William Salmond

Taken from Ancestry tree - biography

William Salmond was the only son of Captain James Salmond (1694-1746) and his wife Lydia Kennedy (1701-1748). James had moved from Scotland to Antigua in 1730 where he bought two plantations, Sage Hill and Salmond's. I think he must have been a sea captain, not a military man.  It would seem more a more likely profession for a Scottish merchant turned planter.  James and Lydia had 3 daughters, Jane, Mary and Elizabeth, and their son and heir William, who was born in 1737. William was sent back to England to be educated at St Bee's School in Cumberland, and when only nine years old he inherited his father's estates in Antigua.  These must have provided him with independent means.  However, he sold both estates as soon as he reached his majority.   It is unclear when he returned to Antigua but his wedding portrait in 1765 shows him dressed in robes as a member of the Council there, 13 years before his appointment to the Council in 1778. 

William Salmond's growing extravagence was beginning to cause problems and it was necessary in 1778 for them to return to the West Indies. William was appointed first as an Agent, in 1776, and then as a Member of King's Council for Antigua, but despite his prominence, his plantation did not flourish, partly due to the effects of French privateers in the area and partly due to poor weather. These circumstances brought financial ruin to the Salmonds, something which Edward Hasell, Jane's brother, had predicted several years before - he wrote to his sister that William Salmond was a 'vain idle man that would live away without any right to do so upon the labour of others', adding that 'the children will be the innocent victims of his folly'. Following the death of her last baby in 1778, Jane had to beg for money from her family to return to England where she set up house in York with her sister Mary.  She died at the age of 75, long outliving her husband William who died suddenly in 1779 in Antigua aged only 42.

Citations

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Sources

1. The history of the island of Antigua, one of the Leeward Caribbees in the West Indies, from the first settlement in 1635 to the present time. By Vere Langford Oliver.  Published 1894 by Mitchell and Hughes in London . Written in English.  Page 66.  "Pedigree of Salmond."

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