Sir Peter Meyer ( – 9 January 1728) was a major

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 ...

merchant in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

trade, merchant banker and a co-owner of the leading London

international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy) In most countries, such trade represents a significant ...

firm Meyer & Berenberg. Meyer was born in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

; his family was from the

Duchy of Holstein The Duchy of Holstein (german: Herzogtum Holstein, da, Hertugdømmet Holsten) was the northernmost state of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the present German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It originated when King Christian I of Denmark had his ...

. The son of the Hamburg merchant Jacob Meyer, he settled in London, became an English citizen in 1691 and was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

St James's Palace St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Altho ...

on 9 October 1714. He owned

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

s on

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

, a

sugar refinery A sugar refinery is a refinery which processes raw sugar from cane or beets into white refined sugar. Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, which is sugar that still contains molasses, giving it more colour (and impurities) than the white ...

in London and the estate

Poynter's Grove Poynter's Grove, sometimes known as Pointers Grove or Poynters Hall, was a house that once existed in Totteridge, north London. The house was originally in the ownership of Sir Richard Gurney, a royalist in the English Civil War and Lord Mayor ...

in Totteridge. In 1697, he married Sarah Anna Berenberg (1665-), the sister of his business partner John Henry Berenberg. She was a member of the

Berenberg family The Berenberg family (Dutch for "bear mountain") was a Flemish-origined Hanseatic family of merchants, bankers and senators in Hamburg, with branches in London, Livorno and other European cities. The family was descended from the brothers Hans a ...

and a descendant of the

Amsinck Amsinck is a Dutch people, Dutch-origined patrician (post-Roman Europe), patrician family whose members were prominent merchants in multiple countries including the Netherlands, Hamburg, Portugal, England, France, Kingdom of Hanover, Hanover, Ho ...

family. His wife was a great-granddaughter of Hans Berenberg (1561–1626), co-founder of

Berenberg Bank Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a multinational full-service investment bank based in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded by the Flemish Berenberg family in 1590 () and ...

.Die Berenberg-Gossler
" in: ''Vierteljahrsschrift für Heraldik, Sphragistik und Genealogie'', Vol. 9, 1881 They were the parents of the London merchant Peter Meyer (died 1756), who married Sarah; Paul, Rudolph, Elizabeth Meyer, who married her relative William

(who had become an English citizen in 1711) and Sarah, who married the Hamburg merchant Paul Heeger (died 1731). Their first child, Johan Heinrich, died young; he was baptised in 1698 and buried in 1699. He died in 1728, aged 64. He was buried at

Totteridge Totteridge is a residential area and former village in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is a mixture of suburban development and open land (including some farmland) situated 8 miles (13 km) north north-west of Charing Cross. It ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

(now

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

)) . His monument is in the churchyard of that parish, to the north of the church. At the north end are the Meyer and Berenberg arms.

Arms

These Arms are the Right of Sir Peter Meyer, Knt. and Citizen of London, and his Descendents: :''Argent, on a Mount a Savage in a walking Posture, about his Head and Waist Oak Leaves, in his Right-Hand a Club resting on his Shoulder, his Left-Hand on his Hip between two Oaks proper.''John Warburton, ''London and Middlesex Illustrated: By a True and Explicit Account of the Names, Residence, Genealogy, and Coat Armour of the Nobility, Principal Merchants, and Other Eminent Families'', C. and J. Ackers, 1749

References

External links

Will of Sir Peter Meyer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, Peter Merchants from the British West Indies Businesspeople from London Knights Bachelor 1728 deaths Date of birth missing St Andrew's church, Totteridge Sugar plantation owners Businesspeople from Hamburg Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire Immigrants to England