Thomas Corker

Born at Falmouth, Cornwall, Thomas Corker/Caulker was the younger of two sons of Thomas Corker, a ship's doctor from County Meath, Ireland. His father had settled in Ireland from Manchester, England. Corker married Jane Newman, a local woman of Falmouth. Thomas was baptized on 4 February 1669. His older brother was Robert Corker. They had two younger sisters, Jane and Anne. His brother Robert Corker had a successful career as a politician, serving as mayor of Falmouth five times. ==Career==

At the age of 14, Thomas entered the Royal African Company as an apprentice. He was assigned to the Guinea Coast, where he served traders on the rivers. He eventually became a chief agent on York Island, Sherbro. This was a slave trading centre on the Sherbro River. and left his Sherbro family behind. On a business trip to England, he died at his birthplace of Falmouth in 1700 and was buried there. His sons, Robin and Stephen Corker, inherited their mother's chiefdom; they used their English ancestry to build influence with other early traders in the region. The Crown opened up the slave trade beyond the RAC, and the family became influential in and wealthy from it well into the 19th century. By the 19th century, the family was known as the Caulkers. They dominated the Bumpe Chiefdom in the colony of Sierra Leone and were a major slave trading Afro-European clan in West Africa. ==Descendants==

Today most of the Caulker descendants live in the towns of Bonthe and Shenge in the Moyamba District, where the Sherbro are concentrated. The clan still maintains its oral and written testimony about its English ancestor, Thomas Corker. ==Memorial and subsequent controversy==

Corker was memorialized by a Baroque marble and freestone monument at the Church of King Charles the Martyr, Falmouth, where he had been baptized as a child. In 1978, Rev. W. J. Peter Boyd for Thomas, the rector at that time, issued a delayed Baptism certificate by and his brother, Robert. ==See also==

• Adam Jones, History in Africa, Vol. 10, 1983 (1983), pp. 151–162. • • • • • ==Further reading==