| Authorised form of name | Vermuyden; Cornelius (1626 - 1693) |
| Dates | 1626 - 1693 |
| Date of birth | 1626 |
| Date of death | 1693 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Baptism:
19 March 1627 |
| Activity | Education:
Gray's Inn (admitted 1650)
Career:
Shareholder in the Bedford Level Company, Conservator (1663); Shareholder in the Royal African Company; left England sometime before the Restoration but later returned
|
| Membership category | Original Fellow |
| Date of election | 20/05/1663 |
| Age at election | 36 |
| Date of ejection or withdrawal | 29/10/1666 (for non-payment of arrears) |
| RSActivity | Committee and panels:
Committee of the Histories of Trades (1664) |
| Other Royal Society activity | Proposed on 1 April 1661; Experimented with poisonous arrows (1661); Conducted experiments with sympathetic powder (1661) |
| Relationships | Parents: Sir Cornelius Vermuyden and Katerine Lapps
Married: Mary Reade |
| OtherInfo | Vermuyden was one of the original managers of The Royal Adventurers into Africa, later Royal African Company (RAC). The RAC was a British trading company established by Royal Charter in 1660 which enslaved and sold African people. The company was chartered by Charles II, the founding royal Patron of the Royal Society, which was also chartered in 1660. The RAC was made up of and funded by members of the Stuart royal family and London merchants many of whom were, or went on to become, Fellows of the Royal Society. The Royal Society itself held shares in the company from 1682 until 1699. The RAC held a monopoly on English trade on the west coast of Africa. The principal interest of the company was originally gold and secondarily other natural resources. The Company's second charter in 1663 mentions trade in enslaved people, who were mainly sold into slavery on British owned estates in the West Indies and America. The Jesus College Cambridge Legacy of Slavery Working Party has stated that the RAC was responsible for selling more Africans into slavery in America than any other institution in the history of the Atlantic slave trade, and that they ran a brutal regime with the full knowledge of their investors. The company became insolvent in 1708, it survived until 1752 when its assets were transferred to the new African Company of Merchants, which lasted until 1821. |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB (father's entry); GI
References:
Govier, M. 1999. 'The Royal Society, Slavery and the Island of Jamaica: 1660-1700', in Notes and Records, vol. 53, pp. 203-217
Notes:
The election date is Vermuyden's re-election date into the Society after the grant of the second charter in April 1663. All Fellows admitted in a two-month window after this charter, until 22 June 1663, are considered Original Fellows. He was previously mentioned as a member on 19 June 1661.
De Beer gives last appearance in list of Fellows as 1672. |
| Code | NA3731 |