| Authorised form of name | Banks; Sir; John (1627 - 1699); merchant and financier |
| Other forms of surname | Bankes |
| Dates | 1627 - 1699 |
| Nationality | British |
| Date of birth | c. August 1627 |
| Date of death | 19 October 1699 |
| Dates and places | Baptism:
All Saints', Maidstone, Kent, England, Europe (19 August 1627)
Burial:
Aylesford church, Kent, England, Europe [Monumental inscription at Aylesford] |
| Occupation | Merchant; politician; colonial adminstrator; slave-trader |
| Activity | Education:
Emmanuel College, Cambridge (admitted 1644)
Career:
Member of a syndicate for victualling the Navy (1652); lent money to the Navy during the Anglo-Dutch wars and to successive governments, negotiated favourable repayment; shareholder in the Honorable East India Company, becoming a Director (1669); Governor of the East India Company (1673-1674 and 1683); Member of the Levant Company; Assistant of the Royal African Company (1672-1673, 1676-1678), Sub-Governor of the Royal African Company (1674-1675); bought a country estate in Aylsford; JP and Deputy Lieutenant for Kent; MP for Maidstone, Kent (1654, 1656, 1695), Winchilsea (1678), Rochester (1679, 1685, 1689), Queenborough (1690); Deputy-Lieutenant for Kent (1679-1688); at his death left assets worth £180,000
Honours:
Bt 1661
|
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 10/12/1668 |
| Age at election | 41 |
| Proposer | Jonathan Goddard |
| Royal Society activity | Royal Society roles:
Council: 1670, 1674 |
| Other Royal Society activity | Contributed towards the building of a Society College at Arundel (1668/9) |
| Relationships | Parents: Caleb Banks and Martha Dunn
Married: Elizabeth Dethick
Children: Elizabeth Finch (née Banks); Mary Savile (née Banks)
Additional relatives: son-in-law Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Aylesford |
| General context | Although earlier in his political career, Banks was linked to the Parliamentarian cause, he followed a royalist line at the Restoration for which he was made a baronet in 1662. Through his investments in overseas trade and slavery, Banks grew to be one of the wealthiest businessmen in the country. His friendship with Samuel Pepys (FRS 1663) stemmed from their mutual interest in naval matters.
Banks was an investor and Governor of the Honorable East India Company (HEIC). The East India Company was an English and later British company formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region. The company ended up seizing control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent (and briefly Afghanistan) and colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. Originally chartered as the Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies, by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, the East India Company rose to account for half of the world's trade, thereby amassing vast wealth, influence and private armies. The East India company used enslaved people for labour across their territories from 1621 until abolition of slavery in India in 1843.
Banks was also an investor in The Royal Adventurers into Africa, later Royal African Company (RAC) and held positions on the governing board. 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. |
| Sources | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; ODNB (MP); Venn; Hunter; Davies; Henning; Wikipedia
References:
Govier, M. 1999. 'The Royal Society, Slavery and the Island of Jamaica: 1660-1700', in Notes and Records, vol. 53, pp. 203-217
Hunter, M. 1982. 'The Royal Society and its Fellows, 1660-1700...' (British Society for the History of Science)
Lyons, H G. 1939. 'The Society's First Bequest', in Notes and Records, vol. 2, pp. 43-46 |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/197964356 |
| Royal Society code | NA4942 |