{{Short description|British businessman and vice-consul (1826–1869)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2014}} {{Use British English|date=October 2014}} [[File:1981-NHI-Nicholas Loney-Surroundings.jpg|thumb|Statue of Nicholas Loney and historical marker by the National Historical Institute along Muelle Loney Street in Iloilo City]]
'''Nicholas Loney''' ({{birth year|1826}}, Plymouth, United Kingdom – {{death date|1869|4|23|dmy=yes}}, Mount Kanlaon, Negros Island, Philippines) was an English businessman and the British Empire's vice-consul in the city of Iloílo.
==Early life== The younger son of Admiral Robert Loney, of the Royal Navy, and Ann Condy,<ref name=JEarly>John Earle, 'A British Vice-Consul in Southeast Asia', MA Dissertation, University of Plymouth (UK), 2011.</ref> Nicholas Loney left home at 16.<ref name=sonza1977>{{cite web|url=https://www.victoriahoffarth.com/444821163|first=Demetrio|last=P. Sonza |title=Sugar Is Sweet|date=1977|publisher=National Historical Institute|place=Manila}}</ref> He first went to Ibero-America where he traveled extensively and became fluent in Spanish.<ref name=sonza1977/> He then turned home to Plymouth, England but stayed only a short time before departing for Asia. He eventually ended up in Singapore where he worked for Ker & Co., a merchant house.<ref name=sonza1977/>
==Career== thumb|left|upright|National Historical Institute marker installed in 1981 in Iloilo City
As the Philippines opened to international trade, Kerr & Co. sent him to Manila where he became a popular figure among the business community. When the city of Iloílo was opened to international trade in 1855, he was appointed as the first British Vice Consul in the city the following year on 11 July 1856.<ref name=funtecha1992>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29792083|title=The Making of a 'Queen City': The Case of Iloílo, 1890s–1930s|date=1992|volume=20|issue=2–3|pages=107–132|last=Florida Funtecha|first=Henry|journal=Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society|jstor=29792083 }}</ref>
In the Philippines, the ''hacienda'' system and lifestyles were influenced by the Spanish colonisation that occurred via Mexico for more than 300 years, but which only took off in the 1850s at Loney's behest.<ref name=wu2017>{{cite web|url=https://tulay.ph/2017/04/25/the-rise-and-fall-of-chinese-textile-business-in-iloilo/|title=The Rise and Fall of [the] Chinese Textile Business in Iloílo|last=Wu|first=W. H.|date=2017-04-25|website=Tulay Fortnightly}}</ref> Loney's objective, according to Alfred W. McCoy,<ref name=aguilar2013>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/43486357|title=The Fulcrum of Structure–Agency: History and Sociology of Sugar Haciendas in Colonial Negros|last=Villanueva Aguilar|first=Filomeno|year=2013|journal=Philippine Sociological Review|volume=61|issue=1|pages=87–122|jstor=43486357}}</ref> was the systematic deindustrialisation of Iloílo.<ref name=wu2017/><ref name=CVyM2020>{{cite video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmWPjUdz8Dc|title=Habol Ilonggo: Traditional Handloom-Weaving in Iloílo|date=2020-09-17|last1=Gólez Marín|first1=Bombette|last2=Chaves|first2=Mark Elyser|last3=Villareal|first3=Gerard|location=Iloílo}}</ref> This deindustrialisation was to be accomplished through shifting labour and capital from Iloílo's textile industry ({{langx|hil|habol Ilonggo}}), the origins of which predate the arrival of the Castilians,<ref name=funtecha1998>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29792411|title=Iloílo's Weaving Industry during the 19th Century|last=Florida Funtecha|first=Henry|year=1998|journal=Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society|volume=26|issue=1/2 |pages=81–88|jstor=29792411}}</ref> to sugar-production on the neighbouring island of Negros.<ref name=gonzaga1988a>{{cite journal|url=http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/view/1041/1024|last=López Gonzaga|first=Violeta|date=1988|title=The Roots of Agrarian Unrest on Negros, 1850–90|journal=Philippine Studies|volume=36|issue=2|pages=151–165|archive-date=8 October 2020|access-date=19 November 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008232815/http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/view/1041/1024|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=legarda2011>{{cite journal|url=https://econ.upd.edu.ph/pre/index.php/pre/article/viewFile/664/770|last=Fernández Legarda|first=Benito Justo|authorlink=Benito J. Legarda|date=2011-12-02|title=The Economic Background of Rizal's Time|journal=Philippine Review of Economics|volume=48|issue=2|pages=1–22}}</ref> The Port of Iloílo was also opened to the flood of cheaply priced British textiles.<ref name=wu2017/><ref name=aguilar2013/><ref name=gonzaga1988a/> These changes had the double effect of strengthening England and Scotland's textile industries at the expense of Iloílo's and satisfying the growing European demand for sugar.<ref name=mintz1986>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/sweetnesspowerpl00mint|title=Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History|first=Sidney Wilfred|last=Mintz|date=1986-05-06|authorlink=Sidney Mintz|publisher=Penguin Books|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
