Robert Hibbert (Anti-Trinitarian)

Robert Hibbert (25 October 1769 – 23 September 1849) was the founder of the Hibbert Trust.

The third and posthumous son of John Hibbert (1732–1769), a Jamaica merchant, and Janet, daughter of Samuel Gordon, he was born in Jamaica; hence he spoke of himself as a Creole. His mother died early.

Between 1784 and 1788, he was a pupil of Gilbert Wakefield at Nottingham. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1788, and graduated B.A. in 1791. At Cambridge he formed a lifelong friendship with William Frend, the social reformer.

At a later period (1800–01), when Wakefield was imprisoned in Dorchester for writing a political pamphlet, Hibbert, though not wealthy then, sent him £1,000.

In 1791, Hibbert went to Kingston, Jamaica, as partner in a mercantile house (a trading partnership, Hibbert, Purrier and Horton) founded by his cousin Thomas (not to be confused with his father's eldest brother, Thomas Hibbert). Another cousin, George Hibbert, son of another Robert Hibbert (1717-1784) was one of the principals of the West India Dock Company which instigated the construction of the docks of that name on London's Isle of Dogs.

Returning to England in about 1803, he bought the estate of East Hide (now called Hyde), near Luton, Bedfordshire.

In Jamaica, he had acquired considerable property (in 1791 he purchased two sugar plantations, Georgia and Dundee, both in Hanover Parish) and he was not convinced by the arguments of Frend that his ownership of slaves was immoral. Besides plans for their material benefit, he sent out as a missionary to the negroes on his estates, in October 1817, Thomas Cooper (died 25 October 1880, aged 88). Cooper, a Unitarian minister recommended by Frend, remained on the island until 1821, endeavouring, with little success, to improve their moral and religious condition. A somewhat acrimonious controversy followed the publication of Cooper's report.

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