Planters & merchants from Caribbean islands: Thomas Austin

Col Thomas Austin [1729-1806] of Barbados owned at least two plantations in Guyana. He received a grant of Spring Garden, on the river Demerary, in 1748 and by 1762 he also owned a plantation in Essequebo. He married three times and had seventeen children, all born in Barbados, of whom four sons and one daughter died in Guyana. A fifth son, Dr John Austin, was co-owner of a plantation there but died in Philadelphia.

These children are as follows:

William [1759-1819] became the co-owner of Land of Plenty in Essequibo, along with his younger half-brother Dr John Austin [1771-1838].

Col Thomas Austin (1729-1806)

Thomas [1762-97] died at Low Lands, on the east sea coast of Demerara, and the following year, 1798, this was also in the hands of his half-brother Dr John Austin. By this time their father’s Spring Garden was an abandoned plantation. Dr John’s third wife, who he met and married in Demerara, was Mrs Mary Parkinson, née Reading, the widow of William Parkinson.

Edward Austin [1779-1825], Henry Timothy Thornhill Austin [1790-1838] and Frances [b1781] all died in Demerara and were buried in Georgetown.