Richard Chauncey or Chauncy (1690--1760) was a London merchant who was four times the Deputy-Chairman of the East India Company and three times the Chairman.
Richard Chauncey or Chauncy (1690--1760) was a London merchant who was four times the Deputy-Chairman of the East India Company and three times the Chairman.
Chauncey was born into a well-to-do Northamptonshire family which had owned the Edgcote estate in South Northamptonshire since 1543. His father, Richard Chauncy, Sr. (d. 1734), was a Mercer and Freeman of London and the son of Tobias and Bridget Chauncy. Richard, Jr. became a London cloth merchant with an interest in East India merchant ships. [1]
He was also a partner in the business of Chauncey and Vigne, gunpowder merchants. [1] Already owning a gunpowder mill at Oare, Kent, he leased the Kingsmill at Faversham in 1754. [2]
Chauncey was a director of the East India Company from 1737 to 1754. He was made Deputy-Chairman in 1747, 1749, 1752 and 1754 and Chairman in 1748, 1750 and 1753. [1] [3] He died in 1760. [4]
In 1742 Chauncey inherited the Edgcote estate and commissioned architect William Jones (died 1757) to build a new mansion. Edgcote House was built between 1747 and 1752 and is now a Grade I listed building. [5] [6]
Chauncey was the maternal uncle of Chauncy Townsend, MP, the son of his sister Elizabeth by her husband Jonathan Townsend. [7] His widow Elizabeth's death was reported in 1762. [8]
His eldest son William married the eldest daughter of Josiah Wordsworth, in 1757. [9] William Henry inherited Edgcote; then on his death without an heir it passed to his sister, Anna Maria.
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