Henry Cort

		Henry Cort Inventor - Creator of puddled iron - Father of iron trade
		This page is part of a website based on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. The creator and owner of the site was Eric Alexander who passed away. The site is now hosted by Geneagraphie.com Please contact us with any comments or queries.

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Daniel Guion (1741-1780) and family

Daniel descends from a line of several Daniel Guion's

Capt. Daniel Guion, (ca 1672-1733)son of Daniel and Louisa le Gendre, was a Huguenot from St Savinien, Saintonge, France, fled abt 1690 to the Netherlands and entered the army of William of Orange, King of England. He fought in Piedmot in the army of William against the King of France in the Nine Years War together with William (Guillaume) Guyon de Geis. It seems they were convinced to be cousins, although nothing can be found to prove this.
The families stayed in touch the next 4 geneations which is one of the reasons I assume that Daniel Guion, born 1713 is the same person as Daniel Guion who moved to London died ca 1770 and is the father of Daniel born 1741.
Capt Daniel retired wounded in 1697, naturalized in Ireland 1/4/1698-1699 and became a wine merchant in Dublin, Elder of St. Patrick where he married Elizabeth Roy also of St. Savinian by whom he had 2 sons and one daughter.
Daniel Guion is listed as owning two Public Houses in 1729. He owned a tavern on Cork Hill (Note: Dublin Castle is situated on Cork Hill) called JACOBS LADDER, and bought one in 1729 called The Playhouse Tavern for £200 on 5/9/1729. He also must have traded in whiskey, on 6 Nov 1716 he became a burgess of Glasgow (Lanarkshire, Scotland).
His grandfather is likely the Daniel Guion (wine)merchant who is mentioned in a "wisselprotest" on 20 july 1662 in Amsterdam.
Son Daniel moves to London where he lives at Orange Court Charing Cross Ward (Westminster Rate Books 1634-1900). 11 February 1741 Daniel was appointed clerk to the Secretary of the Admiralty at £50 per year. He is listed among Navy Office personnel, 1741 to 1752. In 1753/1754 he is not mentioned anymore. In abt 1740 he must have written an application to become storekeeper in the dockyard at Deptforth (letter of Vere Beauclerk to the duke of Bedford). However John Sargent got the Job, he had better sponsors.
His son Daniel, born 1741, returned to the core bussines of the family and became a merchant, listed in London trade directories, first at 19 Pavement, Moorfields, later at 35 Crutched Friars. The Directory of Leading Local Inhabitants, (London/Westminster Directory)1st January 1774 - 31st December 1774, list him at Pavement, Moorfields. In the years before 1774 he must have become close to Henry Cort and Oliver Toulmin. His will in August 1774 is witnessed by Oliver Toulmin, Henry Cort and Cort's clerk Richard Ashton. He moved from Pavement Moorfield to Crutched Ffriars after Henry Cort moved from Crutched Ffriars to Gould Square, and by that time Henry Cort must have proposed Daniel to take over some of his bussiness as an ironmonger.
In Crutched Ffriars his two sons were born. 1775 Gardiner Henry named after Henry Cort, en Daniel Oliver, named after Oliver Toulmin.
By November 1776, Daniel has moved to Gosport becoming a juror in 1778.

Daniel Guion x Sara Micheau
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Daniel Guion ( - bef 1669) x Louise le Gendre
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Capt. Daniel Guion (ca 1672-1733) x Elizabeth Roy
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Daniel Guion (1713-ca 1770) x Louisa Marie (?)
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Daniel Guion (1741-1780) x Ann Harwood
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Capt. Gardiner Henry Guion (1775-1832)
Capt. Daniel Oliver Guion (1776-1811)

Fire Insurance Policy Register, 1777-1786 Policies issued by the Sun and Royal Exchange insurance companies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Sun Insurance Company had an almost complete monopoly on insuring industrial properties.
	1777	1778	1780	1781
Unique Project ID	17070	35040	56181	79263
Register Date/ Company/ Reference	1777 SUN 1 261 25\10\79 ML	1778 SUN 1 270 22\08\79 BN	1780 SUN 1 281 08\02\78	1781 sun 1 295 28\06\78 jt
Policy Number	391760	406532	424561	447147
Insured Value in £s	500	2000	4000	200
Forename	DANIEL	DANIEL	DANIEL	ANN
Surname	GUION	GUION	GUION	GUION
Forename 2		ROBERT	ROBERT
Surname 2		FORBES	FORBES
Forename 3		JAMES	JAMES
Surname 3		MORRISON	MORRISON
Forename 4		MATTHEW	MATTHEW
Surname 4		MILLER	MILLER
Joint Occupation	ESQR	MERCHANTS	MERCHANTS	widow
Address Type	unspecified place	unspecified place	unspecified place	unspecified place
Place Name 1	GOSPORT	GOSPORT	GOSPORT	GOSPORT
Place Name 2	HANTS	HANTS	HANTS	HANTS

