Thomas Daniel

Bristol and London merchant in the firm Thomas Daniel & Sons (q.v.). Son of the Bristol merchant Thomas Daniel (1730-1802) and Eleanor Neil (d. 1774), and brother and partner of John Daniel (q.v.). He has a recent entry in the ODNB as 'merchant.'

1. One of the '"civic Dons" [of Bristol]: perhaps the last of them.' Born 16/09/1762 and baptised 28/09/1762 in St Michael, Barbados, son of Thomas Daniel and his wife Eleanor. 'So large were the estates and possessions of Thomas Daniel and Sons in Demerara, and other of the West Indian Islands, that it was stated at the time of the Slave Emancipation Act, they obtained as compensation for the services of the negroes who were manumitted by that humane measure, not much less than a quarter of a million of the twenty voted for that purpose.' High Sheriff of Bristol 1786 [this might be confusion with his father]; Mayor 1797; chosen Alderman in 1798. Married Miss Cave, sister of Daniel [sic] Cave. Head of the old Corporation and "reigned without a rival" in the Chamber until the Municipal Reform Act, and was the first chosen by the Council as Mayor under the new regime ( which he declined). For almost half a century the late Alderman Daniel was '(as it was bluntly expressed) the King of Bristol.' A long time treasurer of 'our two great educational charities, Queen Elizabeth's and the Red Maids' hospitals. Power and influence greatest as a leading member and chief of the old True Blue Steadfast club, 'this all-effecting, all-funded [Tory] party coterie'. '[W]hen the "Old Steadfast" resolved that a thing should be done, it was sure not to be left undone'. Declined a baronetage from Pitt's government.

2. Left £200,000. Described as merchant and a partner in Ames, Cave & Co. Bankers, sugar merchant and West Indies proprietor (sourced to Bush, A history of banking in Bristol, 1898). His father Thomas Daniel (1730-1802) appears to have returned to Britain from Barbados in 1764.

3. 'The king of Bristol'.

4. Father of Thomas Daniel (1798-1872) who married Augusta Louisa Bridges 1819 and had among other children Thomas Daniel (1823-1862), who in turn was the father of Thomas Carew Daniel. When Thomas Daniel (1798-1872) of Stoodleigh and Bristol died 22/04/1872 his effects were under £250,000; his sole executor was his son the Rev. Henry Arthur Daniel of Somerset.

5. In a Levy Book list for St James, Barbados, 1822, was listed as owning 192 enslaved and 364 acres of land. The name of the estate (or estates) was not given.

6. Thomas Daniel of Stoodleigh Court, Bampton [Devon] was a subscriber to the seventh edition of Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England in 1848. The Daniel family owned the estate until at least the 1880s.

Madge Dresser, ‘Daniel, Thomas (1762–1854)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2016 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/107411, accessed 16 June 2017]

1. 'Death of Thomas Daniel Esq.', Bristol Times 08/04/1854. Familysearch.org, Barbados, Church Records, 1637-1887 [database online].

2. William D. Rubinstein, Who were the rich? A biographical dictionary of British wealth-holders Volume Two 1840-1859 (MS) reference 1854/10.

3. Madge Dresser, Slavery obscured: the social history of the slave trade in an English provincial port (London & New York, Continuum, 2001) p. 223.

4. National Probate Calendar 1872.

5. Levy Book for St James, 1822. Barbados Department of Archives, RB9/3/7.

6. Samuel Lewis Topographical Dictionary of England (7th ed., 1848) p. xiv.

For the Daniels of Bristol see also Kenneth Morgan, 'Bristol West India Merchants in the Eighteenth Century', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 3 (1993), pp. 185-208; Alexandra Franklin, Enterprise and advantage: The West India interest in Britain, 1774-1840 (University of Pennsylvania, Unpub. PhD, 1992).

Portrait of Thomas Daniel © Bristol Culture (Bristol Museum & Art Gallery); http://discoveringbristol.org.uk/browse/slavery/thomas-daniel/.

We are very grateful to Ruth Hecht and Robert Lancashire for their help with this entry.