Henry Lascelles (1690–1753)

The Lascelles family were increasingly prominent and politically involved Yorkshire landed gentry, at the time of Lascelles's birth, having owned land near Northallerton, in the Vale of Mowbray, rich farming country, since at least the late thirteenth century. They were based at Stank Hall, now a sheep farm, which the head of the family acquired in 1608 from land management profits. Lascelles's grandfather Francis Lascelles (c. 1612-1667) had been a Roundhead colonel in the English Civil Wars, and as an MP for the district sat in judgment on King Charles I of England, who was executed in 1649. Francis Lascelles was Cromwellian Commissioner for Yorkshire, during Oliver Cromwell's period as Lord Protector, ruling the country,[1] and also served in both the First Protectorate Parliament and the Second Protectorate Parliament in the 1650s. Henry Lascelles's father Daniel Lascelles (1655-1734) assisted in driving out the Roman Catholic King James II of England in 1688. He became High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1718–19, during the reign of King George I of Great Britain, was briefly an MP for Northallerton, calling himself a Whig, and a businessman.[2]

Lascelles was in Barbados by the age of 22, in 1712, following his elder brother George, who first crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1706. The Lascelles family had Barbados interests as early as 1648, establishing a plantation, a warehouse, and shipping interests for the rapidly developing colony, first settled by the English in 1625. Henry Lascelles settled in Barbados with his brother Edward, where he was a merchant and planter; George Lascelles returned to England to run the business there.

It was a family-managed enterprise, concentrating on sugar production and exports, transportation of goods to supply the colony, and slavery. Slaves were imported from west Africa, put to work on the plantations, and were objects of lucrative financial trading by the business leaders. The triangular shipping trade routes of the era ran as follows: British goods were shipped to West Africa, slaves were bought in exchange for the goods and shipped to Barbados and other West Indian islands for sale, and sugar and other export crops were shipped to Britain, with great profits on all three journey legs. Barbados was by about 1680 the most prosperous English colony in the Americas.;[3][4]

Upon George's death in 1729, Henry Lascelles returned to London and became one of its leading businessmen, with offices near the port district. He bought an estate in the country town of Richmond-upon-Thames, some 14 miles west of his business. He had developed a financial business, lending money on both sides of the Atlantic, and this was successful.[6]

Henry Lascelles later co-founded the firm of Lascelles and Maxwell, sugar factors, of Mark Lane, in the City of London. This very successful partnership with the Scotsman George Maxwell began in September 1743.[7] On his partner Maxwell's death in 1763, the firm became Lascelles, Clarke, and Daling.[8]

Lascelles and his first wife Mary (daughter of Edward Carter (fellow plantation owner), whom he married in Barbados on 8 April 1712) left three surviving children, all of whom were born in Barbados:

• Edwin Lascelles, 1st and last Baron Harewood (5 February 1713 – 25 January 1795)
• Daniel Lascelles (20 May 1714 – 24 May 1784)
• Captain Henry Lascelles (18 August 1716 – 14 July 1786)

Mary died in 1721.[9] Lascelles's second marriage to Jennet Whetstone in 1731 was childless.

Henry Lascelles retired from business in 1750, at the age of sixty, but retained his seat in Parliament, along with much of his influence. In his will, he divided most assets among his two eldest sons, with Edwin Lascelles receiving land, and Daniel Lascelles the business interests.[10]

Extensive business correspondence from the Lascelles and Maxwell firm has survived, and is the basis of modern research work by writer Adam Nicolson.

Henry Lascelles committed suicide in 1753 by slashing veins in his arm. He had cataracts in his eyes. At this juncture, he was reckoned to be the wealthiest person in England, by writer Adam Nicolson, with a personal fortune estimated at some half-million pounds.[11]

Henry Lascelles, the son of a minor Yorkshire gentry family, amassed such extraordinary wealth and influence that his eldest son Edwin Lascelles was raised to the English peerage as the first Baron Harewood; he built Harewood House, the family seat. The head of the Lascelles family in the next generation was promoted to an earldom.

• The Gentry: Stories of the English, by Adam Nicolson, 2011, Harper Press, London, chapter 'Dominance', pp. 213–241, ISBN 9780007335497.