Henry Laird junior

Owner of Prospect & Woodlands in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, and probably the grandson of Henry Laird of St Elizabeth (d. 1801) and nephew of James Laird the physician and geologist. Shown as of Bognor in correspondence with the Commissioners of Slave Compensation.

1. Possibly the Henry Laird whose death was registered Q3 1850 at Chichester Sussex. The will of Henry Laird of St Elizabeth, County of Cornwall, Island of Jamaica proved 31/12/1801 is almost certainly that of his grandfather: it left his residuary estate to his sons Henry and James.  Henry Laird of Jamaica who died c. 1801 is shown as the father of James Laird (b. 1779), one of four medical men among the 13 founders of the Geological Society in 1807 and the first Secretary of the Society. James Laird graduated from Edinburgh in 1803, was appointed physician to Guy's in 1813 but resigned in 1824 on account of ill-health, 'and settled in Bognor, Sussex', dying in 1840. James' brother Henry is shown as dying c. 1817. To date no will has been found for either Henry Laird or James Laird, or for Henry Laird junior.

T71/870 St Elizabeth claim no. 562; T71/1608 Henry Laird Bognor to the Commissioners 23/09/1835; T71/1592 Commission to Henry Laird Bognor 24/09/1835.

1. FreeUKGen, England and Wales Free BMD Database, Deaths, 1837-1983 [database online]; PROB 11/1367; Cherry L.E. Lewis 'Doctoring geology: the medical origins of the Geological Society', Geological Society Special Publications v. 317 2009 ('The making of the Geological Society of London') pp. 47-72, an dip 85-86, where Henry Laird son of Henry Laird d. 1801 was shown as dying c. 1817 in Jamaica; A Sakula, 'Gentlemen of the Hammer: British medical geologists in the 19th century', Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Vol. 83 December 1990, pp. 788-794.