Series 10 - Blake family letters

49pp

Transcripts of the Blake family letters were excerpted from Oliver, V.L., (1909), "Blake", Caribbeana 1, no. 2. The original letters are held in the Blake Papers, National Library of Ireland [call number MS 10789-10790].

The Blake family letters are a set of 17 letters from the Blake Family Records, published by Martin J. Blake and sent by him in 1895 to British surgeon and genealogist Vere Langford Oliver, relating to Henry Blake, Montserrat, and John Blake, Barbados, as well as their immediate relatives in Galway, mainly on matters of business.
Per Aubrey Gwynn: ‘John Blake, who was Mayor of Galway in 1646, was a lineal descendant of Richard Craddle, alias Blake, who was Sheriff of Connaught in 1306. John Blake was transplanted from his ancestral estate to Mullaghmore, Co. Galway in 1656, and died there in 1680-81. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas. His second son, Henry, and his third son, John, emigrated to the West Indies about the year 1668. They two brothers purchased an estate in Montserrat; but John settled in Barbados as a merchant, whilst Henry lived in Montserrat. In 1676 Henry sold his share of the estate in Montserrat to John, and returned to Galway, where he purchased the Renvyle estate in 1678. John moved soon afterwards from Barbados to Montserrat, and died there in 1692.’
The series contains a photocopy of Oliver’s 1909 article in the journal Caribbeana which consists of annotated transcripts of the 17 letters, excerpts from Martin J. Blake’s catalogue of Blake Family Records, and Bruce D. Boling and Kerby A. Miller’s notes on the Blake family and Irish emigration to the West Indies.