The Cozens/Byrnes Merchants
Networks Project - Updated 29 March, 2022 The Cozens/Byrnes Merchants
Networks Project - Updated 29 March, 2022 
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BY Australian writer/Sydney lawyer, Michael Rhodes. Part-written in Cambridge England, a new book by Michael Rhodes on London's Limehouse shipping magnate, Duncan Dunbar: Lion Rampant. (Or, Duncan Dunbar II.) At https://www.michaelrhodesbooks.com
A biography of Duncan Dunbar the London (Limehouse) shipping magnate who died in 1862 worth £1.6 million. He revolutionised shipping and was present at the ...
Lion Rampant: Duncan Dunbar and the Age of Sail, by Michael Rhodes ...
https://isleofdogslife.wordpress.com - 20 Oct 2021 — Duncan Dunbar's fascinating story is told in a new book by Michael Rhodes. The book, entitled Lion Rampant: Duncan Dunbar and the Age of Sail charts the rise of ...
here's just a part of what it's about. ... Dunbar refused to carry opium, and refused to deal with the slave states from 1845 ... Dunbar is mentioned as a convict contractor to Australia in Byrnes' new book on Merchant Networks. .... Included in the below are listed some books/theses/articles/titles, some drawn from the bibliography of the book Merchant Networks and relevant to it ...
Forthcoming from UK joyuranalist. ASndrew Waple, one of hise ancestors waS
See Frederick Hall Schmidt, British Convict Servant Labor in Colonial Virginia. College of William and Mary, Dissertations, Theses and Masters Projects, Arts and Sciences, PhD thesis, Dept. History, 1976. Paper 1539623697 (https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd or https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-vm9x-jr96.) (Re W. H. Waple, page 34, note 3.)
Peter Dickson, (UK) ‘“My very great fortune dies dead in America“: A British merchant's financial claims in post-war Virginia, 1783-1819’, by Peter Dickson (He e-mailed a draft article 2017-2019). See an Addendum item to this book of one version of the article.)
On John Stewart (convict contractor, died England, 1772): Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly, 1757-1758, Archives of Maryland, Vol. 55, pp. xiv ff; and Ch. IV, pp. 760ff, Memorial of John Stewart, Merchant of London, [to the Rt. Honble The Lord Baltimore, proprietor of his Majesty's Colony of Maryland], dated 4 May, 1757, requesting that he be reimbursed for the import duties paid by him on convicts transported into Maryland... with an opinion from William Murray, formerly the King's attorney-general, and now Lord Mansfield, that the duty was imposed contrary to the laws of England. (At that time, a colonial agent for Stewart was William Lux. See an Addendum to this book and an essay by Peter Dickson.)
After the decommissioning of the system of convict transportation to Western Australia, the British continued convict transportation to Gibraltar or the Bermudas. As is mentioned by Anderson, although few if any (including myself) have ever delved into just who as shipowners were involved here. See Clare Anderson, Convicts: A Global History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022., variously. It is hoped that one day, someone will do so, if only for reasons of comparison with the later, West Australian situation.
Dear Dan (26-11-2021), In 2003 I contacted you briefly, regarding the family of my fifth great grandfather, Duncan Campbell (1726-1803), after reading your remarkable web material pertaining to this family. Since 2003 I have been researching and writing about my Campbell forebears.
I have made several visits to The State library of New South Wales, The Mitchell Library, to peruse Duncan's Letter Books, and have researched in Scotland. I plan to publish my work, “WITH GRACE Her Story and Place in Campbell History 1642-1856” (My manuscript centres around my third
great grandmother, Duncan's granddaughter, Grace) It is a family story, memoir and source book, primarily for family, extended family, and any
other interested parties. It is in four parts, with a section on Duncan, and Rebecca. (An appendix relates to my forebear who came to NZ). I have focused on the family life where possible and the women, and I have used some material from your works, generally one-few words per subject, in the section on Duncan and Rebecca - all of which which is referenced to you.
e.g. The names of some of the ships Duncan sailed in. “First stick of
furniture” - for Rebecca. Warehouse site in London, Duncan's business
with Landon Carter. MI for John SaltSpring and his matriculation date,
family rumour re Lord Selkirk and Molly, suggested patronage for
brother, Neil, (Duke Argyll), the Thomas Jefferson link and DC as
chairman of British Creditors, Blackheath and golf, Duncan's view of
abolition of slavery. Bligh's personality.
I am writing to advise you of this - and and to enquire if you may have a digital copy of the photos of Duncan, Rebecca and (Principal) Neil,
that I may use? Kind Regards, Yours sincerely, Evelyn A McIver-Keeley,
Christchurch, New Zealand.
By Dr Chris Colvin
Originally posted 16th May 2019 at 5:07 pm
Economic history is vital to the study of economics and the economy, says Dr Chris Colvin.
Economists think historians are teaching it. Historians think it is being done by economists. But in truth the study of economic history is almost absent from the university curriculum. Economic history has fallen through the cracks. And economics students across universities are suffering because of its absence.
My contention is that our economic past should play a far more central role in the education of economists today. Because I think the study of economic history will make economists into better economists. My mission is to make academic and professional economists aware of the key problems associated with missing out this training from the education of new economists. And then, once the problem is fully acknowledged and understood, to present easy-to-implement pedagogical solutions.
I think that economic history is vital to the study of economics and the economy. Crucially, history provides students with the necessary context to understand economic decisions being made right now. Lessons from economic history also provide invaluable insight into the big global challenges of today’s world – whether it is trade wars, financial crises, migration pressures, climate change or extreme political uncertainty.
For example, if you wish to study the inner-workings of cartels, why not take a period of history where cartelisation was legal and well documented? If you want to look at the incentive effects of unemployment benefits, why not focus on when and where they were first introduced? And if you are interested in the socioeconomic impact of migration, why not measure the consequences of the arrival of previous mass migrations?
Economics is only as good as its ability to explain the economy. And the economy can only be understood by using economic theory to think about causal connections and underlying social processes. But theory that is untested is bunk. Economic history provides one way to test theory; it forms essential material to making good economic theory.
Economics therefore needs economic history. And so academic economists need to engage with our economic past to prepare the next generation of economists. Economic history is vital in the training of private-sector business economists and public policy professionals alike. That both groups could have benefited from a little historical knowledge during the 2008 financial crisis should be crystal clear to all!
Unfortunately, economics degrees have long ignored economic history. Contributors to a series of high-profile conferences held the Bank of England from across academia, government and the private sector repeatedly lamented the absence of economic history from the training of new economists (Coyle, 2012). Research conducted by the University of Manchester’s student-led pedagogy reform group the Post-Crash Economics Society clearly demonstrates the degree to which economic history is absent across the UK’s university economics curricula (Earle Let al., 2017).
It is not all doom and gloom. Professor Wendy Carlin’s CORE project has made great inroads into re-inserting the economic study of the past into the first-year syllabus (The CORE Team, 2017). Indeed, we are about to start teaching this new syllabus across our economics programmes at Queen’s University Belfast. However, while fixing the first year is a great start, it is only a start.
Unfortunately, most economics professors elsewhere across the country remain ill-equipped to re-introduce economic history unassisted in other places on their syllabi, even if they were willing to do so. They are part of a “lost generation” which was never exposed to the field in their own education. And I fear there are precious few resources available to them to assist in their “re-education”.
I think the absence of supply of economic historians is no excuse for not engaging with a field that is clearly in demand. Yes, economic history is a separate field of study. But my contention is that it can also be integrated into other field courses, from macro and labour, to finance and econometrics. With a little help, every economist has the potential to become an economic historian.
Alongside Matthias Blum, an economist based at the German Medical Association, I have started the task of generating new economic history teaching and learning resources aimed specifically at academic and professional economists and their students. This ongoing project has already resulted in an edited volume involving 50 scholars, An Economist’s Guide to Economic History (Palgrave Macmillan, Dec. 2018). And despite its very recent vintage, the book is already being used in universities in the UK, the USA and South Africa.
Matthias and I held a workshop in Belfast on pedagogical reform in January. We now wish to expand the initiative into a broader movement of academics and practitioners, to make it even easier for economists to engage with the field of economic history in their teaching and research.
Please get in touch if you share our mission to Make Economic History Great Again!
Posted by Dr. Christopher L. Colvin is Senior Lecturer in Economics at Queen’s Management School, where he teaches economic history to economics students. He is currently on research leave and is based at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Amsterdam.
From First Newsletter (quarterly) of Australian Association for Maritime History Inc. for 2017, Publisher of The Great Circle, Issue 143, p. 11.
Your Association needs YOU.
"To Help Identify Maritime Books for Review".
The Great Circle Review Editor has advised that we have a serious and melancholy situation where we have temporarily exhausted the supply of books awaiting review and the flow of new books seems to have dried up.
If members know of or can recommend new titles on a maritime theme then contact the Book Review Editor immediately. Some members have published recently but we haven't been given the opportunity. Alternatively, authors can advise their publishers to forward a copy to us.
Contact the Book Review Editor Howard Gray - hsgray@midwest.com.au
We look forward to hearing from you soon!
On 7-11-2015 - Dear Merchant Networks Project, I ran into your website when trying to find some information about the firm of Lane, Son & Fraser. The firm LS&F was at one point apparently the holder of a mortgage on a half-interest in Mount Desert Island, Maine. The history here is long and involved, well described in Mount Desert: A History, by George E. Street (Boston, 1905), which is available online at https://archive.org/stream/mountdeserthisto00stre#page/n9/mode/2up. (See pages 128 to 163.)
After the revolution, the Massachusetts General Court granted a moiety of a 1/2 undivided interest in Mount Desert Island to John Bernard, son of a former royal governor. Bernard immediately mortgaged the property to a Thomas Russell of Boston. The relationship of Russell to LS&F I have not been able to determine, that is, whether he was their agent, or borrowed from them or possibly was a partner with them. Bernard defaulted on the mortgage. In 1803 Russell’s estate sold the property to a George William Irving of Boston but residing in London. However, it seems as if LS&F was the equitable owner of the property. In 1822 Irving conveyed his interest in the property to Ward Nicholas Boylston as the residual legatee of Thomas Boylston. According to this deed, Thomas Boylston acquired the property by becoming a partner in LS&F and “to whom by formal covenants between the parties all of the assets and effects of the House were to go after the payment of the debts of said firm.” This conveyance has all the marks of the settlement of a dispute or lawsuit although I have not located one yet. See deed at Book 42, page 347 in the Hancock County Registry of Deeds (online).
Any information you can provide about the relationship of Thomas Russell to LS&F or about how Thomas Boylston took over the firm would be appreciated. Meanwhile, I think I have given you a few facts to add to your website.
Regards,
David Goodrich.
Answer from Dan Byrnes - The names to look for include... Thomas Boylston (1721-1798 in London) son of Boston saddler/storekeeper Thomas Boylston (1691-1739) and Sarah Moorcock (1696-1774). Thomas died 1798, a bachelor, inherited from his wealthy brother Nicholas who died 1771 (born 1716). It is said Thomas in 1779 (in the middle of the American Revolution) took his portion of the family fortune to London with the express purpose of dealing with the London-based Anglo-American bankers, Lane Son and Fraser (LSF)), that is, he would deal with the bank's three principals, Thomas Fraser, Thomas Lane (died 1784) and his son John Lane (died 1784 probably later than his father) [if John Lane did die in 1784, which might be doubtful, it is then uncertain whom Boylston dealt with at LSF apart from Thomas Fraser]). It appears that LSF did deal say between 1780-1793 with Boylston but reluctantly due to the interest rate he charged them; Boylston does not seem to have gotten on well socially with LSF, although they had many other visitors from America they entertained socially, as the diary of Loyalist Samuel Curwen shows for 1775. By 1793 when LSF failed, Boylston evidently was unable to extricate his money from their affairs and by the late 1790s was in Newgate (London prison) as a debtor, an unhappy man once visited by a Loyalist named Aspden. It is not clear that Boylston did take over LSF, I tend to the view that he remained a sleeping partner with the bank, and probably an increasingly unhappy one as the bank failed.
The Thomas Russell concerned was of Boston, the noted lawyer Thomas Russell (1740 -1796 of Charlestown Massachusetts) - who had three wives, Elizabeth Watson (died 1809), arah Sever and Elizabeth Henley; he was son of Hon. James Russell (1715-1798) and Katherine Graves (1717-1778). Citations do make it look as though there was a Thomas Russell (possibly the same man involved in the same sorts of land dealings re Lane Son and Fraser) of Charlestown South Carolina, but it seems to Byrnes that he was the same man as Thomas Russell of Boston. The George William Irving is often misgiven by this name but he was actually George William Erving (1769-1850) sometime US diplomat to Madrid, Spain, son of Loyalist Boston Merchant George Erving (1738-1806 died in London) and his first wife, Lucy Winslow.
It seems to have been the case that for the purposes of handling legal cases, even perhaps as late as 1838, LSF survived at least as legal remnants able to be active in British if not US courtrooms, it is all very unclear.
Rare surnames reveal how success is inherited over centuries
Posted on 18 March 2014 by Tom Martinscroft
Your success in life may be pre-determined, not by the wealth, education, and profession of your parents, but by the fortunes of your ancestors centuries ago. And, according to Gregory Clark, a professor of economics at the University of California, it doesn’t matter whether you were born in medieval England, modern liberal Sweden, or communist China.
In his new book, The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility, Clark tracks the social status of families with rare surnames around the world over the last thousand years. Using reams of family history data recorded in documents such as the Doomsday Book and the membership rolls of Oxford, Cambridge and Ivy League universities, Clark reckons that the rise and fall of a family’s fortunes occurs, not over 3 to 4 generations as previously thought by social scientists, but over 10 to 15.
This persistence of social status is highlighted by the distinctive surname of 17th century English diarist Samuel Pepys, who was a Member of Parliament, Secretary to the Admiralty, and President of the Royal Society. There have never been more than a handful of people sharing the surname, and the first recorded Pepys enrolled at Cambridge University in 1496. Clark explains:
“Since 1496, at least 58 Pepyses have enrolled at Oxford or Cambridge, most recently in 1995. For an average surname of this population size, the expected number of enrollees would be two or three. Of the 18 Pepyses alive in 2012, four are medical doctors. The nine who died between 2000 and 2012 have left estates with an average value of £416,000 [$690,000], more than five times the average estate value in England in this period.”
The Son Also Rises - Surnames and the History of Social Mobility In Egalitarian Sweden, Clark found that social mobility today is no greater than in it was in the 18th century. Although Sweden’s old nobility no longer hold political power as a birthright, the average taxable income of a Stockholm sample of people with noble surnames was 44% higher than that of people with the common surname Andersson. The descendants of an educated middle class who latinized their surnames in the 17th and 18th centuries (like the father of the botanist Carl Linnaeus) had average taxable incomes 27% higher than those named Andersson. The old nobility are also 6 times more likely to be lawyers and doctors than the general population, with latinized surnames 3 times more likely.
The inheritance of social status appears to survive great levellers like universal education, the welfare state, world wars and revolutions. Even in China, where the 1949 Communist Revolution and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 saw the execution of swathes of the upper class, old high status Imperial era surnames continue to be over-represented in the modern elite, including the Communist Party. As Clark puts it, “Mao failed.” The cream still appears to rise to the top, whatever the social system.
Clark concludes: “In modern meritocratic societies, success still depends on individual effort. Our findings suggest, however, that the compulsion to strive, the talent to prosper and the ability to overcome failure are strongly inherited. We can’t know for certain what the mechanism of that inheritance is, though we know that genetics plays a surprisingly strong role. Alternative explanations that are in vogue — cultural traits, family economic resources, social networks — don’t hold up to scrutiny.”
Source: By 20-3-2014 NY Times as seen by a contributor to the website: abroadintheyard.com/
23 February 2014 - Try this book on Sogdian traders. Etienne de la Vaissiere, (Translated by James Ward), Sogdian Traders: A History. Leiden, Boston, Brill, 2005. It's a pricey book - it cost me about USD$125.00 but SO VERY worth it and fascinating. Very much from an economical point of view, rather than romantic. By the time the Muslims gained control, the Sogdians were fading into the past. Part Four of the book discusses networks... Kind regards, Sharon Ferguson (Texas USA)
British version of 12 Years A Slave to shed light on our role in Atlantic slave trade
New film being billed as a British echo of US epic tells the tale of one woman's role in abolition struggle
The Observer, Sunday 12 January 2014
As Steve McQueen's film 12 Years a Slave captivates audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, Britain's own slaving past is to be given the Hollywood treatment. A series of new books and projects have already been linked to a surge of interest in a subject that has often been overlooked. This spring, in what is already being spoken of as Britain's answer to McQueen's epic, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson and Miranda Richardson will star in Belle, which will open in British cinemas having successfully premiered at last year's Toronto film festival. Directed by Amma Asante who, like McQueen, was born in Britain but lives in the Netherlands, the film tells the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the daughter of an enslaved mother in the Caribbean, who went on to live at Kenwood House in north London under the protection of Lord Mansfield, the lord chief justice. While she was living there, in 1772, Mansfield ruled that a master could not carry a slave out of Britain by force, a judgment seen as a crucial step towards the abolition of slavery. Misan Sagay, who wrote the screenplay, has said that understanding Belle is crucial to understanding Mansfield's motivation. "The abolition story is often told without a black person being there," she said recently. "But Belle, living with such a power whose judgments affected slavery, must have had some impact." Belle's story is in some ways the reverse of that of Solomon Northup, the central character in McQueen's film, who was born in the US a free man but later kidnapped into slavery. By contrast, Belle achieved an unprecedented level of social status and was painted by the noted artist, Johann Zoffany. "The story is interesting in lots of ways," said historian Dr Miranda Kaufmann. "Hopefully her film will have as big a splash in Britain as 12 Years a Slave." Briefly, in 2007, Belle was the subject of a temporary exhibition at Kenwood House in 2007. Now she has been awarded a prominent and permanent presence. As with McQueen's movie, Asante's film will shine a light on the slave trade by telling its story through the eyes of individuals caught up in it. Many of the tensions that permeated late 18th century Britain can be understood through the character of Mansfield, says historian Dr Madge Dresser. "One of the interesting contradictions is that in the name of freedom, merchants in the slave trade were campaigning for the right to trade in slaves," said Dresser. "On the one hand, Mansfield was probably against slavery personally, but he also had to grapple with the idea that an Englishman's property had to be protected from the absolutism of the state." In the past year there has been a renewed examination of Britain's role in slavery. A book co-edited by Dresser and published by English Heritage, Slavery and the British Country House, has examined how much of Georgian society was funded by the slave industry, while Legacies of British Slave-ownership, an online project launched by UCL, has revealed how many wealthy families benefited from plantations in the Americas. Making Freedom, an exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society, has sought to counter the conventional slavery narrative. "The point powerfully presented in the Making Freedom exhibition is that Africans were not passive victims, but constantly resisted their enslavement and fought for their freedom," Kaufmann said. "They actively resisted, through uprisings on land and sea, by running away and establishing Maroon settlements, or even by committing suicide." Kaufmann said she hoped that, inspired by McQueen, other directors would now turn their attention to Britain's role in the slave economy. "Telling the stories of individuals is a better way into this subject," Kaufmann said. "If you just use lots of numbers and statistics, people put up the shutters." Separately, law firm Leigh Day is bringing a legal action against Britain over its role in the slave economy on behalf of 14 Caribbean countries grouped under the umbrella of the Caricom trade organisation. Senior partner Martyn Day said there had been a cultural shift in the slavery debate. "We see the momentum building," said Day, who led a successful claim against the British government on behalf of the Mau Mau people of Kenya last year. "The power of the Caricom nations, both within the UN and in the wider political world, combined with developments like 12 Years a Slave, is striking just at the right moment." Day added that the claim, which is being brought against France, the Netherlands and Britain, was different from that made on behalf of the Mau Mau people. "The idea is to engage with the western powers in a more discursive manner, rather than saying, 'Here is a claim for a zillion pounds.' Instead, the point is to say, 'Look, here are the ongoing impacts of slavery. You western powers have committed to ensuring that the impact of race discrimination is not ongoing, but the Caribbean still suffers from the impact of slavery and this is what our clients feel can be done to resolve it'. I am optimistic that the western powers would engage in this discussion in a very positive way." One possible solution, Day suggested, would be for the three countries to share expertise in matters such as health and education and to pay for a museum of slavery in the Caribbean. "In the UK there are three or four museums on slavery, but there are none in the Caribbean," he said.
