Philip Frederic Tinne

Partner in Sandbach Tinne (q.v.).

1. Of Huguenot descent. Born 1772 in The Hague, Netherlands. "Secretary to the Dutch Ambassador in London, afterwards Deputy Secretary of Court of Policy, Demerara." Naturalised 1823.

2. Will of Philip Frederic Tinne [formerly of Liverpool but now residing at] The Hague, Kingdom of the Netherlands proved 21/12/1844. In the will he rehearsed his 1830 settlement on his [second] wife Henriette de Capellon of the income from Brazilian bonds to the value of £17,300 and $31,372 of 6% Ohio stock. He left sums of £11,000 and £33,000 in trust for Alexandrina Petronella his daughter by his second marriage and his two sons by the first, William Thomas Tinne and John Abraham Tinne, commenting that he had already advanced property worth £30,000 each to his sons to establish themselves. In a codicil he commented on the mental derangement of his son William Thomas. His residuary legatees were Alexandrina and John Abraham.

3. The Walker Art Gallery/National Museums Liverpool website associated with the Tinne family gives the following overview: 'The Tinnes were Dutch sugar merchants and ship owners, who first came to Liverpool in 1813 from Demerara in what was then Dutch Guiana, later to be re-named British Guiana (and finally, following independence in 1966, Guyana) on the North East coast of South America. During the 19th century, as part of the firm of Sandbach, Tinne & Co, the family made a great fortune importing sugar, molasses, coffee and tropical hardwoods from their plantations. Philip Frederic Tinne, the first Tinne to settle in Liverpool, was born in The Hague in 1772. In 1796, following Napoleon’s occupation of Holland, he went to Dutch Guiana. There he built up a lucrative career as an administrator, becoming Secretary of the colony by 1801, and wealthy enough to buy a coffee plantation, named Vauxhall and Westminster. In 1810 he and his Scottish-born wife, Anna Rose, travelled to England and then Scotland, where they spent some time in Greenock. Here he met James McInroy, who in 1782 had set up in business as a sugar merchant in Demerara. In 1790 McInroy was joined in the venture by Samuel Sandbach, Charles Stewart Parker and George Robertson. Their business involved the import of sugar, molasses, coffee and rum from Demerara, but they also dealt in "prime Gold Coast Negroes", and used them to work their plantations there. In 1813, the same year that Demerara became a British colony, Philip Tinne went into partnership with McInroy, agreeing to be based at the company’s Liverpool branch, along with Samuel Sandbach. That part of the company was then re-named Sandbach, Tinne & Co, the name it traded under until 1891 when it was renamed the Demerara Company. McInroy, Sandbach & Co continued to run the other part of the business from Demerara, and briefly, from Glasgow as McInroy, Parker & Co. Besides growing coffee, Sandbach, Tinne & Co acquired several sugar plantations in Demerara, including Diamond and Providence. Other properties acquired much later included the estates known as Wales, Industry, Greenveld and Leonora. Sandbach, Tinne & Co prospered, receiving an extra financial boost of more than £173,000 in 1835 as compensation from the British government for giving up the enslaved Africans on their plantations. Following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, Demerara’s sugar estates were worked by a combination of indentured Chinese and Indian labourers and by former enslaved people who continued as paid labourers. Sandbach, Tinne & Co's fleet of more than thirty sailing ships carried indentured labourers from India and China to Demerara, as well as European passengers and cargoes of tea and other commodities, to and from the Far East.'

T71/885 British Guiana claim nos. 654 (Vriesland), 665 (Vauxhall & Westminster), 668 (Javer Beusdeune (?) and Regt Door Zee (?)), 693 (La Jalousie & Fellowship), 694, 701 (Edinburgh), 702 (Leonora), 709 (De Hinderen and Boodes Rust) and 712 (Truxen de Vrienden(?)); T71/886 British Guiana claim no. 1296.

1. Genealogy of the families of Douglas of Mulderg and Robertson of Kindeace (1895) pp. 28-29; available within the wider family tree at Rootsweb WorldConnect Project 'The Last Knight'; 4 George IV c. 36 HL/PO/PB/1/1823/4G4n174.

2. PROB 11/2009.

3. https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/tinne2006/tinne-family.aspx [accessed 05/11/2019].

We are grateful to Clif Knight for his assistance with compiling this entry.