Thomas Parke (merchant)
Thomas Parke (1729/30 – 1819)[1] was a Liverpool merchant, banker and privateer.[2] He was part of the complex network of business interests and finance behind the African and Atlantic slave trade of the later 18th century.
![](../I/m/Thomas_Parke_Wright.jpg)
Life
He originally from Swaledale, Yorkshire, the son of Thomas and Hannah Parke of Low Row; his father was a hosier and lead miner. He went into business as a linen merchant, initially with his brother John. His brother-in-law Christopher Wilson I of Kendal was another hosier, and Thomas Parke's merchant ventures included exporting Wilson's goods to North America.[3]
Parke invested in the Atlantic slave trade through many ventures; he withdrew from it in 1792. Another business partner was Wilson's son, Christopher Wilson II, of the Low Wood Gunpowder Company, gunpowder being part of the West Africa trade.[4][5]
Parke lived in Water Street;[6] later he moved to Duke Street, and resided at Highfield House, West Derby, Liverpool, previously owned by Charlotte Murray, Duchess of Atholl, which he bought about 1781.[7]
Business associates
Parke was a member of the Company of Merchants trading to Africa, of Liverpool.[8] He was in business with Arthur Heywood.[9][10] Parke & Heywood were involved in two slaving ventures in 1783/4,[11] and in all in 50 journeys in the "triangular trade". The firm was significant as a major player in the local insurance trade, and its business many dealings in common with the partnership of Thomas Staniforth and Joseph Brooks (junior).[12] Heywood & Parke became one of the ten largest Liverpool firms (period 1783 to 1793) responsible for the trade of West African slaves to the West Indies.[13] Their ventures employed the slaver Captain Joseph Fayrer.[4][14]
![](../I/m/Heywood_Bank%2C_Liverpool%2C_1787.jpg)
Among Parke's clients for slaves were Rainford, Blundell & Rainford of Kingston, Jamaica.[15] The percentage of Liverpool's slave trade in 1790 attributable to Thomas Parke and Co., of five partners, has been given as 1.1%.[16] Parke reduced his investment in the direct trade, and concentrated more on the production of cotton goods for it, a business in which one of his sons was involved.[17]
Parke was a director of the Liverpool fire insurance office established in 1777.[18] He was a partner in Heywood's Bank.[19]
Family
Parke married Anne, daughter of William Preston.[20]
Their sons included:
- Thomas John, the eldest. He married Bridget Colquitt, the daughter of John Colquitt IV.[21][22][23] He was a partner in William Gregson, Sons, Parke & Morland.[7][21] With Thomas Staniforth, Richard Watt and Joseph Jackson, he founded Old Swan Charity School (1792).[24][25]
- John and Preston Fryer, who were bankrupts. John was in the textile ("African check") business, but failed, and took a position as consul to Iceland.[21][26][27]
- James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale.
Their daughter Alice married Sitwell Sitwell.[28] Another daughter Anne married John Croome Smythe.[21]
References
- J. E. Inikori, The Import of Firearms into West Africa 1750-1807: A Quantitative Analysis, The Journal of African History Vol. 18, No. 3 (1977), pp. 339–368. Published by: Cambridge University Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/180637
- J. E. Inikori, Market Structure and the Profits of the British African Trade in the Late Eighteenth Century, The Journal of Economic History Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec., 1981), pp. 745–776. Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2120644
- Kenneth Morgan, Remittance Procedures in the Eighteenth-Century British Slave Trade, The Business History Review Vol. 79, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 715–749. Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25097112
- Robin Pearson and David Richardson, Business Networking in the Industrial Revolution, The Economic History Review New Series, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Nov., 2001), pp. 657–679. Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History Society. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3091626
- John Satchell; Olive Wilson (1988). Christopher Wilson of Kendal: An Eighteenth Century Hosier and Banker. Kendal Civic Society & Frank Peters Publishing. ISBN 0-948511-50-8.
Notes
- ↑ David Richardson, Anthony Tibbles, Suzanne Schwarz, Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery (2007), p. 202.
- ↑ http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/chambersofcommerce/liverpool.pdf
- ↑ Satchell and Wilson, pp. 15–6.
- 1 2 David Richardson, Anthony Tibbles, Suzanne Schwarz, Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery (2007), p. 130; Google Books.
- ↑ Satchell and Wilson p. 3.
- ↑ Richard Brooke (1853). Liverpool as it was during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. 1775 to 1800. J. Mawdsley and son. pp. 465–6. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- 1 2 John Hughes, Liverpool Banks and Bankers, 1760-1837 (1906), pp. 111–2; archive.org.
- ↑ Gomer Williams (3 February 2011). History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque: With an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade. Cambridge University Press. p. 679. ISBN 978-1-108-02627-7. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ↑ http://www.merchantnetworks.com.au/periods/1775after/1789slaversbrit.htm
- ↑ http://www.revealinghistories.org.uk/how-did-money-from-slavery-help-develop-greater-manchester/people/the-heywood-family-of-manchester.html
- ↑ Inikori (Market), p. 771.
- ↑ Pearson and Richardson, pp. 670–1.
- ↑ Inikori (Firearms), p. 353.
- ↑ Morgan, p. 736 note 79.
- ↑ Sheryllynne Haggerty (15 November 2011). 'Merely for Money'?: Business Culture in the British Atlantic, 1750-1815. Liverpool University Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-84631-817-7. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ↑ Inikori (Market), p. 751.
- ↑ Inikori (Market), p. 770 note 84.
- ↑ Thomas Baines (1852). History of the commerce and town of Liverpool: and of the rise of the manufacturing industry in the adjoining counties. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. pp. 453–. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
- ↑ Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1944) p. 99; archive.org.
- ↑ Edward Foss (30 January 2000). Biographia Juridica: A Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England from the Conquest to the Present Time, 1066-1870. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. p. 497. ISBN 978-1-886363-86-1. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
- 1 2 3 4 Jeremiah Finch Smith (editor), The Admission Register of the Manchester School, vol. II, Chetham Society Miscellanies vol. 73 (1868) p. 91; archive.org.
- ↑ Ernest Axon, Bygone Lancashire (1892), p. 152; archive.org.
- ↑ Sir Richard Phillips (1804). Monthly Magazine and British Register. R. Phillips. p. 456. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
- ↑ https://archive.org/stream/1912transactions64histuoft#page/n395/mode/2up
- ↑ http://liverpool-schools.co.uk/html/m_-_q.html
- ↑ http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/16864/pages/497/page.pdf
- ↑ http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/15940/pages/943/page.pdf
- ↑ R. G. Thorne (1986). The House of Commons. Boydell & Brewer. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-436-52101-0. Retrieved 27 February 2013.