Ferdinand Paleologus | |
|---|---|
 Monument erected in 1906 near Ferdinand's grave in Saint John, Barbados. The date of Ferdinand's death presented on the monument, 3 October 1678, is erroneous | |
| Born | June 1619 Plymouth, Kingdom of England |
| Died | 2 October 1670 (aged 51) Colony of Barbados |
| Buried | Saint Johns Parish Church Cemetery Saint John, Barbados |
| Noble family | Paleologus |
| Spouse(s) | Rebecca Pomfrett |
| Issue | Theodore Paleologus |
| Father | Theodore Paleologus |
| Mother | Mary Balls |
| Occupation | Soldier, vestryman, churchwarden, owner of a cotton or sugar (and possibly pineapple) plantation |
Ferdinand Paleologus (Italian: Ferdinando Paleologo; June 1619 – 2 October 1670) was a 17th-century English-Greek freeholder, sugar or cotton planter and churchwarden and possibly one of the last living members of the Palaiologos dynasty, which had ruled the Byzantine Empire from 1259 to its fall in 1453. Ferdinand was the fourth and youngest son of Theodore Paleologus, a Greek soldier and assassin who moved to England in the late 16th century.
Ferdinand supported the royalist side in the English Civil War (1642–1651), but emigrated to Barbados during (or possibly before) the conflict, perhaps fleeing punishment as the royalists were being defeated or perhaps seeking his fortune with relatives of his mother, who lived on the island. Ferdinand is first attested on the island in 1644 and he quickly integrated himself with its elite. He cultivated cotton or sugar and possibly pineapples and was influential in the affairs of the local St. John's Parish Church, for which he became a vestryman and then a churchwarden. Ferdinand constructed a great mansion called Clifton Hall, named after the home he had lived in with his family in Cornwall. Clifton Hall, though radically changed since Ferdinand's time, remains to this day one of the largest, grandest and oldest great houses on Barbados.
By the time of his death in 1670, Ferdinand had become known on the island as the "Greek prince from Cornwall", a nickname he would be remembered by for centuries. The current marker for his gravesite at St. John's Parish Church, which erroneously gives the date of his death as 1678 instead of 1670, was erected in 1906 and is a local tourist spot.