John Julius Angerstein (1735- January 1823),
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
merchant,
Lloyd'sLloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance market. It serves as a meeting place where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk. Unlike most of its competitors in the reinsurance market, it...
under-writer, and patron of the fine arts, was born in St Petersburg,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and settled in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
in about 1749. It has wrongly been suggested that he was an illegitimate son of Catherine the Great or of Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, herself the illegitimate daughter of
Peter the GreatPeter I the Great or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov ruled Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his weak and sickly half-brother, Ivan V....
.
In his role as a
merchantA merchant is a businessman who trades in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
he was said to own a third share in
slaveSlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation...
estates in
GrenadaGrenada is an island country and sovereign state consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. Grenada is located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the...
, using profits from the slave trade to build up his art collection (and also benefiting from Lloyd's underwriting of the
slave tradeThe Atlantic slave trade, also known as the transatlantic slave trade, was the trading, primarily of African people, to the colonies of the New World that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries...
).
John Julius Angerstein (1735- January 1823),
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
merchant,
Lloyd'sLloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance market. It serves as a meeting place where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk. Unlike most of its competitors in the reinsurance market, it...
under-writer, and patron of the fine arts, was born in St Petersburg,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and settled in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
in about 1749. It has wrongly been suggested that he was an illegitimate son of Catherine the Great or of Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, herself the illegitimate daughter of
Peter the GreatPeter I the Great or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov ruled Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his weak and sickly half-brother, Ivan V....
.
Life and art collection
In his role as a
merchantA merchant is a businessman who trades in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
he was said to own a third share in
slaveSlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation...
estates in
GrenadaGrenada is an island country and sovereign state consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. Grenada is located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the...
, using profits from the slave trade to build up his art collection (and also benefiting from Lloyd's underwriting of the
slave tradeThe Atlantic slave trade, also known as the transatlantic slave trade, was the trading, primarily of African people, to the colonies of the New World that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries...
). Angerstein was chairman of Lloyd's from 1790 to 1796 and counted King
George IIIGeorge III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...
, British
Prime MinisterA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The position is usually held by, but need not always be held by, a politician. In many systems, the prime minister selects and can dismiss other members of the cabinet, and...
William Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt, the Younger was a British politician of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
and artist Sir
Thomas LawrenceSir Thomas Lawrence RA was a notable English painter, mostly of portraits.He was born in Bristol. His father was an innkeeper, first at Bristol and afterwards at Devizes, and at the age of six Lawrence was already being shown off to the guests of the Bear as an infant prodigy who could sketch...
among his friends. Although a slave owner, he was also on the
Committee for the Relief of the Black PoorThe Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was a charitable organization founded in London in 1786 to provide sustenance for distressed people of African and Asian origin...
an organisation with strong
abolitionistAbolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical...
connections.
Among his earliest art purchases was
The Rape of the Sabines by
RubensSir Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality...
; later acquisitions included works by Rembrandt,
VelázquezDiego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
,
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, born 1473/1490 , died 27 August 1576, better known as Titian , was the leading painter of the 16th-century Venetian school of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno , in the Republic of Venice...
,
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings...
,
CorreggioAntonio Allegri da Correggio, usually known simply as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century...
and
HogarthWilliam Hogarth was a major English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from excellent realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral...
, plus early drawings by J.M.W. Turner. From the break-up in London of the
Orleans CollectionThe Orléans Collection was a very important collection of over 500 paintings formed by the French prince of the blood Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, mostly acquired between about 1700 and his death in 1723...
he bought
The Raising of Lazarus by
Sebastiano del PiomboSebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the Venetian...
and several other works. His collection of paintings, consisting of about forty of the most exquisite specimens of the art, purchased by the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
government, after his death, formed the nucleus of the
National GalleryThe National Gallery in London, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square...
. Until the National Gallery was built in
Trafalgar SquareTrafalgar Square is a square in central London, England. With its position in the heart of London, it is a tourist attraction; and one of the most famous squares in the United Kingdom and the world. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base...
, the works were displayed in Angerstein's town house in
Pall MallPall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, situated in SW1 and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a...
.
He lived for some years in
GreenwichGreenwich is a district in south-east London, England, on the south bank of the River Thames in the London Borough of Greenwich. It is best known for its maritime history and as giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time.The town became the site of a Royal palace, the...
in south-east London, leasing a estate from Sir
Gregory PageThree successive generations of the same English family were each named Gregory Page. A wealthy family whose fortune was not inherited but initially accumulated through trade, the Pages were strongly associated with the development of north-west Kent during the 18th century.-First...
in 1774 and over the next two years building a house,
WoodlandsWoodlands House is a Georgian villa, next door to Mycenae House, Mycenae Road, in the Westcombe Park area of the London Borough of Greenwich....
(designed by local
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
George Gibson). This area is now known as
Westcombe ParkThis article is about the London district. See Westcombe Park rugby club for details of the rugby club - now based in Orpington.Westcombe Park is a largely residential area in Blackheath in the London Borough of Greenwich, south-east London, England....
, part of a wide area on the north-eastern fringes of
BlackheathBlackheath is an area in southeast London, centred around a section of open public grassland and straddling the boundary of the London Borough of Lewisham and the London Borough of Greenwich. The focal point of Blackheath is its centre which is known as the Village...
that he sought to enclose in 1801. The house fell empty in 1870 when John's grandson William Angerstein relinquished the lease.
In 1806, Angerstein served as Vice-president of the newly formed
London InstitutionThe London Institution was an educational institution founded in London in 1806. It preceded the University of London in making scientific education widely available in the capital to people such as the Dissenters who adhered to non-orthodox religious beliefs and were consequently barred from...
. As an active churchgoer, he worshipped in Greenwich town centre at
St Alfege's ChurchSt Alfege Church is a Church of England place of worship in the town centre of Greenwich in the eponymous London Borough.-History:The church is dedicated to, and reputedly marks the place where Alfege , Archbishop of Canterbury, was killed by Viking raiders on 19 April 1012.The second church built...
- where he was also
churchwardenA churchwarden is a lay official in a parish church of the Anglican Communion, usually working as a part-time volunteer. Holders of these positions are ex officio members of the parish board, usually called a vestry, parish council, or parochial church council.-Responsibilities of...
.
Connections today
His family's connections with the borough are still remembered.
Angerstein Lane, near the heath at Blackheath, bears the family name. A public house,
The Angerstein Hotel, is on Woolwich Road, Greenwich, close to the Woolwich Road flyover (
Blackwall TunnelThe Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the London Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road...
A102 southern approach) - on the opposite side of which lies the
Angerstein Business Park (owned by
Greenwich Enterprise Board). Just behind this, is the
'Angerstein Railway Line' (in 2003 believed to be only used for commercial freight, mainly sea-dredged aggregate landed at
Angerstein WharfAngerstein Wharf is a marine construction aggregate and an associated cement facility located on the south bank of the Bugsby's Reach of the River Thames in the New Charlton area of London in the London Borough of Greenwich operated by the Cemex company...
) linking the peninsula at north Greenwich with the main railway network; as a result, an area of largely industrial land in between the lines to the east of the
A102 roadThe A102 is a road that starts in Clapton in the north London Borough of Hackney and ends in Kidbrooke in the south London Borough of Greenwich...
is sometimes referred to as the
'Angerstein Triangle'.
External links