Edward Payne (banker)

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Edward Payne, portrait by Arthur Devis Edward Payne 1716-1794 Devis.jpg
Edward Payne, portrait by Arthur Devis

Edward Payne (1716–1794) [1] was an English merchant, Governor of the Bank of England from 1771 to 1773.

Contents

Background

He was the second son of John Payne (died 1746), a London haberdasher and East India Company director, and his wife Lydia Durrant; his paternal grandfather John Payne (died 1706) was from Cottesbrooke, Nottinghamshire. His father left him £1000 in Bank of England stock, with £1000 in East India Company stock and property. [2]

In commerce

Edward Payne was the brother of John Payne, who went into partnership with Abel Smith (1717–1788) of Smith's Bank in 1758, forming Smith & Payne. [3] Edward was part-owner of an East Indiaman, the Shaftesbury, and John was a director of the East India Company. [4] [5]

On John Payne's death in 1764, Edward Payne went into partnership with John's son Rene (or René). [6] They were merchants in London. [7] The firm was based in the Lothbury area, i.e. the parish of St Margaret Lothbury. [8] The street address was King's Arms Yard, in Coleman Street Ward.

In 1774 Edward & Rene Payne imported tobacco from Virginia's Upper James Naval District. [5] A 1775 letter from Neil Jamieson, a loyalist in Norfolk, Virginia to Edward & Rene Payne was intercepted by George Washington and passed to the Continental Congress. [9] [10] Edward Payne was one of a group of City of London figures who testified to the House of Lords in February 1777 on commercial losses caused by the American Revolutionary War, with the America merchant Thomas Wooldridge, West Indies merchant Beeston Long I, Abraham Hake of Lloyd's, the slave trader John Shoolbred and others. [11] Ordered to the House at his Colman Street business address, he was referred to in the Parliamentary Register as of Cornhill, another London ward. [12] [13]

During the 1780s, Payne chaired the London Committee of Merchants trading to North America. [14] In 1789 George Smith (1765–1836) bought into Edward & Rene Payne, with a 20% holding. [8] In December 1789, the lifting of an Order in Council restricting corn imports from the USA was notified by a public announcement to Payne. [15]

Bank of England

Payne was a director of the Bank of England from 1756 or 1757. [1] [16] He was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 1769 to 1771. He replaced William Cooper as Governor and was succeeded by James Sperling. [17] Payne's tenures as Deputy and Governor covered the Bengal Bubble of 1769 and the British credit crisis of 1772–1773. In 1772 he was supporting George Colebrooke's stock manipulations, as later complained of by the publicist William James to Benjamin Franklin, who was speculating against Colebrooke. [18]

After the death in 1773 of Sir Robert Ladbroke, Tory Member of Parliament for the City of London, Payne's name was mentioned as a possible successor; [19] a meeting at the Half Moon Tavern, Cheapside, owned by the Saddlers Company, of the London livery companies endorsed him for his efforts to protect trade in 1771–2. [20] [21] At the by-election, Frederick Bull, a Wilkite, won a close contest defeating John Roberts. [22]

In the wake of Robert Smith's efforts to grow the London private bank Smith & Payne, it hit financial difficulties in 1776–7. Edward Payne assisted by having the Bank of England take on some of the bank's discounted bills, a deprecated move; [23] the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography speaks of "extraordinary re-discount facilities". [24] Payne was never formally connected to the London or Nottingham branches of Smith's Bank, while acting as a consultant. He shared about 50% of their profits, by arrangement with his brother John and then his nephew Rene. [25]

Later life

On 7 January 1789, in the wake of the Regency Crisis of 1788, at a meeting of "Merchants, Bankers, and Traders" in the London Tavern chaired by Samuel Beachcroft, Payne proposed a vote of thanks to William Pitt the younger for his "able, spirited and manly defence of the sacred Constitution of this Empire". [26] He died on 9 October 1794, at his business address in the City of London. [27] He was a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. [28]

Trustee for Grenada estates

Payne became one of a group of trustees set up to resolve the potential insolvency of debtors of George Peters, a Bank of England director. [29] The debtors were Israel Wilkes (1722–1805), brother of John Wilkes, and his brother-in-law John de Ponthieu (1732–1773), brother of Henry de Ponthieu, proprietors of Grenada estates run by enslaved people. [30] [31] Payne had done business with John de Ponthieu. [32] Among the other trustees was John Julius Angerstein of Lloyd's of London. [33]

