Joseph Foster Barham

Joseph Foster Barham, the younger (1759–1832) was an English politician, merchant and plantation owner.

He was the son of Joseph Foster Barham I (formerly Joseph Foster) of Bedford and his wife Dorothea Vaughan. Thomas Foster Barham was his brother.

In 1789 Foster Barham inherited his father's Mesopotamia estate in Jamaica, and a partnership in the West Indian merchants Barham & Plummer with Thomas Plummer, Member for Ilchester. In 1815 he withdrew from the partnership in favour of his brother and broke off dealings with the Atlantic slave trade.

In 1793 Foster Barham was elected as Member of Parliament for Stockbridge, resigning the seat in 1799. He was elected MP for Stockbridge again in 1802, sitting until 1806. He was subsequently elected for Okehampton (1806–07) and for a third time for Stockbridge (1807–22).

In a debate on an 1815 bill to abolish slavery, he stated that British capital upheld the Spanish slave trade, half of the Danish, and part of the Portuguese.

Foster Barham sold his Stockbridge borough seat to Earl Grosvenor in the early 1820s. He died on 28 September 1832 near Bedford, at the house of his sister Mary Livius.

• Considerations on the late Act for continuing the prohibition of corn in the distillery (1810)
• Considerations on the abolition of Negro slavery, and the means of practically effecting it (1823). Foster Barham was an abolitionist in principle, though his views were hedged with caveats. He produced plans for introducing Asian labour to run Caribbean plantations (as did William Layman and Robert Townsend Farquhar); and they circulated in government. He also gave an estimate of the cost of raising a plantation slave, lower than that of George Hibbert.

• Joseph Foster Barham (1810). Considerations on the late Act for continuing the prohibition of corn in the distillery: addressed in a letter to the Right Hon. Lord Holland. James Ridgway. 
• Foster Barham, Joseph (1823). "Considerations on the abolition of Negro slavery, and the means of practically effecting it.". Internet Archive. London: James Ridgway. Retrieved 8 January 2016. 
• James Epstein (22 March 2012). Scandal of Colonial Rule: Power and Subversion in the British Atlantic During the Age of Revolution. Cambridge University Press. pp. 210–1. ISBN 978-1-107-00330-9. 
• Higman (31 May 1979). Slave Population 1807-1834. CUP Archive. p. 207. ISBN 978-0-521-29569-7. 

Foster Barham married Lady Caroline Tufton, daughter of Sackville Tufton, 8th Earl of Thanet. They had three sons and two daughters:

• John Foster Barham, eldest son, MP for Stockbridge; certified as of unsound mind in 1837, and died 1838. He married Lady Katherine Grimston, daughter of James Grimston, 1st Earl of Verulam.
• Charles Henry Barham, MP for Appleby.
• William.
• Caroline Gertrude married Sanderson Robins.
• The other daughter, Mary.

• ^ "John Foster Barham Profile & Legacies Summary 1799 – 22nd May 1838, Legacies of British Slave-ownership". Retrieved 7 January 2016. 
• Thomas Hare (1855). Reports of Cases Adjudged in the High Court of Chancery: Before the Right Hon. Sir George James Turner and Sir William Page Wood, Vice-Chancellors [1852-1853]. X. London: A. Maxwell. p. 126.