Charlotte Taylor - Quadroon

In 1835, Charlotte Sproule was living with her family in Ireland and she was the grand lady of the Mellmount mansion in County Tyrone. However, Charlotte had been born in Jamaica as Charlotte Taylor, and Charlotte Taylor was a quadroon.  At this point in my research, I knew full well the implications of that term.

In those days of colonial Jamaica, race was important. Each Jamaican child was labelled very clearly at baptism, using terms that identified the racial mix. Charlotte Taylor was a quadroon. This meant that she had been born of a mulatto mother and a white father. Charlotte's mulatto mother was mixed race - she had a negro mother and a white father. Charlotte's father had been white, and her grandfather was also white.

Race Culture in Jamaica

There were strange attitudes to race in the white culture of Jamaica at that time. Men, both married and single, felt free to have sexual relations with slaves of all colours. However, many white men went on to form a long-term relationship with a mulatto or a quadroon lady. The man would then live quite openly with this woman and her children.

"Every unmarried white man has his black or his brown mistress, with whom

he lives openly; and of so little consequence is this thought, that his white female

friends and relations think it no breach of decorum to visit his house, partake of

his hospitality, fondle his children, and converse with his housekeeper..." (James Stewart, 1813)1

But at the same time, white was white, and other colours were socially unacceptable. A quadroon lady might be recognised as his woman, but she was not accepted into society, and neither were her children. She lived in his house, but she was not its mistress, she was known as the ‘housekeeper’.

Marriage was out of the question. It was not illegal in Jamaica to marry a mulatto or a quadroon woman, but it was totally unacceptable:

“It would be considered an indeniable stain in the character of a white

man to enter into a matrimonial bondage with one of them (a woman of color); he would be despised in the community and excluded from all society on that account.” (J. B. Moreton, 1790)2 

 What, then, of Charlotte Taylor?

Daughter of the Honourable Simon Taylor?

Simon Taylor

According to my information, Charlotte was supposed to have been the daughter of the Honourable Simon Taylor.  As a quadroon, she was certainly not his legitimate child. 

When I looked up the Honourable Simon Taylor, the Google machine lit up! Simon Taylor was a very famous man. He was born in Jamaica in 1739, was a plantation owner and a member of the Jamaican Assembly. Simon Taylor was fabulously rich and when he died in 1813,  he was one of the wealthiest men in the whole of the British Empire. 

The Honourable Simon Taylor was also unmarried, and he had no legitimate children!

The Source

How did I get the idea that Charlotte Taylor was this man’s daughter? Where did this information come from? On checking my records, I found it had come from the 'horses mouth' - well almost. It came from Jack Elder.

From 1880 to 1920, Jack Elder had gathered vast quantities of information on the Sproule families of Tyrone. He left us superb hand drawn family trees of different branches of the Sproule clans. On one of these trees is the information that James Sproule, son of Andrew Sproule of Tullymoan, had married Charlotte Taylor, the daughter of the Honourable Simon Taylor.

Jack Elder was a relative of this Sproule family and he lived in the same neighbourhood in Tyrone where James Sproule had settled with Charlotte in 1835. Elder was collecting information directly from friends and family who had known James and Charlotte of Mellmount.  It had to have been James Sproule himself who had told these folk that Charlotte Taylor was the daughter of the Honourable Simon Taylor. 

James Sproule and Charlotte Taylor

I wondered if James had also told friends and family in Tyrone that Charlotte was his wife, or did they just assume that? For from my reading of the situation, James and his lady Charlotte Taylor could not have been married in Jamaica.

The evidence was there in the children’s Jamaican baptism records. The first child of James Sproule was identified as his ‘reputed child’, but it is the baptism of child number 5 that actually confirms the marital status of his parents. Robert Samuel Sproule was baptised in Jamaica on September 18^th 1826. His parents were given as James Sproule, not married, and Charlotte Taylor, not married.³

Breaking Cultural Chains

When James Sproule brought his lady to live as his ‘wife’ in Ireland in 1835, he was breaking the social and cultural rules of both countries. Men did not take their mulatto or quadroon ladies out of Jamaica, perish the thought! Women who had been slaves could definitely not be presented to the family in England, Scotland or Ireland.

James Sproule of Mellmount and Jamaica was different. He had worked within the system of those times, and he had been successful. But when it came to his family, he would not allow the system to destroy what he had built. James Sproule had chosen his own path and his path was to be with his lady, Charlotte Taylor.  I was getting to know James Sproule, and he was man that I admired.

It was time, now, to get to know his lady, Charlotte Taylor.