About ... Headhunters Black and White: Three Collectors in the western Solomon Islands
1893 to 1914, by Rhys Richards
A not-for-profit publication
by the Paremata Press.
266 pages, 92 illustrations (15 in colour)
Minimum price in New Zealand $NZ 44.95
plus packaging and postage $ NZ 4.50
Total $NZ 49.50
Overseas : Soft Packet and Airmail Postage:
To Australia $NZ 45 plus $ NZ 12 = $NZ 56.00 = $ A 45.00
To Solomon Islands $NZ 45 plus $NZ 17 = $ NZ 62.00
To Hawaii and USA $NZ 45 plus $ 21 = $NZ 66.00 = $US 55.00
To UK and Europe $ NZ 45 plus $NZ 25= $NZ 70.00= Pounds 39 or Euro 45
Please pay by PAYPAL by email or directly to Bank of New Zealand
to by cheque or cash to Rhys Richards account 020500 0120535 00
at Paremata Press 1 Willis Street
73 Seaview Road , Paremata, Wellington 6011
Wellington , New Zealand 5024
Order by Email : mrhys@paradise.net.nz ( N.B. PP is Not large enough for NZ GST)
Head Hunters Black and White: Three Collectors
in the western Solomon Islands
1893 to 1914
by Rhys Richards
Contents
I Introduction: A Gentleman, an Officer and a Scholar:
Three collectors in two decades of change 5
II The Context: A very short history of the western Solomons before 1914
III Twenty British Collections: What 10,000 artifacts can teach us now 59
IV A Gentleman Warrior Collecting ‘War Trophies’ from 1899 to 1903
Part 1. Arthur Mahaffy, Trophy Hunter, in the Field 83
Part 2. The Mahaffy Collection in Dublin 93
V An Officer Collecting ‘Museum Objects’ in 1901
Part 1. Graham Officer and the Officer Collection in Museum Victoria, Melbourne 115
Part 2. The Graham Officer Collection: A Brief Summary of Locations 119
Part 3. The Diary of Officer collecting ‘Museum Objects’ in the Solomon Islands, January to August 1901 123
Part 4. Sepultures 195
VI Mbatu-mbatu, the Tomoko War Canoe Looted from Kombukota 201
VII Headhunters Black and White 213
VIII A Scholar Collecting Information on Simbo in 1908
( a.) A. M. Hocart, Collector of Information 225
( b.) Arthur Hocart’s Papers and Photographs in the
Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington
Published 229
Unpublished 237
Acknowledgements
Bibliography 243
Index
Chapter I. Introduction:
A Gentleman, An Officer and A Scholar:
Three Collectors in Two Decades of Change
What collecting zeal drew three so different collectors, a Gentleman, an Officer and a Scholar, to the Solomon Islands, a truly isolated outpost of the British Empire, in the troubled two decades from 1893 to 1914? Arthur Mahaffy collected ‘trophies of war’ for the glorification of British imperial expansion to the ends of the earth. But he did so by intimidating the local villagers with ‘police’ raids, and with out-right looting of their meagre possessions. In 1901 Graham Officer paid with trade goods or cash for the ‘exhibition objects’ that he collected, but he also joined in some looting.
In 1908 Arthur Hocart collected very little that was tangible, but sought out and recorded a huge mass of traditional knowledge. Their differing motives and their methods of collection are reflected well in how they referred to the local people: Mahaffy called them ignorant ‘savages’. Officer called them ‘niggers’, some good and many bad. Hocart collected from his informants at their own level, noting his main helpers on Simbo as ‘intelligent tribal elders’.
This book is only one outsider’s view of the momentous changes that took place in those two decades. But it does start to see that changes were not just brought in from outside by the foreigners, but were also generated within the diverse traditional societies and wantok (or language) groups inside the western Solomon Islands. These latter changes and adjustments deserve many other books, preferably written by teams of local people reviewing their diverse heritages. The number of separate stories needed to reflect each wantok and each society adequately, would startle most foreigner observers who still do not recognize that the concept of one entity called ‘The Solomon Islands’ never existed until the British insisted on ‘affinities by decree’. Nation building still has some way to go.
Meanwhile the first part of this book looks at the context and manner in which the unilateral invasion of the Solomon Islands by foreigners led to the formation in 1893 of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, the BSIP. Its object was to super-impose on traditional social groups a separate foreign plantation-based, export-economy which the village peoples were expected to join or perish. Those who chose not to accept this unilateral, compulsory, gift of British civilization, and failed to obey the inexplicable new laws it entailed, were harried and punished with brutal and often indiscriminate pacification raids until the colonial ‘peace’ prevailed everywhere. Already overwhelmed by introduced fatal diseases, and by a major increase in inter-tribal warfare that had followed the introduction of metal axes and firearms, the local people had no option but to adjust, and to live with the changes, including those that were later facilitated by the gradual introduction and spread of Christianity.
The second part of this book looks at what the collectors collected. In the United Kingdom alone there are well over 10,600 museum items from the Solomon Islands, nearly all of them collected before 1914. The task of establishing a new data base of these objects revealed how little the collectors knew of the societies that had made and cherished those objects. Moreover the early collectors had very poor geographical knowledge; insufficient to record which items came from which language groups. The provenances now in use frequently use single island names for islands that have several different distinct languages, different Gods and customs, and, of course, different culture histories. Comparative museum studies still have a major contribution to make towards untangling this mess of inadequate provenances. This muddle is compounded even now as original names are still being lost through simplifications arising from the use of lingua franca like Solomons pisin.
The third part of this book notes in more detail three collectors and their collections. First is the Mahaffy collection in the National Museum of Eire in Dublin that was briefly accessible during 2005, but is now again closed. The Officer collection in Museum Victoria in Melbourne has been illuminated by the diary Graham Officer kept while he was collecting in the Solomons in 1901. This diary is published here for the first time, in full and with annotations. Smaller sections refer to the ‘Mbatu-mbatu’ war canoe now in Museum Victoria, and to the collecting of human heads by both blacks and whites. The final section looks at the very different kind of collecting undertaken by Arthur Hocart, mainly on Simbo during 1908, who pioneered so well the art of collecting anthropological information through rigorous fieldwork and concentrated listening.
With so many objectives and disciplines brought together in one book, the difference in style and presentation will be obvious. Giving contemporary Solomon Islanders a better insight into how their country emerged from bewildering diversity, is one priority. Talking about the collectors and their collections is another, as is the untangling of muddled provenances. Many photographs have been added, in groups, to help separate the sections. The result may seem rather uneven to some, but it is at least a start to recognizing the diversity involved.
Finally I must acknowledge my huge debt to so many helpers in the western Solomon Islands, such as my colleague Kenneth Roga, Reuben Lilo, Festo Lomulo, the late Jack Saemala and dozens and dozens of other friends whose different perspectives and traditional knowledge made my own collecting for this book so much fun. To them, to innumerable librarians, collection managers and curators, I owe so much. Finally of course, this book owes everything to Margaret, my ever tolerant wife.
On Sunday, 12-1-2014, Brian Robson of Sydney Australia sent Merchant Networks Project the following question. We thought the question interesting enough to give to our netsurfers.
Dear Merchant Networks Project, This quote is from a Wikipedia article about Disruptive Innovation:-
The first steamships were deployed on inland waters where sailing ships were less effective, instead of on the higher profit margin seagoing routes. Hence steamships originally only competed in traditional shipping lines' "worst" markets
Question: The above would infer that the Sailing Ship owners would have ignored or not even noticed competition from Steamboats. Does this make sense to you?? - Brian.
Dear Dan, in reply to Brian Robson's interesting post,
“The first steamships were deployed on inland waters where sailing ships were less effective, instead of on the higher profit margin seagoing routes. Hence steamships only competed in traditional shipping lines' worst markets.” An immediate thought ... Ben Wilson, in Empire of the deep, The rise and Fall of the British Navy. [Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2013], describes pointedly how the new steamships were used to tow larger, older sailing ships with greater firepower up inland rivers to impose strategic dominance in Chinese and South American waters and to open up routes for trade – prime example being China and the First Opium War.
The Navy could afford the new and developing technology of steam without any worry of eroding profit margins by heavy capital investment and specialised maintenance in distant waters. When commercial steamboats, smaller in cargo capacity than their sister sailing ships began to make an appearance, is it not possible that they were used in the same way, as tugs, to open up inland waters thus making the “worst markets” better markets? In this way, they may have been a benefit rather than a competitive hindrance to sailing ship owners.
Cheers,
Peter Dickson (UK)
A personal friend of this website, Australian landscape painter Phillip Russell, has lately become interested in the visit French artist Paul Gauguin made to Tahiti. On his voyage, Gauguin was briefly in Sydney Harbour and Phillip wonders whether Gauguin went ashore or not? The questions to be asked grow in interest as below. -Ed
Merchant Networks Project, I thought you'd be interested in this as it involves shipping ... I have had a response to my query, which is ...
NLAref79901 National Library of Australia response to your enquiry To: philliprussell -
Dear Mr Russell, Thank you for contacting the National Library of Australia. In response to your enquiry, I used the database Ancestry to search unassisted immigrant passenger lists 1826-1922 for passengers named 'Gauguin' who arrived in Sydney in 1891. I was then able to view a scanned copy of the original passenger list for the postal ship Oceanien, which travelled from Marseilles to Sydney, arriving on 8 May, 1891. Due to the conditions of the Library's subscription to the Ancestry database, I am unable to attach an image of this record, but if you visit a library that is located closer to you, which also subscribes to the Ancestry database, you will be able to view and copy the record as evidence of Gauguin's arrival in Sydney.
The vessel Oceanien was owned by the French Messageries Maritimes Company. By conducting searches for notices of its routes throughout the Pacific, I have found that a common late-19th century route for travelling to New Caledonia from Australia was Sydney-Melbourne-New Caledonia. From New Caledonia, passengers sailed on to Tahiti. I'm afraid that I have been unable to find any record of Gauguin's departure from New South Wales. The New South Wales State Records office has produced a guide, Passengers departing from New South Wales, which notes that "The earliest departure list is dated 1794 but, apart from the Ships musters, 1816-25, outward passenger lists were not regularly maintained until 1898."
The most detailed reference that I was able to find about Gauguin's brief time in Australia appears in the book Paul Gauguin: a complete life, by David Sweetman:"When the Oceanien called in at Melbourne and Sydney [Gauguin] was struck by the fact that while barely fifty years old, both cities already had over half a million inhabitants, with twelve storey houses, steam trams and cabs 'exactly as in London. The same smart clothes and abounding luxury'. He had to admit that 'the English people have truly extraordinary gifts for colonizing and running up great ports'. But having said that, he still concluded that it was 'a burlesque of the grandiose.'" (Chapter 9, page 271).
Unfortunately, the author, David Sweetman, does not cite the source of Gauguin's quoted observations, but having consulted a number of other books on Gauguin's correspondence, I believe that the quote may come from a letter to his wife, Mette, which is included in the book, Paul Gauguin: Letters to His Wife and Friends.
Unfortunately, our Library's copy of this book was not available for me to consult at the time of writing. However, Trove search results (link above) indicate that it is held in a number of other Australian libraries. If you would like to view a copy of the book to read further, albeit brief, references to Australia, you may be able to arrange an interlibrary loan through your local public library and have the book sent there for you to use. Staff at your local library can help to organise interlibrary loans on your behalf.I hope this information is of assistance. Good luck with your research.
Regards, [Name], Reference Librarian, Information Services, National Library of Australia
Your original enquiry: Mr Russell is interested to verify if Gauguin visited Sydney on his way from France to Tahiti - probably to pick up supplies. Mr Russell is an artist and had heard from other artists that Gauguin was in Australia briefly en route. Can we find any evidence to support this theory?
Given the above, other questions arise, Phillip suggests. By 1891, Gauguin, once a stockbroker, now an artist seeking new horizons, was "the original poseur", a pioneer of bohemian artistic lifestyle (and when in Tahiti he started or helped to run a newspaper). The bold colours of his artworks hit the museum market of his day like a bomb. If Oceanien called into Melbourne and Sydney, did Gaugin go ashore? During which period was she any official mail ship? How long might it have stayed about Melbourne or Sydney. In Sydney, where did it dock or anchor, at Sydney Cove, Wooloomooloo or Darling Harbour? Did Gaugin have or use a passport or any other kind of document to go ashore?
May 2013: Merchant Networks Project co-manager Ken Cozens has lately had the success of having recent research work published. Cozens with Gary L. Sturgess (of Sydney, Australia) have produced an entirely new view of a major commercial figure involved in shipping convicts to Australia before 1800, Anthony Calvert. The result is a new-wave outlook on research into convict transportation to Australia. Calvert's motives and methods are outlined and this new article certainly deserves follow-up soon. -Ed
See Gary L. Sturgess and Ken Cozens, 'Managing a Global Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century: Anthony Calvert of The Crescent, London, 1777-1808', The Mariner's Mirror, 99:2, May 2013., pp. 171-195.
From Ken Cozens in London, 24-6-2012
Dear Dan,
I thought you might be interested in this database which has apprenticeship and freedom records of the Clothworkers, Drapers and Goldsmiths Companies. Some of the fathers of apprentices and especially the masters may be of interest to you.
http://www.londonroll.org/search
If you do a "keyword" search for 'merchant' you will find a number of entries with 'events' which often contain family information.
One other question I have for you is would you know if DAVID COURT the Secretary of Trinity House was related to the CHRISTOPHER COURT you know so much about? I personally think that there must be some family connection with the Court brothers merchants in the American trade and David featured in the famous merchant brethren portrait hanging in Trinity House. You help would be appreciated. Best regards, Ken
Review May 2011 of Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War. New York, Three Rivers Press, Random House, 2007. (First paperback edition for USA.)
By Dan Byrnes 15-5-2011.
This review was written while I was revamping my computer back-up systems, a time-consuming job. I happened to fill in free time while a computer did its thing by visiting a friend. Who loaned me Deer Hunting With Jesus.
Bageant's other book, Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, is in our local municipal library, of which I was unaware. And perhaps I should say that because our town is a home to a small university, we have educated people here who put pressure on our librarians to come up with the hottest of the latest in new publishing.
And of course, our university town here has a good library, plus several specialty libraries (university department collections, in Law, economic history, geography). Our little town by Australian standards has uncommonly good library offerings.
And in our little university here, with our good libraries, we have “an education industry”, little manufacturing, various rural activity, including a seemingly lucrative, regular cattle-selling set of operations, a remarkably quiet industry, and a service sector quite devoted to the educational sector.
So by Australian standards, due to its lack of manufacturing, our town lacks a strong tradition of union membership. And of course, one of the first things that an Australian will notice about Deerhunting is the lack in the USA of a tradition of trade unionism to assist the interests of the working class.
To explain, I had no idea who Joe Bageant was, or what he might say, till he appeared on Australian TV chat shows in 2011 (if not 2009?), promoting Deerhunting. On TV, Bageant, now sadly deceased in March 2011 due to cancer, seemed to be determined to say searingly outrageous things, lines which he had been practicing a long time. And he seemed eloquent, accurate, often funny. He is one of the angry, and great, American polemicists writing since 1945, but just how far does he let anyone travel usefully?
One wonders what sort of a hearing Bageant received from media outlets in the USA! What are his true US sales figures? And true, Bageant's Deerhunting is searing, lacerating, filled with rage about lack of social equity in the USA, a rage that never lets up, but a controlled rage.
And his main topic is the ways of his own people, the white and working lower classes (or, underclass) of America, who allow themselves to be propagandized by America's skilled political shills into believing things economic (socio-political) which run counter to their own best interests.
And firstly, Bageant has to convince the USA, his main readership, that the USA indeed has a problematical class war scenario to consider. Few will talk about it. The delusion prevails that most of America is “middle class”.
But as Bageant shows, this is demonstrably not so, since educationally, the literacy and numeracy deficits of the white lower class will prevent them becoming middle class, and slightly better able to cope. Better education might become one of their saviours, if they let it, but meantime, Jesus remains their Saviour. Another problem. These are people who have not yet learned to be wary about what to pray for.
The tragedy is that in a large country that is, federally, mostly without a useful political sense of being a commonwealth, neither of America's two major political parties, Republican or Democrat, have taken up the cause of social equity in an across-the-board way. Workers'unionism is often vilified in American life, capitalists often in a quite boring way try pre-emptive strikes on workers' political actions. And too few people vote.
Bageant however fails to tell us why old-fashioned social equity, well-known in the UK, Europe and Australia, failed to take root in the USA, and why so few people vote? Perhaps he relies on our other reading to tell us why?
I decided to write this review of Bageant only because other reviewers fail to ask why he fails, while he delivers such witty descriptions of symptoms, to provide so few helpful diagnoses or hopeful cures? Most of his reviewers are leftists who are on side with his political views, and with his scathing criticisms of American popular life and culture. But this is not good enough, it´s little more than unadmitted schadenfreude. Bageant doesn't even go as far as Leonard Cohen did with his post-1989 song, Democracy (“democracy is comin', to the the USA). Cohen's song is just as scarifying a critique of US life, and just as depressing, but at least Cohen seems to recommend that people go out and vote. Bageant seems to have given up on hope that Americans will become democrats, and actually vote.
That doesn't stop his gonzo-economics being so often funny, however. But Bageant is also lonely. He's one of the few who have traced many of the self-defeating attitudes possessed by today's white American working class to the cultural baggage brought to the USA by the Scots-Irish, particularly those from Ulster, and/or the Scottish borderlands. (That's right, the same folks who gave us log cabins, Indian-hunting on the frontiers, bluegrass and country music, hard work, self-reliance, and a lot of old-time religion. Their heritage was different to that of Catholic Irish who came to America, more often from the southern, more Catholic parts of Ireland.) So Bageant at least traces some of where the historical problems began and with whom, but he has too little historical analysis (and so little on Afro-Americans and Hispanics).
He doesn't, for example, tell us when or why he converted to Socialism, or to his particular streak of American leftism, or style of “liberalism”. He jokes about himself as a “Commie”, but we have no idea what sort of “Commie” he is by anyone's standards outside those of his Winchester, Virginia, USA setting.
