Cumnock to Demerara

By Kay McMeekin, additional research by Roberta McGee

Demerara is now part of Guyana on the north coast of South America. It was under the Dutch until 1815 when the British took over. There were many sugar plantations, worked by slaves until the abolition of slavery in 1833. *

Our story starts in 1847 when Cumnock born Marion McCowan Crawford married sugar planter Alexander Stewart in Felicity House, Demerary. He was 12 years her senior. Marion was the youngest daughter of James Crawford 1773 -1860 a banker in Cumnock and his wife Mary Wylie. I have found out little about him other than this;

 "Jas. Crawford, Esq., Banker, Cumnock, a Director of the Ayr and Dumfries Junction Railway." Glasgow Courier - Thursday 13 November 1845 accessed via British Newspaper Archive.

How Marion came to meet her husband Alexander Stewart who was born in Comrie, Perthshire is unknown. His father was Peter Stewart an innkeeper.

Their first known  daughter Marie Antoinette was born at the Lusignan plantation in 1850. Their next daughter Annie Marion was born in Cumnock in 1853 and their third daughter Elizabeth Stewart was born in Lusignan. n 1858, son Alexander Robertson Stewart was  born at 10 Scotland Street, Edinburgh Newington. His father, Alexander, was a sugar planter in Demerara and the birth was registered by a nurse. This suggests that Marion crossed the Atlantic at least 4 times. 

By the 1861 census Alexander was a retired sugar planter aged 60 and they are all living Northumberland House, 5 Gallowgate Street in Largs, Ayrshire

In 1871 Mary Antoinette is staying in Cumnock with Crawford aunts and uncle. The rest of the family is at Galvelmore Street, Crieff in Perthshire.

By the 1881 census the family is settled at 6 Dryden Place in Edinburgh.

Alexander died in Dryden Place in Edinburgh in 1879 of gout. Marion died at the same address in 1892 aged 68.

When Alexander Stewart made his Will with Messrs Tait & Crichton, Edinburgh, in 1854 he appointed the following as Executors/Guardians/Tutors/Curators to the children. 

Marion McCowan Stewart (wife)

Robert Arnott, Merchant in Crieff, Perthshire

Thomas Forrester, civil engineer in Georgetown, Demerara. Thomas died in 

Demerara and they appointed Charles Mackinley, merchant in Leith in 11/5/1865. 

He died and in 1870 and they appointed James Arthur Crichton Esq., advocate.

Hew Crichton, solicitor, Supreme Courts in Scotland, residing Edinburgh

Hew Hamilton Crichton, Writer to the Signet, also residing in Edinburgh

The Will ‘excludes the Administrator General of Demerara & Essequibo and any others from the Administration of our estates or from any interference as well as of guardianship of our minor heirs.’ So Alexander emigrated to Australia 

He entrusted Robert Crawford, sometime writer in Cumnock, now writer in Edinburgh with his Life Insurance Policy of £400. He left £80 each to his unmarried sisters but cancelled it when they married. More codicils followed as the years went by. When Mary Antoinette married he paid £240 16/10d for her outfit then deducted it from her inheritance. In 1878 they were unhappy with their eldest son Alexander Robertson Stewart who ‘has not of late been conducting himself to our satisfaction’ so he deducted £800 from his inheritance until he improved. Alexander R. emigrated to Australia, found employment with the Union Bank of Australia in Melbourne, married artist Laura Gertrude Beauchamp in Tasmania in 1890, had a family and died there in January 1905.

Another interesting detail about Alexander’s Will is the Crichton family of solicitors who were mentioned. The father of Hew Crichton, head of the firm of Tait & Crichton, who drew up the Will, was Adam Crichton, Factor to the Marquis of Bute. Hew was born in Cumnock and owned and lived in Hillside House where Cumnock Academy was built. His son Hew Hamilton Crichton, Writer to the Signet, built Hamilton Place, in Cumnock. He was unmarried and when he died he left his fortune to his sister Margaret. Margaret funded the erection of the Crichton Memorial Church in Ayr Road in memory of her father and brother.  

Another link to Cumnock is the Van Cooten story. Hilbert Van Cooten married Cumnock girl Jean McGlashan. His family estate, Vryheid’s Lust in Demerara, is only approximately 25 miles from the Lusignan Estate where the Stewarts lived. 

* From http://www.jahajeesisters.org/our-history.html

1838:  Approximately 17,439 slaves gain freedom in Trinidad.  Approximately 69, 579 slaves gain freedom in British Guyana. – An exodus of the ex-slaves off the plantations. – A critical shortage of labor - Without cheap labor the plantations would collapse.

1834:  Immigration schemes are introduced to Trinidad and Guyana to try to solve the post-emancipation labor shortages in the British West Indies (BWI).  Laborers were brought from other parts of the West Indies, Portugal, Europe (Ireland, Scottland, Germany, Sweden, France), Americans from Pennsylvania and Baltimore, China, Manderia, Azores, Malta, West Africa and India.

1838 (May 5):  The first ship of Indians aboard the Whitby and Hesperus land in Guyana with 396 Indians, 22 of which are women.

1845:  In Trinidad, imported labor from British West Indies, Madeira, and Europe is halted and Indians are brought there for the first time.

1850’s-1900’s:   Indians are coerced by Estate Owners into staying in Guyana through the exchange of their return passage to India after their 5 year contracts have expired, for a plot of land and a cow.  Most oblige, although some do return back.