Sir Charles Asgill, 1st Baronet

Sir Charles Asgill, 1st Baronet (17 March 1714 – 15 September 1788), merchant banker, was the third son of Henry Asgill, silkman, of St Clement Danes, Middlesex and was educated at Westminster School.

Asgill's Bank

Apprenticed to the banking house of William Pepys & Co. he later became a partner in the firm of Vere and Asgill, bankers of Lombard Street in 1740. In the early 1700s private banks operated from private houses. The first purpose-built bank in the City was Asgills at 70 Lombard Street, designed by Robert Taylor in 1757 (demolished in 1915), which set a pattern from there on in.

Asgill’s Bank traces its origins to the goldsmithing business of Glegg & Vere, formed in Lombard Street, London, in about 1730. When Glegg died, Joseph Vere took Charles Asgill into partnership and the firm was renamed Vere & Asgill in 1740. Vere left the partnership in 1753, when he became senior partner in the new bank of Vere, Glyn & Hallifax. The firm was known as Sir Charles Asgill, Nightingale & Wickenden in 1765; Asgill, Nightingale & Nightingale in 1775. It became John, William & George Nightingale in 1789, the year after Asgill’s death. In 1791 the name of John Nightingale disappeared from the firm, and the business was conducted by William and George Nightingale until 1796, when it became extinct, having probably suspended payment during the great panic. In 1797 the premises, at 70 Lombard Street, were acquired by Pelican and British Empire Life Insurance Company.

Civic duties

Asgill was Alderman of Candlewick Ward (1749–1771) and was also Master of the Skinners Company (1749), a Governor of Bridewell Royal Hospital (1743–1750), where his friend, the banker Sir Richard Glyn, was President. Sheriff of the City of London (1753) and Lord Mayor of London (1757–1758).

Possibly with a view to Asgill’s noted disapproval of the war with America in mind, Patience Wright wrote, in a letter to Benjamin Franklin, sometime after 7 March 1777: "A letter to Sir Charl Asgall on the afairs of stocks, a Letter from The Emperor fGermany or Some truths Properly Stated to the alldmen in London And a Letter to Ld. Temple or G rge Germain would at this time have a blessed good effect". Wright (1725 – 1786) was a sculptor of wax figures, and the first recognized American-born sculptor. An avowed patriot, she is known to have corresponded with Benjamin Franklin during the war, sending letters reporting on the health of his illegitimate son, William and advocating on behalf of American prisoners of war in England.

Asgill was created a Baronet on 17 April 1761

Commissions given to Robert Taylor

Sir Robert Taylor, the sculptor and architect who designed Asgill House (on part of the former site of Richmond Palace) designed this for him as a weekend and holiday villa, his London residence being in Portman Square. Taylor also designed the Lord Mayor’s State Coach, still in use today, and this was built for Asgill's inauguration in 1757. His bank in Lombard Street was also designed by Taylor.

The ''Oxford Journal'' states that Asgill's Portman Square home: "sold...for 13,000l" in 1812 £948,388 in 2021 and it had been "built by Sir Robert Taylor for Sir Charles Asgill, and, except the Richmond Villa for the same Sir Charles, was one of the prettiest he ever built."
Asgill also occupied 15 St James's Square from 1768–73, which had been altered by Taylor for Peter du Cane. A 1930s building, which replaced this original home, was converted into office space and residential duplex apartments. The three duplexes created were named after the historic owners of this property: Timbrell, Asgill and Alban.

When Taylor attended Asgill’s funeral on 21 September 1788 at St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, London, (demolished in 1840), he caught a chill and died six days later, on 27 September 1788.

Family life

Asgill married (1st) Hannah Vanderstegen on 16 June 1752, and, following her death in 1754, he married (2nd) Sarah Theresa Pratviel, on 12 December 1755.

Katherine Mayo states that "Asgill’s character showed the Westminster hallmark. A man of staunch intellectual honesty and breadth of mind, he was open of heart and hand wherever his sympathies were touched. In politics he was a militant Whig. His resentment of the attitude of King and Ministry towards the American Colonies amounted to a passion; and he refused a peerage offered him, it was said, in the hope of shifting his influence. In his marriage he was fortunate. nown as SarahTheresa Pratviel was the daughter of a wealthy French Huguenot émigré. Sparkling with energy and imagination and noted for her charm, she shared her husband's humanitarian and political ideas; and the two enjoyed as household friends some of the first Whig lights of the day— statesmen, publicists, men of letters".

Death and legacy

The dance tune, "Asgill's Rant", was composed at the end of the British credit crisis of 1772-1773, when Asgill was 59 years old. Due to the fact that the British were forced to introduce controversial legislation for the colonies, in an attempt to remedy the crisis, this then became one of the causes of the American Revolutionary War."Tea and Antipathy"
''American Heritage''

Asgill's obituary in the ''Gentleman's Magazine'' stated that "he was a strong instance of what may be effected even by moderate abilities, when united with strict integrity, industry and irreproachable character."
Asgill, who died leaving a large fortune, was succeeded by his only son Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet, a general in the Army. Asgill also had five daughters, only two, (Amelia Angelina Colvile and Caroline Augusta Legge) still living at the time of the death of his widow, Dame Sarah Asgill, on 6 June 1816. Dame Sarah was well known for her intervention with the French court of King Louis XVI, pleading for the release of their son from execution in 1782, as a consequence of the Asgill Affair.

References

Sources

* Corporation of London Record Office:
:* City Freedom papers for June 1737 for Charles Asgill;
:* A. B. Beaven, ''The Aldermen of the City of London;''
* Skinners' Company Freedom Admissions 1724–1764;
* Burke, ''Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies'';
* G. E. Cokayne, ''Complete Baronetage'';
* ''Musgrave's Obituaries'';
* ''Boyd's London Burials'' ''1538-1853.''
* Bridewell Royal Hospital: Minutes of Court of Governors.

Further reading

External links

Asgill's bank at 70 Lombard Street

''Charles Asgill - setting the record straight''
in Family Tree, on 7 March 2022.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asgill, Charles, 1st Baronet
1714 births
1788 deaths
People educated at Westminster School, London
Baronets in the Baronetage of Great Britain
Sheriffs of the City of London
18th-century lord mayors of London