James Barton [1396] 4 Oct 1781 - 4 Feb 1850 OCCUPATION: Builder, Merchant BIRTH: 4 Oct 1781, Standishgate, Wigan, Lancashire, England CHRISTENING: 12 Oct 1781, Wigan, Lancashire, England DEATH: 4 Feb 1850, Buenos Aires, Argentina Father: Thomas Barton Mother: Amy Hodson Family 1 : Anna MacKinlay MARRIAGE: 28 Dec 1815, H.M.S. Orpheus, off the coast of Buenos Aires +Isabella Frances Barton +James Barton +Caroline Matilde Rafaela Manuela de la Concepción Barton +Harriet Anne Barton  John Alexander Barton +Francis Barton +Amy Ann Barton

Photograph taken from a steel plate with the image of James Barton. Collection of Jean Barton.

                                             _Ralph Barton _______+
                                            | (1685 - ....) m 1708
                       _Thomas Barton ______|
                      | (.... - 1781) m 1735|
                      |                     |_Alice Rigby ________
                      |                        m 1708             
 _Thomas Barton ______|
| (.... - 1830) m 1781|
|                     |                      _____________________
|                     |                     |                     
|                     |_Margaret Woods _____|
|                       (1715 - ....) m 1735|
|                                           |_____________________
|                                                                 
|
|--James Barton 
|  (1781 - 1850)
|                                            _____________________
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|                      _____________________|
|                     |                     |
|                     |                     |_____________________
|                     |                                           
|_Amy Hodson _________|
  (1753 - ....) m 1781|
                      |                      _____________________
                      |                     |                     
                      |_____________________|
                                            |
                                            |_____________________
                                                                  

[1396] James Barton arrived to Montevideo in February 1807, right after the English Invasions (1806-1807), with a group of British merchants. He may have returned to Britain or stayed in Rio de Janeiro for a time after the British were expelled from Montevideo. Whatever the case he was in Buenos Aires in April 1809, that year he shows in the Census for Foreigners of Viceroy Cisneros as "Jayme Barton, 25, English, single, merchant". In spite of the Spanish hostilities against foreigners he managed to stay in Buenos Aires and like many others he was saved from expulsion by the Independence Revolution of May 1810. He opened his own import-export offices, probably as an agent of his father, Thomas Barton, and in 1811 he was a member of the British Commercial Rooms. In 1817 Barton's company shows as one of the most important British commercial ventures in Buenos Aires.

In 1811 he was one of the first Englishmen to adquire agricultural land properties (estancias) in Argentina. He traded several properties along the years and when he retired from commercial business later in his life he dedicated basically to his land. In the city he was a shareholder of the Banco de Buenos Ayres and its follower, Banco de las Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata. He was one of the shareholders in the Jardín de Vauxhall, known as Parque Argentino, a Pleasure Garden after London's model that was situated on land owned by James Wild. Barton may has participated in the building of this park in 1828, for many years then he had an Architectural Company and a brick factory.

He actively participated in the implementation and the financing of several social institutions and facilities to support the British inmigrants in Argentina. He was one of the first ones to participate in communitarian sport, in a cricket match with Englishmen in about 1820. He was also a founder member of the Club of Foreign Residents.

In 1815 he was married to Anna Mackinlay by the protestant chaplain of a Royal Navy Vessel off the coast of Buenos Aires. They had 7 children. The family lived in a estate (quinta) in Convalescencia, in the southern part of the city.

James Barton died in Buenos Aires February 3rd, 1850. The local newspaper The British Packet obituary called him "Gentle and sympathetic in his disposition, corteous and conciliatory in his department, liberal and tolerant in his sentiments, unasuming yet exemplary in all the relations of life, the British Community has lost in Mr. Barton, not only one of its oldest, but one of its worthiest and most respected members..."

Source: Maxine Hanon, Diccionario de Britanicos En Buenos Aires


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Settled in Buenos Aires 1809.
Mentioned in his father's will 1827 and as deceased in the will of his brother Ralph 1880.
Source: Consuelo Barton's annotated family tree.

[15609] Marriage witnesses: Thomas Eastman, Robert Staples, James Brittain, Thomas Barton, jnr., D. MacKinlay, Robert Barton