Richard Chauncey

Richard Chauncey or Chauncy (died 1760) was a London merchant who was four times the Deputy-Chairman of the East India Company and three times the Chairman.

Edgcote House

Life

Chauncey was born into a well-to-do Northamptonshire family which had owned the Edgcote estate in South Northamptonshire since 1543. He 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]

Legacy

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]

Family

Chauncey was the uncle of Chauncy Townsend, MP, who was the son of his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Jonathan Townsend.[7] His widow'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.

See also

References
  1. Sutherland, Lucy. London Merchant 1695-1774: A London Merchant. p. 13.
  2. Wilkinson, Paul (2006). The historical development of the port of Faversham, 1580–1780. Archaeopress. p. 125. ISBN 9781841719467.
  3. Prinsep, Charles Campbell (1885). "Record of services of the Honourable East India Company's civil servants in the Madras presidency, from 1741 to 1858... comp. and ed. from records in the possession of the Secretary of state for India". Internet Archive. London: Trübner. p. xx. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  4. Helena Hayward. The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Furniture History, vol. 5, 1969, pp. 1–118, at p. 25. JSTOR 23402160
  5. Historic England. "Edgcote House (1041170)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  6. Howard Colvin (1978). A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840. John Murray. p. 476. ISBN 0-7195-3328-7.
  7. "Townsend, Chauncy (1708–70), of Austin Friars, London, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  8. The London Chronicle. 1762. pp. 398–.
  9. The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure ... Published ... according to Act of Parliament, for John Hinton. 1757. p. 245.
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