Sir Francis Child the younger ( 1684 – 1740), of the Marygold, by Temple Bar, and

Osterley Park Osterley Park and House is a Georgian country estate in west London, that straddles the London boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. Originally dating from the 1570s, the estate contains a number of Grade I and II listed buildings, with the park l ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

, was a British

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

from 1722 to 1740. He was

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...

in 1731.

Early life

Child was the son of Sir Francis Child. He was probably born in 1684, as the record of his admission to the freedom of the city of London is dated 12 March 1705. On the death of his elder brother, Sir Robert Child, in 1721, Child became the head of the banking firm, which was then carried on under the style of Francis Child & Co. He was also elected on 10 October of the same year to succeed his brother and father as aldermen of the ward of

Farringdon Without __NOTOC__ Farringdon Without is the most westerly Ward of the City of London, its suffix ''Without'' reflects its origin as lying beyond the City's former defensive walls. It was first established in 1394 to administer the suburbs west of Ludgat ...

, and the following year he became

Sheriff of London Two sheriffs are elected annually for the City of London by the Liverymen of the City livery company, livery companies. Today's sheriffs have only nominal duties, but the historical officeholders had important judicial responsibilities. They have ...

, with Alderman

Humphrey Parsons Humphrey Parsons ( – ) was an English merchant and Tories (British political party), Tory politician who twice served as Lord Mayor of London in 1730 and 1740. He also sat in the House of Commons of Great Britain, British House of Commons from ...

as his colleague.

Career

In 1722, Child served the office of master of the

Goldsmiths' Company The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, commonly known as the Goldsmiths' Company and formally titled The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Goldsmiths of the City of London, is one of the Great Twelve Livery Companies of the City of Londo ...

and was elected

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 of ...

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 fr ...

at the 1722 general election. At the 1727 general election, he was elected one of the MPs for

and was also returned at the succeeding election in

1734 Events January– March * January 8 – Salzburgers, Lutherans who were expelled by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salzburg, Austria, in October 1731, set sail for the British Colony of Province of Georgia, Georgia in North America ...

. Child purchased in 1726 an estate at Northall for £19,501, which now forms part of the

Osterley Osterley () is an affluent district of the historic parish of Isleworth in west London approximately from Charing Cross and is part of the London Borough of Hounslow. Most of its land use is mixed agricultural and aesthetic parkland at Osterl ...

estate. From 1727 to 1740, he was president of

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...

, and his portrait is preserved in the boardroom of that institution; another portrait, painted in his robes as lord mayor, is to be found at

. In 1729, Child introduced a new form of promissory note with a picture of Temple Bar in the left-hand corner. These were worded very similarly to the Bank of England notes of the present day and were discontinued, as Mr. F. G. H. Price considers, before 1800. Child became Lord Mayor in 1731 and appointed as his chaplain Dr. John Middleton, rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill. Towards the close of his mayoralty, on 28 September of the following year, he attended with the court of aldermen, sheriffs, and other officials to congratulate George II on his safe return from Hanover. On this occasion, the king conferred the honour of knighthood upon the lord mayor, Alderman John Barnard, and Alderman Henry Hankey, one of the sheriffs. Child was elected a director of 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 Southea ...

in the year of his mayoralty and was re-elected in 1732.

Death and legacy

Child died on 20 April 1740, and was buried at

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

on 28 April.

Notes

References

18th-century lord mayors of London 1680s births 1740 deaths Year of birth uncertain Directors of the British East India Company English bankers Francis 2 {{Lord-Mayor-of-London-stub