Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
NameJames CROPPER , 404
Birth1773, Winstanley
Death1840
FatherThomas CROPPER , 647 (1739-1810)
MotherRebecca WINSTANLEY , 709 (1747-1810)
Spouses
Birth1759
Death1832
FatherJohn BRINSDON , 2237
MotherSarah RATHERHAM , 16694
Marriage1796
ChildrenJohn , 36 (1797-1876)
 Edward , 405 (1799-1877)
 Eliza , 713 (1801-1835)
 Maria , 2238 (1804-1805)
Notes for James CROPPER
The founder of Cropper Benson & Co, and keen antislaver, friend of William Wilberforce and freetrader, is described in CWJ’s book on pioneer shipowners. 50 and The Leaves We Write on by Mark Cropper 17There is a street in Liverpool called after him. See entry in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Merchant in Liverpool, much involved with the cotton trade with the southern American states. As a Quaker James realised that his cotton trading clashed with his principles. 'It is a very difficult thing to keep from touching in any shape slave produce' he wrote in 1827. During the 1820s he became very active in the abolitionist movement as he realised that though the 1807 Act had virtually ended the slave trade in Africa, it had not caused the decline of slavery as an institution in the West Indies and Americas. He encouraged the production of sugar in India by free labour, and worked with Wilberforce and Clarkson on raising public awareness of the evils of slavery which eventually resulted in the abolition of slavery in the British dominions in 1834.

See http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/digital...20dingle%20bank.aspx. See also
Thomas Cropper and Rebecca Winstanley Family History at the Wigan Family and local history society.

See also archives at Merseyside Maritime Museum. The archives include correspondence with Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, Zachary Macauley and others, and also contains many circulars and handbills.

Of Fearnhead Lancs.

James Cropper sent parcels of East Indies coffee and sugar to every M.P. to demonstrate that these commodities could be produced without slave labour.  He also had his crockery decorated with vignettes of slaves in iron with the caption: "Am I not a man/woman and a brother/sister?" 

He was buried in the Quaker burial ground in Liverpool. No momument marked his grave but the house in which he lived and died at Fearnhead bore the following inscription:

“In this house lived James Cropper, one, and he not the least, of that small but noble band of christian men who, after years of labour and through much opposition, accomplished the abolition of West Indian slavery; and thus having lived the life of the righteous, he died in the full assurance of faith on the 26th of February 1840.”

James Cropper (1773-1840) was the first member of the family to settle in Liverpool, according to the family pedigree. He had been brought up near Ormskirk, his father being known as "honest Thomas Cropper", a local yeoman farmer. It was assumed that James would follow his father into farming but by the time he reached his late teenage years he decided that he would be better suited to a career using his head rather than his hands. As a result he took up an apprenticeship with Rathbone and Benson, a mercantile company, in 1790. Here, he showed great diligence and a keen business sense which earned him consistent promotion and respect. Eventually he joined Robert Benson as a shipowner, and the firm Cropper and Benson was formed in 1799, later becoming Cropper, Benson & Co. The firm claims the credit for originating the first line of packets sailing on specific days between England and America. They carried mail and passengers as well as cargo. Soon the company was making £1,000 per day profit.

During his early days in Liverpool, James lodged with a certain Mary Brinsden, fourteen years his senior. After she nursed him back to health, following a serious illness, he married her in 1796.

Around 1823 they managed to secure the lease of the Dingle Bank estate from the Yates family and proceeded to build three houses, one for themselves and one each for their sons, Edward and John. The site was of outstanding natural beauty. It is about two miles south of Liverpool and encompassed an area of about thirty acres. The land sloped down to the River Mersey, looking south away from the docks up the River where it broadened out into a great lake with shining islands of sand at low tide. The magnificent views of the Welsh hills and Beeston Castle were also obtainable. The position of the estate was the subject of much envy and as one tenant reminisced it was "like living in the country and at a very interesting seaside place at the time, with the shipping and yacht racing and yet within a couple of miles of the centre of a huge town."

Isabella Wakefield, an amateur landscape gardener, Edward Cropper's first wife, was successful in making Dingle Bank's ground even more exquisite. She created a one mile walk around the property which was lined with Japanese-looking plants and trees and included winding paths and a wooden bridge. Several arbours with seats were placed along the walk overlooking the sandstone beach of the River Mersey, where peace and tranquillity could be found in the beauty of the surroundings. Some of the seating places were sheltered from the wind and rain, being dug out of the grassy bank behind. The most popular arbour was one that faced south so as to catch every ray of sun. It was lined with sticks of bamboo and its entrance was bordered with sandstone rocks. This proved to be a favourite haunt of the residents of Dingle Bank throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Cropper family increased considerably during the nineteenth century despite its experience of several sad losses. Eliza, James' daughter died in 1835 shortly after her marriage to Joseph Sturge. Edward's first wife Isabella Wakefield died tragically as did his second wife and their son Charles. Fortunately, his third marriage to Margaret Macaulay, a poor widow, sister-in-law of Lord Macaulay, but still poor, lasted a good deal longer and produced a number of children, the survivors enjoying a healthy and happy life at Dingle Bank, a children's paradise with abundant open space, a sea shore, sandstone rocks and cliffs and a large assortment of trees.

