\u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p> 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<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p> \u201cMy mother was born in 1918 on Barbados<\/a> 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\u2019s father was Edmund Adolphus Turpin, archdeacon of St George\u2019s Cathedral, Kingstown, on Saint Vincent. Archives revealed that Edmund was baptised on Barbados in 1851.<\/p> \u201cMum gave me a tattered old photograph<\/a> of a baptismal font that was engraved with the words, \u2018The Venerable EA Turpin\u2019. It had been erected in memory of my great grandfather. Mum also believed that Edmund\u2019s father Joseph Turpin could have been Bishop of Tobago.\u00a0<\/p> \u201cI wanted to know more about Joseph, but Mum couldn\u2019t remember anything else. She passed away in 2008, after a series of strokes.\u201d<\/p> 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. \u201cWe visited St George\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p> Three years later Christine tested her DNA with Ancestry<\/a>, and was surprised to discover that she \u201cMy 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.<\/p> \u201cI joined the Barbados Genealogy group on Facebook<\/a> 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, \u2018He can\u2019t have been a carpenter, he was a bishop!\u2019 The family myth was starting to disintegrate.\u201d<\/p> Christine tested her DNA with Ancestry, and was surprised to discover that she 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.<\/p> \u201cWe 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 \u2018Bishop Joseph Turpin\u2019.\u201d<\/p> Christine\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p> \u201cThe 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,\u201d she reveals.<\/p> Christine\u2019s elation at discovering her great great grandfather was tempered by deep sadness when she realised that Joseph had been enslaved. \u201cI read the family memoir Sugar in the Blood<\/a><\/em> 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.\u201d<\/p> Sandra\u2019s research and Sir Woodville\u2019s expert knowledge provided insight into Joseph\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p> 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\u2019s mother. All three were baptised on the same day in 1807.<\/p> Christine is convinced that William Turpin was the boys\u2019 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\u2019s telling that Rebecca adopted the surname<\/a> \u2018Best Turpin\u2019 at this point.\u00a0<\/p> 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.<\/p> \u201cEllcock 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.<\/p> \u201cA group of enslaved workers hired a hit man who crept into Ellcock\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p> “A group of enslaved workers hired a hit man who crept into Ellcock\u2019s bed chamber one night and cut his throat.”<\/p><\/blockquote> Ellcock\u2019s family contested his will, so it wasn\u2019t settled until 1840. Records of the \u2018Ellcock Bequest\u2019 revealed that Joseph was one of 83 former slaves who received \u00a35 a year for life.<\/p> 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.<\/p> In 1839, Joseph married Mary Jane Hinds in the parish church of St Thomas, on Barbados. Joseph couldn\u2019t sign the register, and instead made his mark. The couple went on to have nine children, including Edmund Adolphus Turpin.<\/p>![\"A](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/52\/2023\/12\/family_photo.png\")
![\"Black](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/52\/2023\/12\/edmund_turpin.png\")