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* Episode 1 of this story - The Beginning of the BIG Story

* Episode 2  - In Jamaica - James and Other Sproules

* Episode 3  - The Sproule Children of Stokes Hall Jamaica

* Episode 4  - As One Door Closes… Another one Explodes!

* NEXT Episode - Finding Charlotte Taylor

References:

¹ James Stewart, A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica (Edinburgh, 1823), 173-74.

²  J. B. Moreton, Manners and Customs in the West India Islands (London, 1790), 125.

³ Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880, Familysearch.org

Painting 1 - Harbour Street, Kingston. From A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica  (1825)  by James Hakewill

Painting 2 – Simon Taylor from the Group Portrait of Sir John Taylor and his family, by Daniel Gardner 1785

The Beginning of the BIG Story

The story of James Sproule of Mellmount and Jamaica is the BIG story that I found in my family history. It's a good story, with scandal, tragedy, romance and a twist at the end! Over the next few posts I will attempt to piece it together.

The Will

I was at a very early stage in my genealogical research when I first came across the last Will and Testament of James Sproule of Mellmount. It was up on the Tyrone Genealogy Website and it captured my attention straight away with its intriguing insight into a very different world.

James Sproule had written his Will in 1840 in his home called Mellmount, on the outskirts of Strabane, County Tyrone. The Will begins gently enough with a brief legacy to Brother Andrew, and then another equally brief mention of the wife of his late Brother William and their children. Then, without any preamble, he goes straight into more detailed legacies:

“To my reputed Daughter Eleanor Sproule three hundred pounds sterling or fifteen pounds annually...”  

Followed by:

"To my reputed Daughter Jane Sproule of Bath Jamaica I bequeath the remaining part of my freehold of land in Jamaica named Rose Mount now partly occupied by my late negroes for her sole use & her son James Sproule Wilson ..."

Charlotte Sproule 

My first thought was, of course, of his wife Charlotte. Her husband had died in a shipwreck off Morant Bay in Jamaica in December 1840. Charlotte and the seven children were at home in Ireland. I imagined her sitting in a big drawing room in her mansion, with her seven grieving children gathered round. Then she hears the Will - not one, but two ‘reputed’ daughters, and one of them is to get a plantation in Jamaica! What kind of man was this James Sproule to do that to his family?

My Uncle!

After some months I made the rather shocking discovery that yes, this same James Sproule of Mellmount and Jamaica was my great, great granduncle! He was one of five brothers born on the Tullymoan farm in Urney, County Tyrone in the 1760s. Now I had to go back to the Will to find out more about this degenerate relative! How did he get from Urney farmer to father of ‘reputed’ children in Jamaica?

When I re-read the will, now with more interested eyes, it actually got worse! From my reading of it, ‘reputed’ daughter Eleanor is currently living with them in Mellmount:

“...should she wish to remain with the family to get her board gratis and five pounds annually for nothing in lieu of interest”

Is this possible? James had brought an illegitimate child into the family under the roof of poor Charlotte, his wife! When did she arrive? James had lived in Jamaica since the early 1800s. He seems to have returned to Ireland with his family in the late 1830s. Did James arrive with wife Charlotte, seven children and reputed daughter Eleanor?

The Penny Drops

It didn't take long before the next thought penetrated. James Sproule owned plantations in Jamaica, and those plantations had slaves. Was the mother, or perhaps mothers, of the two reputed children actually slaves?

I now had a mission. I wanted to trace my two cousins, Eleanor Sproule and Jane Sproule, both born in Jamaica, and both possibly the children of slaves.

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* EPISODE 2 of this story-  In Jamaica - James and Other Sproules

For More Information:

1. The will of   James Sproule of Mellmount and Jamaica  
2. James Sproule and his four brothers - The Amazing Journeys of The Adventuring Sproules
3. Brother of James Sproule - Samuel Sproule, President of the Medical Board of Bombay

Tyrone, Bombay and Jamaica - Family Connections

At this point, I knew that my great, great grandfather was Andrew Sproule of Tullymoan, Urney, County Tyrone, and that he had married Rebecca Mackey in the mid-1790s. I had discovered the whole story of Samuel Sproule who had gone from the same County Tyrone farm all the way to Bombay in 1797. But I was also following other strands of Sproule travellers, more clues and evidence, and I was slowly coming to an even more amazing conclusion!

Who was Young Samuel?

