CHAPTER VII

 

PATRICK INGLIS

 

PATRICK, the second surviving son of John Inglis and Katha­rine Nisbet, was baptized at Edinburgh on April 3, 1701. He was trained in his father’s office, and was admitted a notary on July 9, 1719. On his father’s death in 1731 he succeeded to Langbyres and Monkshead, and next year he went to London and emigrated to Jamaica, where he was Registrar of Chancery until his death in November 1737. 1

The circumstances of his marriage are unknown. His wife’s Christian names were Anna Maria, and presumably her surname was Rigby, for their only child, baptized on March 6, 1737, 2 was called John Rigby Inglis, and her son by her second marriage was Francis Rigby Broadbelt.

Before emigrating Patrick had borrowed £550 sterling from his brother Archibald on security of Langbyres and Monkshead,3 as well as £200 on note of hand, and although he left £2284 the debt was never repaid, so in 1747 Archibald made up a title to the lands after a lengthy process of adjudica­tion against his nephew.4

Patrick’s widow married a Mr. Daniel Broadbelt, one of the Masters in Chancery, and John Rigby Inglis was sent home to Scotland to be educated by his uncle, George Inglis,

 

         1 General Register Office, Jamaica, Register of St. Catharine’s, vol. i. p. 231.

           2 lb., i. 74.

3  Register of Deeds (Mackenzie), October 12, 1738.

           4Morison’s Dictionary, p. 9073; G. R. S., vol. 189, p. 4.

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who entered him at Dalkeith Grammar School, and in 1755 apprenticed him to a Dr. Macfarlane.

Mr. and Mrs. Broadbelt threw over their responsibilities, and ceased to contribute towards the boy’s support. On October 26, 1756 he died at the age of nineteen—’ the worthy Son of a worthy Father,’ as his uncle George recorded. Mr. George took legal steps to recover the money due for his maintenance, but without avail, and he wrote to the step­father:

‘If my nephew had been spared he must have been sorry to find that more than two years had past without hearing from his friends in Jamaica. However Providence has otherwise disposed of him, and whilst he lived his friends here took care of him both in point of educa­tion and otherwise equal to his merit and his outmost desire.’