William Cotton FRS (12 September 1786 – 1 December 1866) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

inventor, merchant, philanthropist, and

Governor of the Bank of England The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...

from 1842 to 1845.

Life

Cotton was born in

Leytonstone Leytonstone () is an area in east London, England, north-east of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest, a local authority district of Greater London. It adjoins Wanstead to the north-east, Forest Gate to the south-east, ...

, the son of

Joseph Cotton Joseph Cotton Jah Walton (born Silbert Walton, 1957, St. Ann, Jamaica) is a reggae singer active since the mid-1970s. Biography After spending a year working in the Jamaican police force, Walton turned to recording, initially working with J ...

, who made his fortune as a Captain with 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 South ...

and was later Deputy Master of

Trinity House "Three In One" , formation = , founding_location = Deptford, London, England , status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity , purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons , he ...

in 1803, and a director of the

. He was educated at the nearby Chigwell Grammar School. His brother, John Cotton, later became a director and chairman of the East India Company. In 1807 Cotton became a partner in the cordage manufacturers Huddart & Co., in

Limehouse Limehouse is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. It is east of Charing Cross, on the northern bank of the River Thames. Its proximity to the river has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains through ...

. He was later general manager, until 1838. He became governor of the Bank of England in 1842, with the usual term of two years being extended to three in recognition of his securing a new charter for the bank with the passage of the 1844 Bank Charter Act. During his time at the bank, he developed a machine for the weighing of

gold sovereign The sovereign is a British gold coin with a nominal value of one pound sterling (£1) and contains 0.2354 troy oz of pure gold. Struck since 1817, it was originally a circulating coin that was accepted in Britain and elsewhere in the wor ...

s, which was capable of weighing twenty-three coins every minute to an accuracy of one ten-thousandth of a grain. He was a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

from 1821. He served as

High Sheriff of Essex The High Sheriff of Essex was an ancient sheriff title originating in the time of the Angles, not long after the invasion of the Kingdom of England, which was in existence for around a thousand years. On 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the ...

in 1838. In his lifetime Cotton was active in funding Canon

Nathaniel Woodard Nathaniel Woodard (; 21 March 1811 – 25 April 1891) was a priest in the Church of England. He founded 11 schools for the middle classes in England whose aim was to provide education based on "sound principle and sound knowledge, firmly groun ...

's national network of

Woodard Schools Woodard Schools is a group of Anglican schools (both primary and secondary) affiliated to the Woodard Corporation (formerly the Society of St Nicolas) which has its origin in the work of Nathaniel Woodard, a Church of England priest in the Anglo- ...

, and passive in the funding and establishment of new churches throughout the East End of London. He died on 1 December 1866 at Walwood House in Leytonstone.A. C. Howe, ‘Cotton, William (1786–1866)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 200
accessed 17 March 2017
/ref>

Family

In 1812 he married Sarah Lane, a daughter of Thomas Lane of

Leyton Grange Leyton Grange, in Leyton, east London, is the second most deprived area of the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It include an estate that consists of a 10-storey tower and ten 4-storey courts owned by Forest Homes (see list below). Leyton Grang ...

. Their son William Charles Cotton was a clergyman and apiarist;

Sarah Acland Sarah, Lady Acland ( Cotton; 21 July 1815 – 25 October 1878) was the wife of Sir Henry Acland, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford. She was a socialite and philanthropist. After her death, the Sarah Acland Home was esta ...

did good works; another son was the eminent jurist Henry Cotton and his sixth child,

Agnes Cotton Agnes Cotton (27 February 1828 – 20 May 1899) was an English social reformer and philanthropist. She founded and ran a home in Leytonstone for ' fallen girls' called The Pastures. Early life Cotton was born in Leytonstone to the banker Will ...

, was a philanthropist.Mary Clare Martin, ‘Cotton, Agnes (1828–1899)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 17 March 2017
/ref>

References

External links

* * *
Everybody's Guide to Money Matters
a
chestofbooks.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotton, William 1786 births 1866 deaths People educated at Chigwell School 19th-century British inventors English businesspeople Fellows of the Royal Society Philanthropists from London High Sheriffs of Essex People from Leytonstone Governors of the Bank of England Deputy Governors of the Bank of England 19th-century British businesspeople Nathaniel Cotton family