Bageant here is rather like the rest of lower-class American, too ignorant of the rest of the (English-speaking) world to make cross-comparisons which would help enliven any critique of US life, and further enlighten his American readers about other parts of the world.
Rather, given his streak of leftism/Liberalism – Bageant seems to be left of the left wing of the Democratic Party - he indulges in a great deal of politician-bashing, bank-bashing, upper-class-bashing (it used to be the bashing of the New Englanders, or the Boston Brahmins), and entertainment-industry bashing. // We recall, in the 1970s, it was common for sociologically-minded (Leftist) US commentators to bash the American TV industry for its sins of distracting the lower orders from awareness of their parlous socio-economic conditions. While religious right-wingers bashed the entertainment industry for helping to erode good old social values. Is everyone in the US against the times as they change?
Even in the 1970s, this criticism of the media seemed strange to an Australian, because here, as in Britain, we have one publicly-funded alternative (independent) TV network which give us less drivel than the commercial networks give us, Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV. (Not counting our later-arising multicultural broadcaster, SBS). Australians do not know what it is like, to live without a quality, reliable, alternative TV news-gatherer and broadcaster. As a result, Australia's political observers always know when the right-wing of politics in Australia is getting ideas above its station, it's when they re-start with complaining about reporting from the national, publicly-funded news broadcaster.
What the USA needs is something like this, a Federally-funded, national newshound and TV network that treats serious stories seriously. But no, it seems as if this will never happen in the land of free speech. Today we can say, the one-time nation of can-do has become a slow-learner. Maybe led by politicians who follow the voting demographics of the rednecks? What could be more tragic?
For Bageant's fans, contempt for “Wall Street”, is of course, mandatory, it´s part of the US socialist, labour union, redneck and even Liberal parlance, it's understood. But it isn't good enough, nor would it be good enough if we were always happy with a senior UK trade unionist continually bad-mouthing “the City of London” as finance sector, “the City”. The non-gonzo fact is, that both The City and Wall Street are important in the world economy, whether we like it or not. With understanding these complications, Bageant can't help us at all. Anymore than Hunter S. Thompson's contempt for Pres. Richard Nixon did us any extra good except giving us a literary lift about the role of fear and loathing in contemporary US politics.
There are, indeed, a great many wise, literate, well-educated, well-travelled, well-read people living in the USA, and not all of them Liberals, either, but they are often much too quiet and they are not the people Bageant is writing about. He writes, searingly, funnily, about the things his lower-class whites do and say as they espouse political beliefs that work against their own interests. They over-eat and get obese, do the things a man's gotta do, are thoroughly and indeed, enthusiastically complicit in their own downfall, believe a thousand impossible political things before breakfast.
And they want to look after “our boys overseas”, that is, their sons off on some mission for US interests overseas. Without demanding that their returning veterans are to be given suitable medical and other treatment. (It has been reported in Australia that the suicide rates of recently returned US veterans have far exceeded the casualty rates their units ever suffered in war zones.)
It really is as though Bageant is correct, these are people for whom unthinking patriotism is a replacement for a thoughtful and aware political outlook at state and federal levels. Flag before political felicity, always.
Bageant had been an enemy of the newly-arising Tea Party in America, and it's almost as though that is because their rage was and is inchoate, whereas his rage is perfectly articulate (only because he has an organised Socialist tradition to fall back on). In direction, Tea partiers are probably entirely lacking Bageant's kind of generic critique of capitalism and its practices, so there can be no confusions on those grounds. Still, with his own ways of passionately bashing bankers-and-politicians, he actually comes close to sharing a great many conspiracy theories now rampant on the US Internet. It's only the ideological discipline that he puts on his rage that saves him from being – just another US raver. He keeps his sense of humour, and jokes against himself, honest and saving graces that so many other US ravers lack.
With Bageant's discussion of the heritage of the Scots-Irish, we do have an explanation for one of the great cultural mysteries of post 1945 US popular-politico-cultural life. Which is the fact that a so-called historian from the US South, Carroll Quigley, became the big-daddy-inspiration of today's crop of rabid US website political commentators. Quigley wrote a book of so-called meta-history, Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time (1966), and has one section, only, on social change is the USA, more or less after the radio revolution had given the USA rock-and-roll, of which Quigley, an academic in some southern US university, disapproved. Along with everything which, culturally, and chronologically in history, later accompanied rock and roll. Quigley's section on what he felt was disastrous social change in the US, an erosion of invaluable old values, has resonated with enormous power in, maybe, Bible-belt America. No non-American can understand how and why Quigley resonated so powerfully as he did, but he did, to the extent that many others have followed up his themes. Quigley has claimed that he has often been misquoted. One might say that rabid commentators in the US have actually hijacked him. It is difficult for a non-American to see quite how his views came to be peddled so enthusiastically across the USA.
One of Quigleyś views was that behind this erosion of values was the influence of “the British”. Quigley cast huge doubt on the value of the links between the US and British governments and establishments. His views became mainstream for many Americans. And it is refreshing to see that Bageant is free of such prejudices. He confines himself to American-style abuse by an American, of American sins; there are no “others” to blame but himself and the people he comes from.
Still, a sense of humour in dangerously balanced perspective does not a political system save. Some of the problems and panaceas that Bageant notes are probably too big for anyone, even a re-organised USA, a change-of-heart USA, to deal with. So the future looks grim.
Bageant meanwhile could have made better use of the past, in terms of the histories relating to how the US acquired its present sets of problems and entrenched them so deeply. For example, re the state of the USA's housing/mortgage markets in recent years, and the “derivatives” that appeared for sale world-wide, Bageant remarks scathingly on “predatory capitalism”. Quite so, but by this reviewer's light drawn from reading histories of the American Revolution, the father of American predatory capitalism, and there were many others like him, was “the financier of the American Revolution”, Robert Morris. What the USA needs is someone to arrive to critique its very origins as a nation state! Someone who can also look Robert Morris as well as Bageant's book in the eye.
To a disturbing extent, the USA that provoked Bageant to write Deerhunting with Jesus is populated with religious fundamentalists, people who want their friend Jesus to save them (since they know Him, a little, and He knows them, so well), People who have unrealistic views on how far self-reliance can help anyone today, people who lazily think that espousing brainless patriotism is the only contribution they can or should make to American citizenship. What if, deep-down, every energetic US flag-weaver we see on TV was actually as worried and uneasy in many of the ways Bageant has become uneasy about the state of the USA? That would be a huge problem. It probably is.
Bageant might well be fiercely witty as he is, but pleased, overly laudatory and uncritical reviews of Bageant's book are not going to do anyone any extra good. Even if Bageant is enjoyable, entertaining in a schadenfreude kind of way, funny, and probably correct and reliable about the ills of capitalism and the low educational levels of lower-class whites in America. That said, some choice quotes will not go astray, either.
Bageant (p. 31). “A wage earner's only asset is his willingness to give a day's work for a day's pay, the price of which he does not determine.” Straight Marxism if you like, yes, but also straight and unexceptional trade union rhetoric in Australian and the UK for all this reviewer's lifetime, in the direction of promoting collective wage bargaining. // Bageant admits that real blue collar workers do still exist in the US, as do labour unions, but says they are on the ropes. (No one seems to ask why so many of the employing classes around the entire world have the same attitude – to pay extra wages is anathema, because it will only encourage workers! Really, who has been brainwashed all these years, and about what?)
Bageant (p. 247). What people in the USA are living is the set of illusions provided by “The American Hologram”, (which one might say, is a virtual presentation of what used to be called, The American Dream) . Meanwhile, one day, “The Apocalypse will be televised”. Page 247. Well, The Apocalypse, or is that The End Times?
Bageant (p. 159). The Covert Kingdom: They plead upon the blood of Jesus for a Theocratic State. (But they do not believe that the USA has no holy wars.)
Bageant (p. 113). Various Federal politicians are, as they “plunge to the precipice, mad old men who've commandeered the nation as their getaway car” … (Surely a line that Hunter S. Thompson himself might have admired! Shades of Thelma and Louise, as well!)
Bageant (p. 190). that many of the varieties of Christianity espoused in the USA amount to “the spell of an extraordinarily dangerous mass psychosis.” The implication of which is, as long as Americans worry excessively about Muslims, this will only tie Christian fundamentalists to Islamic fundamentalists. And that, let us not even ask here about Israel, will not be pretty, or reassuring, or encouraging about anything. Of course, Bageant was very upset about the reasons that GW Bush was given two terms of office as president. But it's worse. Baegant estimates that up to 35 million American lower class whites suffer with and from the kinds of outlook-on-life problems he discusses. I wonder, though, if Bageant is not just talking about a weirdly American species of identity politics, and an identity politics everyone else should really, just, avoid, if they possibly can.
That is the frightening part. Some 35 million is a lot of people to be living in a parallel universe. (Or is that by now, a parallel hologram?)
Anyone well-read could go on at great length about what Bageant tells us too little about, concerning the absurdities of the USA today. Certainly, we must be enormously grateful for his sense of humour! Reviewers say Bageant is laceratingly funny, with a Hunter S. Thompson sort of fury. He makes you heartsick but it's hard to turn away (and so much of what he says is anyway in so much American country music). That he often makes Michael Moore look tame. That he well-explains why the kind of people who produced him have given up on Liberalism. And most such remarks are true enough. All of America I fear is too big to be taken on by even Bageant's sense of humour. Others will have to take up the task. And still, Bageant suggests the Liberals/Democrats are not organised enough or coherent enough in their views to cope with their enemies. The career of President Obama seems to bear him out. The right-wing elements in American political life do seem to have the game sewn up.
Or is it that not enough citizens in the USA actually vote? There are aspects of Bageant's people which are too similar to the folks who appear on the Jerry Springer Show, or before Judge Judy. We could know more of the lot of lower-class Afro-Americans and Hispanics in the US, and if so, we need a lot more writing from Bageants from a lot more US states. Maybe Bageant's book is already politico-social and cultural history? A lot of his redneck neighbours are badly-educated. When it is quite evident, all around the world by now, and very much in Australia, that anyone, anywhere needs a decent education just to be able to cope, let alone do well. Bageant's last major work marks the end of a generation, indeed!
But one of my computers has just finished a job which took it 48 hours. I need to leave this review and get back to computer work. Except for the above remarks, I otherwise unreservedly recommend you read Deerhunting for Jesus, if only because Bageant's gonzo economics is a wonderful (and often bitterly funny) corrective for the Voodoo Economics which has been sweeping the world since Reagan's time as US President, and indeed, since the end of WWII.
And actually, a prolific Australian economist, professor and a protestor, John Quiggin, has not long published a book on Zombie Economics, that is, economic ideas which helped produce the 2008 global financial crash (GFC). And he fears that the crash failed to kill-off those zombies. (John Quiggin, Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us. Princeton University Press, 2010.)
Because they are ignorant, the people Bageant writes about will never help us get rid of such zombie ideas in US economic life. They are a stumble-bum rump of opinion, whether they vote or not.
There are wider serious questions in the world than the problems of ill-educated white Americans. Myself, I think the reason that politicians around the world are failing to grasp the nettles of climate change problems, that is, to try to rein-in the excesses of the “carbon economy”, is due to their great fear of the appearance of power-vacuums that will appear in developed economies if and when the carbon economy falters, as it will when the effects of peak-oil hit. But then, economic problems with “capitalism” will keep appearing as long as world population keeps rising. These are two extra somethings that Bageant does not address. He was quite busy enough. The American future does not look happy. The same for the world.
Still, maybe that's part of the Deerhunting with Jesus message. Today, we live in a world where to confine a discussion only to my-own sort of people, simply isn't good enough anymore. Now, everyone has to think about everyone else, and other sorts of people around the world, at least a little. Which Bageant's people are rather bad at, because empathy is not their sort of thing.
Virginia can go rest on its country music heritage and laurels anytime it likes. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has just won the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest, Go figure. Go Google.
Bageant's book ought to be on the reading lists of public policy makers in the USA at State and Federal levels. I guess it won't be. Certainly not in Texas!
(Ends)
Dear Merchant Networks, In case you were not aware, the British Library now has a facility (Ethos) whereby you can download "free" copies of doctoral theses. Anyone would be pleased to see what is available there! Here's the link:
http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do
Best wishes, Ken Cozens
ps: The BL website is a bit confusing regards to their shopping basket/payment procedure. But in fact you do NOT have to pay for downloads of available studies, ONLY for hard copy paper ones! All you have to do is place the item into your shopping basket and "create" the download. Try it and see!
E-mail arrives 15 July 2010 from Keith Dawson in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, re some of his views on the activities of his ancestors, the Enderby whalers of London. Dawson is now self-publishing and an expansion of his views below is now in the works. Otherwise, see information here on his earlier self-published book which touches on some associated issues - Ed
Dear Merchant Networks Team,
As to theory-in-history on how and why things were done in regards to colonisation at Sydney ... The Pacific and Indian oceans were not useful for trading purposes prior to the advent of refrigeration, no products. Spices and Coconuts were the province of the European East India Company’s efforts. Demand for oil from whales could be satisfied by the Atlantic Ocean. Then came the Industrial Revolution, and more oil was required for lighting and machinery. One report indicates that the efficiency of looms was increased by 10 percent when whale oil was used on the machinery, and it was also used on wool combing equipment, all increasing the market for whale oil. The whalers slaughtered the fish until, as they said themselves, the whales got scared and became scarce, so that new whaling grounds were needed - in the Pacific. This is why the Enderbys gave ships to the navy on two occasions and went shares on the third, after which the whalers were allowed to go east of Cape Town and west of Cape Horn, areas which were forbidden to be worked by the Elizabethan Act c.1600, except by the Merchants forming the East India Company in opposition to other European nations doing the same.
Emelia Vansittart (died 1819) (nee Morse), whose husband Henry (1732-1770, a governor of Bengal) was lost at sea around Cape Town in 1770 on his way to India to take up the appointment of Superintendent of the English East India Co., for the second time, was a long-term investor in Enderby whaling activities, unusually for the industry, a woman. I believe it was her husband who told the Enderbys that the Elizabethan Act governing the activity of the East India company did not say anything about going west of Cape Horn, so by the 1770s, therefore, whaling ships could go this way into the Pacific where there were abundant whales. The abundance of Pacific whales was made evident at an enquiry into whale bonuses which culminated in bonuses being enhanced and extended for another 11 years [Steps taken in 1776++ =1787 =1798]. Bonuses were given for ships traversing Cape Horn and returning with Pacific oil in a given time. Enderbys had a brand new ship built for the voyage and it was called Emelia (after Vansittart, not Amelia as is often said).
Emelia was the first-ever whaling ship from any country to go around the Horn in 1788 and returned in record time. The speed of the voyage was questioned at the time. I have two theories here. One is that a little-known ship which carried the 96 Marines, wives and children (to Sydney) that we do not know what ship they came on, arrived on an Enderby whaler which was quickly unloaded and then went fishing, transferring its oil to Emelia in the Pacific; or, the ship in question never rounded the Horn but loaded up at the Namibian port of Sandwich. I have a copy of a First Fleet drawing of the Fleet in the Canary islands which shows twelve ships (not eleven). Sydney was established because convicts could no longer be sent to America because of the Boston Tea Party [tea ships there being two Enderby ships plus their agent's ship]. The Endeavour voyage was a whale-industry means of finding out the numbers and types of whales available; note how many times Cook mentions whales, even though he was moving along the coast of Australia in what are now whale-watching months. Cook himself was known to the Enderbys either through the St. Petersburg trade, his wife’s family, and/or as a distant relative.
I have specially investigated the subscribers to Phillip's book (Phillip's Voyage, published 1789), who subscribed without having read it [it was published in haste]. Therefore they had another reason for subscribing: the results are very interesting since most subscribers were known whaling Investors. None were Catholic in religion.
Enderby correspondence says that Samual Enderby II was friendly with Pitt the Elder and Samual Enderby III with Pitt the Younger. It was Pitt the Younger’s death which stopped the whaling cabal from developing Sydney.
The British whaling Industry was terminated by lack of demand due to other products. Downing Street was lit by gas in 1815. The first street lighting in London appeared in 1807. Illumination by wick in oil lamps or candles was the main use of whale oil. Gas use was expanded quickly because of the population density and small distances involved in Britain, whereas the USA required whale oil because of the opposite conditions. Petroleum products arrived in the1830s.
Yours, etc, Keith Dawson
The above can be regarded as publicity preceding Mr Dawson's second projected book. His first is depicted above right (and can be bought via PayPal - see http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/CarolinePrincessOfWales&OtherForgottenPeople.html
).
Disclaimer: The Byrnes/Cozens team managing this website by no means personally agree with the historicity of Mr Dawson's remarks, but feel that his views and information drawn from his family-history sources need an airing. Netsurfers can find relevant Enderby genealogy posted on this website, given with brief explanatory notes which are not burdened with questions of outlining British whaling history. Mr Dawson has generously assisted with the compilation posted on the Internet -Ed
From: Warrick Lisle (Australia) on 6 July 2010
Dear Mr Byrnes, Firstly, thank you for your magnificent websites, they have been enormously helpful in my research, as well as inspiring and a little daunting. They are a Himalaya of sites. I am writing to ask for your help, of course. I am researching Captain George Ward Cole, RN, MLC, a pioneer of early Melbourne. Capt. Cole served in the Royal Navy from 1807-1817, as Masters Mate and Lieutenant. From 1817/18 he went to work for three different London shipping entrepeneurs, until in 1826 he bought his own ship Teignmouth at a HEICo "disposal sale". The three bosses for whom he sailed were George Faith, ship Henry Wellesley, R. Brown ship Vittoria and Stewart Marjoribanks, ship Mellish (you will recognise the first and last as later convict transports). To what or whom do I write to gain some understanding of the business dealings of these three men, please? They all seem to have been big players, Faith and Marjoribanks especially. (I know nothing
of Brown, except that he owned quite a few ships.) Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated , and again thank you for the great sites,
Yours most sincerely, Warrick Lisle.
Dear Dan (15-8-2010), I have come across you site and all your hard work whilst googling for information on John Balgrove.
I am a member of Warsash Local History Society and am researching for a short article on John Balgrove who lived at Great Abshot,[near Warsash] Titchfield and, after his death his daughter and family [Bradshaws] continued to live there.
John Blagrove was a very interesting as well as wealthy man and I'm sure he would have had his image immortalised. I have located a miniature of his wife Ann with his daughter, Elizabeth Bradshaw & son-in-law and I was wondering if you are aware of any portraits of John Blagrove himself. It would be good to see a picture of who I am writing about and would be a useful addition to my article for our newsletter!
I notice Peter Dickson has contributed a lot of information and wonder if I might be able to contact him with the same question. Thank-you for any help you are able to give. Regards, Penny Daish
From: M Bishop & J Dunn (Piper Press) (piperpress@bigpond.com)
Subject: Early Australian Merchants
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2010 13:04:46 +1000
Dear Merchant Networks Team,
Recently we moved to the address below (just beneath the Harbour Bridge), a house erected in 1833 by T. D. Edwards and M. D Hunter who arrived in the colony together from London in that year.
Edwards and Hunter took over Pitman's Wharf and the land above it (where our house is). Prior to 1833 Edwards had visited Sydney from Canton to establish a branch of Jardine Matheson and Co, and traded in Sydney with ex-Canton trader Timothy G. Pitman, who in turn was strongly connected with William Sturgis, one of Boston's formidable Pacific traders.
