Ambrose Page (circa 1670- 1743) , brother of Sir Gregory Page 1st Bt

Ambrose Page (circa 1670 - 1743) ,  brother of Sir Gregory Page 1st Bt

Ambrose Page as a director of the East India Company (1714) and having received a personal grant of arms Argent, on a bend sable, three martlets or these arms appertain to Ambrose Page of Enfield, Esquire his descendants (College of Arms Library, 0.1., 0.24), might reasonably have expected to follow other members of his family, in having a Chinese dinner service made with his arms or crest, but no conclusive evidence exists. However since his nephew Gregory (later 2nd. baronet) was thought to be living in his father's house (Red House) in 1717 when the other Imari Kang Hsi porcelain services were ordered, it is unlikely he would have wished to order a service for himself at this time. So could the lmari Kang Hsi service with the Page crest, have been ordered by Ambrose Page.

 
The exact date of Ambroses' birth remains a mystery, though it is safe to assume, it must have been about the year 1670. There is strong evidence connecting him with the family brewery at Wapping, at the time of his father's death in 1693, when he would have been approximately 23 years of age. The Pages were undoubtedly a very close-knit family, as can be seen by the way, each member was remembered in each other’s will. However at some stage, the perhaps less ambitious Ambrose must have decided to run his own business, and possibly soon after his father’s death, perhaps with the help of his father’s legacy, either taking over or establishing his own brewery at Bow. It is interesting to note in his will, dated 1742, that his daughter, then widowed for the second time; was left 3 acres in the Marsh at Bow and 13 acres, called "Kent Land”, left to the Brew House at Bow. Ambrose must have flourished as a brewer, and as befitting a man of substance, was to be appointed a director of the East India Company at the age of 44, in 1714 and at a later date, a director of the South Sea Company from 1715 until just after the crash in 1721. His wife was still alive at the time of the "bursting of the bubble" and the South Sea crash would have hit them very hard indeed.  In his later years as a director, the price of the South Sea stock rose to unbelievable heights and just before the crash, Ambrose was denounced at a Board meeting  (By a fellow director Captain Maggot.) for having nominated himself for £50,000 worth of the third issue of stock and sold out at a profit of 250 per cent. I would imagine this had rather more to do with "sour grapes", than any moral conviction. For to support your company by purchasing the stock, would appear on the face of it, to have been admirable behavior, but foolhardy to stay with the stack, when its value lost all sense of reality. Ambrose would have lost very heavily in the crash and as a director, under the January 1721 Act of Parliament, was compelled to declare the value of his estate, he was found to have gross assets of £57,923 and a net amount of 634,817 (which were almost certainly under valuations), of which he was allowed to retain only £10,000. Nevertheless, he continued to live in his house at Duke Street, where his wife died in 1731.

Ambrose Page’s will was drawn on the 10th. April 1742, when he was then aged about 70, by which time he had made steady progress, in repairing the damage caused to his personal fortune by the South Sea crash. At this date he referred to himself as of Bow, yet one year later, when a codicil was drawn to his will, on the 9th. April 1743, he describes himself as, late of Bow, but now of the parish of Enfield, Co. Middlesex, where he was to die three days later. In his will, he was to leave his daughter Mary, £6,000 in addition to his lands at Bow, and to Sarah his granddaughter £5,000, a mirror, and other articles. His nephew John Elwick was to receive £2,000 and his nephews Gregory and Thomas, £100 each for mourning, his niece Elizabeth £6500 (reduced in the codicil to £100), and the residue, including the Enfield estate, to his daughter Mary Dobson. He did not depart this world in quite the same category as his brother Gregory, but for a man who had lost all but £10,000 aged 52, in the South Sea crash, he most certainly did not die a pauper.