{{Short description|English Quaker businessman (1786–1863)}} thumb|Jonathan Priestman '''Jonathan Priestman''' (1786–1863) was an English Quaker businessman and minister in Newcastle upon Tyne. He was a major shareholder in the Consett Iron Company,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Newcastle upon Tyne Council |title=Newcastle Council Reports |date=1889 |page=vi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7BZMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PR36-IA6 |language=en}}</ref> a director of the Great North of England Railway,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tomlinson |first1=William Weaver |title=The North Eastern Railway : its rise and development |date=1914 |publisher=Reid |location=Newcastle-upon-Tyne |page=291 note |url=https://archive.org/details/northeasternrail00tomluoft/page/291/mode/1up}}</ref> and one of the founders of the Northumberland and Durham District Bank that failed in 1857.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=Maberly |title=A History of Banks, Bankers, & Banking in Northumberland, Durham, and North Yorkshire: Illustrating the Commercial Development of the North of England, from 1755 to 1894, with Numerous Portraits, Facsimiles of Notes, Signatures, Documents, &c |date=1894 |publisher=E. Wilson & Company |page=281 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GlnRDjeaHCsC&pg=PA281 |language=en}}</ref> He was the father of the reformers Margaret Tanner and Anna Maria Priestman, and father-in-law of the Radical politician John Bright.
==Life== He was born on 29 April 1786 at Malton, North Yorkshire, a younger son of David Priestman and his wife Elizabeth Taylor, a Quaker minister.<ref name="Foster">{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=Joseph |title=The Pedigree of Wilson of High Wray & Kendal, and the families connected with them |date=1871 |publisher=private circulation |page=54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VEwWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA54 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Boyce1">{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker Family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Company |page=96 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWnBaEmOuVcC&pg=PA96 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Holton162">{{cite journal |last1=Holton |first1=Sandra Stanley |title=Family Memory, Religion and Radicalism: the Priestman, Bright and Clark Kinship Circle of Women Friends and Quaker History |journal=Quaker Studies |date=March 2005 |volume=9 |issue=2 |page=162 |url=https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1017&context=quakerstudies}}</ref><ref name="BoyceAppF">{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker Family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Company |page=265 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWnBaEmOuVcC&pg=PA265 |language=en}}</ref>
Priestman was educated at Ackworth School in 1800–1801.<ref name="Boyce1"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ackworth School |title=List of the Boys and Girls Admitted Into Ackworth School During the 100 Years from 18th of 10th Month, 1779, to the Centenary Celebration on the 27th of 6th Month, 1879, Compiled from the Official Registers |date=1879 |publisher=Centenary Committee, Ackworth School |page=49 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rhw4AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA49 |language=en}}</ref> He was an apprentice in the family tanning business in Malton.<ref name="Holton162"/>
==Tanning business== David Priestman was the fifth of seven sons of John Priestman (born 1708), who learned tanning from William Richardson of Ayton in Cleveland, and his wife Ann Marshall of Aislaby. His sister Hannah married Henry Richardson (1740–1808) of Whitby.<ref name="BoyceAppF"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Co. |location=London |pages=xiv and 84 |url=https://archive.org/details/recordsofquakerf00boyc/page/n341/mode/1up}}</ref>
Henry's brother John Richardson (1733–1800), a strict Quaker preferring to associate with others of the Society of Friends, had a tannery, in the Low Lights area of North Shields, near the staithes for coal.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker Family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Company |page=69 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWnBaEmOuVcC&pg=PA69 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="RT">{{cite web |title=Richardson's Tannery |url=https://www.twsitelines.info/SMR/2051 |website=twsitelines.info|date=26 May 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Newcastle upon Tyne Council |title=Newcastle Council Reports |date=1848 |page=59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2v5LAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA59 |language=en}}</ref> He was the father of the minister George Richardson, the fourth son.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=23554|first=K. D.|last=Reynolds|title=Richardson, George (1773–1862)}}</ref>
John Richardson's tanyard passed on to his son Henry (died 1827), who adopted some of the orphaned children of the marriage of his sister Elizabeth (died 1820) to Joseph Procter (died 1817), so that the business came into the Procter family.<ref name="RT"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Co. |location=London |page=71 |url=https://archive.org/details/recordsofquakerf00boyc/page/n96/mode/1up}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Richardson |first1=George |title=The Annals of the Cleveland Richardsons and Their Descendants, Compiled from Family Manuscripts, Etc |date=1850 |publisher=Privately printed |pages=65–66 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AN9rAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA65 |language=en}}</ref> Other family members developed a Newcastle tannery, in the Newgate area.<ref name="RT"/>
