Duke Family in Barbados Notes by Lynn S. Teague, July 1999:
In 1630 a land grant of 300 acres in St. Peter’s Parish was given to Humphry Duke.This was not simply an investment by an absentee landlord. William Duke’s 1741 history of the island of Barbados notes that Humphrey Duke was an inhabitant of the island in 1638.In 1657, and again in 1681, the Duke plantation appears in St. Peter’s Parish on maps of Barbados.
In Barbados the Duke family is said to have been derived from the “Dukes of Lake House, near Exeter.” This last reference is somewhat confusing, since Lake House is not particularly near Exeter, except perhaps from the perspective of Bridgetown, Barbados. However, this surely refers to the branch of the Duke of family at Otterton, which is traditionally said to be a branch of the Duke family of Lake.
Thomas Duke’s burial monument, located in the parish church, shows the Duke of Lake arms with its three laurel leaf wreathes.6 This is strong confirmation of the association of the Barbados family with the Duke family of Lake House. There were simply far too many close relatives and friends of the Duke of Lake family living in Barbados (among them, the Walrond and Prideaux families), and too much travel and communication between Barbados and England, for any inappropriate claim to those arms to have been socially possible for a 17th century Barbadian.
In 1584 a son, Humphry Duke, was born to Richard Duke and Catherine Prideaux Duke of Otterton, Devonshire. Rasleigh Duke, in his turn-of-the-century English family tree, refers to Humphrey’s will having been recorded on January 18, 1668, but  does not list the names of his children, nor does he list Humphrey as “d.s.p.” (died sine prole, without offspring). It is possible that he found only evidence of the recording of the will, and not the document itself. More important, he did not find parish records or memorials of his burial in Devonshire.
Humphrey is unique among males in his generation who lived to adulthood in that Rasleigh Duke does not give the date of his death or of his burial, and does not say where he died or where he was buried. It is likely that Rasleigh Duke did not know, because Humphrey died in Barbados and the necessary recording of his will in England was the only evidence of his passing.
It is also especially important that Humphrey Duke’s property in St. Peters Parish is still identified as “Duke” on a 1681 map of Barbados. Humphrey died in or before 1668, and the land was not sold for the benefit of his heirs, who apparently found it more to their advantage to retain the land. Barbados did not have the absentee-landlord pattern characteristic of many colonies, and it is likely that this retention of the land was because those heirs were resident on the island.
In summary, it is virtually certain that the Barbados Duke family was founded by Humphry Duke, born in Devonshire in 1584 to Richard and Catherine Duke of Otterton, when he immigrated to Barbados to assume control of his plantation there in or shortly after 1630.
 Evidence to be presented shortly indicates that at the time of his arrival in Barbados Humphry was already married, and that several of his children had been born in England. Several made the difficult journey across the Atlantic when less than 10 years old. Humphry, on the other hand, was at least 42 years old, somewhat older than an ideal age for a rigorous journey. 383