Sugar-production was increasing due to growing price of sugar in Manila and Loney profited from both {{langx|es|label=none|haciendero}} and {{langx|es|label=none|sacada}} alike by providing loans and purchasing modern machinery from Europe through his firm, Loney & Kerr Co.,<ref name=caña2021>{{cite web|title=Sugar Wars: Looking Back at the Negros Famine of the 1980s|last=Caña|first=Paul John|date=2021-04-15|url=https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/negros-famine-of-the-1980s-a00289-20210415-lfrm2|magazine=Esquire}}</ref> which helped increased the efficiency of sugar-production on Panay and Negros.<ref name=funtecha1992/> He also encouraged improvements in raw-materials-export infrastructure at the Port of Iloílo, reclamation of the western bank of the Iloílo River and the construction of Progreso Street (present-day Isidro de la Rama Street) which became the location of numerous sugar warehouses, including his own.<ref name=funtecha1992/>
==Death== He died on 23 April 1869 while exploring Mount Kanlaon on the island of Negros.<ref name=sonza1977/> He was buried by the seashore under some coconut trees in what is now Rizal Street in Iloilo City.<ref name=sonza1977/>
==Legacy== [[File:Iloilo Aduana.jpg|thumbnail|Iloilo Customs House along Muelle Loney with the Iloilo River in the foreground]] In March 1904, the Municipal Council of Iloilo passed a resolution naming the quay along the Iloilo River, part of the Port of Iloilo, as Loney Waterfront ({{langx|es|Muelle Loney}}). In March 1981 a statue of Loney was unveiled at the end of the waterfront.<ref name=sonza1977/>
Loney had unwittingly planted the seeds of a longstanding social conflict on both Panay and Negros,<ref name=funtecha1992/><ref name=billig1992>{{cite journal|last=Billig|first=Michael S.|date=1992|url=http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/view/1032/1017|title=The Rationality of Growing Sugar on Negros|journal=Philippine Studies|volume=40|issue=2|pages=153–182}}</ref><ref name=gonzaga1990>{{cite journal|last=López Gonzaga|first=Violeta|date=1990|url=http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/view/997/983|title=Negros in Transition: 1899–1905|journal=Philippine Studies|volume=38|issue=1|pages=103–114}}</ref> the fruits of which taste ever bitter to this day.<ref name=bonner1986>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/12/opinion/what-will-happen-after-the-philippines-election-civil-war-is-likely.html|first=Raymond|newspaper=New York Times|date=1986-01-12|title=What Will Happen after the Philippines Election; Civil War Is Likely|last=Bonner|authorlink=Raymond Bonner}}</ref><ref name=gonzaga1988b>{{cite journal|last=López Gonzaga|first=Violeta|date=1988|url=http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/view/1296/2667|title=Agrarian Reform in Negros Oriental|journal=Philippine Studies|volume=36|issue=4|pages=443–457}}</ref><ref name=larkin1993>{{cite book|url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4580066d&chunk.id=d0e10589&brand=ucpress|title=Sugar and the Origins of Modern Philippine Society|publisher=University of California Press|date=1993|first=John A.|last=Larkin}}</ref><ref name=mercado2013>{{cite web|url=http://opinion.inquirer.net/51931/yesterdays-apparatchiks|last=L. Mercado|first=Juan|date=2013-05-03|title=Yesterday's 'Apparatchiks'|newspaper=Philippine Daily Inquirer}}</ref> In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, attempts to abolish the {{langx|es|label=none|hacienda}} system in the country through land-reform laws have not been successful.<ref name=billig1992/><ref name=gonzaga1990/><ref name=padilla1987>{{cite journal|last=García Padilla|first=Sabino|url=https://www.asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ-25-26-1987-1988/padilla.pdf|journal=Asian Studies|pages=16–26|volume=25–26|date=1987–1988|title=Land Reform: Behind the Rhetoric of Aquino's Dávao Promises}}</ref> The expiration of the Laurel–Langley Agreement and the resultant collapse of the Negros sugar industry gave President Ferdinand E. E. Marcos the opening to strip the {{langx|es|label=none|hacenderos}} of their self-appointed roles as kingmakers in national politics,<ref name=billig1994>{{cite journal|url=http://www.doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1994.11505577|date=1994|title=The Death and Rebirth of Entrepreneurism on Negros Island, Philippines: A Critique of Cultural Theories of Enterprise|journal=Journal of Economic Issues|volume=28|issue=3|pages=659–678|last=Billig|first=Michael S.|doi=10.1080/00213624.1994.11505577 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> though arguably such an opportunity had been squandered and any significant gains stillborn.<ref name=caña2021/><ref name=gonzaga1988b/>
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loney, Nicholas}} Category:1826 births Category:British diplomats Category:British expatriates in Venezuela Category:19th-century British businesspeople Category:English expatriates in the Philippines Category:History of the textile industry in the United Kingdom Category:Businesspeople from Plymouth, Devon Category:Deindustrialization Category:Businesspeople in the sugar industry Category:1869 deaths