P_10433_1156 – William Pennoyer
Born: 1603
Died: 03/02/1671
London merchant with global trading interests who played a prominent role in the Civil War on the side of Parliament. Pennoyer was also a private investor in at least two slave trading ventures to Barbados during the 1640s, likely to supply his own plantations on the island with enslaved African labour. He was therefore among the pioneers of sustained English involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. All Pennoyer’s children died in infancy so in his will he bequeathed large sums to charitable causes in England and New England.
Title: /
First name: William
Middle name: /
Last name: Pennoyer
Aliases: William Penoyer, William Pennoyre, William Penoyre
Primary cohort: London
Sex: Male
Religion: Nonconformist or ‘Dissenter’
Social background: Craft
Primary outcome: Trade
Political Affiliation: Parliamentary
Relations
Martha Pennoyer (née Josselyn)
Spouse (married 1637)
Maurice Thompson
Business Partner
Political Offices Held
Local
Served on the committee for London wards to collect money for Parliament’s war effort in the summer of 1642
Local
Militia Committee for Tower Hamlets 1647-48
Court
High Court Justice, 1650 & 1653
National
Commissioner for Navy and Customs, 1649
Local
Elected Alderman for Billingsgate Ward in 1657, but paid a fine of £420 so did not have to serve.
Bankruptcies
No Information
Geographic experiences
No Information
Internal migrant: Yes
Born in Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire in 1603. Briefly moved to Bristol in 1617 to be apprenticed to a vintner, before moving to London three years later in 1620 where he was apprenticed into the Clothworker's Company. It appears he remained in London for the rest of his life.
Foreign born: No
Supplier to slave trade voyages: Don't know
Creditor to slave trade voyages: Don't know
Philanthropy: Yes
Extensive educational and social charitable donations made in his will. Served as governor for Christ's Hospital from 1659.
Plantation owner: Yes
Co-owner of a Barbadian plantation with Maurice Thomson during the 1640s.
Sources: PROB 11/335/241 Raymond H. Lounsbury, Pennoyer Brothers: Colonization, Commerce, Charity in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia, 1971). Brenner, Merchants and Revolution Brown, Empire and Enterprise Bennett, Merchant Capital T C Dale, 'Inhabitants of London in 1638: St. Helen's within Bishopsgate', in The Inhabitants of London in 1638 (London, 1931), pp. 69-70. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/london-inhabitants/1638/pp69-70 [accessed 19 April 2022]. https://www.londonroll.org/event/?company=clw&event_id=CLLL19902 https://pennoyers.org.uk/heritage/william-pennoyer/
Other Individuals
No information
Organisations (5)
Harvard University
Role: Patron/Benefactor
Bethlem Hospital
Role: Patron/Benefactor
Christ's Hospital
Role: Governor
Irish Adventurer's Scheme
Role: Initial subscriber
Levant Company
Role: Subscriber
Crossings (2)
Birth
Date: 1603
Location: /
Death
Date: 03/02/1671
Location: London (London)
Burial
Date: /
Location: /
Memorial details: /
Christening: /
Knighthood: /
Baronetcy: /
Peerage: /
Residencies
Occupation: Merchant - General Overseas (Merchant)
Schools
No Information
Universities
No Information
Inns of Court
No Information
Military training
No Information
Imperial positions
Commissioner for Sea Adventure to Ireland in 1642
Ireland
Apprenticeships
Master: Thomas Gyttins
Livery: The Worshipful Company of Clothworkers
Start Date: 16/03/1620
Livery company affiliations
The Worshipful Company of Clothworkers
Role: Freeman
Start Date: 1627
End Date: 1656
The Worshipful Company of Clothworkers
Role: Master
Start Date: 1657
End Date: 1670
Other business activities
Region: Mediterranean/Levant
Economic sector: Commerce
Pennoyer joined the Levant Company in the 1630s by paying a fee, but was unconnected with other Levant Company families. In partnership with his brother Samuel, William Pennoyer pioneered the re-export of American tobacco to the eastern Mediterranean. He imported wine and currants from the Levant.
