Philip John Miles
Philip John Miles (1773–1845) was an English landowner, merchant, shipowner, banker and politician from Bristol. Through his banking interests he found himself on the register of owners of slaves on plantations in Jamaica though only as mortgagee in possession in cases when his bank had taken possession of plantations through the default of their owners on mortgage payments[1]. He left an estate of over £1 million, making his the first recorded millionaire of Bristol.[2]
Life
He was born on 1 March 1773, the second but only surviving son of William Miles (1728-1803), a Bristol West India merchant, and his wife Sarah Berrow.[3] His elder brother William died in 1790, and he inherited from his father, a financier in 1803.[2]
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Miles was a partner in Miles Bank of Bristol, and later Miles, Harford & Co, which eventually became part of NatWest. He had Leigh Court at Abbots Leigh rebuilt, 1814–8.[2] He sat three times as a Member of Parliament, for Westbury from 1826, for Corfe Castle from 1829, and for Bristol from 1835.[3] Under the Slave Compensation Act 1837 he received money from properties in Jamaica and Trinidad.[4]
Miles died on 24 March 1845.[3]
Family
Miles married:[3]
- In 1795, Maria Whetham (1776-1811), daughter of John Whetham; and
- In 1813 Clarissa Peach (1790-1868), daughter of Samuel Peach Peach.
From the first marriage there was a son, Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet,and four daughters, Sarah Agatha Miles (1799-1830), Elizabeth Miles (1806-1853) and Milicent Miles (1808-1867); from the second seven sons and four daughters.[3][4] The sons of the second marriage included:[5]
- Philip William Skinner Miles (1816-1881), second son and father of Philip Napier Miles;
- John William Miles (1817-1878), third son
- Robert Henry William Miles (1818-1883), fourth son and father of Frank Miles, Robert Miles (cricketer)
- George Frederick William Miles (b 1820), fifth son
- Charles William Miles (1823-1892), sixth son
- Edward Peach William Miles (born c.1829), seventh son.[6]
Notes
- ↑ Kathleen Butler; The Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica and Barbados, 1823-1843, page 54
- 1 2 3 Morgan, Kenneth. "Miles, Philip John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/107409. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Miles, Philip John (1774–1845), of Leigh Court, Abbots Leigh, Som., History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 11 April 2017.
- 1 2 "Summary of Individual, Philip John Miles, 1st Mar 1774 – 24th Mar 1845, Legacies of British Slave-ownership". Retrieved 11 April 2017.
- ↑ Edward Walford (1864). The County Families of the United Kingdom, Or Royal Manual of the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of Great Britain and Ireland. 2. Ed. Greatly Enl. Hardwicke. p. 693.
- ↑ s:Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886/Miles, Edward Peach William