Henry Smithers
Henry Smithers (Bapt. 7 August 1762 - 8 April 1828, Edge Hill, Lancashire) was an English shipowner based in Southwark, London. He was an active radical and abolitionist. He wrote poetry and a number of books on commerce and economics.
Henry was the son of Joseph Smithers and Martha (née Keene).[1] With Henry Keene he ran a coal merchants business in Clink Street.[1]
He was proposed for membership of the Society for Constitutional Information by Joseph Towers.[1] He was also active in the Revolution Society, serving as both steward (1788) and secretary (1789). He was a founding member of the Society of Ship-Owners of Great Britain in 1802. :250 He went into business with his son, John Hampden Smithers, but they were declared bankrupt in 1815.[1]
Smithers was an abolitionist and expressed these sentiments in his account of Liverpool, providing statistics on the increase in the slave trade during the eighteenth century.[3]
Works
- (1819) Observations Made During a Residence in Brussels Brussels: Self published
- (1825) Liverpool, its commerce, statistics, and institutions; with a history of the cotton trade, Liverpool: Thomas Kaye
References
- Pope, Ed. "Smithers". Ed Pope History. Ed Pope. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
- "Account of the Liverpool slave trade". The British Library. British Library. Retrieved 25 January 2020.