Henry Halket (Glasgow)

Henry Halket was a Glasgow merchant who married in Glasgow but was in Demerara from at least 1823, when he was president of the colony’s Board of Orphans. In 1834 he was attorney for the Glasgow merchants Bogle, King & Co on a number of estates and personally received compensation for emancipation, along with James Dunlop, for 78 enslaved people on plantation Maria's Lodge. He had returned to Glasgow by 1837 and died there in 1843 [Will SC36/48/31]

He married Margaret McDonald and their son, Alexander McDonald Halket, matriculated at Glasgow University in 1843 and later became a minister in the English Presbyterian Church, Liverpool. Their daughter, Henrietta, lived with her brother and his wife in Liverpool. [Census returns]

The firm of Halket, Dunlop & Co traded in Demerara in 1822. It is likely that Margaret Halket, who married George Falconer in Demerara in this year ‘assisted by her friends Mr And Mrs Dunlop’, was a sister of Henry. [Guiana Chronicle & Demerara Gazette, 3 June 1822]