John Purrier

London West India merchant, partner with Thomas Hibbert, George Hibbert and Edward Fuhr (each q.v.), and father of John Vincent Purrier senior (also q.v.). The four partners signed in sequence the 1783 address to George III by the planters of the West India islands and the merchants trading to those islands.

1. Will of John Purrier merchant of London proved 05/02/1785. He clearly died with much of his capital tied up in the merchant firm with the Hibberts and Edward Fuhr. He left an annuity of £50 p.a. to his mother and of £300 p.a. to his widow Susanna, plus £100 p.a. for the maintenance of each of their children. He left: £4000 to his son John Vincent Purrier at his majority, and one share in the Tontine Warehouses at Bristol; £3000 to his daughter Mary Ann Purrier, plus one share in the 'Tontine annuities' [sic] at Bristol which had been put in her name; and £3000 and a share in the Tontine Warehouses at Bristol to his daughter Benigna.

2. John Purrier, "merchant commerce", was listed at Scots Yard, Bush Lane in 1771, at 9 Mincing Lane 1779-1784 and at 10 Mincing Lane in a 1778 list of the merchants trading to Africa. He had been clerk to Vincent John Biscoe (q.v.) who in his will authorised his executors to make any arrangement with John Purrier they chose to continue Biscoe's business as 'merchant or factor. John Purrier's daughter Benigna was a namesake of Vincent John Biscoe's second wife.

3. In 1774, John Purrier was was among a group of individuals purchasing, for a total of £15,000, annuities from John Mills secured on the latter's estates and enslaved people on Nevis in 1774, when for £1100 he bought two annuities of £50 p.a., one for the lives of his wife Susannah [sic] and her sister Mary Oxley and one for the lives of his daughter Mary Ann and son John Vincent Purrier.

London Gazette 12422 11/03/1783 p. 2.

1. PROB 11/1126/145.

2. Ancestry.com, U.K. and U.S. Directories, 1680-1830 [database online]; Ancestry.com, Britain, Royal African Company 1694-1743 [microfilms online].

3. Common Records 1775-1776, British Library, EAP794/1/1/15, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP794-1-1-15 pp. 65-94.