Region: North America (old colonies - Virginia, New England, Massachusetts etc)
Economic sector: Commerce
In the 1630s Pennoyer also began to participate in colonial provisioning and drove a considerable trade in tobacco from North America and the Caribbean. He often worked in partnership with the eminent merchants Matthew Craddock and Maurice Thompson. For instance, in 1639 Maurice Thompson and William Pennoyer were awarded a special patent to establish a fishery off Cape Ann by the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s General Court. In the late 1630s and early 1640s he helped to finance a series of successful privateering ventures against the Spanish in the Caribbean.
Region: England
Economic sector: Shipping
Co-owned numerous vessels. For example, in the 1630s he co-owned the Diamond of London with Matthew Craddock and William Clothurst.
Region: English Caribbean
Economic sector: Commerce
By the early 1640s Pennoyer had invested in a Barbadian plantation, which he co-owned with his regular business partner Maurice Thompson. His involvement in slave trading during the 1640s likely emerged out of efforts to search for unfree labour to work his own plantations. He also petitioned the English government to allow him to export horses to drive his Barbadian sugar mills in 1649.
Region: Ireland
Economic sector: Land
Subscribed £150 to the Irish Adventurer's Scheme in 1642. The Act of Settlement provided for the distribution of Irish lands to the Adventurers. 20 Aug 1653 Pennoyer allotted lands in Leinster; 1 September 1653 land in Queens County; 2 March 1654 lands in the baronies of Stradbally and Maryborough, Queens County; and on 22 March 1655 lands in Slievemargy. He sold Irish lands to John Hales and Herbert Price. At the time of his death in 1671 he owned no lands in Ireland.
Region: England
Economic sector: Government contracts
Involved in provisioning the Parliamentary army during the Civil War of the 1640s. Also provisioned the English and Scottish armies during their campaigns in Ireland.
Region: East Indies
Economic sector: Commerce
Pennoyer was involved in the East Indies interloping trade. He subscribed to the Second General Voyage of 1647 alongside other merchants with links to Maurice Thompson.
Region: East Indies
Economic sector: Mining
Contracted with the East India Company to provision the Parliamentary and Commonwealth armies with saltpetre from Bengal. He eventually came to own a saltpetre works in Patna in Bengal during the 1650s.
Region: Baltic/Eastlands
Economic sector: Commerce
Imported pitch, tar, and naval stores from the Baltic.
Region: England
Economic sector: Land
Owned land and estates in Northamptonshire and Hay-on-Wye, Wales.
Was slave trading profitable: No
Will
Value of Total Personalty: /
Value of Known Legacies (where material to total estate): /
Occupation: Citizen and clothworker of London
Town/City: City of London (Middlesex)
Courts: PCC
PROB 11/335/241
Legacies
Philanthropy
Type: Social
Town/City: City of London (Middlesex)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £20
Gives 20 people in the parish of Whitechapel 20 shillings apiece to be paid ‘to such Godly honest and industrious poore as shall be thought fitt att the discretion of Richard Loten Esqr, Mr George Scott, Mr John Wells, and Mr Peter Gale or the survivor of these’. He also gives alms to all of them in the Draper's Almshouse in Gronsted Fryers [Grinstead Friars?] London.
Philanthropy
Type: Social
Town/City: /
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £40
Bequeaths 40 shillings apiece to 20 poor Widows
Philanthropy
Type: Social
Town/City: City of London (Middlesex)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £100
Bequeaths £100 to the overseers of the poor for the parish of Great St Helens in London, where it is 'to be by them putt out and imployed on good security for the reliefe of three poore housekeepers there for ever'.
Land
Value: /
Land and the mansion of Vaunces in the county of Northamptonshire left to Martha Pennoyer
Philanthropy
Type: Educational
Town/City: Bristol (Gloucestershire)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £41
After the death of his wife Martha, £41 per annum is to be set aside out of the rents and profits of the manor of Vaunces and associated lands in Northamptonshire to various trustees in Bristol for the following uses: £10 per annum to pay the wages of a schoolmaster to teach scholars in St. Leonards parish or elsewhere in Bristol for the teaching of about 20 of the poorest boys (fatherless if it may be) to read the bible; £10 pounds per annum to a 'Sober Widdow' to teach fatherless poor children there; £16 per annum to a lecturer to preach once a week there which Pennoyer desires should be 'Mr Paull' in his lifetime; and the remaining £5 per annum to the poor of the said parish of St Leonards forever.