The trading house of Edwards and Hunter continued under other names that include Thacker, Mason, De Salis, Daniell and eventually George King, before succumbing to economic troubles in the 1890s. Both Edwards and Hunter returned to Britain.
Edwards became one of the founders ot the London Chartered Bank of Australia, taking large interest also in the Australian Agricultural Company, and in various other Australian land companies, and in the National Bank of Ireland. His latter years were devoted to philanthropy and art. Hunter was also interesting, but not so much in terms of your interests.
In the late 1850s our house was sold by Edwards and others to the Campbells, another local trading family, and it stayed in their hands until resumed early last century.
I will continue to collect information about our house and the histories of its early inhabitants, mostly from newspapers and other material available at the State Library, and I am keeping copies of most material we find. Let me know whether our research interests coincide, you and your other researchers, and we would welcome any advice or suggestions.
Regards, John Dunn, 37 Lower Fort Street, DAWES POINT NSW 2000 - Phone: (02) 9251 8650
This would be Thoms Dyer Edwards and
THE LONDON CHARTERED BANK OF AUSTRALIA INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER, 1852 PAID-UP CAPITAL, 1,000,000 POUNDS STERLING. RESERVE FUND 120,000 POUNDS. LONDON OFFICE, 88 CANNON STREET, CITY, E.C. COURT OF DIRECTORS: WILLIAM FANE DE SALIS, ESQ., CHAIRMAN. JAMES FRASER, ESQ., VICE-CHAIRMAN. CHARLES GEORGE BARNETT, ESQ. RICHARD HENRY BROWN, ESQ. JAMES DENIS DE VITRE, ESQ. THOMAS DYER EDWARDS, ESQ. CHARLES FALCONER, ESQ. ALEXANDER HOYES, ESQ. FOWLER NEWSHAM, ESQ. SECRETARY: WILLIAM MARTIN YOUNG, ESQ. AUDITORS: THOMAS CHAPMAN ESQ. JOHN GURNEY HOARE, ESQ. BANKERS: THE BANK OF ENGLAND MESSRS. BARNETTS, HOARES, HANBURYS AND LLOYD. COLONIAL ESTABLISHMENTS: INSPECTOR AND GENERAL MANAGER: EDWIN BRETT NEW SOUTH WALES SYDNEY BRANCH LOCAL DIRECTORS: THE HON. HENRY MOORE, MLC GEORGE KING, ESQ. MANAGER: MALCOLM C. MACHARDY. ACCOUNTANT: EDWARD J. WEBB.
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From: Kathy Pearson
Re: Joseph Lachlan and the convict trade
Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 11:53:05 +0000 (GMT) (21:53 EST)
Dear Merchant Networks Project, I came across your website quite by chance - I was searching for a few facts on a chap called Joseph Lachlan whose name will be known to you in connection with the convict trade between England and Australia.
Basically, he is of interest to me as he had close connections with my mothers' family the Johnsons of Wapping and Whalebone Lane in West Ham and seems to have acted as their agent.
The first Johnson of Wapping, Captain Charles Johnson (1732-1809) seems to have made a considerable fortune which he used to set his son in business. This son, Charles Johnson (1758-1823) and his son John Johnson (1776-1825) were anchor smiths, iron founders and ship owners. They had been re-fitting ships since at least 1784 and they owned at least three ships (Malabar (1819-1825, Prince of Orange 1814-1825/6 and Competitor 1823-25) all of which were known to transport convicts to Australia. Each ship was fitted out with shackles and manacles which were produced in their own foundary in Wapping.
The names of these ships were mentioned in a Chancery case concerning the family assets which dragged on for some years after the death of Charles Johnson and then his son John to whom Joseph Lachlan was executor. It may well be that they owned more ships before the period 1814 but I don't know for sure.
It may be that this period is too late for it to be of interest to you but if this is still of interet to you then plase let me know and I will send you what brief notes I have on these ships. A fascinating subject. Kind regards, Peter Walkerley
Dear Netsurfers (18 May 2010), Merchant Networks Project has just had email from an art gallery in Ireland wanting to track down a picture of a specific convict ship circa 1800 for the BBC. Here's what we said as reply. Cheers, Ed
Dear Dan Byrnes, The BBC are looking for an illustration of the convict ship Minerva which sailed from Cork to Australia in 1800, do you have any suggestions? Many thanks. Peter @ art gallery, Cork, Ireland.
Dear Peter, I'm not aware of anything from memory. There might be a picture in books by Bob Reece (West Australian historian), who has written much on transportation of convicts from Ireland, as a specialty.
I'm stymied for logging pernickety details like pictures of ships for lack of a database suitable for work on maritime history. I've tried to design one myself but lack the full expertise, have talked with programmers etc, but no one can quite see the way to design what I have in mind. And I regret to report that no maritime museum in the world seems to have the wit, for its own purposes or anyone else's, to develop a database that any variety of researchers in maritime history could use. If it crossed the mind of any museum to go to the the bother of making one available, which apparently has not happened. It's finally very simple. Maritime history is global as well as local, because water is global!
If you're actually in touch with the BBC here, you could tell them from me that it would be a good idea if they got one of their IT people to develop such a database and then let researchers around the world use it, preferably for free. (Every blessed river in the USA seems to have a maritime museum! What about the rivers of South America?)
The BBC must have ongoing and upcoming stories on shipping across millennia, from hulks from Cleapatra's time in the harbour at Alexandria, past Vikings, British naval history, to wrecks and situations of today, such as piracy off Somalia. And young Jessica Watson, our own 16-yr-old Australian circumnavigating solo sailor, what a lass she is!
If some international organisation like the BBC developed such a database, able to hold a good variety of comment on an individual ship, they'd be doing the world a favour. I've put much thought into the data model for such a database, a lot of the programming issues are beyond me. But I could make a lot of comments to anyone going into it.
In this database light, consider that you are looking into a specific category of shipping, convict shipping to Australia [from Ireland]. Which is merely one category to apply to shipping. Many other categories apply to shipping. Wrecks. Mysteries/legends (the Bermuda Triangle). Ships per industry (whaling, slavery) C19th passenger shipping. Ships involved in important world discovery. Ships for salvage. Art works on specific ships by specific maritime artists. Marine archaeology. Designing such a database could become a big project. But my God it would be useful!
Imagine! If such a database (server-driven for dynamic output to webpages, a Web 2.0 model) could be centralized and contributed-to (by use of some data format like the .gedcom format used to modemize genealogical information) by researchers all around the world! Maritime history wouldn't know what had hit it for a century or more!
Best regards, Dan Byrnes
Afterthoughts: Minerva was owned by Robert Charnock (of London, who mostly dealt with the East India Co.) and sailed from Cork on 24 August 1800 and has a good record for convict passenger health. (Bateson, Convict Ships, p. 158.) She sailed with convict transport Friendship which had a worse health record.
And one of our regulars responds to this idea as follows -Ed:
Dear Team, Always been interested in shipping, the blood vessels of trade and I share your dream. I took a while to ponder your thoughts as the whole subject is so vast and with different groups compiling bits of this kind of info, orthat kind. All have their own agenda, which makes it all the more difficult to collate and combine sections from different little databases. If there was a particular format available or laid down in academia, I'm sure that other researchers would follow it. Trouble is, I think that the more and more it comes down to budgets these days, I get the sense that no one seems to have, or is prepared to spend, the money on this kind of exercise - not enough personal kudos for one thing.
I hope your e-mailer gets some joy out of your prompt for some BBC input (could this ever possibly happen) on this as a possible wider project. Cheers, Peter.
15 May 2010:
Today's
feeling/Blog
emotion 
Circumnavigation congratulations of global proportions to JESSICA WATSON, solo sailor on Ella's Pink Lady. What a spectacularly magnificent young Australian lady!
E-mail of 4 February 2010
Hi Dan Byrnes, I really appreciate what you did in forwarding my [family history] e-mail to Peter. We have both covered a lot of ground in bringing our family trees together and answering a lot of questions and creating even more questions. Your site has been very interesting and I have recommended it to other members of the Dickson clan. Everybody concerned has been burning a lot of midnight oil. Once again many thanks.
John Rhodes Dickson
From: p.dickson UK Re: problem people and names - 12 March 2010.
Dear Dan, Now that is quite a list of problem people! I have collected a
fair amount of information on John Tharp and his mercantile connections in Bristol
as I recently got up the nerve to go through the 60-odd pages of his Will to
add to what I already knew. I also found the Will of his sister, Rebecca
Campbell, who died in Bristol in 1818. She names a son John Campbell in
Hanover and another, Alexander in New Jersey, which was news to me.
On Tharp's Will, he had a huge amount of ready cash to dispose of in
addition to the properties in Jamaica, London and Cambridgeshire. I have a
theory that others involved in slaving found themselves in the same
position, the sort of money that could not have been made in sugar or real
estate: Neil and Donald Malcolm; Edward Nevinson, Donald Malcolm's partner
from Cumberland; Richard Meyler of Bristol, partner in Maxie and Meyler;
William Miles of Bristol, etc.
The possibility of Duncan's son Jack Campbell having had children in India
is fascinating but so hard to trace. What makes it particularly difficult is
the number of men with the same name who were on the military establishment
and who may have served in India at the time. It was one of the names most
frequently gazetted in lists of army (and navy) promotions for such a long
time. If it were true it would make yet another Campbell/Launce connection
to Australia. Cheers, Peter.
E-mail of Christmas Season, 2009 (And have you ever wondered what happened with breadfuit after it was transplanted in the West Indies from Tahiti in the Pacific after the voyages of Captain William Bligh? - The below is from Robert Lancashire of Jamaica- Ed)
Dear Merchant Networks, This item caught my eye in a local newspaper. (http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyles/Lady-Saw-Dec-24)
(Lady Saw is an entertainer and the paper had a section showing her doing some cooking at a tourist hotel and among the items listed was ...)
Ingredients:
1 large/medium breadfruit
1 tin of condensed milk
Sugar (optional)
Cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg
Appleton Genesis (to taste)
Water
Method:
Peel and then slice the breadfruit.
Wash thoroughly and place breadfruit slices in a pot of water.
Allow to boil and cook.
When cooked, strain and place in blender.
Blend thoroughly.
Add condensed milk to required sweetness. Add sugar if necessary.
A splash of rum (again optional).
Add vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Add more water if necessary.
Pour over frappe ice and serve with additional nutmeg or add ice and crush in the blender.
Cherry or a wedge of lime can be used as a garnish.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I haven't tried it myself! All the best for the New Year. RobertE-mail of December 2009 (re The Blackheath Connection website)
From: Peter Hutt Australia
Hi Mr Byrnes, My name is Pete and I'm studying through OUA, working toward a BA in history and politics. I thought I would email you to thank you for creating and providing such a terrific resource. I am a mature age student and currently taking my first ever history subject, The Making of Australia, through Macquarie University. I found your site quite by accident as I was searching for information about Arthur Phillip (possibly?) being a spy. Googled "arthur phillip spy" and your site was the first link, once I had a look, I searched no further, you've given me all the clues I need to take this further.
Haven't had a chance to check out your sites in detail, but rest assured I will as I can see them being an important resource I will refer to often. Love the way you provide footnotes, something sadly lacking from much information on the web, and as a student who studies from home via computer it's somewhat frustrating at times finding easy access to solid information that I can consider as an academic source. So that's it, no other reason to email you other than to offer you warm thanks for such a great resource.
Regards, Peter Hutt
PS: I hope you don't mind, but I've pointed a few other students toward your site, and I think you can expect to see a few more hits soon.
E-mail on 14-12-2009 from Robert Lancashire,Jamaica
Dan, a fascinating account that will take me some time to fully digest. In Jamaica apart from breadfruit and the Bounty, Bligh is remembered since the national dish is named after him. Ackee, the plant, was named Blighia sapida in honour of Captain William Bligh who in 1793 took samples to Kew Gardens in South London. How does this fit in to the time frame? Ps: I forgot to mention that breadfruit is now an integral part of the Jamaican diet and is eaten roasted, in soup and parts of it even as a candy! I'm not sure when the about change took place and I wonder at the comments that it was rejected as food except as last resort ...
And following on as conversation ... Dear Dan, after sending a note to Phyllis who I then found out was actually on Sabbatical and had not yet retired! I then remembered that Barry Higman had recently published a book on "Jamaican Food." ISBN 979-976-640-205-1 2008, UWI Press. Barry spent upwards of 30 years in Jamaica as a faculty member of the History Dept at UWI before returning to Australia. You will no doubt have come across his name since he has published widely on early settlers and plantation owners.
He devotes 3 or so pages on breadfruit and goes through the arguments about it being a waste since slaves would not eat it. On page 150 he says that by the end of the C19th it had entered the repertoire, by 1917 it had become staple food of the poor, by 1945 was one of the most popular items in the Jamaican daily diet and by 1970's it was absolutely relied upon in rural areas being eaten as much as three times a day! OK it did not take me 20 years to find I had the info at hand but just a quick turn around and actually read the book sitting on the shelf.
Barry quotes about 20 references for the three or for pages in that section of the book on breadfruit including:
JC Beaglehole, "The Endeavour of Joseph Banks" and "The Life of Capt James Cook"
David Mcakay, "Banks, Bligh and the Breadfruit"
Edward Duyker, Natures Argonaut
Timothy Fulford, The Taste of Paradise
Timothy Fulford et al, Literature Science and Exploration in the Romantic Era
Emma Spary and Paul White, Food of Paradise, Tahitian Breadfruit ...
Powell, Voyage of the Plant Bursery
Sheridan, Captain Bligh
Banks correspondence from British Library
Bligh, The log of the HMS Providence
Madge Darby, Bligh's Disciple: Matthew Flinder's Journal
Douglas Oliver, Bligh's second breadfruit voyage
Alan Frost, The Global Reach of the Empire ...
Parry, Plantation and Provision Ground
Parry and Sherlock, A Short History of the West Indies
John Williamson, Medical and Miscellaneous Observations, relative to the West India Islands (1817)
Lunan Hortus Jamaicensis
Jamaica Magazine, 1812
Hope this may be useful if you can't find the book. I see it on Amazon for ~ US$62.
Regards, Robert
E-mail of 10-9-2009 - Dear Sirs,
I found your names by drilling down through the Merchant Networks web site as I was researching Duncan Dunbar and his ships and found the following link "For relevant genealogy, go to the file Dunbar." I was hoping that you might be able to point me in the right direction for some of my research.
 |
|
| One of the more well-known ships of Duncan Dunbar II |
I am interested in finding out if there is a place I might find the captains and surgeons journals/logs for one of Duncan Dunbar's ships. The ship is the Bombay and the voyage is in 1852 bringing bounty migrants to Melbourne. I have consulted the embarkation and disembarkation lists as well as two passenger journals so I have collected some reasonable data at this stage. I am raising my question at this time because I will be in England in a month's time and will have the opportunity to consult whatever records may be available over there and I thought that you may be able to suggest some likely places to visit.
Secondly I was wondering if you knew of the likely locations of any records such as the applications for passage that such migrants would have had to make. I surmised that these should be stored somewhere as to be sponsored would require at least some administration /management that would generate records. If I am in luck these records may be in a government department, with the shipping companies or with the agents who recruit the migrants. Perhaps you might know of such records?
Regards
Russ Pearce
PS: My ancestor Shadrach Pearce was one of the migrants on the Bombay.
Dear Merchant Networks Project,
Janice Lye suggested that I write to you about the sailing vessel Earl Spencer. One of Janice's ancestors was a passenger aboard whilst my 3xGt maternal grandfather was a convict being transported to NSW. His name was Barzillai Bensley. The vessel sailed from Plymouth on 6th June 1913 arriving at Sydney via Madeira on 9th October, 1813.
My own cousin was searching the archives in London and photographed four pages of a logbook from a vessel named Earl Spencer (thinking it was the above vessel)!! The first page dated 11th August, 1813 records that all Officers repaired aboard and that the vessel sailed for Plymouth from Cork with four American Convicts and thirty three Supernumeraries. On 14th August the vessel moored in Stonehouse Pool, Plymouth and discharged the Convicts and Supernumeraries. On Sunday 15th the vessel sailed and was hauled into the basin at Charlestown, St Austell , Cornwall for refit, the guns and powder were put ashore.
During the days following all rigging and masts were overhauled, counter, stern and rudder caulked, copper sheething repaired etc.
On the 28th August guns and powder were reloaded and vessel made ready for sea. On the 29th she sailed for Cork Harbour and moored on the 31st. On the 1st September, 18 men were sent ashore to assist with the transport and loading of convicts. On the 6th September the vessel sailed and moored at Ballyhacks, Waterford to load "slops". Unfortunately I do not have any more pages so where this vessel is bound for is unknown, obviously she is not the same vessel bound for NSW. I find it unusual in having two British ships of the same name? Could she be American since on the top of second page of the logbook is written Earl Spencer Cutter? I understand that you are very knowledgeable on shipping during the above period and I would appreciate any information that you have.
Kind regards, Derek Smith, Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
This item (of 5/6-3-2009) arises since the webmaster on 5-3-2009 was routinely checking hit-counter stats to this website from www.statcounter.com. He went to "recent keywords being used", which keywords deliver netsurfer queries to pages of the website via search engine Google. He was quite amazed to find the following quite ignorant, misguided, erroneous query:
"what happened to convict families captain cook's first fleet?"
Annoyed by such stupidity, the webmaster sent this as a joke to a friend who is a member of staff of NSW Heritage Centre, Sydney. To be replied-to thus:
"Classic isn't it!! According to what I read, an Australian DJ / radio personality was overseas
recently, and when interviewed he told huge radio audiences that
Australia was settled by Captain Cook's first fleet. (This will be common
knowledge soon, and might well be worth a Google search.)
Name supplied but withheld
Well, this website finds this historical information disaster quite fascinating. Australia's noted elder historian, Prof. Geoffrey Blainey, has from about 2007 been lamenting the demise in Australia of the reputations of Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks, such notable names in terms of the first British mapping of the eastern coast of Australia, "the discovery of Australia" as most reports have it. This webmaster thought Blainey has lately been exaggerating. But suddenly in early 2009 it seems Blainey is quite correct, culturally-shared information in Australia on the career of Captain James Cook has had its integrity eroded. (The First Fleet to Australia arrived at what is today Sydney in January 1788 under the command of first governor, Captain (naval) Arthur Phillip.
What does this say about the Australian education system today? The ability of broadcasters to deliver useful, reliable comment on their own history and culture? Are the employers of radio industry people in Australia competent to employ properly educated staff? If this problem can surface for the inspection of a quite surprised/astounded webmaster one routine cyberspace day looking at a US website, statcounter.com, as loaded with data referred from google.com ... the situation is obviously quite appalling. This webmaster quite frankly is totally amazed! The issues are well worth discussing in Parliament in Canberra: how did things historical get this bad in Australia only 239 years after Capt Cook sailed into Botany Bay? What is wrong with the Australian education system? -Ed
> From: Margaret Weston , Hello Merchant Networks Project, I am making contact to thank you for you website. I am researching William Curtis 1st Baraonet (Lord Mayor of London, MP, etc, etc) for a friend of mine who happens to be a direct descendent of him. The information you have on him is incredible as I had no idea how complex his ivolvement was everything. You can imagine the thrill we received when working backwards and finding him and all that he represented. As I am from Australia, I knew about the First Fleet but never what went on to achieve it, only that the gaols were full and they needed to send the convicts here. Now I have a better understanding of the economic reason behind why governments take the stands they do, Many thanks again. Regards, Margare Weston.
