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Note: N20443 This makes him born in 1729, the same year as his mother was born!
Deaths abroad:
At sea, Alexander Donaldson, esq., of Jamaica. Lately, in America, in his 78th year.
(The European Magazine: And London Review, Volume 51. 1807.)
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[Died] At sea, on his passage to England, for the recovery of his health, Alexander Donaldson, esq. of Jamaica.
(Gentleman’s Magazine. May 1807)
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Mentioned as nephew in 1801 entail of his uncle.
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Little is known about Donaldson’s personal life before his acquisition of Orange Vale. Beginning in 1786, he appeared as a party in several indentures, many with his then partner Alexander Thomson, all related to business in the acquisition of land and enslaved Africans (Index to Grantees 1786, 1788, 1792, 1794, 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802).
Originally from England, Donaldson moved to Jamaica sometime around mid-1780s and set up a legal and financial firm in Jamaica, along with his London partner Alexander Thomson. The firm basically provided financial backing for individuals interested in borrowing funds to finance their various ventures, usually acquiring loans to purchase property in Jamaica. By 1794, a third partner, Alexander Forbes, joined the firm, which then became Donaldson, Thomson, and Forbes.
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Donaldson’s nephews – Alexander Donaldson Cameron, John Alexander Cameron, Robert Annstruther, and John Annstruther – filed suit hoping to collect their inheritance. According to the will, Donaldson’s instructed his executors and trustees to give annual allowances to his nephews and his mother, Janet Donaldson, with a continual investment of the remaining monies.
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But what of Donaldson’s personal life? Though limited and vague, Donaldson’s will provided the most information on his personal life. He was one of three children by then widow Janet Donaldson, along with his two sisters Mary and Anna. Mary Donaldson married David Annstruther and they had two children, Robert and John. Anna married Peter Cameron and also had two sons, John Alexander and Alexander Donaldson, named after his uncle. His will provided an annual income of £1,000 to his mother in four equal sums each year. His nephews, all minors at the time of his death, were due to receive £500 annually when they were under 21 years of age, and £3,000 thereafter.
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The 1840 Jamaica Almanac for parish of St. George, has:
Donaldson, Alex., heirs of, Lowlayton, 2045 acres
Donaldson, Alex., heirs of, Orange Vale, 1217 acres
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Alexander Donaldson of Kingston Jamaica is mentioned in 1787 as attorney for Samuel Kemble and Walter Spens.
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...prominent, was Alexander Donaldson, who held the contract to supply provisions to the island garrison and naval station, and also traded with the Spaniards of ...
(Jamaica and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt 1791.)
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(Dates don’t quite make sense, or does “then” mean “afterwards”?):
In the " In-giving " for 1810, and for another thirty years or more, in the " Jamaica Almanac," Stoakes Hall was owned by the trustees of Alexander Donaldson. In 1810, it had 263 slaves and 169 head of stock. Stoakesfield was then owned by Peter Wallace.
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Bryan Castle, Jamaica was acquired by Bryan Edwards in or before 1792. It is within three miles of the port of Rio Bueno. It afterwards became by purchase the property of Alexander Donaldson, whose estate went into bankruptcy, and is now in the possession of the heirs of Mr. A. W. Gordon.
(Historic Jamaica : With fifty-two illustrations. 1924.)
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Death, 1807:
At sea, on his passage to England, for the recovery of his health, Alexander Donaldson, esq. of Jamaica.
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In 1802 Jamaica contractor Alexander Donaldson ran into financial difficulties.
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Pursuant to a Decree of the. High Court of Chancery, made in a Cause Thomson against Grant, the Creditors
of Alexander Donaldson,, late of Warwick-Square, in the City of London, and of the Island of Jamaica, Merchant
(who died in or about the month of .March 1807, and was formerly in partnership with George Glenny, of the City of London, Merchant, under the firm of, Donaldson and Glenny, and afterwards with the plaintiff, Alexander Thomson, under the firm of Donaldson and Thomson, are by their Solicitor's forthwith to come in and prove their debts, before William Alexander, Esq. one of the Masters of the said Court, at his Chambers, in Southampton-Buildings, Chancery-Lane, Londn, or in default thereof they will be excluded the benefit of the said Decree.