The events leading up to the formation of the trust began when Edward and Rene Payne tried to collect debts from the Larnac brothers of Martinique. The Larnacs declared bankruptcy. [34] Edward Payne and Josias de Ponthieu, as syndics, approached the Earl of Shelburne as First Lord of Trade for legal help in Paris against the Larnacs. [35]

In 1768 Peters asked Angerstein for help; who involved Payne and John Wilkinson. The trustees mortgaged the Grenada estates in 1771, to Daniel Giles (75%) and the London merchant Daniel Richard (25%, died 1793). [36] [37]

Family

Payne married Frances (died 1821). [38] Of their children:

The Edward Payne mentioned in the leading chancery case Lord Carrington v Payne of 1800, concerning the will of Rene Payne, was the brother of Rene who died in 1830, aged 84. [46] [47] [48]

George François Grand, the Huguenot first husband of Catherine Grand and author of Narrative of the Life of a Gentleman Long Resident in India, was apprenticed around 1765 to Robert Jones. He claimed kinship to the Paynes, calling "aunt" the widow of Edward's brother John Payne. Dissatisfied both with the apprenticeship and Jones's subsequent offer of a cadet East India Company position at Bencoolen, he had his aunt intervene, and sailed for Bengal at the beginning of 1766. [49] [50] In June he met Robert Clive in Calcutta, who spoke highly of John Payne, but did not give him a commission. [51] He was in England when Jones died in 1774, dashing some hopes he had of preferment. Edward Payne arranged for him to have a writership. [52]

Legacy

Payne made provision in his will for his wife, his son John George, his daughter called Elizabeth Adair, and his son-in-law George Pickford. [7] He left £100 to the poor of Ealing. [53] This bequest was later expanded by gifts from Sir Charles Morgan, and then by Frederick Augustus Wetherall. [54] The lease of the manor of Sutton Valence (Town Sutton), left to him by his father, he passed on to his heirs. [55]

Rene Payne died in 1799. [56] After the death of the original partners, the firm Edward and Rene Payne & Co. continued under the same name. [57]

Edward Payne appeared on the King of Diamonds in a 1992 pack of cards printed for the Bank of England. [58]

Ealing House

Ealing House, watercolour by Charles Tomkins Charles Tomkins - Ealing House, Middlesex - B1975.2.8 - Yale Center for British Art.jpg
Ealing House, watercolour by Charles Tomkins

Burke in 1894 identified the residence of Frances Payne's father Edward as Ealing House. [59] In 1813 it was called "a large and gloomy residence", and was untenanted. [60]

Lysons in vol. II (1795) of The Environs of London stated that Payne owned the house, and gave the two previous owners as John Huske and William Adair. [61] When vol. IV of that work appeared in 1796, there was a correction to the Ealing section of vol. II, including the comments "Hickes-on-the-Heath, now called Elm-Grove, has been sold by Mr. Barnard to Lord Kinnaird. Ealing-house is now the property of the Earl of Galloway." [62] In vol. III of the second edition (1811), the owner is given as Colonel Douglas. [63]

Gillian Darley's biography of Sir John Soane places these houses as "opposite neighbours" of Pitzhanger Manor, which Soane had renovated as his own residence in Ealing from around 1800: the neighbours were "Edward Payne and Lord Kinnard at, respectively, Ealing House and Ealing Grove". [64] If Ealing House had by then been sold out of the Payne family, the reference to Edward Payne is anachronistic.

