Thomas Parke (merchant)

Thomas Parke (1729/30 – 1819)[1] was a Liverpool slave trader, 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.

Thomas Parke, 1769 portrait by Joseph Wright of Derby

Early 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]

Slave trade

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]

Heywood's Bank in the 18th century.

Parke was a member of the Company of Merchants trading to Africa, of Liverpool.[6] He was in business with Arthur Heywood.[7] Parke & Heywood were involved in two slaving ventures in 1783/4,[8] 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 had many dealings in common with the partnership of Thomas Staniforth and Joseph Brooks (junior).[9] 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.[10] Their ventures employed the slaver Captain Joseph Fayrer.[4][11]

Among Parke's clients for slaves were Rainford, Blundell & Rainford of Kingston, Jamaica.[12] The percentage of Liverpool's slave trade in 1790 attributable to Thomas Parke and Co., of five partners, has been given as 1.1%.[13] 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.[14]

Parke was a director of the Liverpool fire insurance office established in 1777.[15] He was a partner in Heywood's Bank.[16]

Personal life

Parke married Anne, daughter of William Preston.[17][18]

Their sons included:

  • Thomas John, the eldest. He married Bridget Colquitt, the daughter of John Colquitt IV.[19][20][21] He was a partner in William Gregson, Sons, Parke & Morland.[22][19] With Thomas Staniforth, Richard Watt and Joseph Jackson, he founded Old Swan Charity School (1792).[23][24]
  • 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.[19][25][26]
  • James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale.

Their daughter Alice married Sitwell Sitwell.[27] Another daughter Anne married John Croome Smythe.[19]

Parke lived in Water Street;[28] 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.[22]

Notes
  1. David Richardson, Anthony Tibbles, Suzanne Schwarz, Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery (2007), p. 202.
  2. "Liverpool chamber of commerce 1774-96, members" (PDF). geog.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  3. Satchell & Wilson 1988, pp. 15–6
  4. David Richardson, Anthony Tibbles, Suzanne Schwarz, Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery (2007), p. 130; Google Books.
  5. Satchell & Wilson 1988, p. 3
  6. 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.
  7. "The Heywood family of Manchester | Revealing Histories". www.revealinghistories.org.uk. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
  8. Inikori 1981, p. 771
  9. Pearson, Robin; Richardson, David (November 2001). "Business Networking in the Industrial Revolution". The Economic History Review. New Series. 54 (4): 670–1. doi:10.1111/1468-0289.00207. JSTOR 3091626.
  10. Inikori, J.E. (1977). "The Import of Firearms into West Africa 1750-1807: A Quantitative Analysis". The Journal of African History. 18 (3): 353. doi:10.1017/S0021853700027304. JSTOR 180637. S2CID 161693017.
  11. Morgan, Kenneth (2005). "Remittance Procedures in the Eighteenth-Century British Slave Trade". The Business History Review. 79 (4): 736. doi:10.2307/25097112. JSTOR 25097112. S2CID 154338547.
  12. 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.
  13. Inikori 1981, p. 751
  14. Inikori 1981, p. 770, Note 84
  15. 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.
  16. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1944) p. 99; archive.org.
  17. Jones, Gareth H. "Parke, James, Baron Wensleydale". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21283. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  18. 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.
  19. Jeremiah Finch Smith (editor), The Admission Register of the Manchester School, vol. II, Chetham Society Miscellanies vol. 73 (1868) p. 91; archive.org.
  20. Ernest Axon, Bygone Lancashire (1892), p. 152; archive.org.
  21. Sir Richard Phillips (1804). Monthly Magazine and British Register. R. Phillips. p. 456. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  22. John Hughes, Liverpool Banks and Bankers, 1760-1837 (1906), pp. 111–2; archive.org.
  23. Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Liverpool; Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Liverpool Proceedings and papers. Transactions. Robarts - University of Toronto. Liverpool [etc.]
  24. "M - Q". liverpool-schools.co.uk. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
  25. Issue 16864 The London Gazette
  26. Issue 15940 The London Gazette
  27. R. G. Thorne (1986). The House of Commons. Boydell & Brewer. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-436-52101-0. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  28. 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.

References
  • Inikori, J.E. (December 1981). "Market Structure and the Profits of the British African Trade in the Late Eighteenth Century". The Journal of Economic History. 41 (4): 745–776. doi:10.1017/s0022050700044880. JSTOR 2120644. S2CID 154206808.
  • Satchell, John; Wilson, Olive (1988). Christopher Wilson of Kendal: An Eighteenth Century Hosier and Banker. Kendal Civic Society & Frank Peters Publishing. ISBN 0-948511-50-8.

Sources
  • Richardson, David (2007). Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-84631-066-9.
  • Williams, Gomer (1897). History of the Liverpool Privateers. UK: Liverpool University Press.
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