Richard 'Conversation' Sharp

Partner with Samuel Boddington (q.v.) in Boddington & Sharp and then in Boddington, Philips & Sharp, and also Whig MP for Castle Rising 1806-1812 and a member of the Holland House set.

1. He has an entry in the ODNB as 'politician and wit.' The entry says of him: '[a]bout 1798 his business interests moved to 17 Mark Lane where, as a partner in the West India firm of Boddington, Philips, Sharp & Co., he prospered to become one of London's most prominent merchants.' He had apparently retired by the time of compensation. Although the ODNB entry put his estate ('the bulk of which' went to Maria Kinnaird, his ward, who married Thomas Drummond shortly after Sharp's death) at £250,000, Sharp does not appear among Rubinstein's universe of those leaving personalty of £100,000 or more.

2. The Boddington firm was a significant mortgagee of 'slave-property' prior to Richard Sharp becoming a partner in 1799, and subsequent transactions in which he was directly involved included the mortgage by James Gerald Morgan to Samuel Boddington and Richard Sharp of 61 named enslaved people on St Vincent under deeds of 17/07/1800 and 118/07/1800 to secure Morgan's indebtedness of £14,000 to the firm.

1. David Knapman, ‘Sharp, Richard (1759–1835)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25217, accessed 3 Feb 2014].

2. Deed Book 1800, British Library, EAP688/1/1/11, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP688-1-1-11 p. 330 and 331 et seq.

We are grateful to David Knapman for help in compiling this entry.