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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Shelburne, Parry and associates

I confess a particular interest in the career of William Petty, Second Earl of Shelburne. The area around my home in High Wycombe was once owned by him, and some of its scenic features can be traced to him.

Even before his birth, the name William Petty carries some distinction, thanks to the reputation of one of his ancestors.

Petty, with no schooling and no money, contrived to study medicine and chemistry abroad, had a chair in music at Gresham College and one in anatomy at Oxford by the age of twenty-eight, surveyed the whole of Ireland, designed ships and founded the science of political economy.

From Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (Viking 2002).

The surname is inherited through a grandmother. Quite a common feature of those days, as noble lines ending in a woman keep their name by passing it on to her husband or son: he has to accept the change in order to inherit the family wealth. George Jackson adds the surname Duckett on this basis.

Petty inherits other names: Lord Fitzmaurice (an Irish title) through his grandfather; Earl of Shelburne from his father. His final apotheosis is as Marquis of Lansdowne, a title earned through his own efforts.

He also inherits Loakes Manor Estate in High Wycombe, which he later sells. Meanwhile he has bought Bowood in Wiltshire, where descendants still live.

Mechanization, Boulton told Lord Warwick in 1773, made it possible for Birmingham manufacturers to defeat Continental competitors. The other key factor, he insisted, was the separation of processes. Lord Shelburne had anticipated him when he reported on the Birmingham hardware trades seven years before, putting its success down to three factors: the shaping of malleable metal by stamping machines, which replaced human labour, the division of work between as many hands as possible, making tasks so simple that even a child could do it (and often did), and the 'infinity of smaller improvements which each workman has and sedulously keeps secret from the rest'.

From Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men (Faber and Faber 2002).

He has an impressive list of friends and contacts, including Matthew Boulton, Benjamin Franklin and Jeremy Bentham. There are eighteen entries under his name in Uglow's index. For a while he employs Joseph Priestley as librarian: Bowood boasts the room where Priestley once discovered oxygen. And a political career culminates in a short but significant spell at the head of government.

A brief early spell in the army is notable for the contacts he makes in the Twentieth Regiment of Foot: particularly Isaac Barré, who serves under Wolfe at Quebec.

Lord Shelburne (whom you may have heard of as Lord Fitzmaurice) has long been a good friend to me, and some weeks ago upon his father's death made me a most handsome offer of a seat in Parliament in his room. I have canvassed the borough and there is not a shadow of opposition.

From letter of Isaac Barré to General Jeffrey Amherst, 19 June 1761.

Barré takes over the Wycombe seat when Shelburne moves to the Lords. On purchasing Bowood, Shelburne also becomes patron of the two seats at Calne. Barré moves there, while the second seat goes to another protégé, John Dunning. With Shelburne in the Lords, they form a triumvirate of dissidence during the American War.

The influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.

Motion by John Dunning in Commons, 6th April 1780, carried 233-215.

Another army contact is David Parry. He is third son of "Humphrey Parry of Pwllhairlog in the county of Flint", who (to judge by his 1744 will) also had land in Denbighshire, Merionethshire and Carmarthenshire. Most of Humphrey's estate is left to his eldest son Robert, while second son Roger is destined for the Church.

David goes into the army. By the end of 1759 he is captain in the Twentieth Foot, having distinguished himself at the Battle of Minden. His rank advances to major in 1770.

In March 1771 comes the first references in Parry v Cort files to William Attwick's annuity. There is still no information about how Parry's liability to pay remittances arises. Perhaps the most likely channel is his brother Roger, who Alumni Cantabrigiensis says is a ship's chaplain from 1755 to 1761. His navy career will not be easy to trace, but may provide a contact through Attwick's navy connections.

David Parry's altercation with Cort starts to spill over into litigation in 1775, the year which sees his last entry in the army list. We can assume he retires the following year (thereby missing the regiment's posting to America and their surrender at Saratoga), following the death of his father-in-law Edmund Okeden.

Okeden has no male heir: Parry is the main beneficiary of his will, as well as executor, and is henceforth "Major David Parry of Moore Critchell in the County of Dorset".

In 1782, with Shelburne heading the Government, Parry is appointed Governor of Barbados. Codicils to his will in 1792 and 1793 show him suffering ill health, so we can't be sure whether he gives up the post before his death in 1794.

A pity Cort does not square things properly with Parry. Otherwise he might rise in the esteem of Parry's friend Shelburne, and be able to count on his help when misfortunes crowd around in the late 1780s.

..my true worthy & honorable friends the Marquis of Lansdowne & the Earl of Wycombe his son..

Executors named in David Parry's will, 18 November 1788.

RELATED TOPICS

Main sources of information

18th century politics

John Becher and the American War

Thomas Morgan and the American War

Dundas and Trotter

Sandwich and Middleton

The Arethusa, Sandwich and Keppel

Law in the 18th century

18th century finance

Religion and sexual mores

18th century London

Calendar change of 1752

The 1782 Jamaica convoy

Sinking of the Royal George

Abolition and the Corts

Fact, error and conjecture

Life of Henry Cort

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.