Henry Hope
Henry Hope (1735–1811) was an Amsterdam
Early years
His father, Henry, was a
In 1762, he accompanied his only sister, Henrietta Maria (aka Harriet), to
Career as a merchant
In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, Hope & Co. entered the arena of international banking. Henry's first substantial foreign loan was to Adolf Frederick of Sweden in 1767. In the next twenty years, the country was to borrow a total of 15 million guilders. For Spain Hope organised state loans for nine million guilders in the 1780s. Sometimes the loans were Henry Hope's own funds, but usually Henry Hope headed a consortium of English and Dutch investors; Hope & Co. collected a commission that ranged between 5-9%. The firm also specialized in loans to planters in the West Indies, taking payment in kind: sugar, coffee or tobacco, which the Hopes would then sell on the Amsterdam market.
In exchange for loans to the King of Portugal, Hope & Co received an exclusive concession to sell diamonds originating in the Portuguese colony of Brazil. The Hopes would accept the diamonds and sell them on the Amsterdam market; then they used the proceeds to defray the interest and principal of the loans they had made to Portugal. These sales helped to make Amsterdam the leading diamond center of Europe.[4]
In 1784 Henry and John Williams Hope purchased a warehouse on the Amstel, together with his fellow banker friends.
In 1786 Adam Smith wrote:
In this fourth Edition I have made no alterations of any kind. I now, however, find myself at liberty to acknowledge my very great obligations to Mr. HENRY HOPE of Amsterdam. To that Gentleman I owe the most distinct, as well as liberal information, concerning a very interesting and important subject, the Bank of Amsterdam; of which no printed account had ever appeared to me satisfactory, or even intelligible. The name of that Gentleman is so well known in Europe, the information which comes from him must do so much honour to whoever has been favoured with it, and my vanity is so much interested in making this acknowledgment, that I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of prefixing this Advertisement to this new Edition of my Book.
Hope & Co also became important for Russia. The most important client of Hope & Co. was Catherine the Great. In addition to a large loans to Russia, Hope & Co. obtained the right to export sugar to Russia, and the firm acted as agents for sales of Russian wheat and timber to countries throughout Europe. During the 1780s, Catherine the Great offered Henry Hope a title, which he declined, feeling advancement to the nobility was incompatible with his position as a working merchant banker. Both Henry and Catherine were leading art collectors, and Henry Hope sometimes acted as an art dealer.
Welgelegen
Today Henry Hope is best known for his summer home, the
Henry is said to have been influenced in his choice of the
At Welgelegen he received many of the important figures of the day, and, during the summer each year, he was a neighbor of many of them. He knew and received the Americans,
Family
Through their activities as merchants and bankers, Henry Hope and his cousin, Jan Hope, amassed great fortunes. They were among the richest men in Europe. Jan married the daughter of a Rotterdam mayor and had three sons. Henry never married, but he took in the young clerk John Williams, a Cornishman working at another merchant house in Amsterdam, when he was sick. After he recovered, he went to work for Henry as the daily manager and when he married Henry's sister's daughter in 1782, he changed his name to John Williams Hope and became partner in the Amsterdam branch. When Jan/John Hope died in 1784, it became especially good for the business to have another person on hand who could sign the name "John Hope". This was also the reason that John Williams Hope stayed behind in Amsterdam during the French occupation when the rest of the family fled to London.[2]
Relocation to London
When the
From the
Land deals
The largest land deal that he and
Legacy
Though he always hoped to return to Welgelegen, Henry died childless in London in 1811, leaving capital of 12 million guilders, an art collection, and several large properties. He was a generous uncle to his many nieces and nephews in London, Heemstede, and Pennsylvania. On his death, his accumulated wealth was split between the children of his cousin Jan (who inherited
References
- ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1895; Preface by Edwin Cannan. "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations". Retrieved 15 June 2018.
- ^ a b Buist, pp 1-17
- ^ Dunn, Richard S.; Dunn, Mary Maples (29 September 2015). "The World of William Penn". University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 25 November 2023 – via Google Books.
- ^ Hofmeester, Karin; Grewe, Bernd-Stefan (28 November 2016). "Luxury in Global Perspective: Objects and Practices, 1600–2000". Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 25 November 2023 – via Google Books.
- ^ Website (house ownership database) of the Amsterdam City Archives
- ^ Rijksmonument report
- ^ Joan Cornelis van der Hoop (1742-1825). Marinebestuurder voor stadhouder Willem V en koning Willem I (Amsterdam 2000).
- ^ "Charles Le Brun | The Jabach Family". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
- ^ Richard Cosway R.A. Sotheby's
- ^ M.G. Buist (1974) At Spes non Fracta Hope & Co. p. 49, 43.
- ^ "Inventarissen". archief.amsterdam. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
Sources
- Buist, M.G. (1974) At spes non fracta: Hope & Co. 1770-1815. Merchant bankers and diplomats at work. Den Haag, Martinus Nijhoff. ISBN 90-247-1629-2
- Hope & Co. archives at the Amsterdam city archives
External links
- Henry Hope at historici.nl