Philanthropy
Type: Educational
Town/City: City of London (Middlesex)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £22
After the death of his wife Martha, £22 per annum is to be set aside out of the rents and profits of the manor of Vaunces and associated lands in Northamptonshire for the following purposes: £10 apiece to 'two widdows such as shalbe grave sober and pious...for themselves for teaching of about 20 poor children apiece in or near Whitechappell all of them to be between the ages of 4 and 8 years old which children I order to be of the Inhabitants of Whitechappell vizt – the High Street Petticoater Lane and SpittleFields'. The other 40 shillings yearly is to be set aside for bibles for 3 or 4 children of either of the said schools.
Philanthropy
Type: Educational
Town/City: Brecon (Powys)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £14
After the death of his wife Martha, £12 per annum is to be set aside out of the rents and profits of the manor of Vaunces and associated lands in Northamptonshire for the maintenance of a School at the Hay [Hay-on-Wye] in Brecknockshire [Wales]where my desire is the children of the name Butler in the parish of Cusop and other poor children of the Hay whose parents cannot pay for them may bee taught free. 40 shillings also set aside more yearly for books for the said school.
Philanthropy
Type: Medical
Town/City: City of London (Middlesex)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £10
£10 per annum for the maintenance of poor distressed people in the hospital of Bethlem in London.
Philanthropy
Type: Social
Town/City: City of London (Middlesex)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £10
£10 per annum to 10 of the 'blindest oldest and poorest Clothworkers and their widows vizt five men and five women at the discretion of the Master Wardens and Assistants' of the Clothworker's Company.
Philanthropy
Type: Social
Town/City: Norwich (Norfolk)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: /
£4 per annum shall be paid to the overseers for the poor of Pulham St. Mary in Northamptonshire to be distributed to the poorest people there
Philanthropy
Type: Medical
Town/City: City of London (Middlesex)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £50
After the death of Martha, £50 yearly forever shall be paid for the uses following: £40 per annum to place out eight poor children yearly from Christ’s Hospital in London as the President and Governors of the said Hospital shall appoint, 40 shillings yearly (being five shillings apiece) to give several of them a bible, 40 shillings yearly to the President to buy him gloves, £4 yearly to the Treasurer of the said Hopsital for his care of the premises, and 40 shillings yearly to the clerk for keeping an ample and care in performance of this. Also pays £20 every three years to the Treasurer of Christ's Hospital for his services in travelling to the several schools Pennoyer has established in Bristol, Hay, Whitechapel, and Pulham are being run effectively.
Philanthropy
Type: Educational
Town/City: Norwich (Norfolk)
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: /
After the death of Martha, the whole rents and profits of the one-fifteenth part of the said Mannr of Pulham which Pennoyer owns, with the profitts of Courtwood and tymber thereunto belonging, shallbe paid for the creation of a free school in the little Chappell near Pullham Mary to teach about 30 or 40 boys. His tenant's children are to be taught free and the rest to be such whose parents cannot pay for them. And after such school is created and a 'sober schoolmaster enterteyned and setled therein' Pennoyer sets aside the whole of his rents and profits from Pullham for the maintenance of the said school. The Pennoyer School in Pulham St Mary was operational from 1674 to 1988, after which it was turned into a community centre. The Pennoyer Centre remains operational to this day. Pennoyer's slave trading is not mentioned on the Centre's website. https://pennoyers.org.uk/
Philanthropy
Type: Educational
Town/City: /
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £44
Out of the profits of £44 arising from other lands in Northamptonshire: £10 per annum shall ' be paid for ever to the 'Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospell in New England'; while £34 shall be used to support the education of two scholars in 'Cambridge College in New England' (Harvard University). One fellow is to be of the line or posterity of his brother Robert Pennoyer, while the other is to be from the colony of New Haven.
Philanthropy
Type: Social
Town/City: /
Scale: /
Year: 1671
Value: £1,300
£1300 to be deducted from his personal estate and paid in the following manner: £1000 to trustees to disburse to honest men in distress in Wales and the City of London and elsewhere in England where the trustees shall find most need; £200 to Mr Samuel Crisp to be by him given and disposed of within 12 months next after my decease to such as are prisoners or very poor and honest men; the other £100 thereof shall also be disposed of to prisoners or very poor and honest men
No information