Nicholas Crisp

Sir Nicholas Crisp, 1st Baronet (also Crisp * to 1599 ; † 16 ^{. Jul} / 26. February  1666 ^greg. ) Was an English Royalist and a wealthy businessman , who in the 1630s pioneered trade in West Africa made. From 1640 to approx. 1661/1666 he worked as a customs collector and from November 1640 to 1641 a member of the House of Commons from which he was excluded again as a monopoly . From 1660 he was a member of the Trade Council, from 1661 also a member of the Council for Plantations Abroad and from 1661 to 1666 again a member of the House of Commons. Since 1664 he had the status of Gentleman of the Privy Chamber . At the turn of the year 1640/41 he was knighted and in 1665 made a baronet .

Early life

Not much is known about his early life, and his real surname is not certain either - he is sometimes spelled Crisp and sometimes Crispe . He was the son of Ellis Crisp , who was sheriff of London at the time and died in 1625. His brother was from Tobias Crisp , then a prominent cleric and at the same time an outlaw . Nicholas first made his living trading a brick factory in Hammersmith and later invested in other goods, with his main interests being in trading with India and China . Like his father, he owned large shares in the East India Company and was already in his mid-twenties importing a wide range of goods, including cloves , indigo , silk , black pepper , ivory , calico and mussels . The mussels were procured by agents of the company on his explicit instructions and were most likely used to finance slave purchases in West Africa.

The Guinea Company

The Company of Adventurers of London trading to the ports of Africa , better known as the Guinea Company , was the first private trading company to aim to colonize Africa for economic profit. The company exported redwood , which was used as a dye, from western parts of Africa, but mainly from Guinea and Sierra Leone . At its peak, the trading company owned and operated 15 cargo ships.

James I granted the company a 31-year monopoly on the export of goods from West Africa to England in 1618 by issuing a freight contract. In 1624, however, the parliament described this monopoly of the Guinea Company as a malady , especially since the company was suffering from financial difficulties. In 1625, seven years after its inception and one year after Parliament's objection, Nicholas Crisp became the company's main organizer and profiteer. The success of the Guinea Company rose again, which provoked even more violent rejection in England. In 1628, Crisp became the company's largest shareholder and founder. Crisp secured most of the support from the royalists by setting up trading posts on the gold coast of Komenda and Kormantin , which the English King James I regarded as very valuable for the future of trade between England and Africa.

The Guinea Company traded in various goods; the gold, which was mainly traded in the beginning, was soon only one of the many commodities, because the company was not particularly successful in the gold trade. In the years 1618 to 1621 she sent three expeditions up the Gambia to prospect for gold, as large deposits were suspected at this point. In fact, no profit could be made, and after the third expedition the company had amassed a loss of £ 5,600 . Depending on the calculation, this corresponds to an equivalent for the year 2011 between around 916,000 and 186 million British pounds - Nicholas Crisp had acquired the majority of the entire company for less than 800 pounds (130,000 to 26.6 million £). After Crisp was unsuccessful in prospecting for gold in the Gambia, the company switched to exporting redwood from Sierra Leone as its main activity.

In 1631 a new freight contract was drawn up and awarded to the Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea . Like the first contract from 1618, this was also valid for 31 years, but applied to the area between Cap Blanc and the Cape of Good Hope . Though the company might appear to be an entirely new trading company to outsiders, it wasn't - many of its members were also part of the Guinea Company , including Nicholas Crisp. By inventing a new name for themselves, they opened up more opportunities for further expansion, particularly gold prospecting in the eastern part of Sierra Leone. In 1632 the company already had gold factories in Komenda, Kormantin and Winneba . Three more in Anomabu , Takoradi and Cabo Corso followed a short time later. In addition to the main income from the gold trade, the company sent ships to Benin to get clothing that was transported back and sold for gold. It is believed that Nicholas Crisp and his trading company were able to make more than £ 500,000 profit on the gold extracted in the eleven to twelve years after 1632, the equivalent of between £ 70.4 million and £ 13.3 billion in 2011.

In addition, according to British Parliament records, the trading company appears to have been involved in the slave trade.

An excavation in 2005 on Sir Nicholas Crisp's private estate - now known as the Hammersmith Embankment - found an extensive collection of glass beads and trinkets . Crisp was licensed to manufacture and sell glass beads, as well as the slave trade between Guinea and the British West Indies . The pearls were most likely used for both the local markets and the colonies; Researchers have discovered similar pearls in America and Ghana . This is the first clear archaeological evidence of glass bead making in England after the Middle Ages .

Other members of the Crisp family were also involved in trade with Africa during the same period, at times similar to Nicholas to a significant extent.

From November 1640 Nicholas Crisp was a member of the Long Parliament as an MP for the constituency of Winchelsea . From this he was expelled in 1641 because he levied duty on commercial goods without his prior consent, which he used as security to lend money to the destitute King Charles I.

On New Years Day 1641, Charles I struck Crisp in recognition of his previous, but - probably much more important - also in anticipation of his future services as a knight.