In the early days at Dingle Bank, the Croppers tended to marry into families with similar beliefs to their own. Isabella and Anne Wakefield who married Edward and John respectively were from an ardent Quaker family, Eliza's husband and his family, the Sturges, were associated with the Croppers in the anti-slavery campaign and remained old friends even after their victory against slavery. However, much to Ann Cropper's disfavour, four of her daughters married ministers of the Church of England, and although she accepted the situation, she did warn one of her sons who became a churchman against entering the Roman Catholic Church, "thou wilt know what I feel if one of my sons becomes a Roman Catholic." The family was very close, the Cropper children and grandchildren always visiting Dingle Bank to see their relatives.

Though the family were very rich, they attached little importance to material goods and followed a relatively simple way of life. Indeed, the subject of money never arose in the Cropper family. Their chief interest lay in leading a good Christian life which involved sharing their good fortune with their poorer brethren. They became widely known as a major charitable force in Liverpool. Once a begging letter was addressed to "the most generous man in Liverpool, c/o the General Post Office". It was sent without hesitation to John Cropper. Every year the family would entertain the boys from the training ship Akbar at Dingle Bank where games were organised and treats provided. They also set up a ragged school which provided teaching in moral and elementary education to pauper children. The urchins attending the school often referred to the school as "St Cropper's". Their good works spread to the setting up of a benevolent home for fallen girls where John Cropper would hold a bible class every Sunday afternoon.

The Cropper family's social conscience ran into the world of politics too, in particular their campaign against slavery. James Cropper, for example, made up parcels of sugar and coffee from the East Indies and sent them to every MP to show that slave labour was not essential to their cultivation. The crockery used in the Cropper household constantly reminded the family of the evils of slave labour by bearing the picture of a slave in irons and around him the mottoes, "Alas my poor brother" and "Am I not a man and brother". They rallied around them the supporters of the anti-slavery movement. Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" visited Dingle Bank on her tour of England. she was overwhelmed by the welcome she received there and from other dignitaries of Liverpool. she found the beauty of Dingle Bank captivating, "the green of the turf on April 10th dazzled her and the lawns were enclosed by banks of washed gravel to an ivied porch, where deft servants took charge of the visitors, leading Harriet to the most delightful bedchamber she had ever seen."

James Cropper held strong political views regarding the Irish situation. In 1824, he had paid a visit to Ireland accompanied by his daughter Eliza. To his horror he found the Irish peasantry on the brink of starvation with employment scarce and wages a mere pittance. He fully realised the evils of absentee landlordism was undeveloped. James was convinced that the British Government was largely responsible for the unfortunate state of affairs because of the implementation of selfish and unreasonable trade restrictions which discouraged Ireland from developing her resources. He did not hesitate to make his feelings plain to the responsible parties involved.

These last few members of the Cropper family eventually left Dingle Bank about 1920 when the Dock Board terminated the lease on the property (which it had first acquired in 1872). However, a legacy of love and generosity remains associated with the name of Cropper and Dingle Bank.

Bibliography
Conybeare, F. Dingle Bank
Cropper, A. Extracts from letters of the late James Cropper transcribed for his grandchildren by their very affectionate mother and aunt.
Wilson, F. Crusader in Crinoline

Also see Dictionary of National Biography.

The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board had acquired the lease of Dingle some years earlier (1872) and  terminated this about 1920. After they left tipping and filling began. British Mexican established an oil fuel storage and bunkering depot at Dingle Bank. Four huge, cylindrical oil tanks capable of storing 32,000 tons were built with a 3,000-foot 10-inch feeder pipeline to the Herculaneum Dock. The oil was pumped by two of G. and J. Weir's largest pumps. This was in addition to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board's facilities for bunkering oil-burning ships, also at Dingle Bank. Ironically the company has gone, the oil storage has gone, Herculaneum Dock has gone and even the Garden Festival which occupied the site was simply a temporary state, as housing now occupies the entire area.

