Merchant houses

William Mackenzie & Co (Demerara)

The firm of William Mackenzie & Co of Stabroek, Demerara, had four partners: William Mackenzie and James Crawford Macleod in Demerara; and George Baillie and John Jaffray in St Vincent. Their Demerara sale room, where slaves were auctioned, was in the recently established Cumingsburg district of the town.

Macleod and Mackenzie sold enslaved Africans brought to the Caribbean by George Baillie & Co of St Vincent. William Mackenzie also had interests in Trinidad, in the partnership of Mackenzie, Rigby & Co.

Donald Mackay, from Inverness, worked as a clerk with Mackenzie & Co from 1802 until the firm was placed in the hands of trustees in 1806. Their failure was the the result of the financial problems of George Baillie.

Both Macleod and Mackenzie returned to Britain in 1807 and were in London in 1810 as legal proceedings, following their bankruptcy, progressed.

It has not been possible to establish William Mackenzie's family connections but his partnership with Macleod and Baillie suggests a Highland origin.