1817 letter+ remarkable business content + complete 2 month balance sheet £57833

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1817 letter, dated 15th November, from James Murray for McInroy, Parker & Co in Liverpool to partner company Sandbach, Tinne & Co (see note below) in Glasgow concerning a discrepancy in the partners' balance sheets (accounts relating to trade and shipping via Demerara/Guyana). In order to clarify the issue, the sender has included a summary of McInroy and Parkers previous 2 months balance sheet entries. His letter includes: "We have carefully compared your notes of entry & find they compare exactly with our Books, but have not been able to find out the difference between our Bal. sheets and therefore suspect you must have made some entry of which we got no advice. ... no notice taken in any of your notes of entry of the insurance by the Halifax packet, & which of course is entered by us in this month. To enable you to find out the difference, we annexe a note of all items entered in our Books for the last two months and in future, if you would compare your notes of entry with your own books, before sending them to us it might save time & trouble to both parties. Your ob servt, per McInroy Parker & Co, James Murray. On closer examination, the annexed balance sheet includes a wide range of fascinating items - e.g. "Misses Waddells passage ?per Demerary to Demerary: Pianoforte for ditto £57.10.0; Dresses for ditto £74.0.0; Bill for Millinery for ditto £19.5.1". Along with various other intriguing entries, the balance sheet also includes a detailed breakdown of coffee, sugar and cotton purchases in September and October 1817 and the ships by which these were transported. Balance sheet totals £57833.10.9. The cover is postmarked Glasgow 15th November 1817 and has a boxed "Addl. 1/2" halfpenny "wheel tax" in black with large "2". No hidden flaws - please see scans. Exploring Caribbean Shipping Company Records: The Case of Sandbach Tinne and Co. Sandbach Tinne & Co. (and the related companies and partnerships) was one of the major shipping companies working between Liverpool and Demerara in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. The records of and correspondence between Liverpool based Sandbach Tinne & Co., Glasgow based McInroy, Parker & Co, and of McInroy, Sandbach & Co., later Sandbach Parker & Co., of Demerara are dispersed and held in a number of institutions across the UK and in Guyana itself, including collections in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and Senate House Library, in the University of London, the Liverpool Record Office, National Museums Liverpool: Maritime Library and Archive, the Lancashire Record Office and the Guyana University Library. The principals of Sandbach Tinne and Co were to occupy important roles in Liverpool society, including Samuel Sandbach, who was elected Mayor of the City of Liverpool in 1831; and the younger Charles Stewart Parker, chairman of the New Exchange Building Committee, chairman of the Thames and Mersey Insurance Company, a director of the Liverpool and London and Globe Life and Fire Insurance Company, and a trustee for the Bluecoat Hospital. In Demerara, McInroy Sandbach and Co., were described as: “looked up to as the Rothschilds of Demerara, rich and influential. Many estates were heavily mortgaged to them, their whole business connected to the arrangements to which the mortgagers were strictly tied down. All the sugar must be shipped home in THEIR ships, under THEIR agency both here and at home, and so much every year; all plantation stores to be bought of THEM; and other pickings, highly profitable to the mortgagee, who got full rates and commissions: considerably more so than planting was to unfortunate mortgagers, who got about as much as would just keep them on their legs. Other produce such as coffee and cotton was subject to like conditions.” James McInroy arrived in Demerara, now part of Guyana, in 1782, and acquired a sugar plantation. In 1792 he was joined by Samuel Sandbach, Charles Stewart Parker, and George Robertson, as McInroy, Sandbach & Co., with a Glasgow office known as McInroy, Parker & Co. In 180... read more

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