References

  1. 1 2 Sterne, Laurence (2014). The Miscellaneous Writings and Sterne's Subscribers, an Identification List. University Press of Florida. p. 480. ISBN   978-0-8130-4947-2.
  2. ↑ Longman, Charles James (1889). Longman's Magazine. Longmans, Green and Company. pp. 595–602.
  3. ↑ Easton, Harry Tucker (1903). The history of a banking house, (Smith, Payne and Smiths.). London: Blades, East & Blades. p. 46.
  4. ↑ Sutherland, Lucy Stuart (1962). "A London Merchant 1695-1774" (PDF). us.archive.org. Frank Cass. p. 117.
  5. 1 2 Guildhall Studies in London History. Vol. 1. Guildhall Library. 1973. p. 137.
  6. ↑ Easton, Harry Tucker (1903). The history of a banking house, (Smith, Payne and Smiths.). London: Blades, East & Blades. pp. 67–68.
  7. 1 2 "Edward Payne ???? - 1794, Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  8. 1 2 "George Smith 1765 - 1836, Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  9. ↑ "Letter from Neil Jamieson to Edward and Rene Payne, Northern Illinois University Digital Library". digital.lib.niu.edu.
  10. ↑ McDonnell, Michael A. (1 December 2012). The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia. UNC Press Books. p. 154. ISBN   978-0-8078-3904-1.
  11. ↑ Cobbett, William (1814). The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803: 1777-1778. T.C. Hansard. pp. 707–711.
  12. ↑ House of Lords (1776). Journals of the House of Lords. H.M. Stationery Office. pp. 291–292.
  13. ↑ The Parliamentary Register; Or, History Of The Proceedings And Debates Of The House Of Commons: Containing An Account Of The Most Interesting Speeches and Motions; Accurate Copies of the Most Remarkable Bills, Letters and Papers; of the Most Material Evidence, Petitions, &c. Laid Before and Offered to the House, During the Second Session of the Fourteenth Parliament Of Great Britain. Almon. 1778. p. 200.
  14. ↑ Harris, Hunter (2020). When Trust Fails: Merchants, Law, and the British Empire in the Eighteenth Century. deepblue.lib.umich.edu (Thesis). University of Michigan. p. 339 note 79. doi:10.7302/78. hdl:2027.42/166155.
  15. ↑ "To Edward Payne, Esq". Aris's Birmingham Gazette. 7 December 1789. p. 1.
  16. ↑ Francis, John (1848). History of the Bank of England, Its Times and Traditions. Willoughby. p. 26.
  17. ↑ Governors of the Bank of England. Archived 2012-02-12 at the Wayback Machine Bank of England, London, 2013. Archived here. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  18. ↑ "Founders Online: To Benjamin Franklin from William James, [after 7 June 1783]". founders.archives.gov.
  19. ↑ "Wednesday, November 3. London". Kentish Gazette. 6 November 1773. p. 1.
  20. ↑ "London November 4". Hampshire Chronicle. 8 November 1773. p. 2.
  21. ↑ Beaufoy, Henry Benjamin Hanbury; Burn, Jacob Henry (1853). A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-house Tokens Current in the Seventeenth Century. use of the members of the Corporation of the City of London. p. 47.
  22. ↑ "London 1754-1790, History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  23. ↑ Cassis, Youssef; Cottrell, P. L. (2015). Private Banking in Europe: Rise, Retreat, and Resurgence. Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN   978-0-19-873575-5.
  24. ↑ Price, Jacob M. "Smith, Abel (1717?–1788)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37975.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  25. ↑ Leighton-Boyce, J. A. S. L. (1958). Smiths, the Bankers, 1658-1958. National Provincial Bank. p. 69.
  26. ↑ "City Meeting". Hampshire Chronicle. 12 January 1789. p. 3.
  27. ↑ "Died". Caledonian Mercury. 9 October 1794. p. 3.
  28. ↑ A List of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. London, August 18, 1766. The Society. 1766. p. 51.
  29. ↑ "George Peters ???? - 1797, Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  30. ↑ Wilkes, Israel. "Israel Wilkes, 12th Aug 1722 - 25th Nov 1805, Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  31. ↑ "John de Ponthieu 2nd Aug 1732 - 1773,Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  32. ↑ "The Crown, the Cabinet and the UK's legacy of slavery". Reuters. 24 November 2023.
  33. ↑ "John Julius Angerstein 1732 - 22nd Jan 1823,Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  34. ↑ O'Malley, Gregory E. (2014). Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807. UNC Press Books. p. 307 note 18. ISBN   978-1-4696-1534-9.
