James McInroy

For family tree see James McInroy on Ancestry (subscription required)

James McInroy (1759-1825) was born in Moulin, near Pitlochry, and came to Demerara in 1782.

By 1790 he was joined by Samuel Sandbach, Charles Stewart Parker and George Robertson, and the company, McInroy Sandbach & Co. was founded. At first the head office was in Glasgow under the name McInroy Parker & Co., and in 1804 a branch was founded in Liverpool, which later became the company headquaters. In 1813 Philip Tinne was taken into the partnership and the company became known as Sandbach, Tinne & Co in Liverpool, and McInroy Sandbach & Co in Demerara (in 1861 changed to Sandbach Parker & Co).

In 1797 James McInroy married Elizabeth Moore from St Eustatia, daughter of William Moore (1759–1837) and Adriana Heyliger (1764–1848). He bought the estate of Lude, Blair Atholl, about 1820 and died there in 1825. He was the father of James Patrick McInroy [1799-1878] of Lude and William McInroy of The Burn, Fettercairn [1804-96], both of whom received compensation at emancipation.

James McInroy has a 'mixed race' daughter Grace Ann (b.c.1796) to whom he left £400. She may have been the daughter of Catherine McInroy who in 1817 was a free woman in Demerara.

James Patrick McInroy became a partner in Sandbach, Tinne & Co.

Memorial at Kilmaveonaig Church, Blair Atholl

Mr McInroy, in spite of his kilt, is but a mushroom laird (his father bought it from the Robertsons forty years ago, which is but a grain in the hour-glass in a country where every other chieftain in descended from Fergus MacFungus) though, for the matter of that, the kilt is rather a sign of an Englishman, or at all events town.

Beatrix Potter, 1892