Clarke was born in Jamaica and Seb’s next journey is to the Caribbean. Local birth records reveal that he was illegitimate, the son of George Hyde Clarke and Sophia Astley. Sophia was the daughter of a fashionable painter, John Astley, whose will refers to George as an “exorable villain”. “You can fee the vitriol and bile coming through the legalese there,” says Seb. Another will refers to George’s wife, Catherine Hussey, as “unhappy and much injured”. It’s not a flattering portrait.
Researching George’s life further, Seb discovers that he was a member of the plantocracy, the 18th-century ruling class in Jamaica, who owned sugar plantations where slaves worked the land. Gradually, a picture builds of a fabulously wealthy man whose slave workforce alone was valued at £700,000 in today’s money. And perhaps, considering he sired at least six illegitimate children by different women, a man rich enough to ignore conventional morality. For Sophia, there was at least a respectable ending: she later married in London.
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazi.../sebastian-coe
“I got to know Oliver because my family, some of them lived in Falmouth, and I got to meet Oliver around the time that London was bidding for the Olympic Games and I came to Jamaica and was invited to meet him,” Coe told The Gleaner during a telephone interview yesterday.
AMAZING MAN
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/s...-oliver-clarke
Researching George’s life further, Seb discovers that he was a member of the plantocracy, the 18th-century ruling class in Jamaica, who owned sugar plantations where slaves worked the land. Gradually, a picture builds of a fabulously wealthy man whose slave workforce alone was valued at £700,000 in today’s money. And perhaps, considering he sired at least six illegitimate children by different women, a man rich enough to ignore conventional morality. For Sophia, there was at least a respectable ending: she later married in London.
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazi.../sebastian-coe
“I got to know Oliver because my family, some of them lived in Falmouth, and I got to meet Oliver around the time that London was bidding for the Olympic Games and I came to Jamaica and was invited to meet him,” Coe told The Gleaner during a telephone interview yesterday.
AMAZING MAN
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/s...-oliver-clarke
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