William Courten

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sir William Courten or Curteen (1572–1636) was a wealthy 17th century merchant, operating from London. He financed the colonisation of Barbados, but lost his investment and interest in the islands to the Earl of Carlisle.

Birth and upbringing

Sir William Courten was the son of William Courten, by his wife Margaret Casiere, and was born in London in 1572. A younger brother, born in 1581, was named Peter. Their father was son of a tailor of

Elizabeth's
reign.

Marriage and trading activities

At an early age Courten was sent to Haarlem, as factor to his father's firm, and the younger brother, Peter, went to Cologne.[2]

At Haarlem, William married the

knighthood. William was knighted 31 May 1622, and Peter 22 February 1622–3.[2]

William's operations were not confined to his London business: he built ships and traded to

James I and Charles I. Their joint loans ultimately amounted to £200,000. Failure to obtain any consideration for these heavy loans was the subject of much subsequent litigation.[2]

Losses of ships and merchandise sustained at the hands of the Dutch in the East Indies, after the

East Indies when in 1635 King Charles I granted a trading licence to him under the name of the Courteen association permitting it also to trade with the east at any location in which the East India Company had no presence.[4]
He sent two ships (the Dragon and Katherine) to trade with China. The ships never arrived at their destination, and the consequent loss was Courten's deathblow. He died at the end of May or beginning of June 1636, and was buried in the church of
charitable institutions in his will; but his joint claims with Sir Paul Pindar on the crown, and his claims on his nephew and on Lord Carlisle, were unsettled at the time of his death.[2]

Legacy

Courten had a son, Peter, by his first wife, who was made a

Dutch in 1641. The Earl of Bridgewater
declined to assist Courten further; the disturbed state of the government rendered any help from that quarter out of the question; and in 1643 bankruptcy followed.

Courten's landed estates were alienated to his brother-in-law, the

privy council heard evidence in support of the claims of Courten's grandson to the ownership of the Barbadoes, but did not deem the proof sufficient. In 1677 petitions to the council and parliament rehearsed the loans of Courten and Sir Paul Pindar to Charles I, but repayment was never ordered. George Carew issued many tracts on the subject, but public interest was not excited.[2]

Famed physician and collector Hans Sloane acquired (by bequest, conditional on paying of certain debts) Courten's grandson's (also William 1642–1702) cabinet of curiosities in 1702 and later donated much of it to the British government.[5][6]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Burns 1954, p. 175
  2. ^ a b c d e Lee, Sidney (1887). "Courten or CURTEENE, Sir William (1572–1636), merchant". Dictionary of National Biography Vol. XII. Smith, Elder & Co. Retrieved 23 October 2007. The first edition of this text is available at Wikisource: "Courten, William (1572-1636)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  3. ISBN 978-0-19-925389-0
    . Retrieved 29 March 2013.
  4. ISBN 978-0-313-32280-8
    .
  5. ^ Sachiko Kusukawa. William Courten’s lists of ‘Things Bought’ from the late seventeenth century. Journal of the History of Collections, Volume 29, Issue 1, 1 March 2017, Pages 1–17, accessed 26 December 2018
  6. ISBN 0838755437
    accessed 26 December 2018

References

Further reading
Attribution

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Courten&oldid=1213348841"