Thomas Hope (1704-1779)

Thomas Hope (1704, Rotterdam - 26 December 1779, Amsterdam) was a Dutch banker and administrator of the VOC.

Family

The Hope family originally came from Scotland. Archibald Hope, the father of Thomas, was a Quaker who had eight sons. Archibald - along with his eldest son Archibald Jr.- played a principal part in trade in Rotterdam around 1720. His second eldest son Henry (later father of Henry Hope) went to seek riches in the United States. Younger sons Isaac and Zacharias remained in Rotterdam, where as ship-owners they organized the 1735 transatlantic crossing by the Swiss Mennonite emigrants to Pennsylvania. Archibald and second youngest brother Thomas moved to Amsterdam.

Life

In 1726, Thomas and his brother Archibald founded the trade and banking house Hope & Co. When the business was successful in trade with England, America and the West Indies, their younger brother Adrian joined them. The stadholders William IV and William V (1766) appointed Thomas Hope as their representative with the VOC and the WIC. Thomas Hope came up with a system of cost calculation.

Thomas Hope is considered as a possible author of the Proposition: a proposal at the Parliament of the Netherlands in 1751 to improve Holland's diminishing trade position through abolition of the export tax and lowering import tax. The proposal did not take up considerable time on the agenda, but was enacted by other countries.

The Hope brothers' business affairs (like those of many others) flourished for many reasons, including loans for the war between England and France (1756-1763). In 1758, Thomas bought Mattheus Lestevenon's (then Dutch ambassador in France) attractive building at Keizersgracht 444-446. In 1759, the Hope business had 26 co-workers. The next-door house at 448 was bought in 1763 for Henry Hope, the nephew from America. In 1763 many Amsterdam businesses went bust when the Brothers De Neufville could not pay their creditors, resulting in an international financial crisis (Isaac de Pinto, for example, got into difficulties and had to give up his house), but Hope & Co. continued to flourish through loans and share dealing.

Other residents of Keizersgracht 444

*Mattheus Lestevenon
*Adriaan van der Hoop

Literature

*Elias, J.E. (1903-1905, herdruk 1963) De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, 2 delen.