The White Rock Copper Works Shares

Collection

Identifier: MSE/EM 3700

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection is composed of assignments of shares (documents recording the transfer of shares or capital in a financial cooperative) in an 18th century copper smelting cooperative in Bristol and Swansea, UK. Under various names - including the Thomas Coster and Co. (1736/7-1739), the Joseph Percivall and Copper Co. (1739-1764), and the John Freeman and Copper Co. (1764-) - the merchant cooperative operated the White Rock Copper Works, a copper... smelting firm in Pentrechwyth (near Swansea). For much of the 18th century, the White Rock Copper Works was one of the most important copper smelting works in the Swansea area, which at the time was the world center of non-ferrous metal smelting. This, paired with Bristol’s position as one of England’s hubs of international trade, led to the Copper Co.’s notable financial success.

The assignments of shares in this collection document the financial growth of the Copper Co. from its founding until 1787. It reflects the changes in controlling ownership of the Copper Co. from Thomas Coster (1686-1739), to Joseph Percivall (d. 1764), and John Freeman Sr. Each document lists the parties involved in full, including each member of the copper cooperative at the time of sale of the share(s) in question. Several shares in this collection were sold or purchased by women, namely the surviving widows or daughters of deceased members of the Copper Co.

Dates

Creation: 1737 - 1781

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

The White Rock Copper Works and the Global Slave Trade

The White Rock Copper Works was founded in Swansea in 1736/7 by Robert Hoblyn and initially operated by Thomas Coster and Co., a copper merchant cooperative from Bristol. At the time, copper smelting was an especially profitable business and, in fact, it was particularly profitable for Bristol merchants. This is due primarily to Bristol’s role as the “slave capital of England” and the global slave trade’s reliance upon copper products. During the... decades documented by this collection, Bristol (as part of Britain’s “Triangular Trade”) sent thousands of slave ships to Africa, which then brought enslaved Africans to the Americas and returned to Bristol laden both with their financial profits and goods produced by slave labor. Importantly, these ships were simultaneously outfitted with and used to sell copper products; not only were copper products sold as luxury goods to finance the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but copper rods were a favored currency used to purchase enslaved Africans in West Africa. In the West Indies, sugar plantations relied both on enslaved laborers and copper products to produce refined sugar. Similarly, the East India Trading Company sold Bristol copper products as luxury goods in the eastern markets, which funded their colonial control of the region. Each of these markets relied on copper-bottomed ships. Simply put, the 18th century Bristol copper industry, including the White Rock Copper Works and its various operators, is inextricably implicated in the global traffic of enslaved Africans. Although none of the documents in this collection mention the global slave trade, the increasing prices of the shares in this collection reveal that each of the merchants named in these documents profited significantly from the enslavement of African peoples.

Many of the partners in the Copper Co. profited from the global slave trade across multiple industries - not just copper smelting. A man named Samuel Munckley (1720-1801), for instance, is listed as a partner in the cooperative in twelve of the documents in this collection. Although his occupation is always listed as “merchant” in these documents, a more accurate description would be “slave-trader.” Samuel Munckley’s business interests were primarily in the slave trade, via the West Indies sugar industry, the copper smelting industry, and the trafficking of enslaved Africans from Africa to the West Indies. Another member of the copper cooperative, Isaac Hobhouse (d. 1763), was one of Bristol’s preeminent traffickers, with 68 recorded voyages on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade between 1722 and 1747.

For this reason, every member of the copper cooperative named in each assignment of shares in this collection have been listed in full at the item level. These documents record the financial legacy and industrial extent of both Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and British colonialism and, as such, the individuals named therein are a crucial part of that legacy. It is therefore essential that their participation in and profit from the Triangular Trade is recorded in this archive.

References

Day, Joan. The Costers: Copper-Smelters and Manufacturers. Excerpt Transactions 47 (1974-76): p: 47-58.

“Isaac Hobhouse.” Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146659087

“John Freeman and Copper Co.” Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History. https://gracesguide.co.uk/John_Freeman_and_Copper_Co

“Joseph Percivall and Copper Co.” Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History. https://gracesguide.co.uk/Joseph_Percivall_and_Copper_Co

Minchinton, Walter E., and Isaac Hobhouse. “The Virginia Letters of Isaac Hobhouse, Merchant of Bristol.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 66, no. 3 (1958): 278–301.

Papers of Samuel Munckley, ship owner and merchant of Bristol, 1720-1802, AC/MU, Bristol Archives.

Papers relating to the shipping activities of the Bristol firm of Samuel Munckley and Company, 1746-1779, 37671, Bristol Archives.

“Samuel Munckley.” Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146663903

“Suppliers to the trade.” Discovering Bristol: Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery. https://www.discoveringbristol.org.uk/slavery/people-involved/traders-merchants-planters/slave-economy/suppliers/

“White Rock Copper Works.” Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History. https://gracesguide.co.uk/White_Rock_Copper_Works