Barking Lodge

Barking Lodge
—  Village  —
Coordinates: 17°53′0″N 76°16′0″W
Country	Jamaica
County	Surrey
Parish	St. Thomas

Barking Lodge

Location of Barking Lodge in St Thomas, Jamaica

Barking Lodge, St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica (taken from a birth entry transcription by registrar W. Tilly, 1895)

Barking Lodge is a small village close to the south-east coast of the Caribbean island of Jamaica and located in the parish of St. Thomas within the county of Surrey.

Barking Lodge, neighbouring Springfield, New Pera, Rocky Point and Hampton Court

Barking Lodge was once a small sugar estate spanning 350 acres (1.4 km²) and worked by 150 slaves at the time of emancipation when the property belonged to Philip Forsyth and the heirs of Robert Lindsay, having been owned in 1811 by the heirs of Ambrose S. Carter.

Barking Lodge, St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica (taken from a birth entry transcription by registrar W. Tilly, 1895)

Ambrose S. Carter appears to have first settled the estate in the 1770s. Upon his death in the early 1790s, the plantation may have descended to the Forsyth and Lindsay families into whom Carter's daughters had married whilst other daughters made union with the Dickinson and Worsfold families. Sons of Carter's became proprietors of the Essex, Wilmington and Newmarket estates whilst another branch of the family settled at Bath.

The prevalence of the name Carter in this quarter of St Thomas may be attributed to the Carters' slaveholding. The names Carter, Forsyth and Lindsay are those native to Barking Lodge.

When sugar production was abandoned in 1847, Barking Lodge amalgamated with the nearby properties of Unity and Airy Mount under the ownership of Alexander Barclay who came to Jamaica from England in 1805 and authored A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies, an apologia for slavery.

Barclay led a notable public life, serving as Custos and Assemblyman for St. Thomas parish, then known as St. Thomas-in-the-East, but continues to spark controversy.

When the global financial institution Barclays Bank was accused of having historical links with the slave trade by which the firm profited, Alexander Barclay was presumed to be one of the slave-holding Barclays who had founded the company.

Though Barclays refute those accusations and claim categorically that there is no connection, members of the black community in America angrily protested in 2007 at the bank's sponsorship of the New Jersey Nets basketball arena located in the Brooklyn area, largely populated by Afro-Americans.

Friends of Barking Lodge Group

In late 2011, a group was proposed with the principal aims of collecting and preserving a wide range of sources relating to the village and as serving as a central point of contact for former and present residents. It is also hoped that a map and photographs of the village will be published. All interested parties are encouraged to make enquiries to barkinglodge[at]hotmail[dot]com to follow the progress of this group.