Name Thomas Hibbert | Died 1780, Jamaica | |
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Thomas Hibbert (1710–1780) was an English merchant and plantation and slave-owner who became a prominent Jamaican.
Born into a family owning cotton mills which supplied barter goods to businesses in the slave-trade, Thomas was the first of the Hibbert family to settle in Jamaica, arriving in 1734 (his youngest brother, John (1732-1769), also lived in Jamaica, from 1754 until his death; his other brother, Robert, was father of Thomas, a co-founder of the family trading business Hibbert, Purrier and Horton, and merchant and pro-slavery campaigner George Hibbert). His original remit was to redeem the bonds of slave traders at the point at which they sold their slaves in Kingston.
In 1754, he completed work on building Hibbert House which won a competition as the finest house in Kingston. Rather than marrying, Thomas cohabited with Charity Harry, by whom he had three daughters. The youngest died whilst still young, but Jane and Margaret were sent to have an Anglican education in England. Margaret died while still at school.