John Wedderburn of Ballendean

Who was John Wedderburn of Ballendean?

Sir John Wedderburn of Ballendean, 6th Baronet of Blackness was a Scottish landowner who made a fortune in the West Indian sugar trade. Born into a family of impoverished Perthshire gentry, his father was executed for treason following the Jacobite uprising of 1745, and the young Wedderburn was forced to flee to the West Indies, where he eventually became the largest landowner in Jamaica. In 1769 he returned to Scotland with a slave, one Joseph Knight, who, inspired by Somersett's Case in England, in which the English courts had held that slavery did not exist under English law, brought suit against Wedderburn for his freedom. Knight won his claim, establishing the principle that Scots law would not uphold the institution of slavery. Wedderburn ended his days as a wealthy country gentleman, having restored his family fortune and recovered the title Baronet of Blackness.