George Hibbert

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English merchant, politician and ship-owner

title: "George Hibbert" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1757-births", "1837-deaths", "businesspeople-from-manchester", "members-of-the-parliament-of-the-united-kingdom-for-english-constituencies", "merchants-from-the-british-west-indies", "18th-century-british-botanists", "tory-mps-(pre-1834)", "uk-mps-1806–1807", "uk-mps-1807–1812", "english-book-and-manuscript-collectors", "politicians-from-manchester", "english-slave-owners", "19th-century-english-botanists", "english-proslavery-activists", "british-fellows-of-the-royal-society"] description: "English merchant, politician and ship-owner" topic_path: "people/1750s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hibbert" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary English merchant, politician and ship-owner ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameGeorge Hibbert
imageFile:Portrait of George Hibbert.jpg
captionPortrait of George Hibbert by Thomas Lawrence, 1811
birth_date
death_date
nationalityBritish
occupationMerchant and politician
notable_worksHelped to found the Royal National Lifeboat Institution
::

| name = George Hibbert | image = File:Portrait of George Hibbert.jpg | caption = Portrait of George Hibbert by Thomas Lawrence, 1811 | birth_date = | death_date = | nationality = British | occupation = Merchant and politician | notable_works = Helped to found the Royal National Lifeboat Institution

George Hibbert (13 January 1757 – 8 October 1837) was an English merchant, politician and ship-owner. Alongside fellow slaver Robert Milligan, he was also one of the principals of the West India Dock Company which instigated the construction of the West India Docks on London's Isle of Dogs in 1800. An amateur botanist and book-collector, he also helped found the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1824.

Family background

Hibbert came from a family made rich from cultivating multiple sugar plantations in the West Indies. The Hibbert estates run by his uncle Thomas Hibbert were in Agualta Vale, Jamaica, including Hibbert House (currently the headquarters of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust); another uncle, John, had also settled in Jamaica.

George Hibbert was born in Stockfield Hall, Manchester, the son of Robert Hibbert and Abigail Hibbert (née Scholey). Around 1780 he went to London to join the West India trading house of Hibbert, Purrier and Horton (later Hibberts, Fuhr and Purrier) at 9 Mincing Lane. He eventually became head of the firm, described in 1800 as the 'first house' in the Jamaican trade.

Hibbert was an Alderman of London from 1798 to 1803. He was the first chairman of the West India Dock Company, which promoted the construction of the West India Docks from 1800 to 1802. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Seaford in East Sussex from 31 October 1806 until 5 October 1812.

In 1812 George Hibbert was appointed agent-general for Jamaica at an annual salary of £1,500, a position he held until retiring in 1831.

In 1784, Hibbert married Elizabeth Margaret, the daughter of Philip Fonnereau, MP, a prominent Huguenot merchant and a director of the Bank of England; they had five sons and nine daughters. His son George was buried in the churchyard at St Paul's Church, Clapham, interred in a chest tomb shared with one of his brothers, William Hibbert; Hibbert was a trustee for the construction of the chapel at St Paul's, Clapham, in 1815.

Hibbert inherited Munden House near Watford from his wife's uncle, Rogers Parker, and removed there in 1829. He died at Munden on 8 October 1837, and was buried at Aldenham in Hertfordshire. His son Nathaniel inherited Munden on the death of his mother in 1841.

Hibbert's portrait was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1812 and by John Hoppner (c. 1800).

Slave trade campaigner

The family counting house Hibbert, Purrier and Horton was extensively involved in the shipping and distribution of slave-produced goods, particularly sugar from Jamaica. As a result, (and also perhaps influenced by his wife's family connections to Huguenot Peter Isaac Thellusson, whose uncle, Sir Ralph Woodford, Governor of Trinidad, was a leading exponent of "free labour" from the East Indies), Hibbert became a leading member of the pro-slavery lobby, and acted as chairman of the Society of West India Merchants.

Shortly after William Wilberforce first raised the abolition of slavery in Parliament in May 1789, Hibbert spoke at a meeting of merchants at the London Tavern, seeking to demolish Wilberforce's speech with a 40-minute address entitled 'The Slave Trade Indispensable...'.