Folios 7-11. (The national Archives - Reference: SP 37/24/3)
Folio 7. Letter dated at Treasury Chambers from John Robinson [Treasury Secretary] to Sir Stanier Porten enclosing for Lord Weymouth's information:
Folio 8. Letter dated at Custom House from Edward Stanley to Sir Stanier Porten enclosing:
Folio 9. Copy letter dated at Custom House Portsmouth from William Cooley and William Stiles to the Commissioners of Customs that the cargo of 'Thomas Koulikan' has been landed and examined except a large quantity of iron shot, 14 cannon, nine carriage guns and 13 anchors which have been left on board as ballast. Enclosed with the letter is a detailed list of the goods removed and deposited in the warehouses of Messieurs Guion and Forbes at Gosport 'under the King's locks'.
Folios 10-11. The beforementioned list.
1778 Mar 11 - 1778 Mar 14

1778 January 25 (Sunday) "EXTRACTOF A LETTER FROM PORTSMOUTH,JAN.25." "Arrived and came into Harbour the Thamas Koulikan, Capt. Le Pierre,' a French ship, frigate built, with a tier of guns, twelve pounders, laden with cloathing, cannon, &c. and an American Gentleman, with several French passen- gers on board. The Captain says, he took in his cargo at Croisic, and was bound for St. Domingo. She was taken in the Bay by the Hector man of war, Capt. Hamilton,. who sent her into this Port." Lloyd S Evening Post, and British Chronicle (London), 23-26 Jan. 1778. 1. No&lLe Peru, master.

In 1781 the insured value is £200 and mentioned is Ann Guion, widow. Daniel died 1780, only 39 years old.

LINKS BETWEEN PARRY, CORT AND GUION

David Parry's brother Roger, a clergyman, served as a ship's chaplain early in his career.
He tended to live beyond his means, so David, as an army officer with a larger income, tried to help him. One of Roger's creditors was William Attwick of Gosport, who traded as an ironmonger but had various sidelines, so it's likely that Roger's debt to him wasn't entirely due to purchase of ironmongery.
When Attwick's niece married navy agent Henry Cort in 1768, he enlisted Cort's help in keeping track of his dealings with the Parrys. Cort set up an account for them, from which Roger's debts were paid while he could dip in occasionally, topped up by input from David.
In 1774 David married Catherine Okeden, only child of a rich landowner. She brought with her not only a large dowry, but the promise of a rich inheritance. With bigger sums in prospect, he vested in Cort the power of attorney for some of his transactions. It was the role that Cort already played for his navy clients, signing both receipts and cheques on their behalf. It shows that David trusted Cort, but a year later he became convinced that Cort was abusing this power, creaming off money he wasn't entitled to; and complained formally to the Court of Chancery.
It was a difficult time for Cort to have to defend himself. He had wound up his agency business, passing most of his clients to Oliver Toulmin, and was preparing to move to Gosport to take over the running of Attwick's ironmongery business. One way he responded to Parry's complaint was to enlist the help of Daniel Guion, who followed him to Gosport a few months later. The earlier letter I quote is Parry's reply to the first communication he received from Guion. From this point on, Daniel Guion was involved in many of the Parry-Cort transactions: notably a bond for £1,340 in favour of Parry that he and Cort jointly signed on 25 November 1776, and a letter to Parry from him and Cort of 24 December 1777 complaining that Parry was not keeping to his side of the bargain, which seems to have sparked a counter-suit that they then brought against Parry.
Eric Alexander

GUION, CORT AND TOULMIN IN CRUTCHED FRIARS

My original source I found in a collection of work by R.A, Mott in the 1960s (more about his contributions in my webpage of Publications about Cort). Crutched Friars
On enlarging the image, I found I could read most of the house numbers. Incidentally, houses in London were first numbered in 1762, after the arrival of Cort and Toulmin in Crutched Friars.
I realise now that the addresses I labelled as "Cort's first" (35) and "Toulmin's" (37) on my website were out by two houses. The houses of Cort and Toulmin faced one another across the entrance to the courtyard of number 36, a large house belonging to the Wombwell family, who had extensive interests in India (one of them had a spell as Chairman of the British East India Company).
Cort and Toulmin were indeed neighbours, as well as being in the same line of business. Cort first experienced number 35 as his workplace while employed by Thomas Bell. It became both home and workplace when he took over the business around 1763, but by the time his second child had arrived (1770) his workplace had moved to 4 Gould Square, a larger property which probably also served as his home, since in 1775 number 35 is registered as Daniel Guion's business address.
This information comes mainly from London trade directories of the time, which also show Daniel Guion as a merchant at 19 Pavement, Moorfields in 1774.
Referring again to the map, the hatched area that starts near the top right corner is the outline of Fenchurch Street railway station, which Mott somehow copied on to the eighteenth-century original.
Eric Alexander

Related pages

Life of Henry Cort

Cort's patents

Law in the 18th century

Gosport in Cort's day

Gosport worthies

Toulmin & other agents

The pages on this site are copied from the original site of Eric Alexander (henrycort.net) with his allowance.
Eric passed away abt 2012
If you use/copy information from this site, please include a link to the page where you found the information.