Jeremiah Harman (Q19282383)

Jeremiah Harman is inferred to be the son of John Harman, and a principal partner in Harman and Co, a banking firm founded in 1740 by Quaker partners Jonathan Gurnell and Joseph Hoare. Hoare’s brother was Samuel Hoare Junior, a prominent abolitionist, and the firm had close ties with the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. From 1794–1827 Harman was director of the Bank of England, and from 1816–1818 its Governor. Harman is also listed as a subscriber to the London Committee for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade organised on 22 May 1787. However, Harman continued to finance the slave trade through the provision of mortgages, and he also benefitted from the compensation paid after the abolition of slavery. He appears in the compensation records for three claims on estates and their enslaved people in St Kitts, which relates to a loan of £5,000 he made as part of a group of lenders (each of whom lent this sum) to the failing firm of Manning & Anderdon. In each of the claims, two dated 23 January 1836 and one dated 23 February 1836 he is listed as a beneficiary (as is Alexander Baring, q.v.).