Civil war

Despite his loyalty to the King, who fled to Oxford when the Civil War broke out , Crisp remained in Roundhead- controlled London. However, in January 1643 he was asked by the House of Commons about 3700 British pounds, which an intercepted letter revealed in compensation for secret services to His Majesty . Crisp immediately disappeared secretly to Oxford, where he was warmly welcomed by the king. But his houses in Hammersmith and Lime Street were ransacked.

Crisp was forced by Parliament to surrender his pearl manufacture, sale and slave trade licenses from Guinea to the West Indies. In December 1643 a document was presented to the House of Lords relating to a monetary debt owed by Sir Nicholas Crisp to the Royal Navy. The House of Commons then ordered that this debt should be settled with his shares in the Guinea Company . The prospect of the gold expected in this way moved the House of Lords to agree to this arrangement.

Nicholas Crisp served the king in many ways during the Civil War. For example, in March 1643 he played a leading role in a plan to take London, but the idea failed. He was also frustrated with his failed attempts to set up a 1,500-strong infantry regiment later that year.

However, on May 6, 1644, he was commissioned to equip 15 warships at his own expense and those of his partners. In return, he received a promise to keep a tenth of any income made. From the western coastal towns he offered ferry services for troops from Ireland and played an important role in shipping tin and wool to the continent. On the way back he brought weapons and ammunition with him and finally got the important position as deputy general controller of the bases. His loyalty to the crown was steadfast, even after Charles I was executed in 1649 and Crisp and many others were forced to flee to France. Family ties later allowed him to return, but his political views had not changed. During the rebuilding, Crisp secretly served and raised funds for the exiled Charles II . Crisp was one of the royalists in London who supported General Monck's declaration that the Stuart monarchy was to be restored. He was also a secret supporter of royalist conspiracies, such as the failed plan in 1650 to land troops from the Isles of Scilly to the Cornish coast.

In May 1660, Crisp was part of a commission sent to meet Charles II at Breda, who was returning to England to take over the throne his father had left behind.

Late life

After the monarchy was restored , Nicholas Crisp was partially compensated for his losses in defense of the crown. The king also gave him a number of prominent offices to make up for the rest. Crisp tried to regain its former trading position but was unsuccessful. Nonetheless, his membership in the Company of Adventurers secured him some leverage in the trade. From 1661 to 1666 he was again a member of parliament for the constituency.

He is mentioned in the diary of Samuel Pepys on February 11, 1660, January 25, February 15 and 19 and September 5, 1662 and on August 22, 1663. Pepys mentions his ingenuity and proposals for a floating dock .

On April 14, 1665, Charles II honored his loyal servant by conferring the hereditary title of Baronet, of Hammersmith in the County of Middlesex.

heritage

Nicholas Crisp decreed in his last will that his monument should be noted that he had lost "almost one hundred thousand pounds out of his wallet" in his efforts to trade with Guinea. He was buried in St Mildred's Church on Bread Street, London, but:

"[...] he decreed that his embalmed heart should be placed in an urn under a bronze bust of Charles I, which he had placed during his lifetime in the church in which he worshiped God. [...] It lasted for a century and a half Heart taken out of the urn on the anniversary of his funeral and soaked with wine. Then it turned dust to dust , but the memory of old Sir Nicholas, the marble monument and the royal bust will long outlive it. "

Crisp was a great patron of the Hammersmith Ward, giving money and stones to help build the first church. This later became St. Paul's Cathedral . The monument to Crisp was later transferred to the newer church, which was built in the same place in 1883. On June 18, 1898, his remains and heart were reunited in a tomb that is now in the cemetery of St. Paul's Cathedral near the northeast entrance to the church.

Nicholas Crisp appears in a portrait by Robert Hartley Cromek , which is dated to 1795 too late to be an original. In fact, it is a copy of an earlier portrait by an unknown artist.

Crisp was also responsible for building the Brandenburgh House on Fulham Palace Road . Initially referred to as the Great House by Crisp , this impressive residence later became the home of Queen Caroline , who was estranged from George IV .

Crisp Road was named after him in Hammersmith .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Measuring Worth. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014 ; accessed on January 23, 2013 . 
2. ^ R. Porter: The Crispe Family and the African Trade in the Seventeenth Century . In: Cambridge University Press Stable (Ed.): The Journal of African History . tape 9 , no. 1 , 1968, p. 57-77 , JSTOR : 179920 (English).
3. ↑ Museum of London Annual Report 2005 ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ^ Draft order for recovering money owed by Sir Nicholas Crisp to the navy. 1643, accessed June 18, 2011 . 
5. ^ Gavin Rogers: Crisp more than just a villain. (PDF; 1.2 MB) 2008, archived from the original on June 8, 2011 ; accessed on June 18, 2011 (English). 
6. ^ Draper, Warwick: Hammersmith - A Study in Town History . 1913, p. 15-16 (English).
7. ^ Portrait of Nicholas Crisp

Remarks

1. ↑ The English-language sources speak of shells , which is ambiguous in this context and can also mean outer fabrics, for example . Under the assumption that Far Eastern seafood is the most likely barter commodity for the slave trade in West Africa, the mussel was chosen at this point.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baronet, of Hammersmith 1665-1666	Nicholas Crispe