Anthony Bacon

1717 - 1786


Biography

Government contractor, slave-trader and merchant, partner with Anthony Richardson and Gilbert Francklyn (each of whom q.v.), who later moved (without his partners) into iron-making at Cyfarthfa in South Wales in the 1770s. Although both Richardson and Franckyln appear among early purchasers of land [and enslaved people] in the Ceded and Neutral Islands after 1763, to date no slave-holding in the Caribbean by Bacon himself has been identified in these records. It appears from his will, however, in which he left to Anthony Richardson all the debt owed to him [Antony Bacon] by Gilbert Franckyn of Tobago (other than £1200 which either Richardson himself or Francklyn - the will is ambiguous - owed to Bacon on a bond and paid to 'Mr Appleton'), that Bacon had funded Francklyn, at least in part. In addition, he left in his will his share of 30,000 acres and the enslaved people on it in Virginia that he owned with 'sundry gentlemen.' Jacob Price said of him: 'The shifting of his interests from African and West Indian commerce to south Wales iron making is an extremely clear (if not necessarily common) example of the migration of capital from slave-based commerce to domestic industry.'


Sources

Price, Jacob M. "Bacon, Anthony (bap. 1717, d. 1786), merchant and ironmaster." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 3 Apr. 2018. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-50608.


Further Information

Absentee?
British/Irish

Legacies Summary

Commercial (1)

Founder
Cyfarthfa Ironworks
Coal, iron and marble  
 

Political (1)

MP
 
election →
Aylesbury Buckinghamshire
1764 - 1784

Relationships (2)

Business partners
Notes →
Bacon was also Richardson's cousin and...
Business partners