Jácome Ratton
Jacques or Jácome Ratton (7 July 1736 in Monestier de Briançon, Hautes-Alpes – 3 July 1820 in Paris[1]) was a Franco-Portuguese businessman, who was a leading figure in the mainly foreign group of industrialists in 18th-century Portugal. He published his Memoirs (Recordações) in 1813 in exile in London, which remain a significant source on Portuguese economic life in the period.
Early life
His father was Jacques (in Portugal called Jácome) Ratton (died
Jacques Ratton emigrated to Portugal soon after the birth of his son Jácome, who was brought up by his grandparents and educated in France, before joining his parents at the age of fourteen in Portugal – a pattern typical of the French mercantile community, which Jácome was to repeat with his own children. His Memoirs stress the importance of this – he is highly critical of the backwardness of the Portuguese mercantile classes, who he said hardly used
Industrialist
Jacome was an inventive and successful businessman, whose enterprises included a dye-works, a textile mill in
Protege of Pombal
The
War and exile
The
He married Ana Isabel Clamouse, daughter of Bernard Clamouse, from Languedoc, and Geneviève Hartsoeker (she was probably the granddaughter of the scientist Nicolaas Hartsoeker), and they had four sons and four daughters.[5] His son Diogo Ratton was appointed to a commission to improve Portuguese commerce; when no report was published he began to publish his own views in 1821 in a series of short works: Reflexões sobre o Commercio, sobre as Alfandegas, sobre os Depositos, e sobre as Pautas with his proposal for a "Tribunal do Commercio" and other reforms. Diogo's letters to António Araujo de Azevedo, Comte da Barca (1812–1817) were published in 1973 (Paris, Fondation C. Gulbenkian, 1973).
His memoirs, whose short title was Recordaçoens de Jacome Ratton sobre ocurrencias do seu tempo em Portugal de Maio de 1747 Setembro de 1810, were published in Portuguese in London by H. Bryer in 1813. They were probably first written in French and a manuscript fair copy in French, with an inscription recording its presentation by Ratton to General Paul Thiébault, was on the English book market in the 2010s. There have been two 20th century Portuguese editions, Coimbra University Press, 1920 and Lisbon: Fenda, 1992.
A school and a sports centre in Tomar are named after him.
Sources
Memoirs
The Memoirs are the principal source for all details of Ratton's life up to 1810:
- Recordaçoens de Jacome Ratton sobre ocurrencias do seu tempo em Portugal de Maio de 1747 Setembro de 1810, London: H. Bryer, 1813.[6]
- Modern editions: Coimbra: University Press, 1920, Online PDF, 394 pages; Lisbon: Fenda, 1992
- A manuscript translation into French by the author also exists (see link below).
Bibliography
-Michèle Janin-Thivos, Marchands migrants du Briançonnais, Monestier de Briançon au XVIIIe siècle, 2018 Editions du Fournel.
Notes
- ^ Mahul, Annuaire Necrologique, 1821)
- ^ Jácome Ratton, Recordações de Jácome Ratton, Fenda, 3rd Edition, Lisbon, 1992, p. 19
- ^ Memoirs, Coimbra, p. vii
- ^ Mahul, Annuaire Necrologique, 1821. Older Portuguese sources had stated that he died in Lisbon in 1821 or 1822
- ^ http://www.geneall.net/P/per_page.php?id=52192 Jácome Ratton in a Portuguese Genealogical site
- ^ Normally so called. The full title page reads: " Recordacoens de Jacome Ratton, fidalgo cavalleiro da Caza Real, cavalleiro da ordem de Christo, ex-negociante da praça de Lisboa, e deputado do tribunal supremo da Real Junta do Commercio, Agricultura, Fabricas e Navegação. Sobre occurrencias do seu tempo, em Portugal, durante o lapso de sessenta e tres annos e meio, aliás de maio de 1747 a setembro de 1810, que rezidio em Lisboa: acompanhadas de algumas subsequentes reflexoens suas, para informaçoens de seus proprios filhos. Com documentos no fim. Londres. Impresso por H. Bryer, Bridge Street, Blackfriars, 1813." 969 pages
External links, and sources
- XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006, Merchant networks and the Brazilian gold: reappraising national abilities.Leonor Freire Costa & Maria Manuela Rocha, pp 8, 9 & passim
- Description of MS translation into French of the Memoirs
- Genealogy, partly in Portuguese
- Photo of Palacio Ratton in Lisbon
- extracts from the Memoirs in Portuguese
- Jacome Ratton from "Portugal – Dicionário Histórico, Corográfico, Heráldico, Biográfico, Bibliográfico, Numismático e Artístico, Volume VI" 1904–15