Lancelot Dent was a 19th-century British merchant resident for a period in Canton, China who dealt primarily in opium. He was christened on August 4, 1799, in

Crosby Ravensworth Crosby Ravensworth is a village and civil parish in the Eden district of Cumbria, England. The village is about 4 miles (6.4 km) east of the M6 motorway, and Shap. At the 2001 census the parish had a population of 538, decreasing to 517 at ...

Westmorland Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland'';R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref> is a historic county in North West England spanning the southern Lake District and the northern Dales. It had an ...

, England, son of William and Jane (Wilkinson) Dent. Lancelot took over as senior partner of trading house Dent & Co. headquartered in Canton, when his brother Thomas departed the company in 1831. He had a powerful hold over some agency houses buying opium from the

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

auction, including

Carr, Tagore and Company Carr, Tagore and Company (also written as Carr, Tagore & Co.) was the first equal partnership between European and Indian businessmen and the initiator of the managing agency system in India. The company was launched in 1834 by Dwarakanath Tagore ...

, managed by

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

merchant

Dwarkanath Tagore Dwarkanath Tagore ( bn, দ্বারকানাথ ঠাকুর, ''Darokanath Ţhakur''; 1794–1846) was one of the first Indian industrialists to form an enterprise with British partners. He was the son of Ramlochon Tagore, the founder ...

. Together with Thomas, Lancelot commissioned construction of Flass House, now a grade two listed building in the

Palladian style Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

, on land inherited from their sister in England's northern Lake District. The property would remain in the Dent family until 1972, when it was sold to banker, historian and writer Frank Welsh. Lancelot and John Dent were consuls of Italy in Hong Kong. Lancelot had a son, John Dent Fish born 1828 in Macau, with Mary Colledge, the sister of Thomas Richardson Colledge. She later married Captain John Fish and her son adopted his stepfather's surname, but Lancelot was listed as the father in documents. Dent died in London on 28 November 1853 aged 54 and buried at St Lawrence's Church Crosby Ravensworth Cumbria

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dent, Lancelot 1853 deaths British expatriates in China British drug traffickers Year of birth missing People from Crosby Ravensworth

See also

References