Community researcher – Diane Blake
St David’s had one known slave-owner: in 1935, Martha Moody was awarded compensation of £35 9s 10d (£35.49) for one enslaved person on a British Guiana Estate. Her family had a long involvement with sugar plantations and slavery in the West Indies.
Martha was born in Barbados where her father, Richard Clement, had two plantations, Black Bess and Clement Castle. They owned over four hundred slaves. Her maternal grandfather, Thomas Dougan also ran a plantation called Middlesex at Demerara in British Guiana and owned ninety- seven enslaved people.
In 1809, Martha married Thomas Moody in Barbados. He was a British Army Officer working for the British Colonial Office in the West Indies where he also acquired plantations. Martha had seven children whilst living in Barbados and British Guiana.
In 1822, the UK Parliament appointed Thomas Moody and John Dougan (Martha’s uncle), to investigate the situation of those who had been indentured with a view to determining future slave policies in the West Indies. This work was likely to have created family divisions. John Dougan thought the indentured slaves should be freed, whilst Thomas felt that they should be returned to an island off the coast of West Africa to be monitored. Thomas’ recommendation was never implemented.
Around 1820, the family moved to England and Martha had a further three children. Following the Slade Trade Act 1807, the British Navy intercepted illegal slave ships from Africa and the slaves were taken into the armed services or indentured for a maximum of fourteen years.
Following her husband’s death in 1849, Martha moved to 7, Bystock Terrace in St David’s with her two unmarried daughters, Susan and Clementina, and lived there for about three years. Her family had connections to Devon. Her uncle John Dougan had married a woman from Plymouth and then lived in Teignmouth. As Martha’s son Shute Barrington was born in Teignmouth in 1818, it is possible that Martha was staying at her uncle’s home at this time.
Three of Martha’s sons went on to have prominent careers. Richard Clement Moody became the founder of British Columbia and the first British Governor of the Falkland Islands. James Leith Moody served as a chaplain to the Royal Navy in China and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta and the Crimea. Shute Barrington Moody continued the family heritage by becoming an expert for Parliament in sugar manufacturing in the West Indies. Martha died in 1868 and was survived by six of her children.