Richard Chauncey or Chauncy (1690--1760) was a London merchant who was four times the Deputy-Chairman of the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
and three times the Chairman.
Life
Chauncey was born into a well-to-do Northamptonshire family which had owned the
Edgcote
Edgcote is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Chipping Warden and Edgcote, in the West Northamptonshire district, in the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, England. It is situated on the River Cherwell. The parish was ...
estate in South Northamptonshire since 1543. His father, Richard Chauncy, Sr. (d. 1734), was a Mercer and Freeman of London and the son of Tobias and Bridget Chauncy. Richard, Jr. became a London cloth merchant with an interest in East India merchant ships.
He was also a partner in the business of Chauncey and Vigne, gunpowder merchants.
Already owning a gunpowder mill at
Oare, Kent, he leased the Kingsmill at
Faversham
Faversham () is a market town in Kent, England, from Sittingbourne, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2 road (Great ...
in 1754.
Chauncey was a director of the East India Company from 1737 to 1754. He was made
Deputy-Chairman in 1747, 1749, 1752 and 1754 and
Chairman
The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...
in 1748, 1750 and 1753.
He died in 1760.
Legacy
In 1742 Chauncey inherited the Edgcote estate and commissioned architect William Jones (died 1757) to build a new mansion.
Edgcote House was built between 1747 and 1752 and is now a
Grade I listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
.
Family
Chauncey was the maternal uncle of
Chauncy Townsend, MP, the son of his sister Elizabeth by her husband Jonathan Townsend. His widow Elizabeth's death was reported in 1762.
His eldest son William married the eldest daughter of Josiah Wordsworth, in 1757.
William Henry inherited Edgcote; then on his death without an heir it passed to his sister, Anna Maria.
See also
*
List of East India Company directors
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chaucey, Richard
1760 deaths
18th-century British merchants
Directors of the British East India Company
People from Northamptonshire