Dear Merchant Networks Project, Like you I have a great interest in early Australian history. I have found your London - based Merchants 1780 - 1800 very useful to my own research. I am a First Fleet descendant of Nathaniel Lucas & Olivia Gascoigne. The Lucas Gascoigne family is the largest documented family in Australia with 52,000 descendants listed in the second edition of a book titled A Nation Within A Nation: The Lucas clan in Australia.
While our Australian history has been well researched and started being recorded over 30 years ago, it has only been in the past four years that we have made inroads toward Nathaniel's English roots. Nathaniel wrote a letter home to England from Norfolk Island in 1796, he gave the letter to Phillip Gidley King to deliver when he went home in 1796. The letter was addressed to Mr John Lucas, of Thames Ditton Surrey. The letter was returned to King, became the family had moved from Thames Ditton and it is now in the Mitchell Library in Sydney in King's papers.
In 1997 a Lucas descendant, while in England found a Will of a John Lucass, of Leathhead Surrey. The Will named a John Lucas and a William Lucas as the main beneficiaries. We guessed it was linked to Nathaniel's family, but it didn't give the relationship of the testator to the people he left his money to. In 2005 I was in London and found the Will had been contested and was in the Chancery Court from 1803 to 1811. This was because of a large amount of South Sea shares.
John Lucas, of the Will, was the first cousin of John Lucas who was a beneficiary and father of Nathaniel. William was Nathaniel's younger brother. John Lucass was active in the Southern Whale Fishery and owned a number of ships. Nathaniel Newnham took over a lease from John Lucass in 1786 in Abinger, Surrey. They were both involved in St Thomas Hospital in Southwark. I have also found that James Sykes, who was a Navel agent used by both Nathaniel Lucas, and Phillip Gidley King, owned a lot of property in Leatherhead, Surrey. The networking and links between the Merchants and families like the Lucas family is a story in itself.
There was a Thomas Lucas, a marine on the First Fleet as well as Nathaniel, both men were on the Scarborough. You will be interested to know that Thomas Lucas was a [Free]Mason. He went to Norfolk Island in 1792, Nathaniel was in the first party to go to Norfolk Island with King. King's mistress was from Worcester, the same county as Olivia. We think that Thomas and Nathaniel may be related as cousins but the link has not been proved yet. Nathaniel was convicted in 1784 and he spent months in Newgate, then was on the hulks. It is interesting that Nathaniel's family did not seem to help him when he was convicted, as in sending someone to speak on his behalf. Nathaniel did admit to being guilty in his letter to his father.
My aim is to link up the Lucas families in Surrey with London Lucas families in the hope of getting back to William the Conqueror. I am interested in their DNA as in the mutation of the HFE genes which cause haemochromatosis. I think that Nathaniel had the mutation. My late husband meantime is an indirect descendant of John Larking, Timber Merchant from Kent.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and thoughts on history through the web. Regards, Elizabeth Larking
(E-mail received early January 2009)
Friday, 15 May 2009 at Danson House, Bexleyheath, Kent (Greater London) - Former home of Sir John Boyd.
A one-day Symposium on a global Huguenot merchant network: the Boyd family, co-sponsored by the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, the Huguenot Society of Great Britain & Ireland and the Bexley Heritage Trust.
A mercantile cadet branch of the Boyds of Kilmarnock moved from Scotland to France c. 1600, settling first in La Rochelle and subsequently Bordeaux.
The French Boyds were Protestant and married into Huguenot families such as Berchaud, Chapron and Pascaud, thereby becoming allied to the illustrious merchant dynasties of Faneuil and Thauvet.
At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 Jean Boyd (the first) along with one of his sons Georges remained in Bordeaux (where the family continued to prosper) whilst other family members went into exile, initially to England, South Carolina and Ireland.
Jean Boyd (the second) spent some years in Charleston SC and as part of a letter addressed to his sister in London (who we have recently identified as being Magdelaine Boyd, first wife of Hector Chastaigner de Cramahé originally from La Rochelle and eventually settled in Dublin), compiled the earliest known map and description of Charleston. Subsequently Jean Boyd (the second) moved to Dublin where his daughter Jeanne Elizabeth Boyd married Jacob de Pechels son of Samuel de Pechels, sieur de La Boissonade, whose Mémoires were published by the Musée du Désert (Ed. Robert Garrison, 1936).
One of Jean Boyd (the second)'s sons Augustus was sent to the West Indian island of St. Christopher (St. Kitts) where he made a fortune managing and owning slave plantations.
Augustus brought his family to England in 1735. His son John inherited his assets, became a baronet and built an imposing mansion Danson House at Bexleyheath, Kent.
Thanks to some recently discovered manuscripts, fascinating details about the international commercial activities of the Boyds and their associates during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have emerged.
The commodities they traded included Caribbean sugar, French wine, Irish provisions and slaves from Bance Island, Sierra Leone.
Symposium Chairman: Prof. John Miller (Queen Mary, University of London). Speakers: Vivien Costello (Huguenot Society of G.B. & Ireland), Prof. Louis Cullen (Trinity College Dublin), Prof. David Hancock (University of Michigan), Harriott Cheves Leland (Huguenot Society of South Carolina), Daniel McGill (Ballycastle Historical Research Group), Dianne W. Ressinger (Huguenot Society of South Carolina) and Prof. Bertrand Van Ruymbeke (University of Paris VIII).
Enquiries: +44 (0)1322 526574 or to
janet.hearn-gillham@bexleyheritagetrust.org.uk
The below e-mail was sent by a friend of this website on 1 December 2008.
NEWS | OPINIONS | SPORTS | ARTS & LIVING | Discussions | Photos & Video | Going Out Guide | CLASSIFIEDS | JOBS | CARS | REAL ESTATE
CLARIFICATION TO THIS ARTICLE
· A Nov. 17 A-section article about recent research on the map of the world made in 1507 by Martin Waldseemueller and Matthias Ringmann failed to say that Peter Dickson, a historian in Arlington, published an article in 2002 noting the close correlation between the width of South America on the map and the actual width of the continent. That, along with a depiction of ocean to the west of the Americas, suggested to Dickson, and to other historians later, that the mapmakers had geographical knowledge not widely known at the time.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 17, 2008; A07
How was it that a German priest writing in Latin and living in a French city far from the coast became the first person to tell the world that a vast ocean lay to the west of the American continents?
That is one of the bigger mysteries in the history of the Renaissance.
But it is not the only one involving Martin Waldseemueller, a map-making cleric whose own story is sufficiently obscure that his birth and death dates aren't known for certain.
Waldseemueller appears to have also known something about the contours of South America's west coast years before Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and Ferdinand Magellan sailed around the bottom of the continent. History books record them as the first Europeans to bring back knowledge of the Pacific Ocean.
The evidence of this knowledge is in Waldseemueller's world map of 1507, perhaps the most valuable of the 5 million maps owned by the Library of Congress. It was acquired for $10 million in 2003 and went on permanent display last year.
The map -- in near-perfect condition and with no other known copies -- is the oldest document that applies the label "America" to the land mass between Africa and Asia.
This was, of course, in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine navigator who had sailed to the New World for the Portuguese. (His first name was Latinized to "Americus" and then feminized to "America.") The act of naming was apparently Waldseemueller's alone; there is no evidence that the term was in use at the time.
New research by John W. Hessler of the Library of Congress has made the mystery of Waldseemueller's knowledge deeper and richer. But it hasn't answered the biggest question: How did he know?
"There is some probability that Waldseemueller knew something that is no longer extant -- information that we don't have," Hessler said.
The researcher, 48, brings a diverse set of skills to the task. He took Latin all through parochial school and college (at Villanova University) and reads the language fluently. He is an engineer by training and is equally fluent in the mathematics of cartography.
In a new book called The Naming of America, Hessler provides the first published translation of the map's text blocks. He has also done a modern translation of Waldseemueller's book, Cosmographiae Introductio, printed in 1507 in St. Die, France, where the cartographer was canon of the cathedral. Although Waldseemueller gets most of the credit for the map and the book, he had a collaborator, an Alsatian named Matthias Ringmann, who died in 1511.
In the largest block of text on the map, Waldseemueller writes that many things remained unknown to the ancients "in no slight degree; for instance, in the west, America, named after its discoverer, which is now known to be a fourth part of the world." In Cosmographiae, he uses similar language: "The earth is now known to be divided into four parts. The first three parts are continents, but the fourth part is an island, because it has been found to be surrounded on all sides by sea."
Hessler said he thinks the phrases "now known" and "has been found to be" are crucial. They suggest geographical knowledge that is confirmed and believed, at least in some circles.
"The idea that this was a total guess is far-fetched," he said.
The people who knew were most likely Portuguese explorers (or at least sailed under the Portuguese flag). It was valuable, and most likely secret, knowledge. How it got to a priest-cartographer working under the patronage of the duke of Lorraine is a good question.
Equally intriguing is the shape of South America.
Inscribed along the western edge of that land mass in the 1507 map are the words terra ultra incognita -- land most unknown. But the border is not drawn as one long, ignorantly straight line. Instead, it is a series of straight lines meeting at shallow angles, implying a mixture of knowledge and uncertainty.
Using a technique called "polynomial warping," Hessler re-projected the image and compared Waldseemueller's continent with the real one.
There are many differences, of course. But the correlation is about 75 percent, and at two important places -- near the equator and near the place in northern Chile where the coast veers sharply to the northwest -- the width of Waldseemueller's South America and the actual one are almost the same.
Things were perhaps not as ultra incognita as he let on.
That is not the end of the strangeness, however.
In the large text block on the map, Waldseemueller requests "that those who are inexperienced and unacquainted with cosmography shall not condemn all this before they have learned what will surely be clearer to them later on, when they have come to understand it."
It is a plea. He knows his map is asking a lot.
In 1516, Waldseemueller published his second great map, called the Carta Marina. It shows South America no longer as an island. The continent disappears off the left of the page, implying it is attached to Asia, which is on the right edge.
Hessler has provided the first English translations of the second map's text blocks. In one of them, Waldseemueller says: "We will seem to you reader, to have diligently presented and shown a representation of the world previously, which was filled with error, wonder and confusion ... Our previous representation pleased very few people, as we have lately come to understand."
Was this a retraction? It sounds like it. Was a continental America heresy? Hessler said he has found no reason to think it was. So why would Waldseemueller change his new view of the world to an older one?
That's just one more mystery of the mysterious map.
From: Barbara Murphy-Bridge from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada April 23rd, 2009
You have done an astonshing amount of work on this site!! I have just completed reading HISTORY of the IRISH RACE by Seamus MacManus (27th Printing 1977, orig.pub MCMXXI)(1921?) and decided to google a footnote regarding Irish boys and girls sent to Jamaica as slaves and came across your site . I note you state there is no evidence of this - which was a relief to be sure !
I am a family tree nut so it is great that you have so many surnames for anyone doing genealogy research. Thankfully my Murphy 'rels' left Eire in 1770 on the Annabella and are one of families referred to as the 'Princetown Pioneers ' of Prince Edward Island , Canada.
You have done an incredibe job and I'd like to just say "Thank You!" -
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October 2008
Review by Dan Byrnes of:
Richard Quinn, Samuel Marsden: Altar Ego. Wellington New Zealand, Dunmore Publishing, 2008. (217 pages, paperback) E-mail to: books@dunmore.co.nz (A major revision of Rev. Samuel Marsden, often known in New South Wales as "the flogging parson" but here with attention to his missionary activities in New Zealand. Also detailing a gun-running network operating between Sydney, New South Wales and New Zealand)
This review is placed with e-mail to this website due to the fact that author Richard Quinn had considerable e-mail with this reviewer as his book progressed, meaning this reviewer is closer to the work being reviewed than is usually the case.
One of the ugliest phrases used about the history of human activity in the Pacific Ocean region is "the rape of the Pacific". It has been used to refer to Japanese activities during World War Two, and about situations affecting Papua-New Guinea. I once used it to refer to Alan Moorehead's book, The Fatal Impact: An Account of the Invasion of the South Pacific, 1767-1840. Middlesex, England, Penguin, 1976. And I probably did that since Robert Hughes, author of a not-so-good book on convict transportation to Australia, The Fatal Shore, took his word "fatal" from Morehead's book, more so as Hughes knew Morehead. Hughes re-focussed Morehead's theme with reference to Australia-only
Now, the phrase can perhaps begin a fresh career as Richard Quinn in Samuel Marsden: Altar Ego rewrites the biography of a reverend long-known in New South Wales as "the flogging parson", whom I first read about in the 1960s when a teenager in New South Wales.
Quinn's book is more than just about the first major rape of New Zealand - it is also about questions of the use and mis-use of Christianity in the Pacific.
But first, it might be wise to mention several other atrocious situations prevailing before 1830 as Europeans, if we believe Morehead, invaded the Pacific region. It has been noted that American mariners before 1820 had provoked or committed a massacre of around 100 Hawaiians, apart from introducing them to guns. Before 1820, Europeans had done much to ruin the lives of Aboriginals in Tasmania and around Sydney. Sealers in particular had misused Aboriginals, especially women, as they worked small islands mostly around northern Tasmania.Missionaries sent by the London Missionary Society were tossed off Tahiti by 1814 or so, partly as the Tahitiians became impatient with their meddling in island politics.Those personnel found themselves landed in Sydney, wondering how to make a living.
The earliest British missionaries sent into the Pacific were not especially bright or well-educated, and were insensitive to at least that extent. They were raw novices, sent by bumbling, sanctimonious souls who knew nothing of Pacific islanders or their culture. In fact, one of the co-founders of the London Missionary Society (whom Quinn does not mention), was Rev. Thomas Haweis, who conceived the ambition of bringing "the heathen cannibal" to the Bosom of the Lord. Which is to say that from inception, Britain's missionary impulse to deal with the Pacific was conditioned by contemplation of utterly primal human urges, or, British views/perceptions of such alleged primal urges. Views conditioned by a kind of horrified romanticism hardly akin to also-misleading notions of "noble savages".
There is the further anomaly - also ranged around primal impulses - and Britain's determination to be rid of transportable convicts amounted to a cultural obsession - that a major guiding light of much Pacific missionary endeavour was Rev. Samuel Marsden, based in Sydney, a convict colony. And it seems, from a few errors that Quinn makes as a New Zealander, that discussing convict transportation is still culture-specific, in that non-Australians, and even Australians, can easily mistake aspects of the systems of convictism.
Quinn writes, (p. 33), "Marsden was the biggest convict slave owner in Australian history, holding 200." But strictly speaking, convicts in Australia were not slaves, were not owned, and could not be bought or sold. Some had dismal lives, or worked for misery-inducing masters, but in legal status they were quasi-slaves. They had legal rights that black slaves in the Caribbean did not have; the British State had obligations to convicts that the State did not have regarding the use of black slaves. Convicts could be given easy duties, pardoned, or given a kind of early release, but they were not manumitted. In any case, Marsden was not the employer of the most convicts "in Australian history"; the Australian Agricultural Company is said to have employed up to 300 convicts at their Tamworth landholding, Goonoo Goonoo (after the mid-1830s, not that anyone has ever researched the matter).
Quinn is a little ripe with metaphor, with the vernacular of the New Zealand of today he lives in, even with some vernacular drawn from the past. We need to ask, what is his purpose in writing? And he seems to be mounting a polemic to destroy a clergyman's historical reputation. He is writing a demolition job.
This reviewer thinks Quinn succeeds admirably. But this reviewer is a New South Welshman, and anyone educated in NSW can only ask; how on earth, why on earth, would New Zealanders dignify Marsden with a good reputation ("Apostle to the Maori", etc) in the first place?
As the polemic proceeds, Quinn savages the book written by Sandy Yarwood, Samuel Marsden: The Great Survivor (1977) for the ways Quinn sees Yarwood as obscuring Marsden's faults. This criticism of Yarwood's work seems sure to itself become mildly controversial. Yet Yarwood well-knew that Marsden has been and remains widely hated. He told me so himself.
In 1977 I was a student at University of New England, where Yarwood then taught and wrote. One day my lecturer advised me to ask Yarwood certain questions I was dwelling on, could Yarwood recommend some special reading for me? The day I went to see Yarwood, he had just received the proofs of his book on Marsden, and I'm sure he'd rather have tackled correcting his proofs than be talking to a student. He told me of his project, and how one day, he'd been in a plane between Sydney and New Zealand, flying to do some research.
The passenger beside him, an Australian, had politely asked Yarwood what he did. He said, "I'm a historian. Just going to New Zealand to do some research for a book on Samuel Marsden At which Yarwood's listener exploded, "That bastard!".
And as reviewer of Altar Ego, due to e-mail exchanges, I already knew of Quinn's direction with work, before he finished his book. The question arose, should historical demolition jobs be written from time to time?
In this case, yes, since NSW and New Zealand have such incompatible views of Marsden's life, work and character. Somewhere, something is wrong.
The upshot seems to be - that Anglican evangelicals in NSW and New Zealand will be unhappy with Quinn's book. So, probably, will be many Maori people in New Zealand. Most everyone else will be pleased the veils have been torn aside, or, that someone has made the effort to try to throw some new light.
Quinn has basically read history to be able to write some psycho-history. (A US historian recently wrote psycho-history regarding Napoleon, concluding he was a psychopath. Psychiatry distinguishes 20 specific personality traits of psychopaths/sociopaths including narcissism, and a kind of conscienceless inability to learn from mistakes.) Quinn has identified and re-identified patterns in Marsden's behaviour, activities and reactions to events that at least mean that Marsden resembles a psychopath. Meaning, that Marsden had little chance of experiencing genuine religious feeling, and little chance of nurturing it in anyone else. Marsden was a sanctimonious flogger of convicts, a hater of Irish and Catholics. He denigrated women and Aboriginals. According to Quinn he was a liar and dissembler, a fiddler of money-books, an untrustworthy business partner and a major gun-runner into New Zealand.
This aspect of Quinn's method helps explain how Quinn overlooked or glossed a variety of topics. (His book had to be short, 217 pages, as his health was poor.) Quinn could have presented more on the history of the London Missionary Society, more on the early Pacific pork trade. More on Marsden's own family life. More on the neglect, not just by Marsden, of Aboriginals about Sydney. More on the 1809 massacre of the 60-plus people of the ship Boyd. More on Baron Charles de Thierry, "chief of Maori", yet another European fantasist dipping his toes into the Pacific as he nurtured grandiose schemes and ending disappointed (whereupon, the Pacific retaliates by raping the imagination of the European fantasist? de Thierry had a French background. Ben Boyd, an "entrepreneur" from Scotland, was a European fantasist who died in the Pacific.)
There are rewards with Quinn's book, not least the opportunity for a rethink. To the extent that Marsden and his operators were gun-runners, Britain's South Whalers are exonerated from blame for gun-running, cultivating the war-like propensities of particular Maori chiefs, which any maritime historian will appreciate, since whalers and sealers are all too often blamed solely, and indiscriminately so, for the alleged fatal impacts and rapings of the Pacific.