I was chasing down Samuel Sproule, who had been Head of the Medical Board in Bombay, when things got very confusing!  In the early 1800s there was plenty of evidence of Samuel Sproule in Bombay, and there was more of him in the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s. This was very strange indeed since Samuel Sproule had died in 1829! There had to be two Samuel Sproules!  It was tricky to sort them out because the information was almost identical. Both Samuels were in the East India Company, both were doctors and both were working in Bombay! Two Doctor Samuel Sproules, it  was too much of a coincidence!1

They overlapped slightly. Young Samuel seemed to have arrived just as the first Samuel was leaving. Who was Young Samuel? Samuel Sproule Senior had only one legitimate child, a daughter named Ann Jane. Young Samuel could not be a son of Samuel Senior. Was it possible, then, that he had come from Ireland, and that was he was a nephew or some other relative?  I went back to hunt for Young Samuel Sproule in my trusty list of Sproule births, marriages and deaths of that time. I not only found him, I found his parents!

DIED Anne Sproule 19 June 1847

On the 12th inst., at Glentimon, Anne, relict of the late Mr. William Sproule, and mother to Samuel Sproule, Esq., M.D., Surgeon of the Civil Service, Ahmeibad, Bombay 2

Young Samuel Sproule had definitely come from County Tyrone, and his parents were William and Anne Sproule. Now this was exciting! Could it be that Young Samuel was a nephew of Samuel Sproule of Tullymoan and Bombay? In that case, Young Samuel’s father, William Sproule, would be another Tullymoan brother! This would be three brothers, Andrew, William and Samuel.

The Jamaica Connection

At the other side of the world was a different strand of Sproules with a more tenuous connection to my family. One of the first pages that I had looked at in the County Tyrone Genealogy Website concerned a James Sproule of Mellmount. The page contained a full transcription of his will written in 1840. It made fascinating reading! Mellmount is near Strabane in County Tyrone, but the will of James Sproule was full of ‘reputed children’ and plantations in Jamaica!

This rang a bell for me, as we had a story in our family lore about Jamaica.  It was said that an Andrew Sproule, an uncle of ours, had gone to Jamaica and that he had made his fortune there. I thought the Jamaica connection might be worth investigating!

I began to research in Jamaica. James Sproule was recorded as a landowner from 1817, in a parish called St Thomas in the East. His property was Rose Mount, and he is recorded there right up until his death in 1840.

But James was not the only Sproule landowner in Jamaica, there were two of them.  The story almost mirrors the Bombay situation with the two overlapping Sproules. The second Sproule here was a Robert Sproule, and he seemed to be younger than James. Robert was in a different parish of Jamaica, one called St George, and he had his own plantation there from 1838. Since he was in a different plantation, I thought it unlikely that this Robert was a son of James of Mellmount. Could Robert be yet another County Tyrone Sproule, again possibly a nephew or another relative? 3

Are They the Same Family?

At this point, I began to believe that all of these adventuring Sproules were from the same family! It looked to me as if James, William, Samuel and Andrew of Tullymoan could well be brothers, and that Robert and Young Samuel could be the children of these brothers. It was an amazing conclusion to reach! Simple farmers in County Tyrone in the late 1700s, senior medical personnel in Bombay and affluent plantation owners in Jamaica – all of the same family! 

I had no firm proof as yet, but there was one piece of evidence that had led me to this ‘definite maybe’!

It came when I had learnt the identities of my great, great grandparents, and I cross checked these with the will of James of Mellmount. In his will, James names his brother Andrew, Brother Andrew’s wife Rebecca, and their son, James. The first box was ticked! My great, great grandfather was Andrew, his wife was Rebecca and their son, my great grandfather, was James!

The second box was only half ticked! In his will, James of Mellmount tells us that he did indeed have a brother named William.  Could this be the same William Sproule who was the father of Young Samuel? But disappointment here!  In James Sproule’s will, Brother William’s wife was called Mary, and I knew that Young Samuel’s mother was definitely Anne.  On the other hand, James of Mellmount was in Jamaica, a long way from Ireland. Could he simply have got his sister-in-law’s name wrong? Or was this a completely different family? 4

Brothers or not brothers? That was the question,  and it was driving me crazy!

And then I got the will of Samuel Sproule, Head of the Medical Board of Bombay. All was revealed!

References:

1   FIBIS, Families in British India Society, Database

²   The Londonderry Sentinel 1829 – 1869

³   Jamaica Family Search, Genealogy Research Library, collection of Almanacs

⁴   County Tyrone Genealogy Website The Will of James Sproule of Mellmount


For more information:

• Samuel Sproule, Head of the Medical Board of Bombay

Next Chapter

• The Amazing Journeys of The Adventuring Sproules