From Spartacus Educational

James Cropper

James Cropper, the son of Thomas Cropper, a yeoman farmer, was born at Winstanley, in 1773. His family were members of the Society of Friends. He left home at the age of seventeen to work for Rathbone Brothers, in Liverpool. He later established his own mercantile house, Cropper, Benson & Company.
In 1796 Cropper married Mary Brinsmead. Over the next few years she had three children, They had two sons, John and Edward, and a daughter, Eliza, who later married Joseph Sturge.
According to his biographer, M. W. Kirby: "Cropper's trading links were initially with Ireland and North America, but by the end of the Napoleonic wars he was importing a wide range of products, including textiles and spices from India and China. Cropper, Benson & Co. also established the first line of packets to carry mail to North America. The company engaged in common trading ventures with Rathbone Brothers, extending to the joint ownership of vessels."
James Cropper was an early opponent of slavery. He supported the campaign of some members of the House of Commons, such as William Wilberforce, Samuel Romilly, William Dolben, Henry Thornton, Samuel Whitbread, Charles Middleton and William Smith to abolish the slave trade. To support their efforts he made up parcels of sugar and coffee from the East Indies and sent them to every MP to show that slave labour was not essential to their cultivation.
Under the terms of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807) British captains who were caught continuing the trade were fined £100 for every slave found on board. However, this law did not stop the British slave trade. If slave-ships were in danger of being captured by the British navy, captains often reduced the fines they had to pay by ordering the slaves to be thrown into the sea.
Some people involved in the anti-slave trade campaign such as James Cropper, argued that the only way to end the suffering of the slaves was to make slavery illegal. William Wilberforce disagreed, he believed that at this time slaves were not ready to be granted their freedom. He pointed out in a pamphlet that he wrote in 1807 that: "It would be wrong to emancipate (the slaves). To grant freedom to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters' ruin, but their own. They must (first) be trained and educated for freedom."
Cropper remained concerned about the intentions of those who had opposed the anti-slave trade legislation. On 12th March 1822, he wrote to Thomas Clarkson noting that "on the abolition of the slave trade and the efforts of the British government to induce other governments to follow their example, there is some suspicion of a mixture of motive in the later part, nor can we wonder at it when we see the Assembly of Jamaica petitioning the King to use his influence to induce other countries to abolish it and at the same time petitioning against the introduction of East India sugar into this country."
In 1823 Cropper wrote to Zachary Macaulay suggesting the formation of a new abolition society. According to the author of The Great Abolition Sham: The True Story of the End of the British Slave Trade (2005): "Its strategy first and foremost would be to obtain information on the state of slavery in British and foreign colonies in the West Indies and in North and South America, in order to prove the argument that free labour was cheaper than slave labour but that the expense of cultivation would also be lessened by the amelioration of the hard treatment of slaves."
Later that year Thomas Clarkson, Joseph Sturge, Thomas Fowell Buxton, William Allen, and Zachary Macaulay to form the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Clarkson agreed to take to the road again to resurrect the old abolition network of some 70 local bodies and to establish new ones. Cropper offered Clarkson £500 to pay for the campaign.
In his book, The Great White Lie (1973), Jack Gratus argues that: "The plan was to divide the country into districts, and to send a lecturer to each, armed with facts and information about slavery and fired by an enthusiasm to convert new audiences around the country to emancipation. The Quakers accepted the idea immediately and Cropper advanced £500 out of his own pocket. The prosperous Birmingham Quaker, Joseph Sturge, who was to play such an important role in the later history of emancipation, advanced £250. Wilberforce gave £20 and James Stephen ten guineas."
At the conference in May 1830, the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery agreed to drop the words "gradual abolition" from its title. It also agreed to support Sarah Wedgwood's plan for a new campaign to bring about immediate abolition. The following year the Anti-Slavery Society presented a petition to the House of Commons calling for the "immediate freeing of newborn children of slaves".
Cropper was also a supporter of the railway industry. He became a director of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company. After several years of debate, Parliament gave permission for the Manchester & Liverpool Railway to be built in 1826. George Stephenson was faced with a large number of serious engineering problems. This included crossing the unstable peat bog of Chat Moss, a nine-arched viaduct across the Sankey Valley and a two-mile long rock cutting at Olive Mount.
The Liverpool & Manchester railway was 31 miles long and consisted of a double line of rails of the fish-bellied type and laid on stone or timber sleepers. Passenger trains started at the Crown Street Station in Liverpool and after passing Moorish Arch at Edge Hill terminated at Water Street in Manchester. The railway was opened on 15th September, 1830. It was a great success. In 1831 the company transported 445,047 passengers. Receipts were £155,702 with profits of £71,098.
In 1831 Cropper and his son-in-law, Joseph Sturge, formed the Young England Abolitionists, a pressure group within the Society for the Abolition of Slavery, that campaigned for a new act of Parliament. It was distinguished from other anti-slavery groups by its unconditional arguments and vigorous campaigning tactics. Peter Archer has argued that they directed "their activities much more in the direction of forming mass opinion."
The Abolition of Slavery Act was passed on 28th August 1833. Cropper was disappointed by the measure that granted compensation to slave owners and substituting a temporary system of unpaid apprenticeship for slavery. Sturge visited the West Indies (November 1836 to April 1837) where he collected evidence to demonstrate the flaws in the legislation. On his return he published The West Indies in 1837 and gave evidence for seven days before a committee of the House of Commons. As a result of his campaign in 1838 the apprenticeship system was terminated.
According to another biographer of Cropper: "Though the family were very rich, they attached little importance to material goods and followed a relatively simple way of life. Indeed, the subject of money never arose in the Cropper family. Their chief interest lay in leading a good Christian life which involved sharing their good fortune with their poorer brethren. They became widely known as a major charitable force in Liverpool.... Every year the family would entertain the boys from the training ship Akbar at Dingle Bank where games were organised and treats provided. They also set up a ragged school which provided teaching in moral and elementary education to pauper children."
James Cropper died on the 26th of February 1840.
Last Modified 22 Jun 2020Created 4 Mar 2023 using Reunion for Macintosh