To the extent that Quinn accurately lists the timing of the use of shipping, the personnel, the motives for gun-running, he has contributed to Pacific maritime history, which can always do with extra encouragement. (A point however likely to escape any New Zealand evangelical suffering apoplexy due to Altar Ego.)
In particular, Quinn has outlined, for the first time as far as I know, the Pacific's second-appearing, major gun-running network. (The first being Americans dealing with Hawaiians).
Another reward of Quinn's book is with psycho-history, which troubles many historians due to fuzziness, or imprecision. It's also the case that to visit the findings of modern psychiatry on a person of the past, and to couch this exercise in today's language, is to risk doing violence to the principle that the people of the past should be assessed or judged by the standards of their own day.
But as already noted, and as Quinn finds, just how is it that Marsden's Altar Ego was hated in NSW, but became admired in New Zealand? One side at least of the Tasman has misunderstood Marsden.
Marsden has been hated in NSW since his own time, which for writers in NSW, disposes of the problem of wondering if Marsden should be judged by the standards of his own day. But something peculiar happened in New Zealand.
Richard Quinn believes he knows what that "peculiar" was, and how it happened. It is a very sorry story indeed about the first protracted, sequential set of contacts between Maori people and Britishers (and their ships). And about humanity's amazing urge to make myths about events, whether accurate history has been obscured or not.
In this case, a demolition job seems warranted. Marsden's personality had a decidedly negative impact. But from now on, anyone in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, or across the Pacific, writing on anything to do with him, should be advised that Marsden has lately been given a makeover.
Still, book readers should be aware that on occasion, either misguided praise, or the allegations of posterity about injustice or evils inflicted, whether well-intentioned or not, can obscure history as much as they illuminate it. This is the case with treatments of the trading of the "Rum Corps" in Sydney in Marsden's own time (till the NSW Corps was disbanded). Whether the officers of the NSW Corps were making brazen profits or not, the economic reality tended to be that the colony at Sydney had no proper currency, and had very strong but often-unmet demand for many products beside alcoholic liquor. Marsden was not the only man in Sydney on the make. He was just the only one with an Altar Ego. (Ends review - Dan Byrnes)
From: Vicki Andrews
Dear Mr Byrnes, I read with interest your work on the Blackheath Connection, whaling, early shipping, connections to China and India etc. I have been researching Captain Eber Bunker for the last 6 years 1. To place his Liverpool home "Collingwood Estate" circ.1810 on the State Heritage Register. This was granted on the6-12-'06 The home is also known as "Bunkers Cottage" 2. My Husband found out that he is a direct descendant of Eber Bunker As the Bi Centenary of the house and the naming of Liverpool is coming up in 2010 I am still involved in seeing that there is an appropriate celebration for that. Liverpool City Council owns the property but has neglected it over the last few years. One question I have concerns the Campbell name in his daughter's name. Mary Ann Campbell Bunker, could this be due to his relationship with Robert Campbell? I have the early part of the family tree and am working on the Bunker family and that of Captain Arnold Fisk (who married Mary Ann) for 2010 Would you consider adding it to your genealogy site? Yours Sincerely Vicki Andrews (02 96034589)
72 Kent St Minto 2566 NSW Australia.
From a Sydney emailer, June 2008, outlining some principles this website will try to abide by.
Dear Merchant Networks Team,
I found on the Net the following criteria for authors and editors,
especially those with academic qualifications ...
* freedom, independence, and neutrality
* the love of knowledge, critical thinking, and respect for both
expertise and for the value and ability of uncredentialled people
* maturity, personal responsibility, common sense
* compromise, consensus, and collegiality
* openness, rejection of insularity, and respect for the rule of law
* a love of simplicity, a robust dislike for bureaucracy, and not using
computer algorithms (or aggregation) where individual judgment is required.
Neat, eh?
Brian
By 15 June 2008, Paul Burns in
Armidale (Australia) reports that some of Dan Byrnes' writing (on
convict transportation, presumably, has been cited in chapter nineteen of: Don Jordan
and Michael Walsh, White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's
White Slaves in America. Edinburgh, Mainstream Publishing Co., 2008.
Which is the first Mr. Byrnes in distant Australia has heard of this,
but the news is encouraging!
Dear Dan,
Many
thanks for your reply. Yes, I have that information from Thelma Birrell's
self-published book ... and also, recently, have come across the
information that in 1804, Rhodes was charged *by his crew* for offences
including firing at Maoris, and also flogging them on board the Alexander.
That
information came initially from By-ways of History & Medicine (David Gordon Macmillan, 1946). Interesting because Governor
King used it as a test case, to see whether his jurisdiction
extended as far as New Zealand. (It seems that it didn't).
Original
source is proving elusive - Macmillan used a book
by J. I. Hetherington, New Zealand: Its Political
Connections with Great Britain. Dunedin, 1925-26, Vol 1,
which gives details about who was on the tribunal set up by
King, but has its citations in an un-numbered block covering
three chapters. King's papers are not cited - and Historical
Records of New Zealand; does not appear to have it.
(But,
I will persist - it would *seem* to be an important legal issue, apart
from shedding some light on Rhodes's character).
That
said - I wonder, could you help me at all with getting a copy of A.G.E.
Jones's article about Bennett and Co? - An
especially helpful article, although unpublished, is A. G. E. Jones, 1968,
'Daniel Bennett and Co'. Copy, courtesy Ann Shirley, Assistant Keeper,
Dept. of Navigation and Astronomy, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich,
London. Jones in this paper presents appendices on Bennett and
catalogues references to whaling logs held by the National Maritime Museum.
Happy
to do a swap with Governor King's Tribunal into Rhodes when I find it
... most of the information it in Hetherington's book, and I have a scan
of the relevant page. (Just the source which is still missing - but a
Librarian at the Alexander Turnbull is helping me track it down).
Kind
Regards, Lesley Albertson
(In
grey, chilly Melbourne)
Ms L. Albertson
3/14
Arnold Street
South Yarra 3141
Victoria
An
answer given earlier - >
I've never made extra progress re Robert Rhodes, so can tell you >
nothing extra apart from what I might have on a webpage, Except, he
>
perhaps married Elizabeth Rafferty, and had a daughter Rachael Rhodes
>
who married Robert Bostock (1784-1847) who had a son a
mariner at > Port Fairy George Bostock
active by 1826 in Tasmania, who married > Tasmanian
girl Ann Cox (1826-1865 died South Yarra Melbourne) daughter >
of Tasmanian pioneer at Clarendon, James Cox (1790-1866), by
Mary Connell. This James Cox also married Eliza
Eddington Collins > (1810-1869) daughter of Gov
Tasmania Dr David Collins and Margaret > Eddington. All of which I
hope is correct information. I've also not gotten much >
further re Daniel Bennett's whaling firm.
Kind regards, Dan Byrnes
On 17 March 2008 from Rod Dickson
Dear Sir,
I have just
been introduced to your website and I congratulate you on its content.
I
thought I would let you know of my own research. I have recently had
two books on early whaling published, the first being "to King George
the Third Sound for whales" being taken from the log book of the London
whaler KINGSTON, 1800 - 1802 and her consort the ELLIGOOD.
Then
came the "History of Whaling on the South Coast of New Holland from
1800 - 1888." 640 A4 pages detailing more than 720 voyages by American,
French, British and Colonial whalers, log book entries, crew lists and
etc.
I have just finished the next book, "the Voyage of the
ASIA and ALLIANCE from Nantucket on their voyage, 1791 - 1794."
I
have just retired from the sea after 48 years in the Merchant and Royal
Navies.
These books and others are published by Hesperian
Press, here in Perth, Western Australia.
Cheers for now,
Rod
Dickson, 239 Manning Road, Waterford, 6152, Perth WA
On
16 March 2008 From: Maxwell Tucker
<deecpfl@yahoo.com>
Hello
Mr. Dan Byrnes. Do you have any information on John Tucker the slave
trader who arrived in Sierra Leone in 1665 in the service of the Gambia
Adventurers? I believe this Tucker was a contemporary of Zachary Rogers
who also arrived in the service of the Gambia Adventurers in 1665. Both
men later on switched to the newly-emerging Royal African family. This
man is my direct ancestor. I am not sure if you are aware but his
descendants are a well known clan in Sierra Leone. Tucker
married an
African princess and his descendants prospered from the slave trade
(unfortunately). Any information you have on him please contact me.
The item below on the possible family of Bombay merchant James Tate (died 1827, wife unknown, had a son Paul) is one of the most interesting emails this website has received on a question of merchant networks. The situation outlined below literally reeks of questions which have remained unasked in the past, and is a perfect example of the kind of problems-in-history that this website is designed to advertise, and to see rectified. - Ed
17 January 2008 From: Richard MacDonald, Liverpool UK <richardmacdonald@hotmail.com>
Dear Mr Byrnes, First of all I would like to thank you for your Merchant Networks website, it truly is a fascinating project and the work you have put in is truly admirable. I was wondering if you may be able to help clear up a problem that I have regarding James Tate of Bombay, who bankrupted in 1799 causing considerable furore amongst the merchants there. I am currently researching a 'Tate' merchant family from Liverpool of the same era and was wondering if there was any genealogical information about James Tates origins? From the Wills of my 'Liverpool Tates' we have mentioned a cousin, Mr William Ashmead Tate, born in Bombay in 1795, who then went on to be a cartographer and military drawer for the East India Co. Is this James Tate's son? If this is so then James Tate had an older brother in Liverpool called Richard who was a Virginia Tobacco Merchant, and a father called Paul Tate. If this is also true, then he had a famous brother called William Tate - a nationally recognised painter who was a close pupil of Joseph Wright of Derby, not to mention a niece who became the wife of a great philanthropist merchant (and tunneller of Liverpool) Joseph Williamson (1769-1840, parents unknown, married to Elizabeth Tate), the "King of Edge Hill" [Liverpool]. I can understand if you are too busy to check this for me but I eagerly await your reply.
Yours Sincerely
Richard MacDonald
Email address of the John Williamson Research Team (Liverpool) is: jwresearch@hotmail.co.ukDate: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:04:07 +1100
From: Dan Byrnes <danbyrnes@merchantnetworks.com.au>
To: Richard Macdonald <richardmacdonald@hotmail.com>
Subject: On James Tate
Dear Richard, Tks for emailing and my associate in London Ken Cozens is also interested, we want to bear down on Tate for our project, a project which stands beside the website we have, The Merchant Networks Project at http://www.merchantnetworks.com.au/ Your information as below on James Tate is entirely new to me, and even newer is information re Williamson's tunnels in Liverpool. All I have (genealogically) on James Tate, Bombay merchant, is that he probably had a son named Paul; plausible if James' own father was named Paul. But I can't verify any of what you mention on Tates of Liverpool from netsurfing or any other source, except re the wife of Williamson the tunneller. I'd like to have much more info on James Tates, as his firm's failure did annoy a lot of merchants of India. Before he failed, Tate was a partner of David Scott Senior (1746-1805, father of David Jnr, husband of Louisa Delgard and son of MP Robert Scott and Anne Middleton), and I have a new theory on Scott (which might go onto the Net soon on Merchant Networks.) Otherwise, before he failed, Tate was also dealing with a lot of American-India merchants, and little is known about this. Here I'd like to know more on both Tate and the American merchants in question. It looks as though if we put our heads together, we could enlarge information considerably on James Tate. What do you think? Best regards, Dan Byrnes, Australia
Liverpool, England. http://www.williamsontunnels.co.uk). (Please note this is different from the Friends of Williamson Tunnels, of Liverpool, who are a public-membership interest group.) As you may have gathered from your netsurfing very little is known about Joseph Williamson, over the past year a small team of dedicated volunteers have been conducting in depth research into Joseph Williamson for the first time in 200 years. There is a distinct lack of information about Joseph Williamson himself so we have been building up a picture of him through his associations, this has led us into great depth with the Tate family with which he is intimately connected. I can well understand why you have found very little information on the Internet, most of our research into the Tate family is original and as such is yet unpublished. James Tate and his son Paul have proved elusive due to their common names. We can verify that a James Tate was the son of Paul Tate of Yorkshire and is related to the Liverpool Tate Family. We know that our James Tate married one Sarah (maiden name unknown) and they had a son born in Bombay called William Ashmead Tate (some give a DOB of 1795 but the IGI says 1798). William Ashmead Tate is later mentioned in a number of Liverpool Tate Wills listed as Cousin, Nephew etc ... We have also come across the death of one Paul Tate of Liverpool who also worked for the East India Co, he died in Nice. We think that this may be Paul Tate the son of Richard Tate - James' brother. Also of note is that Richard Tate had another brother called John Tate who was trading from London and is mentioned in correspondence between Henry Laurens (1724-1792) merchant and revolutionary American) and Richard Tate. As you can see we have a lot of loose ends to tie up but a picture is emerging of a very successful and far-reaching family who seem to have been largely forgotten about and whose fortunes seem to have disappeared by the mid 1800's. As this is my personal e-mail address I would appreciate it if you used jwresearch@hotmail.co.uk with any further correspondence, from there our senior researcher (Sian Roberts) can also contact you. Many Thanks, Richard MacDonald, Liverpool, England
(*Please note this is different from the Friends of Williamson Tunnels who are a public-membership interest group.)
Dear Mr Cozens, (e-mail of 11 January 2008 from Dr Gregory Cox UK... )
I was much interested to come across your website. I am just in the process of sending to press a book entitled The Guernsey merchants and their world. It is a study of the Guernsey networks of the long eighteenth century. I shall be happy to send you a complimentary copy when it is published.
Do you run a 'queries' section? I would like to find out more about some Quebec merchants [LeMarchant & Gill, Gregory & Wolsey]. If I can be of help re Guernsey merchants please do let me know and I'll do my best. Many felicitations on your project, may it prosper. Dr Gregory Stevens Cox [gregory.cox@blanchelande.sch.gg]
[My book St Peter Port 1680-1830, the history of an international entrepot was published by Boydell & Brewer in 1999. That was an urban study; this volume looks outwards].
PS: The LeMarchant family of Guernsey supplied the navy in the mid 18th century. The Guernsey merchants supplied a lot of alcohol to the navy. I'll dig out references and send to you [but, doubtless, you'll have the references already!]
Dear
Merchant Networks, (e-mail of 2 August 2007)
I
am fascinated to read up all the Dunbar information you have put
together.
I
have often wondered about a Dunbar connection and discovered the
latter on the 1851 census at Limehouse just yesterday!!! I found your
site
when I Googled Duncan Dunbar!
I am not a Dunbar descendant
but am wondering as you have so much information on them
& their associates, you may have some information on my
family?
I am a MESSER descendant. I found the baptism of
Henry
MESSER (my gggrf) at St Nicholas', Deptford on 9 March 1806
(listed as MASSER). The entry above was Margaret DUNBAR,
daughter of Phebe and Darkin MASSER.
Henry's sister, Phoebe
Ann MESSER married Charles SUTHERLAND (Colonial Broker from
Mincing Lane, London) in 1834. The witnesses at their marriage were
John MASSON, Charles FERRIER, D. DUNBAR, M. A. WEST and M. MASSON.
Charles & Phoebe MESSER called their daughter,
Margaret MASSON Sutherland. Her brother was Robert
Sutherland, who worked with his father. (A Robert Sutherland
was named as a Godson of Duncan Dunbar's in his Will???) A sister
was Phoebe Ann SUTHERLAND - the one Duncan Dunbar
names as his cousin in his Will?????? Margaret
married John KETTLEWELL, a Shipbroker. They lived at Blackheath and
Kidbrooke. There are connections to the KYNASTON and de
FONBLANQUE fa miles too. Have you heard of the MESSERs,
SUTHERLANDs and other related families in connection with
the Dunbars? de FONBLANQUE? I would be fascinated to know?
Many
thanks
Barbara Wimble in Sydney, Australia.
Follows e-mail from Jeff Daniels of 10 October 2006 - <jdaniels@blueyonder.co.uk>
Dear Merchant Networks, Sirs, I think this site is excellent.
I am researching the Masters plantation in Jamaica and I have found it
was owned by William Jackson and Elizabeth Bogle French. Can you point
me in the direction where I may be able to get more information about
these individuals and the Masters Plantation. Thank you
Best Regards, Jeff Daniels per
http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/blackheath/jamaica.htm
Follows e-mail from Gary Luke (Sydney, Australia 9 October 2006) - <gary@feraltek.com.au>
Dear Merchant Networks, I just tripped over your Merchant Networks site while searching for something unrelated. I'm near the end of the first year of a three year part-time research MA at UTS. The topic is the communal networks among the Jewish convicts before the first Synagogues in the 1830s. Naturally it includes trade relationships among other types of personal associations.
One Second Fleet convict was James Larra, born in France, supposedly of a well established trading family. At his trial at the Old Bailey it was stated he was a shipping agent. About ten years after arrival he entertained officers of Baudin's expedition in an upper-class French manner. He was included among the dinner guests at the welcoming of Governor Macquarie to NSW.
Other early convict Jews who became large scale traders for Australia were probably small fish in world trade. Jewish free settlers who arrived in the late 1820s included Walter Jacob Levi, plantation owner and trader from Jamaica with his wife, the daughter of Lemon Hart, supplier of rum to the British navy. Other free settlers included members of the Montefiore and Moccata families.
Just thought it could be of mutual benefit to say hello, Gary Luke
Follows e-mail from Jan Herivel of 5 October 2006 - <Herivels@ozemail.com.au>
Dear Merchant Networks, I have been researching James Scott who was a country trader in the Malay archipelago region and business partner to the Superintendent of Penang, Francis Light. Scott was the first cousin once removed of Sir Walter Scott. One of James Scott's sons, Robert, was a trader with Deans and Co in Java, while another, William, was the harbour master attendant in Singapore and Malacca.
Best wishes, Jan Herivel
Follows e-mail from Marilyn Mason, Sydney, Australia (5 October 2006)- <mjmason@bigpond.com>
Dear Merchant Networks,
Now, re Robert Coveny - see ADB Online at
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030441b.htm
one of my interests - according to Arthur Harris who is a family
history researcher of the family, has changed (for the better) since
its first posting. He says it was originally inaccurate but has altered
recently. I'm not sure if Arthur contacted ANU but it is possible. The
accreditation for the article has not changed. I'm not too sure if
Arthur gives it 10/10 as yet. My major interest was Robert's Coveny's
brother, Thomas Bossuet Coveny who is a direct ancestor of my late
husband John.
I have been doing some shipping transcriptions for Peter
Larson - his website Convictions (used to be called Blaxland shipping)
and CD - see http://www.blaxland.com/ozships/page.htm
I've done the Commercial Journal and Advertiser from
about April 1838 to February 1839 and what has really struck me is how
many ships that A. B. Spark is agent for or owner of. I had read the
published diary and had some view of Spark in his land auction duels
with John Terry Hughes, and his part in over-lending to Hughes in the
operation of the Bank of Australasia, but had no concept of how large
his operations must have been.
Cheers, Marilyn
---- Dan Byrnes <danbyrnes@merchantnetworks.com.au> wrote:
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020156b.htm
Follows e-mail from Anon of 5 October 2006 -
Dear Merchant Networks,
Thank you for that - a very helpful reference.