Jonathan Priestman moved to Newcastle in 1808, to work as a tanner with his Richardson cousins.<ref name="Holton162"/><ref name="Steel">{{cite book |last1=Steel |first1=John William |title=A Historical Sketch of the Society of Friends "in Scorn Called Quakers" in Newcastle and Gateshead, 1653-1898 |date=1899 |publisher=Headley Brothers |pages=153–154 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uJabWgv005sC&pg=PA153 |language=en}}</ref> Around 1812 Priestman went into partnership with William Richardson, as leather dressers.<ref>{{cite web |title=Printed statement concerning the forthcoming partnership of William Richardson and Jonathan Priestman, leather dressers |url=https://calmview.twmuseums.org.uk/calmview/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=Acc161%2f351-352 |website=calmview.twmuseums.org.uk}}</ref> William Richardson (born 1771) was the third son of John Richardson, and married as his first wife Sarah Priestman of York.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Richardson |first1=George |title=The Annals of the Cleveland Richardsons and Their Descendants, Compiled from Family Manuscripts, Etc |date=1850 |publisher=Privately printed |page=64 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AN9rAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA64 |language=en}}</ref> In 1827 Richardson & Priestman were in business at 66a Newgate Street, Newcastle, as tanners and other trades.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Parson |first1=William |title=History, directory, and gazetteer of the counties of Durham and Northumberland, by W. Parson and W. White |date=1827 |page=70 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YAsHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA70 |language=en}}</ref> In 1834, Priestman's bark mill on Low Friar Street, making the tanning agent, burned down.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Low Friar Street, Co-Curate |url=https://co-curate.ncl.ac.uk/low-friar-street/history/ |website=co-curate.ncl.ac.uk}}</ref>
A ''Tanneries Directory'' for 1867 shows Priestman & Son in Newcastle, J. & J. Priestman in Malton, and John Richardson Procter at Lowlights, North Shields, with Edward & James Richardson at Elswick.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Tanneries directory of England |date=1867 |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2tkNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA12 |language=en}}</ref>
==Later life== In 1848 Priestman bought Benwell House.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Greaves |first1=Ian |title=Lost Country Houses of the North East |date=15 March 2024 |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |isbn=978-1-3981-0688-8 |page=95 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pp_6EAAAQBAJ&pg=PT95 |language=en}}</ref>
==Banking== At the time of the panic of 1857, the Northumberland & Durham District Bank, in which Priestman was one of the founding shareholders in 1836, suffered suspension of payments and financial collapse. There were major repercussions for local industry, and in the Quaker community.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Donnell |first1=Elizabeth |title=Deviating from the Path of Safety: The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth Century Quaker Meeting |journal=Quaker Studies |date=28 October 2014 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=75–76 |url=https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerstudies/vol8/iss1/5 |issn=1363-013X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=Maberly |title=A History of Banks, Bankers, & Banking in Northumberland, Durham, and North Yorkshire: Illustrating the Commercial Development of the North of England, from 1755 to 1894, with Numerous Portraits, Facsimiles of Notes, Signatures, Documents, &c |date=1894 |publisher=E. Wilson & Company |page=335 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GlnRDjeaHCsC&pg=PA335 |language=en}}</ref>
Priestman then played a part in transitional arrangements. Initially a private bank trading as Hawks, Grey, Priestman & Co. was set up by a group of the shareholders. It proved untenable in the light of the liquidation process of the failed bank. Priestman then took the initiative of bringing in the bankers Thomas Hodgkin and John William Pease (1836–1901) of the Pease family, both Quakers. The resulting bank Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease and Spence & Co., set up in 1859, achieved stability.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore and Legend |date=1891 |publisher=Walter Scott |page=250 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJsrAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA250 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Pease">{{cite ODNB|id=47702|first=M. W.|last=Kirby|title=Pease, John William Beaumont, first Baron Wardington (1869–1950)}}</ref> The industrial consequences included the revival of the Derwent & Consett Iron Company, which went under with the Northumberland & Durham, as the Consett Iron Company.<ref name="Pease"/>