  35. ↑ Home Office (1879). Calendar of Home Office papers of the reign of George iii. 1760-(1775) preserved in her majesty's Public record office. Ed. by J. Redington (R.A. Roberts). p. 365.
  36. ↑ Twist, A. R. (2002). "A Subscription Society 1: Ships and Philanthropy" (PDF). Widening circles in finance, philanthropy and the arts. A study of the life of John Julius Angerstein 1735-1823 (Thesis). Universiteit van Amsterdam. p. 28.
  37. ↑ "Daniel Richard ???? - 1793, Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  38. ↑ "Died". New Times (London). 8 August 1821. p. 4.
  39. ↑ Burke, Bernard (1868). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland. Harrison. p. 202.
  40. ↑ Burke, Bernard (1871). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Harrison. pp. 1410–1411.
  41. ↑ Burke, Bernard (1898). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage Together with Memoirs of the Privy Councillors and Knights. Harrison and Sons. p. 16.
  42. ↑ Foster, Joseph, ed. (1881). Collectanea genealogica. p. 18.
  43. ↑ Garrick, David (1963). Letters. Vol. 1. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. xxviii.
  44. ↑ Fitzgerald, Percy Hetherington (1868). The Life of David Garrick; from Original Family Papers, and Numerous Published and Unpublished Sources. Tinsley. p. xx.
  45. ↑ Leighton-Boyce, J. A. S. L. (1958). Smiths, the Bankers, 1658-1958. National Provincial Bank. p. 124.
  46. ↑ "Catalogue description [C1799 C8]. Short title: Lord Carrington v Payne. Document type: bill and five answers..." 1799.
  47. ↑ Vesey, Francis; Chancery, Great Britain Court of (1844). Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery, from the Year M DCC LXXXIX to M DCCC XVII: With a Digested Index. C.C. Little and J. Brown. pp. 405–423.
  48. ↑ The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, for the Year ... Edw. Cave, 1736-[1868]. 1851. p. 211.
  49. ↑ "Jones, Robert (d.1774), of Clement's Lane, Lombard St., London, and Babraham, Cambs. History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  50. ↑ Grand, George Francois; Firminger, Walter Kelly (1910). The narrative of the life of a gentleman long resident in India. Calcutta: Calcutta Historical Society. pp. 2–6.
  51. ↑ Grand, George Francois; Firminger, Walter Kelly (1910). The narrative of the life of a gentleman long resident in India. Calcutta: Calcutta Historical Society. p. 13.
  52. ↑ Grand, George Francois; Firminger, Walter Kelly (1910). The narrative of the life of a gentleman long resident in India. Calcutta: Calcutta Historical Society. pp. 55–56.
  53. ↑ Jackson, Edith (1898). Annals of Ealing: From the Twelfth Century to the Present Time. Phillimore & Company. p. 211.
  54. ↑ Faulkner, Thomas (1845). The history and antiquities of Brentford, Ealing, & Chiswick, interspersed with biographical notices of illustrious and eminent persons. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. [etc.] pp. 208–209.
  55. ↑ "Parishes: Sutton Valence, British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk.
  56. ↑ "Rene Payne ????-1799, Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  57. ↑ "Edward and Rene Payne & Co., Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  58. ↑ "Bank of England playing cards". The World of Playing Cards.
  59. ↑ Burke, Bernard (1894). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Vol. I. Harrison. p. 276.
  60. ↑ Britton, John; Brayley, Edward Wedlake; Nightingale, Joseph; Brewer, James Norris; Evans, John; Hodgson, John; Laird, Francis Charles; Shoberl, Frederic; Bigland, John; Rees, Thomas (1816). The Beauties of England and Wales, Or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County: Middlesex. Thomas Maiden. p. 335.
  61. ↑ "Daniel Lysons, 'Ealing', in The Environs of London: Volume 2, County of Middlesex (London, 1795), British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk.
  62. ↑ Appendix: Corrections to volumes 2 and 3, The Environs of London British History Online.
  63. ↑ Lysons, Daniel (1811). The Environs of London: Being an Historical Account of the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets, Within Twelve Miles of that Capital: Interspersed with Biographical Anecdotes. Vol. III. T. Cadell and W. Davies. p. 146.
  64. ↑ Darley, Gillian (1 January 1999). John Soane: An Accidental Romantic. Yale University Press. p. 152. ISBN   978-0-300-08695-9.
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