Henry Drax

Henry Drax (c. 1693–1755) of Ellerton Abbey, Yorkshire and Charborough, near Wareham, Dorset was a British Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1718 and 1755. Drax was the eldest son of Thomas Drax (formerly Shatterden) of Pope's Common, Hertfordshire, Ellerton Abbey and Barbados and his wife Elizabeth Ernle, daughter of Edward Ernle of Etchilhampton, Wiltshire. He is also a grandson of James Drax, a wealthy planter in Barbados, who pioneered the cultivation of sugar with the use of African slave labour. Slave owner Thomas Shatterden inherited the estates of his mother's brother Colonel Henry Drax at Ellerton and in Barbados. By 1680, this Henry Drax was the owner of the largest plantation in Barbados, then in parish of St. John. A planter-merchant, Drax had a hired 'proper persons' to act in, and do all business in Bridgetown.'