Sorry for the extended silence - we were hit by the windstorm a couple
of weeks ago so no power to home or business (we are in the Hawkesbury)
and it took forever to get everything sorted out - we have spent the
last week on the chainsaw and mulcher and fixing fences and gardens -
hence no time for anything else. Still no joy here with William
Roxburgh's parents, however you will find this -
William Roxburgh's first wife was Marie Bonte. Her sister Amelia
married firstly Philip Jacob D'Ormieux, and secondly Capt. Gustavus
Adolphus von Streng. Her eldest sister Cornelia Francina married James
Amos - according to the British Library Asia Pacific Collections there
was a John Forbes & James Amos & Co. pp. 313-315. Copy
from A2A below. The sisters father was supposedly a Swiss general
officer in the employ of the Dutch, and a governor of something or
other (family legend says the Andamans, but I can't find a reference to
him) - I am having no joy whatever in finding him, let alone who their
mother was.
Home Miscellaneous
[Access Conditions] /Unrestricted/
Correspondence and papers concerning private trade with India* - ref. *IOR/H/402-407
*FILE - *Private trade with India.* - ref. IOR/H/406 - date:
*1800-1809
hit[from /Scope and Content/] (1) pp. 1-126, Memorandum by John
Cochrane on India Trade and Shipping. (2) pp. 129-30, 377, J. Meheux to
-- 5th Sept. 1800 and 9th April 1802 (Originals). (3) pp. 133-5,
139-40, John Tayler to Dundas 16th and 28th Oct. 1800 (Originals),
relative to Memorial from East India Merchants; p. 137, Dundas to
Tayler 18th Oct. 1800. (4) pp. 143-227, Memorandum by David Scott 10th
Sept. 1800 on Dundas' letter of 2nd April relative to Private Trade.
(5) pp. 231-49, Resolutions of Special Committee of Court of Directors
upon Dundas' letters of 2nd April and 28th June 1800 relative to
Private Trade; pp. 251-73, Proceedings of Court of Directors 4th Feb.
1801 on Report (January 1801) of above Committee; pp. 289-307, Dundas
to Chairman 21st March 1801 on Court's Resolutions of 4th Feb. (6) pp.
275-88, Charles Grant to Dundas 17th March 1801 (Original), George
Udny's letter of 15th Sept. 1800 to Lord Wellesley on Private Trade.
(7) pp. 309-12, Memorial of Merchants and Agents for persons residing
in the East Indies to the Board of Control 23rd July 1801, signed by
Edmund Boehm & Co., Law, Bruce & Co., William &
Horsley Palmer, Paxton Cockerell & Co., Prinsep &
Saunders, R., W. & E. Lee, David Scott Junior & Co.,
Anderson & Stewart, Gillett & Edwards, Lubbock Colt
& Co., *John Forbes & **James Amos** & Co.; pp.
313-5*, Covering letter by same to Lord Lewisham 23rd July 1801; p.
317, W. Lennox to Dundas 30th July 1801 (Original), enclosing the
above. (8) pp. 321-5, 353-75, Lord Dartmouth to David Scott (Chairman)
14th Aug. 1801 and 28th Jan. 1802, Differences between the Court of
Directors and the Board of Control. (9) pp. 329-44, Thomas Henchman to
Dundas 10th Sept. 1801 (Original), with Memorandum on Board of
Control's powers over the Company in respect to the hiring of Ships.
(10) pp. 345-51, Memorandum (not signed) on the Importance of the India
Trade to Great Britain and the necessity of immediate measures to
prevent its passing to the Continent. (11) pp. 381-485, Memoir on the
India Trade, showing the prejudicial effects of interference with
Private Traders. (12) pp. 487-662, Copy of Mr. Gurney's shorthand notes
of the examinations of John Innes, Richard Campbell Bazett, Henry
Trail, Henry Fawcett, John Bebb, John Woolmore and Grant Allen before a
Committee of the House of Commons on East India Affairs presided over
by Sir John Anstruther 6th May to 10th June 1809. (13) pp. 665-83,
Memorandum of Reasons for opening the Trade of India with the ports of
Great Britain and Ireland.
Haven't sorted out too much of the Amos' yet, but James and Cornelia's youngest son was Andrew Amos, although I doubt this has any relevance :-
Andrew Amos, lawyer and professor of law, was born in India in
1791. He attended Eton and Trinity College Cambridge. He was called to
the bar by the Middle Temple and joined the Midland circuit, where he
soon acquired a reputation for legal expertise, and his personal
character secured him a large arbitration practice. When University
College London was founded, Amos became the first Professor of English
Law. Between 1829 and 1837 his lectures were very popular and well
attended. He was appointed a member of the Criminal Law Commission in
1834. In 1837 he went to India as 'fourth member' of the
governor-general's council, in succession to Lord Macaulay. Returning
to England in 1843, he became one of the newly established county-court
judges. In 1849 he was elected Downing Professor of Laws at Cambridge.
He died in 1860. Many of the lectures Amos gave at University College
London were published in the /Legal Examiner and Law Chronicle/.
Andrew married Margaret Lax, daughter of Rev. William Lax.
Four sons,
James (m. Sophia Hawkins), Gilbert, William and Sheldon (m. Sarah
Maclardie Bunting ) one daughter, Margaret Isabella (m. Rev. Lewis
Hensley). Andrew had two older brothers, James b. Fort St. George chr.
24/5/1789 and Gilbert b. Fort St George chr. 19/8/1790.
Sheldon and Sarah nee Bunting had a son Sir Maurice, (m. Lucy Scott
Moncrieff) and a daughter Bonte (m. Lieut. Col. Percival George Elgood).
Regards, Anon.
Follows e-mail from Brett Ashmeade-Hawkins on 1 October 2006
Dear Merchant Networks,
I recently came across your Merchants Networks site
on the Internet and found it to be most interesting. For some years I
have also been following the evolution of Dan Byrnes' website, the
Blackheath Connection. I see that you are by now in contact with Pieter
Dickson, whose family once owned plantations in Jamaica, and that he is
currently providing you with some recent photographs of historic sites
in the Island.
I was just wondering if any of you have ever visited the old Saltspring Great House, near Green Island in Hanover, Jamaica, which once belonged to the Campbell family. It was rebuilt in 1781 by the Hon. John Campbell (who died 1782 in New London), Custos of Hanover, on the ruins of the previous fine 18th Century mansion which was destroyed by the great hurricane of 1780.
I knew the house as it had rebuilt in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I was a child living in Montego Bay, Jamaica. My father was the Agent for Lloyd's of London in Jamaica and insured many of the old plantations on the Island, including Saltspring Estate, which had by then been renamed Winchester Estate. It was still a sugar plantation and was over 1,000 acres in size. It was then owned by a black Jamaican named Harry Dennis, which was unusual in the 1960s when most plantation owners in Jamaica were still white.
Harry Dennis and his family lived in the old 18th Century Winchester (Saltspring) Great House, which was a large three-storey Georgian house, built of stone and brick, complete with arched sash-windows and Adam-style mahogany panelling. The first floor of the house was a raised stone basement and a typical Jamaican-style double-staircase of stone led from the driveway up to a long, wrought-iron railed verandah on the second floor, where the Drawing Room and the Dining-Room and other principal rooms were situated. In the hallway inside the house, a lovely old mahogany staircase led up to several bedrooms on the third floor. There was also an iron staircase which led from the second-floor verandah up to the third-floor verandah. This had a wooden trap-door and at night it would be shut and locked and the watchman, an old black man whom I believe was named Ezra, would spend the night sleeping in a rocking chair with a shotgun across his knees, just in case any intruder was foolhardy enough to try and break through the trap door.
My father was often invited to have lunch at Winchester Great House and like most old-time Jamaica planters, Harry Dennis was very lavish with his hospitality. My father has many fond memories of him. Harry Dennis died in the late 1980s and his son now owns Winchester Estate. I don't know if the old Great House is still there. I still visit Jamaica once a year, but I haven't stopped in at Winchester Estate since 1987. In 2003 the Friends of the Georgian Society of Jamaica, an historic preservation group based in England, went on their third Georgian Tour of Jamaica and I told them about Winchester Great House and its connections with Capt. William Bligh. Douglas Blain went looking for the house, but got lost and couldn't find it. Perhaps it was destroyed by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988?
Please pass this e-mail on to Pieter Dickson for me. Perhaps he may know if anyone might know if Winchester (Saltspring) Great House is still standing or might even have a photograph of it. If not, I am going down to Jamaica again in January, and I shall try and swing by Winchester Estate and see if the old Great House is still there. If it is, then I'll try and photograph it for you.
Yours sincerely,
Brett Ashmeade-Hawkins via hotmail.com
E-mail from Pat Connelly (Australia): On Subject:
"Dictionary Puzzle": From:<patconn@austarnet.com.au> On
Wed, 27 Sep 2006
Dear Merchant Networks, I have come across some information which is fascinating but I have doubts about the validity of the source. I don't have a clue where to check so I'm asking your help. A Mahogany Ship researcher in Melbourne recently sent this to me at Warrnambolol -- "The following is a snippet from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1852 edition. Re: 1525 New Holland, discovered by the Portuguese about this time: this immense tract was for some time neglected by Europeans, but was visited by the Dutch at various periods, from 1619 to 1644."
What interests me (Pat Connelly, not the researcher in Melbourne) about this is that it shows the British were recognising the Portuguese in the mid-1900s, but half a century later, George Collingridge was scorned by Australian historians for declaring the same in his landmark book The Discovery of Australia.
Encyclopedia Brittanica says Johnson's first dictionary, published in 1755, "was fastidious in discerning different senses for words" and illustrations show word definitions. But there is no mention of how dates were dates handled by Johnson.
There were later editions, three more in Johnson's lifetime (he died in 1784) and the last one appeared in 1773. The encyclopedia adds that the 1756 edition was the standard English dictionary until Noah Webster's in 1828, but Johnson's was "widely used far into the 20th century."
My questions are (1) did Johnson's work ever discuss dates as well as words? and; (2) was there an 1852 edition? If you can't enlighten me perhaps one of your WWW contacts can.
Hope all goes well with the website, Regards, Pat Connelly
(Pat Connelly is associated, as sometime chairman, with the committee in Warnambool, Victoria, which examines on matters connected with the so-called Mahogany Ship said to have been wrecked there. Mr. Connelly has had a long interest in McIntyre's book, Secret Discovery of Australia, and has been quoted in media as widely as in China on views circulated world-wide that the Mahogany Ship at Warrnambool, Victoria, may or may not have been Chinese, from Gavin Menzies, author of 1421: The Year China Discovered The World. McIntyre's theory was that she was Portuguese. -Ed.)
E-mail from Patricia Iseke (NZ) of 27 September 2006-
Dear Merchant Networks, thanks for your reply and also I have lately
been again to the website. Thanks for giving my name under credits,
it's an honour.!
Lately I have closed more gaps in my family tree.Unfortunately, no
passenger lists ... yet! Why I am sending it to you today, is that some
time ago we became aware of Angus Stannus Willis( eldest dau of my
gr.gr.g'parents) and Agnes' marriage to Ingram Chapman (of the family
in Burke's Landed Gentry, Chapman formerly of Whitby). Lately I find
that Ingram Chapman was commander of ship Katherine Stewart
Forbes. I have always been intrigued as to why there was only
much later (in 1831) one child of that marriage ... and then she died
soon after. Did Captain Ingram Chapman TAKE THE SHIP ON TO AUSTRALIA
WITH CONVICTS ... and did he therefore not stay long in Bombay?
Intriguing, no? I would like to know more about that ship and its
commanders around =
1827-30... Can anyone comment usefully? Some details follows: In the
website on Bonds, Mrs Agnes Willis and all daughters (they are listed),
travelled to India in the same year. I think they would have returned
from taking the boy (my gr G'father) Richard Willis (then aged 13) to
school in UK. I will check with the Harrow archivist again soon as to
whether he attended.Of course the big question we will never know, is
whether they (Mamma and daughters) travelled back to Bombay on Katherine
Stewart Forbes. Don't you think it strange that he (Ingram
Chapman, the groom) was listed as Commander of that ship, on the
marriage certificate (big news, socially?). Agnes Stannus Willis would
have been 17 years old at her wedding. Best regards, Patricia .
Descendants of Agnes Stannus Willis
Generation No. 11. AGNES STANNUS6 WILLIS (RICHARD
AUGUSTUS5 WILLIS(2),
RICHARD4 =
WILLIS(1), RICHARD WILLIS(3 REV), RICHARD2 WILLIS, RICHARD WILLIS OF =
NEWBY1 STONES) was born 22 January 1810 in Bombay India, and died 3 =
February 1832. She married INGRAM CHAPMAN 20 October 1827 in Bombay, =
India.. He was born 28 March 1798, and died 1 July 1874.
Notes for AGNES STANNUS WILLIS:
Details of 3 daughters LDS. Film no.0498557 Baptisms Bombay Presidency.
1707-1850. All three were baptised together on 12 October, 1813, in
Bombay. Information of Agnes Stannus Willis marriage and death obtained
from The Landed Gentry, Issue 1952 A-L. LDS Film 0523835. Marriages:
Ingram Chapman Esq., of Bombay, bachelor and wife Agnes Stannus Willis,
of the same place, spinster, were married in this Church by Licence
from the Supreme Court of Indicacture, this 20th day of October, in the
year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and twenty seven. By me:
Edw. Mainwaring, Office ( Minister)..This marriage was solemnized
between us signed: Ingram Chapman...Agnes Stannus Willis. In the
presence of: Agnes Willis, R. A.Willis, R. H.Hough, R. E. Burrowes,
James Forbes, Geo. Adam, J. S. Willis. Notes for INGRAM CHAPMAN: HEICS,
Younger Brother of Trinity House (London): Child of AGNES WILLIS and
INGRAM CHAPMAN is: INGRAM FRANCIS7 CHAPMAN, b. 1 March 1831, Major -Gen
Ingram Francis Chapman , late Bombay S.C ... he married numerous times,
and had numerous issue, some of whom survived. See Landed
Gentry, 1952.
Answer from Dan Byrnes: Dear Patricia, Have consulted my shipping database, which as far as convict ships go has entries drawn from Bateson's book, The Convict Ships. We find Katherine Stewart Forbes was a convict transport in 1830-1831 with Captain Thomas Cannery owner unknown and 1831-832 Captain John Anderson, owner unknown. So it looks like the ship as a convict transport is out of the orbit of any of your family history, as when Capt Chapman is on her. Things get worse here due to problems of handling original documents and making citations. There is only one source I'm aware of, as any original documents, which inform on who were the owners of the convict transports, and these are the actual contracts made out for each individual voyage. These contracts (if they all still exist, no one knows for sure), are in three sets, dated 1786-1829, from 1829 to an unknown date, and a third set even more uncertain. (I have no idea, by the way, where the contracts might have been filed for the two voyages to NZ with the Parkhurst boys from Isle of Wight, that you otherwise have mentioned.) The first set of such contracts, 1786-1829, I have called in my work, Shelton's Contracts, since they were made out by an official at The Old Bailey/Home Office, Thomas Shelton. They are also an odd case in some ways, all as explained in my Blackheath Connection website. Shelton's Contracts as a set of papers stop at 1829 when he died, and then the official making out such contracts (and rather oddly), became one John Clark (or Clarke, from memory), who was nephew of Shelton. I have not seen any of the contracts made out by Clark, and I hope they are still in London, we simply don't know where they are, for a fact. So, I can't tell you who owned Katherine Stewart Forbes. Unless you can find out who owned her when Capt Chapman was on her, her owners are going to remain unknowns. If that happens, there is not much point in getting excited in any family history sort of way about the ship, when Capt Chapman is on her. On the other hand, if you do find out who owned her when Chapman was on her, and I'd like to know if you did, there is still no cross-reference we can use to ensure those same owners were her owners when she was twice-contracted to carry convicts. Suppose, the only way out is to do detailed research on the two actual captains named above, which would be a horrendous research job in its own right. Such are the levels of detail which bedevil research on the ownership of the convict ships. And from my genealogy database, I find I don't have any listing of any woman actually named Katherine Stewart Forbes, so we can't use any such angle to find eg., a shipowning family there. Is this any use? Apart from telling us more about needle-in-a-haystack problems than we'd like to know? - Ed.
=========================================================
From Keith Dawson, Toowoomba, Australia, a descendant of the
Enderby whalers (20-7-2006)...
Dear Merchant Networks, It has been a while since we last communicated.
Have just been looking
at one of Dan Byrnes' websites. I notice a mention of John William
Buckle of Hither Green near
Blackheath. Baleny islands, south of New Zealand, were discovered by
the Enderby captain, Baleny, who named them Sturge, Buckle and Young
Islands for the Enderby
partners. Interesting? The carpenter waded ashore to plant a flag.
My book is now with a publisher, that is, forthcoming.
Cheers, Keith Dawson
Dear Merchant Networks, (From Pieter Dickson, 19-7-2006), I am delighted with the page Jamaica, not at all a question of not minding it! I can't think of a better and more interesting starting point for alternative views of goings on in Jamaica, particularly Hanover, and elsewhere at the time, than with dwelling on Duncan Campbell (1726-1803). The more details I unearth about his relatives there, my own relatives once on Jamaica, and other resident planters and merchants (and I've really only just begun) the more I travel towards the conclusion that too much has been ignored in the creation of a neat, acceptable, potted view of West Indian history and the issues within and around it.
As with the Bligh-Bounty legend much detail is ignored and, sadly, people generally don't like to have their comfort zone disturbed by the complication of thinking through contrary detail and other ideas (I was delighted to see the Jamaica picture of Bligh first up on the page).
Discussion of the island's history is dominated by the ups and downs of sugar, but ignores detail about other plantation activities of resident owners who, in Hanover at least, left a rather more lasting legacy: William Brown bought Kew in 1786, with just one third of some 490 acres put to cane the rest to pasture; William Brown the younger later had pimento and cattle at Aurora estate in the hills; Peter Campbell sold 390 acres to the west of Fish River as a coffee and woodland concern and cattle in 1793; in the following year, Robert Campbell, intent on quitting Jamaica for health reasons and leasing his Greenwich estate for twelve years, had coffee and cattle. Ginger was also grown in the hills (I am told that my uncle William Dickson was still buying up and exporting ginger and pimento to London in the 1950s).
By 1810, these men's heirs were already seriously engaged in cattle and in other crops - diversity as a hedge against problems with sugar growing? Neill Malcolm was so 'egregiously disappointed' (1801) by sugar returns at Retrieve and Blenheim that brother George oversaw the change to cattle pens, like Argyll (George's own); 100 years on - by 1910 - it cannot be accidental that of the 78 large estates left in the parish (more than twice the number in neighbouring St. James) 44 reared cattle with only seven were growing cane.
There were no Campbells left by then, but the names Malcolm and Watson-Taylor dominated. The early planters may have been seduced by speculation on sugar but having lived there for a generation, had realised its pitfalls. The lives of resident families, and their relatives abroad, were parallel to the activities of absentees and different.
I am sure that wealthier local merchants, as sources of finance, also ran parallel [with activities] to British merchants and bankers. There is a reference in one Neil Malcolm letter to a debt to Montego Bay merchant Alexander Longlands, and Edmund Parkinson at Montego Bay also ran his own Guinea ship(s) until the American war; I need to find out more and there are endless questions. A more intangible and less quantifiable legacy is a sense of identity and independence. As far as I know, Hanover, still very rural, is the only parish in which people (certainly of the post WW2 generation) refer to themselves, with pride, by the name of the parish as 'Hanoverian' before Jamaican, no matter how poor many may be, and they are scornful of the tourist fleshpots of neighbouring Negril and Montego Bay.
