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10 Thursday July 9, 2020 Eskdale & Liddesdale Advertiser www.eladvertiser.co.uk
The despicable career
Practice

manager

of the Slave Captain

THERE is a change of personnel
at Newcastleton Health Centre
this month.
After five years as practice
manager, Debbie Thomson has
left to take up a new post in
Jedburgh. Local historian investigates Langholm’s slavery connections
She is succeeded by Hawick-
born Cameron Scott, who has LANGHOLM’S connection carry only 80 slaves and, there- On his arrival in Liverpool,
been practice manager at the with the transatlantic slave fore, had a crew of only eight he was reunited with his wife
O’Connell Street Surgery for trade more than two centuries men. and his son, James, who had
four years. ago has no greater link than On May 3 the ship left been born on December 4, 1789.
This means the number of with James Irving, ship’s sur- Liverpool for Africa but 24 days However, it was not long
men working at the Copshaw geon and slave ship captain. later got into trouble off the before Irving was given the
centre has now doubled but, Billy Young has looked into Atlantic coast of Morocco when command of The Ellen, another
sadly, for Dr Howard Kennedy Irving’s involvement with this rough seas ripped off its rudder, ship owned by John Dawson.
Cameron isn’t a football fan so repugnant trade for the E&L flooded its decks and it ran His crew of 27 included Thomas
he’ll still have to discuss dubious Advertiser. aground on rocks. Patton, Joseph Winters and
penalties with himself. His primary source was the Captured James Bailey.
book Slave Captain, The Career Irving wrote to his parents on
____________________ of James Irving in the Liverpool Irving and his men got ashore January 2, 1791: "We have been
Slave Trade by Suzanne safely but were captured the very busy loading the vessel....
next day by Arabs and sold into
Telford’s Schwarz. slavery. We are bound for Annamaboe
in the Gold Coast, discharge
Some readers may find some
Irving wrote to his wife: "All
of Irving’s comments upsetting. our hopes and prospects are what goods we have for that
good to go in December 1759, the son of vanished." price and set sail from it again
Irving was born in Langholm
within 48 hours after we arrive.
He sent a letter to John
John Irving, a blacksmith, and Hutchinson, the British vice- Anomabo
Isobel Little.
VISITSCOTLAND, working In January 1782 he was consul at Mogador (modern- “Then we are to call at Lagos,
with Tourism Northern Ireland, employed as a surgeon on the day Essaouira), on June 24, Accra and other parts whose
VisitEngland and VisitWales, slave ship Prosperity, which 1789. name I have forget. We are then
has developed a new UK-wide sailed out of Liverpool. "I hope you can feel for us, to go down as far as Benin
industry standard and consumer The owner John Dawson was first suffering shipwreck, then River and stay a day or two and
mark to provide confidence for possibly the world’s leading seized on by a party of Arabs then go back to Anomabo from
visitors, communities and slave trader. It’s been claimed with outstretched arms and which place we are to sail for
tourism businesses. that during his career Dawson knives ready to stab us, next the West Indies."
Telford’s Coaches of New- was responsible for delivering stripped to the skin, suffering a They arrived at Annamaboe
castleton is proud to have been some 3,000 slaves to the thousand deaths daily, insulted, on April 5, 1791, before moving
awarded its VisitScotland We're Americas. spat upon, exposed to the sun onto Lagos and Accra. While
Good to Go status. It was normal for surgeons to and forced to travel through on the Gold Coast, Irving pur-
This means the team at be apprenticed aged 14 to 18 parched deserts." chased 341 Africans, 88 of
Telford’s have demonstrated and to spend between three and He pleaded with Hutchinson whom were transferred to other
that they are adhering to gov- seven years learning their trade. to "rescue us speedily from the ships.
ernment and public health guid- It’s conceivable that Irving most intolerable slavery". On 16th September, 1791 The
ance and have carried out a was apprenticed close to home The cover of Suzanne Schwarz’s book about James Irving Hutchinson successfully Ellen, with 253 slaves, sailed
COVID-19 risk assessment to with George Little, a surgeon negotiated his release and after for Trinidad. During the journey
check they have the required who lived near the family home arriving in Marrakesh in January 46 slaves died.
processes and protocols in place. in Langholm. midst of five or six hundred of sible and aware of the difficulties 1790, Irving told his wife: "I James Irving died of an
them.”
attending any new undertaking,
In November 1782 Irving trav- David Richardson, in The yet I will at least look around have now the pleasure to tell unspecified illness on December
____________________ elled to Jamaica under Captain Mariner's Mirror (1996), argued: me." you that after many difficulties 24, 1791, aged 32. He was the
William Wilson aboard the "Irving's insensitivity suggests In 1789 at the tender age of and inconceivable hardships sixth and final member of the
every one of us are got safe
crew to die on the voyage.
Waste now Vulture. that, even at a time when moral 29 Irving received his first cap- here in perfect health, and are
It’s likely he would have
taincy onboard the recently-built
outrage in Britain at the
earned about £140 from this enslavement of Africans was Anna. under the care of our humane Below: A slave ship off the coast
accepted voyage. He was paid £4 wages spreading, participation in the Under the terms of the Dolben who supplies us with clothes of Africa in the 1780s
vice-consul, Mr Hutchinson,
a month, together with the value
of two privilege slaves and one slave trade was still capable of Act, the ship was allowed to and the necessaries of life."
promoting racism and blinding
shilling “head money” for each otherwise apparently quite caring
MORE waste types are being of the 592 slaves delivered alive individuals to the appalling suf-
accepted at community recycling to the West Indies. fering that they were helping to
centres in the Scottish Borders. In May 1784 Irving returned inflict on others."
People can now add scrap to Langholm to buy a property
The next year he served under
metal, classed as a large general in the High Street. He entered William Sherwood on the
waste item, and bikes for reuse into a contract on June 24 to Princess Royal, a ship capable
at Hawick. The reuse cabin in buy a house from Peter Graham, of carrying up to 1,000 slaves
Hawick has also reopened. a blacksmith, and it’s likely this and was the largest slave ship
More information about the was an investment for his
cabin is at father’s use. owned by John Dawson and his
partner, Peter Baker. His ship
www.scotborders.gov.uk/reuse- John Irving subsequently con- took more than 800 slaves from
cabins verted the building into a public Africa to Havana.
Items continuing to be accept- house called The Buck Inn
In a letter to his wife in
ed are general waste, garden (Hotel) and ran it until his death December, 1786 he wrote: "We
waste, wood, large household in 1807. have been in Tobago since the
electrical and domestic appli- After his marriage to Mary 25th November and have not
ances, small household electrical Tunstall in Liverpool in July yet disposed of any of our very
appliances, rubble, fluorescent 1785, Irving sailed aboard Jane, disagreeable cargo.
tubes, car batteries and engine under captain Quayle Fargher, “I'm nearly wearied of this
oil. to Tobago. unnatural accursed trade, and
No other items are being ac- He wrote to his wife: “Our think... when convenience suits
cepted at this stage. black cattle are intolerably noisy of adopting some other mode
and I’m almost melted in the of life, although I'm fully sen-