Ask Christine Wilkie what she remembers of her early childhood and she will describe a large estate house on stilts amid tropical blooms and palm trees. She was born in 1943 and lived on a sugar plantation called ‘Dekinderen’ that her father Alexander Weir managed. The estate was in Demerara, British Guiana, which became Guyana in 1966.
The area was known as “the land of mud and sugar” because the Demerara River often flooded, hence the stilts. “The rain came down in sheets,” Christine recalls. “I remember being left in a sandpit during a torrential downpour, bawling my eyes out until my mother rescued me.”
Christine’s mother Margot (née Turpin) experienced a complete culture shock when the family moved to Banffshire in north-east Scotland. Alexander was suffering from gastric problems and could no longer live in the tropics, so he decided to farm in Rothiemay not far from his childhood home.
“My sisters and I felt like fish out of water at the little village school in Scotland. The other children thought that we must be posh because we were born overseas, but our farmhouse was so cold in winter that we had to wear coats to go upstairs.”
Christine lives in Aberdeenshire today and is retired from her career as a social worker. In recent years, she began to feel more curious about her roots in Guyana and the Caribbean.
“My mother was born in 1918 on Barbados where her father Milton was a priest. In the 1920s, the family moved to Demerara where he became a canon. That is how my parents met. Mum told me that Milton’s father was Edmund Adolphus Turpin, archdeacon of St George’s Cathedral, Kingstown, on Saint Vincent. Archives revealed that Edmund was baptised on Barbados in 1851.
“Mum gave me a tattered old photograph of a baptismal font that was engraved with the words, ‘The Venerable EA Turpin’. It had been erected in memory of my great grandfather. Mum also believed that Edmund’s father Joseph Turpin could have been Bishop of Tobago.
“I wanted to know more about Joseph, but Mum couldn’t remember anything else. She passed away in 2008, after a series of strokes.”
In 2014, Christine and her husband David decided to visit Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on a quest to find answers. They spent time in the archives in Kingstown and found several references to Edmund, but none for Joseph. “We visited St George’s Cathedral and had our pictures taken next to the font, which was made of solid marble. I was thrilled to see the dedication to Edmund on its plinth.”
Three years later Christine tested her DNA with Ancestry, and was surprised to discover that she was 2 per cent West African.
“My American cousin Lois also has West African DNA, which we suspect could only have come from the Turpin line. We agreed that we might have links to slavery, that dark and dreadful humanitarian disgrace.
“I joined the Barbados Genealogy group on Facebook and asked if anyone had heard of the name Joseph Turpin. American genealogist Sandra Taitt-Eaddy contacted me and said that she had come across a Joseph Turpin who lived during the 19th century and worked as a carpenter. I was resistant to this and thought, ‘He can’t have been a carpenter, he was a bishop!’ The family myth was starting to disintegrate.”
Christine tested her DNA with Ancestry, and was surprised to discover that she
was 2 per cent West African.
In 2019, Christine and David holidayed in Barbados, on another fact-finding mission. Sandra had put her in contact with a retired professor, Sir Woodville Marshall, who had researched the free villages of Barbados. These were established when the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act made buying or selling slaves illegal in the British Empire.
“We visited Sir Woodville and he explained that a man called Joseph Turpin, and his half-brother William, were part of the squad that built the free village of Bridgefield. Both brothers were artisan carpenters who had been released from slavery. This was interesting, but I was still reluctant to give up the myth of ‘Bishop Joseph Turpin’.”
Christine’s brick wall came tumbling down when Sir Woodville replied to an email that she sent in 2020. Through his interest in Bridgefield, he had discovered a will made by Joseph Turpin in 1881 which named his children and grandchildren.
“The name of one of the sons screamed out at me. It was Edmund Adolphus Turpin, my great grandfather. It was a marvellous feeling to solve the mystery at last,” she reveals.
Christine’s elation at discovering her great great grandfather was tempered by deep sadness when she realised that Joseph had been enslaved. “I read the family memoir Sugar in the Blood by Andrea Stuart, which revealed the horrifying experiences of people enslaved on Barbados. Women were often raped by their white owners and other European settlers. Some of the men sold their mixed-race children to other plantation managers, cruelly separating them from their mothers. It was terrible to think that my ancestors might have experienced such abuse.”
Sandra’s research and Sir Woodville’s expert knowledge provided insight into Joseph’s life. He was born into slavery in around 1804, and lived on a plantation called New Castle. This was owned by a man named Thomas Best, and managed by a William Turpin. Wills in the Barbados National Archives in St James revealed that white Turpins had worked on the island since the 17th century.
Best had an enslaved servant called Rebecca who appeared consistently on slave registers with Joseph and William, and Christine worked out that she was probably Joseph’s mother. All three were baptised on the same day in 1807.
Christine is convinced that William Turpin was the boys’ father. Before he died in 1820 he sold Rebecca, Joseph and William to 31-year-old Reynold Ellcock, who owned the nearby Mount Wilton Plantation. It’s telling that Rebecca adopted the surname ‘Best Turpin’ at this point.
On the 1821 slave register, Joseph Turpin was listed as an artisan carpenter, aged 17. A few months later a horrifying event took place at Mount Wilton.
“Ellcock was reputedly a cruel master, who raped his female workers. In a drunken moment, he decided to leave a large sum to all the enslaved adults over 17 on his plantation, and promised to free them on his death. He made the mistake of telling his most trusted manservant, who was furious because Ellcock had agreed to free him before he died.
“A group of enslaved workers hired a hit man who crept into Ellcock’s bed chamber one night and cut his throat. The perpetrators were charged with murder, found guilty and hanged. Their heads were displayed on poles on the plantation.”
"A group of enslaved workers hired a hit man who crept into Ellcock’s bed chamber one night and cut his throat."
Ellcock’s family contested his will, so it wasn’t settled until 1840. Records of the ‘Ellcock Bequest’ revealed that Joseph was one of 83 former slaves who received £5 a year for life.
The sum was computed back to 1821, which enabled Joseph, William and 10 others to buy 12 acres and establish the village of Bridgefield. They had to build their own homes and cultivate the land, but at least they were free.
In 1839, Joseph married Mary Jane Hinds in the parish church of St Thomas, on Barbados. Joseph couldn’t sign the register, and instead made his mark. The couple went on to have nine children, including Edmund Adolphus Turpin.
Christine thinks that Mary Jane may have been of Irish origin, possibly descended from ancestors who had been transported to Barbados after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653). Many of them became indentured labourers and servants.
Joseph clearly prospered as a carpenter and farmer, because an entry in a land registry revealed that in 1858 he bought his own nine-acre property in the parish of St Thomas. “Joseph was an astute man, and did well to buy land and have his children educated.
“His sons Joseph and Edmund studied theology at Codrington College on Barbados before entering the priesthood. Edmund became an archdeacon and Joseph ventured to Sierra Leone in West Africa, where he worked as a missionary.” Life for the Turpin family had been transformed in just one generation.
Life for the Turpin family had been transformed in just one generation.
“I feel really proud of Joseph, although I’m most proud of his mother Rebecca. Enslaved women suffered terribly, and it gave me comfort to know that Rebecca and her son remained together.”
Christine was so fascinated by her forebears that she decided to write her own family memoir. From Barbados to Banffshire via Guyana is a thrilling and moving read. Money raised from the book will go to the Stroke Association, in memory of her mother Margot.
“It has been humbling to research the lives of my ancestors. It has also made me more aware of who I am.”