Sir William Warren

4 Annotations

First Reading

vincent  •  Link

From Mary: William Warren (later Sir William)was a timber merchant based at Wapping and Rotherhithe; he was to have a long, working association with Pepys.
Mary on Tue 30 Dec 2003, 7:42 am |

Pauline  •  Link

From the L&M Companion:
knighted 1661 (1624-?). Timber merchant, of Wapping and Rotherhithe; Master of the Drapers' Company 1668-9. The greatest of comtemporary timber merchants, dealing in home supplies but prinicpally with the Baltic, and also (for masts) with New England. He was Pepys's mentor in the '60s in business matters genenrally as well as in the timber trade. The 'firm league' they made over contracts was one of the main sources Of Pepys's prosperity, though he claimed to have held Warren strictly to the public interest. Its effect was to give Warren a virtual monopoly in supplies to the Navy Board from about 1664. To that charge, made first by his rivals and later by the Brooke House Committee, Pepys's reply was that Warren gave the best bargain and that it was no part of the Board's duties to spread its favours. His accounts with the Board for the war of 1665-7 were not settled for some years. In 1675 an official investigation under the auspices of the Lord Treasurer revealed that Warren owed the government over L44,000, mostly in unpaid freight charges, insurance premiums and uncleared imprests. The account was dischareged in 1679 when L6,500, the last instalment of his debt, was paid to the Duke of Monmouth and Visount Latimer to whom the government had granted it. He suffered some reverses in the later part o his career from trading losses and two fires in his timber yard, and in Aug. 1688 appealed to Pepys to have him made a Navy Commissioner. But he was still trading in 1689-90.

He had married Joan Mortimer in 1652 in St Olave's parish, and his son William (d.1699) married into the great trading dynasty of the Ingrams. He had houses attached to his timber yards at Wapping and, after 1665, at Rotherhithe, and country property at Albridge, Essex. He appear to have been a prominent Anabaptist.

Second Reading

GrannieAnnie  •  Link

Seeing the note that he was involved with shipping timber from New England, I wonder if he was any relation to the Richard Warren who was a London merchant and a Pilgrim on the Mayflower ship to America. Not much is known of Richard Warren except he had a huge family, all girls except one son, and most of the people related today to the Mayflower ancestors are related to Richard Warren.

Bill  •  Link

Charles II., April 12. 1662, knighted a rich tradesman of Wapping, named William Warren. Le Neve says he was "a great builder of ships for King Charles II." And there is still in that parish a place called "Sir William Warren's Square," built on the site of the knight's residence.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

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