==Associations and interests== Priestman was a temperance campaigner, the first President of Newcastle's Moderation Temperance Society.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maunder |first1=George |last2=Garrett |first2=Charles |last3=Stephenson |first3=Thomas Bowman |title=The Methodist Temperance Magazine |date=1884 |publisher=S.W. Partridge |page=213 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BhdOAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA213 |language=en}}</ref> He had interests in the Castle Garth infant schools, and the orphanage in Newcastle's Brunswick Square.<ref name="Steel"/> In 1823 he was on the committee of an abolitionist group, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Society for promoting the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Society for Promoting the gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) |title=Declaration of the objects of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Society for promoting the gradual abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions |date=1823 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wsBUIwAnLjsC&pg=PA3 |language=en}}</ref> He joined the national committee of the League of Universal Brotherhood, a peace movement,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ceadel |first1=Martin |title=The Origins of War Prevention: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1730-1854 |date=1996 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-822674-1 |page=386 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lx4xr3PsdI8C&pg=RA2-PA386 |language=en}}</ref> and was on the Newcastle committee for the British and Foreign Bible Society.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Auxiliary British and Foreign Bible Society, Newcastle upon Tyne |title=Sixteenth report |date=1825 |page=2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XuRbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2 |language=en}}</ref> At the end of his life he was concerned with relief for the Lancashire Cotton Famine, and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.<ref name="Steel"/>
In his early years in Newcastle, Priestman kept up an extensive correspondence with his Richardson cousins.<ref name="Boyce2">{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker Family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Company |page=110 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWnBaEmOuVcC&pg=PA110 |language=en}}</ref> Letters survive to him from Elizabeth and Hannah Richardson, two of the younger daughters of Henry Richardson and Hannah Priestman, his first cousins. Priestman sent them copies of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's weekly ''The Friend'', and extracts from the ''Eclectic Review'' about Anna Seward's work.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker Family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Company |page=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWnBaEmOuVcC&pg=PA99 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker Family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Company |pages=21–22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWnBaEmOuVcC&pg=PA21 |language=en}}</ref> He subscribed to ''The Friend'' through Coleridge's supporter William Wray, an attorney in Malton.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Coleridge |first1=Samuel Taylor |title=The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4 (Part II): The Friend |date=8 December 2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-7496-5 |pages=452 and 467 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lwrWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA467 |language=en}}</ref>
==Family== Priestman married Rachel Bragg (1791–1854) in 1814.<ref name="Foster"/><ref name="Boyce2"/> She was one of two daughters of Hadwen Bragg (died 1823) from Cumberland, a draper in Newcastle who married Margaret Wilson, a Quaker minister.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jubilee Exhibition |title=The Monthly chronicle of North-country lore and legend [microform] |date=1887–1891 |publisher=Published for Proprietors of the Newcastle weekly chronicle by W. Scott |location=Newcastle-on-Tyne |page=36 |url=https://archive.org/details/monthlychronicle01jubiuoft/page/n43/mode/1up}}</ref><ref>{{cite ODNB|id=57830|first=Sandra Stanley|last=Holton|title=Priestman, Anna Maria (1828–1914)}}</ref> The columnist "W. W. W." (''Old Newcastle Tradesmen'') stated that Priestman was known as the "handsome Quaker". The couple had six daughters and three sons.<ref name="Foster"/> Rachel died in 1854, on a visit she made with Jonathan to Irish Quakers, at the home of the minister Richard Allen (died 1873) outside Waterford.<ref name="Steel"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=Enoch |last2=Rhoads |first2=Samuel |title=Friends' Review: A Religious, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal |date=1854 |publisher=J. Tatum. |page=777 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JTArAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA777 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Annual Monitor |date=1873 |publisher=Executors of the late William Alexander |page=ix |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g8ANAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR9 |language=en}}</ref>
*Their daughter Lucy married John Bright in 1839, and died in 1841; she was mother of Helen Priestman Bright, born in 1840.<ref>{{cite ODNB|title=Bright, John (1811–1889)|first=Miles|last=Taylor|id=3421}}</ref>
