Comparing and Contrasting Castle's Great House Trelawny and St. James’s Montpelier Estate

Comparative Essay Two Images
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Comparative Essay Two Images
Introduction
This essay will compare two images (Bryan Castle, Great House Trelawny, and Montpelier Estate, St. James’s) from James Hakewill’s A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica (1825). The paper will compare the two images of the estates using proprietorship, history, acreage, and cultivation as grounds for comparison. While both estates entailed extensive agricultural activities mainly performed by Negro workers, they had different owners, histories, acreage sizes, and cultivation practices. This paper’s thesis is: Bryan Castle Estate was initially founded as a domicile but later took a more agricultural pursuit after changing ownership as opposed to the Montpelier Estate, whose original owner bore express long-term agricultural interests from the beginning.
Body
Proprietorship and History
The Bryan Castle Great House, Trelawny (St. Ann Parish), was founded in 1793 by Bryan Edwards, Esq., but was later sold to the late Alexander Donaldson, Esq., before passing again into the ownership of Alexander Grant, John Meek, and Joseph Green, Esqrs., who were the nominated trustees of the property as per the will of the previous owner. The Bryan Castle Great house was built by then British politician Bryan Edwards. However, by the time the painting of the building was finished in the early 1880s, the residence had already been sold to Alexander Donaldson. The house was situated on a hill and therefore commanded a rather commanding view of the 1402-acre estate. However, unlike other estates in Jamaica, it appears that its original owner had founded the establishment more as a domicile rather than a farm for commercial uses expressly. For instance, after the death of Bryan Edwards’ father, one of his wealthy uncles decided to spare no expense on his education, and the former would pursue an academic and political career without any specific agricultural interest. Mr. Edwards became the heir of the significant property after Mr. Hume, who became more of a wealthy merchant than a farmer. He would later leave Jamaica for England in 1976 to run for a parliamentary seat for the Borough of Grampound.[James Hakewill, A Picturesque Tour in the Island of Jamaica, from Drawings Made in 1820 and 1821. (London, 1825).]
Mr. Edwards was an English MP until his death, which occurred in his English home in Polygon, near Southampton, 1800. He was also a distinguished scholar, mainly focusing on his experiences as an estate owner in Jamaica. For instance, his proposition concerning the slave trade, especially his performance “History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies,” was well-regarded. His straightforward and elegant writing style was praised for its insightfulness founded on long experience and observation. On the whole, most of the agricultural developments on Bryan Castle Estate are assumed to have been implemented by succeeding owners who were more likely to have bought the property with agrarian interests in mind.[Ibid, 48.]
On the other hand, Montpelier Estate was purchased sometime before 1775 by John Ellis, Esq. the father to the present owner, Charles Ellis, Esq. M.P., and entirely settled by him by the year 1775. Before John Ellis, Esq. settled in the area, the region was known as the Old Works’ Estate and was covered with native wood, which Mr. Ellis cleared and commenced, setting the whole valley with settlements and richly cultivated lands. Consequently, unlike the Bryan Castle Estate House, which has initially been inherited rather than bought, the Montpelier Estate was purchased from an unestablished owner (although the section of the estate in Hannover Parish had a previous owner by the name Shettlewood, a gentleman from whom Mr. Ellis bought the land and whose current owner has since extended it). Besides, unlike Mr. Edward’s (the Bryan Castle Great House), Mr. Ellis founded the Montpelier Estate with long-term agrarian, commercial interests.[Ibid, 51.]
The buildings on both parts of the estate in St. James Parish and the Hannover Parish are of stone, which was relatively easy to source in the region. The hill on which the Montpelier Estate is founded and which is a remarkable feature in the surrounding land area i...