As an MP, from his maiden speech on 10 February 1807 onwards, he declared his utter hostility to the slave trade abolition bill He gave three speeches to Parliament in 1807 during the slave trade debates which were later published.

It has been estimated that the Hibbert family was awarded £103,000 in compensation upon the ending of slavery in the Caribbean, with George Hibbert awarded £16,000.

Botanist

Perhaps owing to his family's planting interests in Jamaica, Hibbert became interested in gardening and botany. A respected botanist and bibliophile, he was a founder of the London Institution in 1805 (vice-president in 1806) and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1811. He was also a fellow of the Linnean Society and the Antiquarian Society of London.

According to Loudon, "The collection of heaths, Banksias, and other Cape and Botany Bay plants, in Hibbert's garden, was most extensive, and his flower-garden one of the best round the metropolis."

Hibbert funded various botanical expeditions, notably that of James Niven, an avid gardener and collector of plants, who was sent to the Cape region of South Africa in 1798. Niven collected seeds of Nivenia corymbosa which were sent back and grown at Hibbert's Clapham estate in London. Another of Hibbert's employees, James Main, was despatched to China to collect for him. Hibbert's gardener, Joseph Knight, was reputedly one of the first people to propagate Proteaceae in England; the genus Hibbertia is named after Hibbert. Hibbert was also one of the first people to grow Hostas in Europe.

Book collector

Hibbert lived for some years in London, dividing his time between a house in Portland Place and another, The Hollies, on the north side of Clapham Common

Hibbert Gate

The Hibbert gate, situated at the western end of the West India Docks, was commissioned by Canary Wharf Group plc, and is a replica of the original gate that stood at the visitors' entrance to the West India Docks. The original 1803 gate was called the "Main Gate", but became known as the "Hibbert Gate" after the model of the ship that stood on top of it. The Hibbert of the model was a ship that George Hibbert had owned. The archway of the original gate, which had a pair of tall wrought-iron gates, was large enough to admit carts and wagons onto the quays. It became an emblem of the West India Docks and formed part of the arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar. Hibbert Gate and its flanking walls were dismantled in 1932 as its narrow archway impeded traffic.

RNLI

As a shipowner and chairman of the West Indies Merchants, Hibbert associated with philanthropist Sir William Hillary and Thomas Wilson, Liberal MP for Southwark, to help found the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck – an institution better known today as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – on 4 March 1824.

Letters to and from Hibbert illustrate the roles he undertook; in certain instances of maritime misfortune he would donate his own money to help those affected. This was documented in 1825, whereby Thomas Edwards wrote to Hibbert 'to acknowledge the receipt of your donation of the 18th...and...to tell you that this sum of £200...has been dedicated amongst the persons harmed...agreeably to your directions.'

Hibbert's contributions to the Institution's early workings are detailed in his correspondence with other Committee members. For instance in 1829, after being presented with the case of a Mr J. M. Wright, whose efforts saw him save the lives of fourteen people, Hibbert wrote 'I by consent and with pleasure, agree to the award granted to Mr. Wright...for no better applicant I have encountered'. Hibbert's payment rewarded the 'brave, bold, athletic' Mr Wright for his efforts in saving lives, and to help him replace the equipment he lost at sea.

Notes

References

| title = Member of Parliament for Seaford | with = John Leach | years = 1806–1812 | before = Richard Joseph Sullivan and John Leach | after = Charles Rose Ellis and John Leach

