Sir James Houblon (1629 – ''circa'' 26 October 1700) was an influential

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

and

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. James was baptised at St Mary Woolchurch Haw Church in London on 26 July 1629, the second son of James Houblon, a prosperous merchant and Mary, the daughter of

Jean du Quesne, the Younger Jean du Quesne, the younger (1575–1612) was the son of Jean Du Quesne, the elder, a particularly well-documented Huguenot refugee from Flanders. Of noble extraction, Jean Du Quesne the elder escaped to England during the reign of Queen Elizabe ...

of London and Canterbury. Both parents were descended from French

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

immigrants.HOUBLON, Sir James (1629-1700), of Winchester Street, London, and Leyton, Essex
/ref> He invested heavily in the

East India East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magad ...

and Iberian trades, specialising in the import of Port wine. He held appointments in the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

and the Levant Company. With his younger brother John, he was instrumental in establishing the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government o ...

and was a director from the founding of the bank in 1692. He was elected an

Alderman An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members ...

of the City of London in 1692, and was knighted shortly afterwards. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for the City in July 1698. James was a friend of

Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...

, and through him,

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's diary, or m ...

.Houblon, Lady Alice Archer (1907
''The Houblon Family: Its Story and Times: Volume I''
Archibald Constable and Company Limited, London (pp. 200-225)

References

1629 births 1700 deaths English bankers 17th-century English businesspeople {{England-pre1707-MP-stub