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Situated two km west of the Buff Bay River, near the base of the Blue Mountains in the parish of St. George (now Portland), the ruins of Orange Vale plantation reminds us of the agony of Jamaica's legacy of slavery. To the immediate east of Orange Vale's boundary lies property belonging to the Moore Town Maroons. Orange Vale operated from the late 1700s until its abandonment in 1847, and was an example of the thriving mono-crop coffee industry that supplemented the slave economy of "king sugar," once common in the mountainous regions of Jamaica. The site was initially owned by John Elmslie, a "London proprietor," from 1782 until 1807.
Orange Vale then passed into the ownership of Alexander Donaldson from 1807-1817, then to his "heirs" upon his death, who apparently maintained ownership until it was abruptly abandoned in 1847. At that time, the property was then split up and sold to the Bragg and Welsh families.
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Alexander Donaldson London and Jamaica merchant, who (apparently optimistically) left monetary legacies of at least £100,000 in his will, made in 1805. Alexander Donaldson, mortgagee-in-possession of Brampton Bryan and Bryan Castle [estates in teh parish of Trelawney, Jamaica], foreclosed against Richard Grant and others in 1805-6, and died in March 1807 on passage to England. The compensation was paid into the Chancery suit of Alexander Thom[p]son v Alexander Grant, in which the issue was whether mortgaged estates could be subject to strict settlement by the mortgagee, as Alexander Donaldson had attempted in his will. Richard Grant had been one of the executors of Bryan Edwards, the former owner of Brampton Bryan and Bryan Castle.
Among the many provisions of the will of Alexander Donaldson of Warwick Court in the City of London, proved 17/04/1807, were legacies of £10,000 each to two reputed sons, John Donaldson the son of Mary Elizabeth Clark late of St Domingo but then of Jamaica and Alexander Donaldson the son of Sarah Hudson of London. He left an annuity of £1000 p.a. charged on his estates in Jamaica to his honoured mother Janet Donaldson. Among his ten trustees to whom he left his estates and enslaved people in Jamaica were Sir William Grant Master of the Rolls, John Lord Newark, George Glenny and Alexander Thomson [later described as 'my present partner'] of London and Alexander Grant of Jamaica, with the instructions to hold them for at least 21 years after his death and maintain the numbers of 'negroes' on them, to pay out of the profits the £1000 annuity to his mother and an annuity of £3000 (or £500 while under 21) to the person entitled to the profits under his will: this was determined by an intail male, first to Robert Anstruther and his heirs, the son of his [the testator's] sister the Hon. Mary Anstruther by her husband the Hon. David Anstruther with remainder to her second son John Ashford Anstruther and his heirs, and then his [the testator's] nephew John Alexander Cameron son of his sister Anna Cameron by Peter Cameron, and then to her next son Alexander Donaldson Cameron, on the proviso they and any other heir took the name Donaldson. He provided very detailed terms governing the entail, including a limit (£800 p.a.) on what the life tenant could charge on his estate for his wife by way of jointure. He placed £30,000 in trust for each of his sisters Mary Anstruther and Anna Cameron for life and then to their children (his nephews and nieces), to whom he also left £5000 each. He left a further £20,000 in trust for his niece Margaret Holt, giving her the power to direct the income as she saw fit during her life and to dispose of the principal in her own will; and £5000 in trust to his cousin Margaret Stewart [?] wife of Admiral John Stewart [?] of Dawlish in Devon. Administration of the will was granted to Alexander Grant in 1818.
Alexander Donaldson had both overestimated his assets and underestimated his debts, so that the legacies above were over-taken by litigation.
Sources
Henry Maddock, Thomas Charles Geldart, Sir Thomas Plumer, John Leach, Report of cases argued and determined in the Court of the Vice Chancellor (IV, London, W. Clarke and Sons, 1821) pp. 438-447: the case of Thompson vs Grant.
(https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146631898/)
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