John Julius Angerstein

John Julius Angerstein (1735- January 1823), London merchant, Lloyd's under-writer, and patron of the fine arts, was born in St Petersburg, Russia and settled in London in about 1749. It has wrongly been suggested that he was an illegitimate son of Catherine the Great or of Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, herself the illegitimate daughter of Peter the Great.

Life and art collection

In his role as a merchant he was said to own a third share in slave estates in Grenada, using profits from the slave trade to build up his art collection (and also benefiting from Lloyd's underwriting of the slave trade). Angerstein was chairman of Lloyd's from 1790 to 1796 and counted King George III, British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and artist Sir Thomas Lawrence among his friends. Although a slave owner, he was also on the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor an organisation with strong abolitionist connections.

Among his earliest art purchases was "The Rape of the Sabines" by Rubens; later acquisitions included works by Rembrandt, Velázquez, Titian, Raphael, Correggio and Hogarth, plus early drawings by J.M.W. Turner. His collection of paintings, consisting of about forty of the most exquisite specimens of the art, purchased by the British government, after his death, formed the nucleus of the National Gallery. Until the National Gallery was built in Trafalgar Square, the works were displayed in Angerstein's town house in Pall Mall.

He lived for some years in Greenwich in south-east London, leasing a 54 acre plot of land from Sir Gregory Page in 1774 and over the next two years building a house, Woodlands (designed by local architect George Gibson). [Rhind, N. (1983) Blackheath Village & Environs, 1790-1970, Vol 2 (Bookshop Blackheath, London), p. 274.] This area is now known as Westcombe Park, part of a wide area on the north-eastern fringes of Blackheath that he sought to enclose in 1801.

An active churchgoer, Angerstein worshipped in Greenwich town centre at St Alfege's Church - where he was also churchwarden.

Connections today

In 1972, his house, now owned by the local council, the London Borough of Greenwich, opened - appropriately enough - as an art gallery, the Woodlands Art Gallery. (In 2006, the Gallery was closed for prolonged periods; the council was seeking new funding for the adjacent Mycenae House and redevelopment of the buildings.)

His family's connections with the borough are still remembered. Angerstein Lane, near the heath at Blackheath, bears the family name. A public house, "The Angerstein Hotel", is on Woolwich Road, Greenwich, close to the Woolwich Road flyover (Blackwall Tunnel A102 southern approach) - on the opposite side of which lies the Angerstein Business Park (owned by [http://www.geb.co.uk Greenwich Enterprise Board] ). Just behind this, is the 'Angerstein Railway Line' (in 2003 believed to be only used for commercial freight, mainly sea-dredged aggregate landed at Angerstein Wharf) linking the peninsula at north Greenwich with the main railway network; as a result, an area of largely industrial land in between the lines to the east of the A102 road is sometimes referred to as the 'Angerstein Triangle'.

Notes and references

*1911