Henry Goulburn

Henry Goulburn PC FRS (19 March 1784 – 12 January 1856) was a British Conservative statesman and a member of the Peelite faction after 1846.

Background and education Born in London, Goulburn was the eldest son of a wealthy planter, Munbee Goulburn, of Amity Hall, Vere Parish, Jamaica, and his wife Susannah, eldest daughter of William Chetwynd, 4th Viscount Chetwynd. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Goulburn lived in Betchworth, Dorking, in Betchworth House for much of his life.

Sugar plantation owner Goulburn's inheritance included a number of sugar estates in Jamaica, with Amity Hall in the parish of Vere, now Clarendon Parish, being the most important. Slave labour was still being used to work the sugar plantations when he inherited the estates.

Goulburn never visited Jamaica himself due to his health and political work. He relied on attorneys to manage his estates on his behalf. One attorney, in particular, Thomas Samson, held the top job at the estate from 1802 to 1818 and earned a reputation for cruelty towards Goulburn's slaves.

By 1818, the income from his Jamaican estates halved to less than £3,000 "although he did console himself that the condition of his slaves had probably improved". Henry Goulburn wrote to Samson in June 1818:

"Since my brother’s return to England, I have had a great deal of conversation with him respecting the management of my Estate in Jamaica, the state of the Negroes and other particulars connected with it which from want of personal inspection of the property I have hitherto but imperfectly understood. The result had been a conviction upon my mind that as far as regards the negroes of the Estate, the system hitherto used by you had been founded altogether upon erroneous principles which (though I believe to be too commonly followed on the generality of estates in Jamaica) are such as I can never approve because I cannot consider them consistent with the duty which I owe to the negroes which belong to me....

You have recently been possessed of a considerable property which makes the management of my Estate less if at all an object to you... therefore your removal from Amity Hall cannot inconvenience you in a pecuniary point of view."

Goulburn was a member of the Canterbury Association from 27 March 1848.

Family Frederick Goulburn (1788–1837), the first Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, was his younger brother. Henry Goulburn married the Hon. Jane, third daughter of Matthew Montagu, 4th Baron Rokeby, in 1811. They had four children. He died on 12 January 1856, aged 71. His wife died the following year.