The Baltic Merchants (2)

George Beaumont 1633-1669 ("the Dantzig Merchant" of family memory) seems to have made a lot of money in his short life. The second son of George Beaumont (an individual who certainly knew how to spot a bargain), he was apprenticed to William Ramsden in York and was trading in his own right even before he was admitted to membership of the Eastland Company on 17 March 1661/2.

By that time his elder brother at Darton, John, had died but George did not return home to the life of a country gentleman even after 1664 when his father died.

Despite the tradition that I have from my uncle and father I can't recall seeing any direct evidence that George lived at Gdansk. However it is not unlikely for some documents that found their way from Darton to Bretton Hall, and are now at (?West Yorkshire Archives), suggest that he learned German in his teens and that in his early twenties he was indeed trading with Gdansk - from Stockton-on-Tees (Bretton Archives BEA/C3 / B48/131 & 123). In 1663 he bought an eighth share in a ship called 'Frederick William of Koenigsberg' which was re-named 'Charyly of Dantzig' (BEA/C3 / B48/64).

A Swedish blockade of Gdansk in 1627.

The information about the Bretton documents comes only from a catalogue. It suggests that George continued to have dealings with the Baltic and a connexion with Koenigsburg (now Kaliningrad) in the 1660s and that he had a contract with a certain Christopher Melchior which led to a dispute (BEA/C3/B48/124-140). I would suppose that in the 1660s George actually lived either in York or Hull, shown here in about 1640:-

George's career was very short, just a few years. Although the will reveals him to be a man of wealth (it deals out cash legacies of nearly £4,000 before the residue which was left to his brother) it also makes clear that the money is working, not just "sitting there."

The larger legacies were only expected to be paid "as money comes in" - and the £1,000 to his sister Sarah Wordsworth (mother of Josias mentioned in "The Baltic Merchants (1)") was to be abated in case of "losses at Sea or by bad debts or Shipps parts or falls of goods by badd marketts."

At the beginning of his will George says he is "of the City of York Merchant" but he signed it, on 24 July 1668, at Hull. He named his younger brother William as his executor, and John Gould junior merchant of London, and Thomas Lockwood merchant of Hull as supervisors.  I have no information as to where or exactly when he died or where he was buried. I don't think he is remembered on any of the monuments at Darton (*). I had wondered if he made the will in anticipation of a voyage and that he was perhaps on a ship lost at sea, but there are funeral accounts dated October 1669 for a George Beaumont amongst the Bretton collection (BEA/C3/B48/137). The will was proved in late 1669.

(* I mean grave slabs. He was mentioned on a benefactors' board under the Tower, about the school. He was mainly remembered in Darton for having endowed a school there)

George seems to have had a soft spot for Hannah Lockwood as he gave her no less than five hundred pounds so long as she was still unmarried and "free from all engagements whatsoever unto any man upon the attempt of marriage." Hannah is identified twice, once as Thomas Lockwood's eldest daughter, and once as "Cosin."

My favourite clause is where he leaves money to the poor of York, but only to be paid from money that William Ramsden "unjustly keeps back of mine in his hands and out of no other effects." It was not until 1676 that the Mayor & Corporation acknowledged receipt of the money! (BEA/C3/B48/78).

The reference for the will: Borthwick Institute. Prob.Reg.50 Folios 181 - 181v - 182 - 182v.