopefully do so without getting too confused.
  • The pdf page numbers used in the transcription ignore the Public Records Office Cover sheets.
  • If you want to start at the beginning of the will and read straight through, you need to start on page 4 of the transcription, four lines up from the bottom, then read through to the end of the transcription and start again at the beginning (where there are a few final bits of the main will, and then a Codicil starts). 
  • The bit at the start of "Page 4 of pdf" is from another will which must have appeared just before Gray's in the probate book - I've transcribed it, but it isn't very interesting and isn't relevant to Gray at all.
  • The will is complete - some of you may be confused because the will talks about being on 14 sheets, when there are only 10 pages of the pdf (including the Codicil) - the pdf is a copy of the will, almost certainly from the probate court records, from when the executors went to prove the will so that they could start dishing out the cash.
  • I've included a few notes where the will descends into such archaic legalese that having a transcription probably won't make any difference to a modern day lay reader - if there are any other terms anyone would like notes included on, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

I've done my best with this and I think it is pretty accurate, but please note I am not a professional transcriber - if anyone thinks I've got anything wrong in it or has any suggestions to make it better (in particular if you can work out the surname of George, Gray's butler which is, I think, the only word I couldn't decipher), then please let me know.

Finally, while I am not a professional transcriber, I have to admit that, for my sins, I am a lawyer, so I have to make the obligatory disclaimer noises about the transcription not being legal advice and how you should all seek independent advice about your wills rather than copying this one.

Enjoy!

Attachments:
Permalink Reply by Hugh on March 14, 2014 at 19:30

My goodness - great work!

pdf version attached

Attachments:
Permalink Reply by Angela on March 14, 2014 at 21:35

Bethany, I've only had a quick look at the transcription but just wanted to say thanks, you are an absolute star!

Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on March 15, 2014 at 16:58

Now I see why I've avoided making my Last Will & Testament for years. My Harringay estates, my overseas plantations, several hundred House and Field slaves, and my graspingly expectant family will drown me in several score foolscap folios of legalese.

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