References

  1. According to his biographer J. H. Markland, this was due to his "common sense, judgement and sagacity… [which] inspired confidence and respect."J.H. Markland, ''A Sketch of the Life and Character of George Hibbert, Esq.'' (London: John W. Parker, 1837), p. 4.
  2. Markland, pp. 1–14.
  3. "Leigh Rayment's Peerage pages: constituencies beginning with "S"".
  4. [http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/Mslavea4.htm Colonial Papers 1816–1831 Slave Code F]
  5. "George Hibbert (1757–1837)".
  6. "George Hibbert, of Clapham - 18th Century Merchant and "Amateur Horticulturalist"".
  7. "Hibberts in England".
  8. (28 August 2014). "Legacies of British Slave-ownership". Cambridge University Press.
  9. (August 2025). "HIBBERT, George (1757–1837), of Clapham, Surr.". History of Parliament Online.
  10. Hibberts in Jamaica', Georgehibbert.Com (2010) http://www.georgehibbert.com/hibbertsjam.html [accessed 3 April 2017].
  11. "George Hibbert (1757-1837) - biography written in 1891". Marjorie Blow.
  12. "George Hibbert: Profile & Legacies Summary". UCL.
  13. (2014). "Legacies of British Slave-Ownership: Colonial Slavery and the Formation of Victorian Britain". Cambridge University Press.
  14. Source: Slavery Abolition Act (P.P. 1837–8, XLVIII); NA, Treasury Papers, slave compensation T71/852-900. - referenced in Draper, N. (2008). [http://secretcity-thefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/The-City-of-London-and-slavery-Nick-Draper.pdf "The City of London and slavery: evidence from the first dock companies, 1795-1800"] {{Webarchive. link. (18 May 2015 . ''Economic History Review,'' 61, 2 (2008), pp.432-466.)
  15. (January 2017). "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society.
  16. Loudon, J. C. L. (1835) [http://www.gardenvisit.com/book/history_of_garden_design_and_gardening/chapter_4_british__gardens_(1100-1830)/george_hibbert_botanical_garden George Hibbert Botanical Garden] ''Encyclopedia of Gardening''. Accessed 28 July 2015.
  17. He remained for five years, sending home a 'valuable herbarium of native specimens' and new plants, including five new species of [[protea]]s – Hibbert's passion.[http://www.tobymusgrave.com/pdf/Out_of_Africa.pdf i history of SA planthunting] {{webarchive. link. (13 September 2006)
  18. Adams, Trevor and Hitchcock, Anthony (2004) [http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantnop/nivencorym.htm Nivenia corymbosa] PlantZAfrica.com. Accessed 28 July 2015.
  19. Linnean Society, (1846). Obituary, James Main. ''Proceedings of the Linnean Society''. No. XXX, 24 May 1846, 303-304. Linnean Society, London.
  20. [http://asgap.org.au/APOL25/mar02-14.html Short Cuts] {{webarchive. link. (29 July 2008)
  21. [http://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/gnp10/hibbertia-empetrifolia.html Hibbertia empetrifolia]. Australian National Botanic Gardens and Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research. Accessed: 28 July 2015
  22. "One of the first hostas to be grown in Europe, being brought to England in 1790 by George Hibbert." source: [http://www.myhostas.be/db/hostas/ventricosa Ventricosa], MyHostas Database. Accessed: 28 July 2015
  23. Partington, Anthony. (2009). "A memorial to ''Hibberts''". The Mariner's Mirror.
  24. "Archived copy".
  25. "The Lifeboat, by R.M. Ballantyne, Chapter 23".
  26. [http://www.douglaslifeboat.iofm.net/Sir_William_Hillary.htm Sir William Hillary] {{webarchive. link. (27 September 2006)
  27. National Maritime Museum Archives, Greenwich, (NMM), MSS/85/040, Letter from Thomas Edwards Esq. to George Hibbert, 23 June 1825.
  28. NMM, HIB/129/A, Letter from George Hibbert to the Royal National Institution, 28 December 1829.
  29. On its website, the RNLI acknowledge Hibbert's input to the founding of the organisation, but few other secondary sources do the same.For the most current analysis of the RNLI, see Janet Gleeson, The Lifeboat Baronet: Launching the RNLI (London: The History Press, 2014). Gleeson's acknowledgment of George Hibbert is nominal, and there is no mention of his contributions to the RNLI other than the role he played in its establishment.

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1757-births1837-deathsbusinesspeople-from-manchestermembers-of-the-parliament-of-the-united-kingdom-for-english-constituenciesmerchants-from-the-british-west-indies18th-century-british-botaniststory-mps-(pre-1834)uk-mps-1806–1807uk-mps-1807–1812english-book-and-manuscript-collectorspoliticians-from-manchesterenglish-slave-owners19th-century-english-botanistsenglish-proslavery-activistsbritish-fellows-of-the-royal-society