In Jamaica, he had acquired considerable property (in 1791 he purchased two sugar plantations, Georgia and Dundee, both in Hanover Parish)[3] and he was not convinced by the arguments of Frend that his ownership of slaves was immoral.
Cooper, a Unitarian minister recommended by Frend, remained on the island until 1821, endeavouring, with little success, to improve their moral and religious condition.
On 19 July 1847, Hibbert executed a deed conveying to trustees $50,000 in 6% Ohio stock, and £8,000 in railway shares.
In the original scheme the trust was called 'the Anti-trinitarian Fund', and its object was, by a provision of divinity scholarships, to encourage learning and culture among unorthodox Christians.
In addition to scholarships and fellowships, the number and conditions of which are settled by the trustees from year to year, the trust, from the revision of 1878 until 1887, maintained an annual Hibbert Lecture, the first series being delivered by Professor Max Muller in 1878; between 1902 and 1968 it issued The Hibbert Journal, a quarterly magazine.