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based on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric
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Twilight
years 1789-1800
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Sacred to the Memory of MR HENRY CORT of Devonshire
Street, St. George The Martyr QUEEN SQUARE, LONDON, who departed this Life 23rd
May 1800 in the 60th Year of his age. He passed away a broken hearted man. Near this place lieth the Body of Miss MARIA CORT
Daughter of the said HENRY CORT, departed this Life 6th June 1797,
Aged 19 years. Inscription on Cort's tomb in
Hampstead |
In view of the collapse of his business in 1789 and his description as
"broken hearted" at the time of his death, it is tempting to assume
that the intervening period was one of unrelieved gloom. Closer study reveals a more interesting
picture.
After Adam Jellicoe's death, an "inquisition" into
the resulting debt is held on 1st September 1789. This finds that the partnership of Cort &
Jellicoe owes £9,000 to The Crown, and an extent for recovery is despatched to
the Sheriff of Hampshire, authorising him to arrest Cort. The Sheriff replies that Cort is "not in
my bailiwick".
In all
probability Cort has gone to London for Adam's funeral on 6th
September. He does not wish to return to
Hampshire to face arrest, and on the 26th files for bankruptcy,
which the partnership has already done on the 17th. Both applications are made via Adam's
lawyers, Ambrose & James Weston (who, coincidentally, also act for James
Watt in enforcing his patents).
Meanwhile Cort notifies his main customers, the Navy, of his withdrawal
from the partnership, leaving Adam's son Samuel
free to raise money to cover this part of the debt. Cort is still deemed to owe £27,500 to The
Crown.
Further
inquisitions are held to determine which of Cort’s assets can be seized, and
inventories are drawn up of his properties in Fontley
and Catisfield.
(According to an affidavit in the National Archives file covering the
financial implications of Adam Jellicoe’s death, the goods seized from Cort
“were sold by the Sheriff of Hants about Jan 1790”.)
Meanwhile, in
October 1789 a bankruptcy order is issued, putting Cort's affairs in the hands
of bankers John Hollingsworth and Thomas Hankey.
One can assume
that Cort has been in London throughout this time, probably at the Devonshire
Street address. How soon his family join
him is a matter for conjecture.
Elizabeth is pregnant at the time the business collapses, and must be
there by the time their daughter, Catherine Frampton
Cort, is born on 24 February 1790, since Catherine’s birthplace is identified
as London in the 1861 census and her baptism has been recorded at St George The
Martyr, Queens Square.
There is no
evidence that Cort leaves London at any time between 1789 and 1800. Indeed he declines to go to Lancaster to act
as executor when Jane Cort dies in 1798. One can understand that he has little
financial means, while The Letterbook of Richard
Crawshay suggests he is already ridden by gout and other ailments at
the time his business collapses.
But there is no
reason for complete inertia. London is a
busy place, with the British Museum only three blocks away from Devonshire
Street. His
wife's cousin Joanna is living with her husband James
Watson round the corner in Powys Place, while William
Attwick in Portman Square can easily be reached. Cort’s former clerk John
Kendrick is just off The Strand, and lawyer John
Eames from Gosport (who signs the 1791 petition)
can't be that far away. Rev. Moses Porter at Clapham is a much less likely
acquaintance!
Cort's
application for a certificate of conformity (in
meeting debts other than those to the Crown) is advertised in the London
Gazette in March 1790, and the certificate's issue on 14 April relieves the
most severe financial pressures. The
following month sees an attempt at reconciliation with the Navy, with Cort
writing to Trotter on the seventeenth and Watson
sending off his memorandum to Henry Dundas. There is no immediate response, however.
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Mr. Cort on 17th May 1790 wrote to Mr Trotter offering his
services to procure such necessary information to render the patents
productive but not receiving any Answer Mr. Cort of course cd not
proceed to procure such information and ye only step he cd take
under his circumstances were to procure information from a Master Roller (Jn
Swaine) whom Mr. C had planted at Coalbrook Dale in ye works of Mr. Reynolds
for the purpose of setting a going ye Rolling of Bars… July 1791 H.C. From Weale collection, quoted in Henry
Cort; The Great Finer. |
Around August
1791 comes the petition to William Pitt, which bears
the signature of several directors of the East India Company. The petition
apparently does not bear fruit until 1794, when Cort is granted a pension.
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Queen Square, on the confines of
Bloomsbury, appears to have been something of a Directors neighborhood. William Barwell, Stephen Law, Lawrence
Sullivan and Timothy Tullie, all lived in the Square or the adjoining Great
Ormond Street. From J.M. Holtzman, The Nabobs in
England (New York, 1926). |
None of the directors that Holtzman names features
among the petition’s signatories.
Nevertheless it is not surprising that Henry’s eldest son leaves for India during this period. In 1802 Michael Cheese will testify to meeting him "about
eight years ago in Dinapore", while other testimony suggests he may arrive
as early as 1792.
Elizabeth Cort Becher is Henry's niece and his (and/or
his wife's) goddaughter. Surely the
Corts make the effort to attend her wedding at St George, Hanover Square, on 9th
November 1792. Whether they manage her
brother Alexander's wedding the following year (location unknown) is more
doubtful.
In March 1794,
Richard Norbury raises the complaint about implementation of his brother Coningsby's will, leading Cort to make an affidavit the following year. In departing for India in June 1795, James Watson is accompanied by Cort's
son Coningsby: and probably by daughter Harriet as well, since she marries in Calcutta barely two years later.
Some time around
the beginning of 1796, Hyde Mathis arrives in
London, taking up residence in Tottenham Court Road - five or six blocks away
from Cort. One can only conjecture how
they meet. Maybe Mathis is informed of
Cort's presence before he arrives. Maybe
he contacts his former fellow-trustee at Gosport, William Attwick, who tells him. Maybe they meet accidentally at the British
Museum. Whatever the occasion, Mathis is
pleased to renew the friendship and to name Cort as a further executor in a
codicil to his will in July. He dies
just over a year later, but meanwhile Cort has been saddened by the death of
daughter Maria.
The departure of
William (and possibly other children) for Berbice may
have occurred as early as 1796. William
is well established there by 1803.
It appears from
subsequent correspondence that Coningsby returns from India in 1798, doubtless
bearing tidings of Harriet's marriage.
But news of young Henry's confinement
probably arrives later, doubtless contributing to the broken heart.
The Hampstead churchyard
where Cort is buried contains the graves of many other notables. Clockmaker John Harrison, subject of the
acclaimed book Longitude, has already been interred there. Doubtless one of Cort's admirers reckons he
deserves an equally auspicious resting place; but one must note that he has
been preceded by his daughter Maria three years earlier. Was any special influence wielded to achieve
this?
We may note also
that James Watson's widow Joanna lives her last years in Hampstead, and is
buried in 1811 in the same churchyard as Henry Cort; also that her daughter
Arabella's will speaks of a "family vault at Hampstead Old
Church". We may wonder if there is
a Watson influence in the choice of Cort's burial place. But it could hardly be Joanna: she is in
India at the time of Maria's death.
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Related pages Children and
descendants of Henry Cort |
henrycort.net
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