P_10433_3054 – Robert Forbes
Robert Forbes (c. 1745-1829), merchant and shipbuilder of Gosport, co-owner with James Morison (q.v.) among others in the slaving voyage by the Gosport and Havre Packet in 1789 and co-owner with John St Barbe (q.v.) and James Morison and others of a well-documented slaving voyage by the Sandown in 1793. Robert Forbes was involved in the development of infrastructure in and around Gosport, including the Haslar Bridge (which he owned) and Bursledon Bridge.
Title: /
First name: Robert
Middle name: /
Last name: Forbes
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Primary cohort: London
Sex: Male
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Relations
Elizabeth Cobb
Spouse (married 24/04/1774)
Political Offices Held
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Bankruptcies
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Geographic experiences
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Internal migrant: Don't know
Foreign born: Don't know
Supplier to slave trade voyages: Don't know
Creditor to slave trade voyages: Don't know
Philanthropy: Don't know
Plantation owner: Don't know
Sources: London Gazette 20 December 1788Issue:13053Page:610. Robert Forbes & Co. advertised in 1788 as the agent for two new packets between Portsmouth Harbour and Le Havre, the Gosport & Havre and the Herald, London Gazette 10 May 1788Issue:12989Page:226. Bruce L. Mouser (ed.) A Slaving Voyage to Africa and Jamaica: the Log of the Sandown 1793-1794 (Bloomington, Indiana, 2002). PROB 11/1820/45. John Beswarick Thompson, “FORBES, CHARLES JOHN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 31, 2022, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/forbes_charles_john_9E.html.
Other Individuals
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Organisations
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Crossings (2)
83502 - Sandown (1793 - 1794)
Role: Owner
81632 - Gosport and Havre Packet (1789 - 1790)
Role: Owner
Birth
Date: 1745
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Death
Date: 19/07/1829
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Burial
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Schools
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Universities
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Inns of Court
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Military training
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Imperial positions
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Apprenticeships
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Livery company affiliations
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Other business activities
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Was slave trading profitable: Don't know
Will
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Courts: PCC
In the will of Robert Forbes late of Gosport but now of Corfu one of the Ionian Islands made 11/10/1821, he said: 'in the honest intention of increasingly fortune for the benefit of my family I was unfortunate and lost by contracts and the villainy of unprincipled men entrusted by me almost all I had been many years working for.' He had therefore little to leave his daughter Harriet, wife of Christopher Pew [?] Assistant Commissary General, and he ordered his gold watch to be sold to pay the costs of his interment. He left his other daughter Elizabeth Mary, wife of Charles Baguelman [?], another Assistant Commissary General his share in the Bursledon Bridge and Roads in the county of Southampton, and then her children, failing whom to a third daughter, Ursula, wife of Thos. Henry Liddle. He left his lifehold estate in property on the corner of Portland Place in Gosport to his son Charles John Forbes Assistant Commissary General; and to his son Robert Forbes, a RN Lieutenant he left his freehold house in Portland Place Gosport subject to the mortgages on it. He left debts owed to him for the purchase of materials and what he was owed for relinquishing his share in the Haslar Bridge to James Ive of Gosport; and a legacy of £50 left to him by his late partner Matthew Miller to his daughter Harriet.
Legacies
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