Of the sons, David, born 1824, died young in 1825.<ref name="SBFoster">{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=Sandys Birket |title=The pedigrees of Beakbane of Lancaster; Bragg of Netherend; Clapham of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Harrison of Grassgarth; Waithman of Lindeth |date=1890 |publisher=W.H. and L. Collingridge |location=London |page=150 |url=https://archive.org/details/pedigreesofbeakb00fost/page/150/mode/1up}}</ref>
* Hadwen Bragg Priestman (1820–1884) married in 1860 Emily Jane Slagg.<ref name="SBFoster"/> * Jonathan Priestman II (1825–1888) married in 1852 Lucy Ann Richardson, daughter of Jonathan Richardson (1802–1871) and his wife Ann Robson.<ref name="SBFoster"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Bernard |title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland |date=1882 |publisher=Harrison |page=1869 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WLVCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1869 |language=en}}</ref>
===Jonathan Priestman II=== Priestman's engagement to Anna Deborah Richardson, eldest sister of Elizabeth Spence Watson who married his close friend Robert Spence Watson, was broken off in 1850.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crawford |first1=Elizabeth |title=The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 |date=2 September 2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-43402-1 |page=776 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a2EK9P7-ZMsC&pg=PA776 |language=en}}</ref> Their father was Edward Richardson (1806–1863), leather manufacturer, the second son of Isaac Richardson, eldest son of John Richardson of Lowlights and brother of John Priestman I's partner William Richardson.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=48151|first=Anne Pimlott|last=Baker|title=Richardson, John Wigham (1837–1908)}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Richardson |first1=George |title=The Annals of the Cleveland Richardsons and Their Descendants, Compiled from Family Manuscripts, Etc |date=1850 |publisher=Privately printed |page=63 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AN9rAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA63 |language=en}}</ref> They were therefore close relations, unlike Priestman's wife Lucy Ann Richardson. Her family had originally been in Kingston-upon-Hull, moving to Whitby and then Sunderland. Her family home was in Benfieldside.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Donnell |first1=Elizabeth |title=Deviating from the Path of Safety: The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth Century Quaker Meeting |journal=Quaker Studies |date=28 October 2014 |volume=8 |issue=1 |page=70 |url=https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerstudies/vol8/iss1/5 |issn=1363-013X}}</ref> The couple had two sons and three daughters.<ref>{{cite book |title=The pedigree of Wilson of High Wray & Kendal, and the families connected with them |date=1871 |publisher=private circulation |page=55 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VEwWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA55 |language=en}}</ref>
The affairs and failure of the Northumberland & Durham District Bank were of concern to the younger Jonathan Priestman, since his father-in-law Jonathan Richardson had been its original manager in 1836, and then a director.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=Maberly |title=A History of Banks, Bankers, & Banking in Northumberland, Durham, and North Yorkshire: Illustrating the Commercial Development of the North of England, from 1755 to 1894, with Numerous Portraits, Facsimiles of Notes, Signatures, Documents, &c |date=1894 |publisher=E. Wilson & Company |page=336 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GlnRDjeaHCsC&pg=PA336 |language=en}}</ref> The impact of the failure on the local Quaker community was serious: the Newcastle Meeting investigated the conduct of six Friends closely connected with the bank, Jonathan Richardson was singled out for blame in the press, and his children, apart from Lucy Ann, resigned from the Meeting. Her husband Jonathan Priestman II suffered financially, having to leave his house at Shotley Bridge and move with his family back to the family home in Benwell.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Donnell |first1=Elizabeth |title=Deviating from the Path of Safety: The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth Century Quaker Meeting |journal=Quaker Studies |date=28 October 2014 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=75–79 |url=https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerstudies/vol8/iss1/5 |issn=1363-013X}}</ref>
In 1864, Priestman was appointed joint managing director of the newly-formed Consett Iron Works company, with David Dale.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jeans |first1=James Stephen |title=Pioneers of the Cleveland Iron Trade |date=10 March 2024 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3-385-37088-3 |page=201 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iSv6EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA201 |language=en}}</ref> Subsequently, he was a coalowner.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Seyd and Co. |title=The Newcastle district and Hull commercial list [afterw.] The Newcastle & Hull district commercial list |date=1874 |page=51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DekNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA51 |language=en}}</ref>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Priestman, Jonathan}} Category:1786 births Category:1863 deaths Category:English industrialists Category:English bankers Category:English Quakers Category:People from North Yorkshire