I am convinced that this sense of identity has its roots well back into the past and may explain the curiosity there about the old planters and the care still given to graves tucked away in the bush. It is probably impossible to pin down; enough to say that a cursory search through the lists of runaway slaves in workhouses shows only one Campbell runaway, from Orange Bay in 1781. John Campbell of Salt Spring, as Custos, would certainly have been influential in more ways than one. He was certainly well respected at the time Speaking of whom, any idea who might have been 'Miss _________Campbell, niece to John Campbell of Salt Spring' who died in Hanover on 22 September 1781?
All the best, Pieter- Referer: http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/blackheath/
Dear Merchant Networks, (from Mandy
Francis, UK, 19-7-2006)
I am particularly excited by the information in your website. My
passion began when I researched various branches of my mother's family
tree - particularly the Shand, Robertson and Reid lineages, and I
discovered their links to the West and East Indies, merchant dealing,
slaves and plantations, etc.
This has led me to explore various other links such as the Byam, Warner and Ottley families. I also have information on the Latour, Luatour, Delautour family and have done some research into the Farquhar; and the Larkins family of Blackheath, (although the latter is a bit more confused as there are many John Pascal Larkins).
Firstly, if you would like any more information on these
people, I would be happy to share it. My family, for example, were
merchants operating out of Liverpool. The plantations in the West
Indies lingered on past varying late 19th bankruptcies and the author,
Phyllis Shand Allfrey, was a distant cousin. It would seem that the
Warner-Shand line in Australia is also connected too. I wonder if you
know any more about my East Indies link - this was the Reid and Shand
connection - this is what I have:
Bankruptcy of 1878 - Charles Shand of Putney Hill, Alexander Shand of
Allerton and Liverpool are named. I assume his sons, Charles and
Alexander were also part of the business.
P#89--91 SHAND, C. & CO. The initials on these tokens were
identified by Lowsley (No. 31). Charles Shand, a nephew of Sir William
Reid who was the proprietor of Spring Valley,
Badulla, came to Ceylon on the advice of his uncle and he, along with a
J. L. R. Shand, took up coffee planting at Spring Valley.
From 1845 to 1849 their names appear as planters. After this date,
Charles appears to have commenced business as a merchant in Colombo
with the name C. Shand & Co.; 'The other partner being J. L. R.
Shand'. In 1853 his name appears as the Chairman of the Chamber of
Commerce. Lowsley relates that they became bankrupt in 1875 after the
failure of Alexander Collie & Co. of Manchester. It has not
been possible to establish if the firm had an office in Galle, nor has
it been possible to identify the meaning of the initials P. S. and S.
S. which occur on two other tokens issued by them.
From: http://lakdiva.org/coins/coffee/pridmore_token_notes.html
William Reid was a baronet of Barra and this is more information:
died at sea off the coast of Ceylon. Succeeded to the title by his
brother Gained the title on 27/4/1844. Seemed to have owned Spring
Valley, Badulla [Sig.: "Guiliemus Arundo" (the Latin
equivalent for "William Reed" [sic])]
It would seem that his brother Sir Alexander Reid also may have dabbled
in these affairs. Other brothers - Charles, James, David and Lt. Thomas
Livingston Reid may also have been involved. The Shands were also Shand
and Co. of Liverpool and another Shand - Charles Francis Shand - formed
Rodies and Shand of Liverpool. Do you have any further information on
these individuals and would you like some/any of my information?
Best wishes, Mandy Francis - Referer: http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/
According
to the following email of 19-6-2006 to Dan Byrnes,
from Pam - I have recently discovered your web book on slavery. I am
wondering if you have come across the Booker brothers from Lancashire
in the course of your research. They rose from yeoman farmers just
north of Lancaster to become Liverpool Merchants with extensive
interests in British Guiana. The brothers involved in Booker Brothers
(later Booker McConnel) were Thomas, Josias, Septimus, George. Would be
very interested if you know anything of their involvement in slavery.
(IP Addr: 144.137.174.32)
Referer: http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/business/
Thanks for responding, Dan. Time frame would have been, starting around
1830 and through to whatever time slavery was abolished. The Booker
Brothers retained their interests in British Guiana right through the
1900s - the last reference I have is for around 1980, though the firm
left the family's hands long before that. Josias Booker (1793-1865) was
awarded a medal for the humane treatment of his slaves at one point -
and I know you will ask for a reference, but I can't locate one right
at this moment.
Here are some general reference if you should be interested:
http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter112.html
http://www.internationalspecialreports.com/theamericas/00/guyana/22.html
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb~hfbo.html#booker
The Booker Prize takes its name from this family. My great-great
Grandmother was a Booker - it is said that her husband took her to
Australia to get her away from the Bookers - he didn't get on with them
and they didn't think he was good enough for her. Pam
And on 14 December 2006 arrived the following riposte to the e-mail above on Bookers - from John Platt (UK), as follows:
Subject:
BOOKERS [merchantnetworks]
From:
JOHN PLATT via @btinternet.com>
Date:
Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:17:07 +0000 (GMT)
To:
danbyrnes@merchantnetworks.com.au
Dear Merchant Networks, Corrections here to your item about the Booker brothers.
"The brothers involved in Booker Brothers (later Booker
McConnel) were Thomas, Josias, Septimus, George. Would be very
interested if you know anything of their involvement in slavery."
Josias was the first brother to go to Demerara [1815]; he was a planter
there.
George and Richard, who arrived later, were the founding partners of
Booker Bros & Co., Demerara in 1834. No other brothers were
involved as partners. Septimus was involved later in England as a legal
adviser. Thomas was not involved in the merchant or planting
businesses. The brothers were only involved in slavery as plantation
management or as merchants - their ownership of slaves was modest and
Josias helped the evangelical missionaries. They did not bring slaves
into BG [the trade stopped in 1807 before they arrived]. George did not
acquire a ship until the late 1830s.
"The Booker Brothers retained their interests in British
Guiana right through the 1900s - the last reference I have is for
around 1980, though the firm left the family's hands long before that."
The Booker family lost any management involvement in the Booker
companies in 1886 and any residual financial interest probably ceased
in the 1900s. Bookers in Guyana was nationalized in 1976.
Question: Who is Pam descended from?
"Josias Booker (1793-1865) was awarded a medal for the humane treatment of his slaves at one point." - from the Royal Society of Arts in 1827 [probably a political manoeuvre by the Colonial Office to set an example to other planters or to indicate the drift of CO policy]. I began looking into the history of the Demerara firm [pre-1900] in 1964, so if you need to know anything, I might be able to help - but slavery is not a part of the story.
Regards, John Platt
| To find your way to more files on Merchant Networks topics related either chronologically, or alphabetically by merchant surname, go to the main file of Listings. |
Dear Mr Byrnes, I was very interested to read the material in
your web book about London shipowners and financiers involved in the
18th and early 19th century trade to Australasia. I am particularly
interested in the firm Plummer, Barham & Co. which owned the
ship Unity which made a voyage to New Zealand under
Daniel Cooper leaving England in 1808 and arriving at Sydney in 1809.
Some of your information about Thomas William Plummer and J. F. Barham
I had never seen before. I wonder:
1. Do you have any more information about Thomas William Plummer died
20/11/1817?
2. Do you know of any surviving papers of Plummer, Barham & Co?
(I know some of Barham's papers are in the Bodleian.)
3. Is John Turnbull the partner of George Macaulay related to Robert
Turnbull commander of the Britannia transport,
owned by Enderbys, and which arrived at Sydney 18/7/1798?
Is John Turnbull the partner of Macaulay related to John
Turnbull
supercargo of the Margaret which arrived at Sydney
7/2/1801 who was also author of A Voyage Round the World...?
I'm sorry to bombard you with questions which may well be difficult to
answer but you are a rich source on this arcane subject.
I
am trying to prove what has long been suspected that on that
voyage of the 'Unity's' Cooper cruised the east Otago coast of New
Zealand's South Island and probably entered Otago Harbour. He had
previously taken over the command of the Sydney Cove
on her return from Australia to England, a ship in which Simeon Lord
had a financial interest. Lord later complained that when Plummers
financed Cooper in his voyage in the Unity they
were taking advantage of knowledge of sealing grounds discovered by men
in his employment. As West India merchants and with the abolition of
the slave trade in 1807 I have supposed Plummer, Barham & Co
were trying to find a new trade, Australasian sealing, to replace the
West India one. As you have observed they had formerly been Lord and
his partners' London agents. I'd appreciate any further information you
can give me about these matters.
Tks, Peter Entwisle (New Zealand)
One connection for Plummers in Sydney is Frederick Garling former judge-advocate with John Oxley. Later Lord has a London agent Francis Williams. See Parkinson on Underwoods, p. 36 the firm is Plummers and Barham, English agent for Lord, Kable and Underwood, firm of Thomas Plummer, John Foster Barham, Thomas William Plummer, John Plumber and Mathew Combe. Plummers sold colonial seal products, sandalwood, Chinese teas, any speculative cargo. He becomes agent for John Macarthur in 1804, replacing his fr-in-law Thompson in that role. He is a City merchant and politician. He is known as "Little Bacchus". Atkinson, Euros in Aust, p. 219. ADB entry for Simeon Lord suggests by 1805, this man is linked to London firm trading with Simeon Lord, Plummer, Barham and Co. [Which is this Barham?) See also Maxine Young, Admin, p. 249 re T. W. Plummer to Col. Macquarie, No. 1 Park Street, Westminster, 4 May, 1809, HRNSW, Vol. 7, p. 113, Plummer then being solicitor-general. Hainsworth, Traders, pp. 154ff, p. 230. See re sum of £60,000 in Hainsworth, Traders, p. 85 with S. Lord. See Hainsworth, Builders, pp. 44ff, p. 69, p. 82, pp. 91ff-98. Partner in the West India house of Plummer, Barham and Co, the London agents for merchant Simeon Lord of Sydney and correspondents of John Macarthur, Sydney. See Pemberton, London Connection, p. 126.
Dear
Dan,
Came across this while seeking out American Revolution primary sources
etc., Thought you might find it useful, though it might be a bit too
general. All the best,
PB.
A Timeline of Maritime New York
1524 -- 1860
1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano and his crew on La
Dauphine come upon New York harbor in their coasting of
Atlantic seaboard. First European reports of the area.
1525 Esteban Gomez, a Portuguese sailing for Spain, enters New York
harbor and charts the lower Hudson River area.
1609 Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch enters New York
Harbor on the Halve Moon; explored the Hudson
River up to what later becomes Albany
1613 Dutch seafarer Adriaen Block sailed into New York Harbour on Tiger;
builds Onrush on Manhattan Island and uses it to
transit East River into Long Island Sound.
1624 Dutch colonists arrive in New York Harbor aboard New Netherland
captained by Cornelius May.
1616 Peter Minuit is assigned to New Amsterdam as Dutch governor;
secures deed to Manhattan from resident Indians.
1626 First shipments of furs from New Amsterdam to Holland.
1627 Dutch in New Amsterdam open trade with Plymouth colony.
1630s Smuggling becomes commonplace among New Amsterdam mariners.
1634 Settlement begins on east side of East River, New York, in
Brooklyn.
1636 First Africans are dispatched to New Amsterdam; brought as
"perpetual servants".
1638 English-born Isaac Allerton moved from Plymouth to New Amsterdam;
became leading maritime merchant.
1640 First ferry between Manhattan and Brooklyn in operation.
1647 Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam as governor and
Director-General of Dutch West Indies Company.
1647 First pier on East River constructed at Schreyer's Hook.
1647 Allerton constructs warehouse near site of South Street, Seaport.
1653 New Amsterdam receives city charter establishing municipal
government.
1654 A weighhouse built on pier and "master" appointed.
1664 New Amsterdam is ceded to English after show of maritime force;
town name changed to Fort James and then New York.
1673 Dutch regain temporary control of New York; give it back in 1674.
1675 English Governor Edmund Andros assumes political leadership of New
York; active promoter of maritime commerce.
1676 "Great Dock" established at Schreyer's Dock at base of Whitehall
Street; City's main dock until 1750
1680s New York a favored port for privateering ventures; some New
Yorkers engage in open piracy is conducted.
1686 NYC government initiates landfills along Manhattan shorelines.
1692 Governor Benjamin Fletcher accommodates pirates in New York.
1695 William Kidd, a pirate, hired by Governor Bellomont to snuff out
piracy in region
1699 Kidd apprehended in Boston and sent to England for trial; executed
in 1701
1700s Active trading between New York and the West Indies; not limited
to English Jamaica and Barbados
1747 New Yorkers owned 99 vessels by now.
1754 King's College founded; many of the governors and benefactors
derived their wealth from maritime trade.
1756-63 French and Indian War brings boom times to New York; base of
British military operations in North America.
1762 New Yorkers own 447 vessels.
1764 British Navy establishes a presence in New York to enforce customs
collections and maritime rules of trade.
1765 New Yorkers protest imposition of Stamp Act; Sons of Liberty play
a prominent role in agitation.
1768-69 New York trade with Great Britain drops sharply as result of
non-importation accords among NY merchants.
1771 City builds first dock on Hudson River side of Manhattan.
1774 April New Yorkers stage their own tea party on British ship London,
carrying taxed tea into Harbor.
1775 April: New York moves into open rebellion against Great Britain;
leading New York merchants reluctant to break links with England; many
remain loyal to crown.
1776 May-September: British navy and army seize control of New York
City; Washington leaves the City in September after Battle of Harlem
Heights.
1776-1783 New York City under British military command; virtually all
maritime commerce ceases.
1783 November 25: Washington and Governor George Clinton reclaim City
from the just evacuated British following the signing of the Treaty of
Paris.
1784 February -- New York vessel Empress of China
sails from NYC to China; marks the opening of America's China trade.
1787 Trade between Boston and New York with Pacific Northwest
commences.
1796 Jay Treaty opens British ports to American trade; and vice versa.
1798-1801 United States in an undeclared naval war with France.
1801 Brooklyn Naval Yard opens.
1803 President Jefferson executes the Louisiana Purchase,
which doubled the national domain.
1807 August -- Robert Fulton launches his steam-driven Clermont between
NYC and Albany; inaugurates steamboat navigation on a commercial basis.
1807 December -- President Jefferson declared embargo
against Great
Britain, effectively shutting down New York's maritime trade with
Europe.
1809 March -- Embargo repealed by Congress and incoming president
Madison.
1810 Discussion begin in earnest about building a canal linking Hudson
River and Lake Erie by NYC Mayor De Witt Clinton (CC 1786); fears of
traffic being deflected to Montreal
1811
NYC street-grid plan adopted; solidified municipal control of
waterfront
1812 June -- United States declared war on Great Britain; many of the
issues relate to maritime matters
1813 July -- British blockade of New York Port becomes effective; by
then, dozens of New York privateers at sea
1815 End of War of 1812 inaugurates era of shipbuilding and maritime
commerce; dawn of the era of steam.
1817 Governor DeWitt Clinton and New York legislature authorize the
digging of the Erie Canal; digging commenced July 4th
1817 Scheduled sailings from New York to Liverpool inaugurated by the
Black Ball Line and its packet ship James Monroe.
1817-1824 2000 laborers dig canal across 362 miles of rough
country; 82
locks overcome 571 feet elevation difference
1824 First dry dock in US built in NYC.
1825 October 26 -- Erie Canal opened for traffic; freight rates from
Buffalo to New York fell from $100 to $6 a ton; secures competitive
advantage over Montreal and Mississippi River ports; leads to growth of
Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago
1840 New York ships represented 1/5th of all US tonnage
registered:
Manhattan had 63 wharves on East River and 50 on Hudson.
1846 New York shipbuilders develop clipper ship configuration; design
sacrifices volume for speed; Sea Witch an early
model; excellent for carrying expensive, small volume cargo (opium,
gold, silver).
1846 Hudson River Railroad established.
1848 Beginning of the California Gold Rush; California becomes
important maritime trading point for New York.
1850 New York-built steamers of the Collins Line ; capture US postal
trade with Europe; compete with Cunard Line for trans-Atlantic
passenger traffic; loses subsidy and goes bankrupt in 1857
1850 NYC shipyard of William H. Webb takes lead in building extreme
clippers; Flying Cloud launched in 1851.
1851 City blasting of subsurface rocks around Hell Gate to improve
navigation in the area
1853 Boston-based Donald McKay becomes America's leading clipper-ship
designer; Young America launched in 1853
1856 Diamond Reef, off Governor's Island, removed by blasting.
1857 Financial Panic takes capital out of NYC sailing ships businesses;
marking the ascendance of steam-powered vessels
Bibliographical Sources for the above:
Work Projects Administration, A Maritime History of New York. 1941
Robert G. Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1800-1840. 1938.
Kevin Bone, (Ed.), The New York Waterfront. Monacelli Press, 1997
Below is draft material for a new item
William Collow and his associates to the 1790s became the second largest British slaving firm shifting slaves out of Africa. Research on them has always been rather difficult, and the Cozens/Byrnes team behind this website would like to know more of them. Can anyone help with extra information? A new citation has lately been found: Stephen D. Behrendt, ' "The Journal of an African Slave Trader", 1789-1792, and the Gold Coast Slave Trade of William Collow', History in Africa, Vol. 22, 1995., pp. 61-71.
Collow and associates, slavers, seem to have no connection genealogical or otherwise with the firm Ferguson and Collow of Queen Street, Morrison Island, Cork, Ireland, ships chandlers, as listed from Richard Lucas' Director of Cork, 1787, found on a Cork local history website. That Collow remains obscure, but he worked with Robert Ferguson, whose first wife died 16 October 1777, who as his second wife married Mary Cutherbert. His children are listed on a website.
Duncan Campbell the London-based overseer of prison hulks on the Thames, and Jamaica merchant, used to deal with Ferguson and Collow of Cork. (There was also a Dr Robert Ferguson of Georges Street, Cork.) William Collow meanwhile is noted in Britain's House of Commons Sessional Papers, Vol, 82, pp. 329 (edited by Lambert), as a London slaver of 1789, and the same Duncan Campbell had written to Collow before 1789.
In 1789, Collow associated with James Morrison, John McKenzie and Robert Forbes. In 1795 with Daniel Bernard, Charles John Wheeler and Edward Higgins.
This William Collow began from London about 1768, and later operated from London and Havre, France, in the 1790s shifting many slaves to Jamaica. His address 1768-1783 was Mitre Court, Milk Street, London, and then he was at No. 12 Broad Street Buildings to 1819. By 1787-1795, Collow after Camden, Calvert and King was the second largest British slaving firm, shifting approx. 7600 slaves to the French West Indies. One of Collow's rivals was Messrs Sargent, Chambers and Co. of London, who dealt in textiles. Collow also dealt with James Jones (died 1795) of Bristol. A side fact in the time frame is that the London slaving firm of [Thomas] Miles and Weuves (who are somewhat known) used the services of one Adam Bannerman, who is obscure.
About 1790-1792
Collow used the services of Captain Thomas Eagles, his main
agent on the West African coast. He also used the services of
Capt Patrick Ryan, Capt Peacock and Capt David McElheran. One firm
active was Collow Bros, Carmichael and Co, apparently involving William
and John Collow. - Dan Byrnes
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