Sir Gregory Page, 1st Baronet (c. 1669 – 1720), of Greenwich, Kent,
Sir Gregory Page, 1st Baronet (c. 1669 – 1720), of Greenwich, Kent
Sir Gregory Page 1st Bt. 1669-1720 by Herman Van Der Mijn 1684-1741
Sir Gregory Page, 1st Baronet (c. 1669 – 25 May 1720), of Greenwich, Kent, was an English brewer, merchant and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1708 and 1720.
Early life
Page was the eldest son of Gregory Page (died 1693) and his second wife Elizabeth Burton. Page Senior was a wealthy London merchant, shipwright, and director of the British East India Company, who owned a brewery in Wapping. He was also an Alderman of the City of London in 1687. Elizabeth Burton was a widow from Stepney. Page Junior married Mary Trotman, the 17-year-old daughter of Thomas and Mary Trotman of London, on 21 January 1690.
Career
Page followed in his father's footsteps as a brewer and merchant, building a vast fortune in trade with South and East Asia. He was on the committee of the Old East India Company from 1706 to 1708. At a by-election in December 1708, he was elected Whig Member of Parliament for New Shoreham, West Sussex where the prime industry was shipbuilding. In Parliament he voted in favour of the naturalization of the Palatines in 1709 and for the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell in 1710. He was a director of the East India Company from 1709 to 1712. At the 1710 British general election, he was re-elected MP for Shoreham despite accusations that he had bribed voters for their support. However, he did not stand at the 1713 general election. From 1713 to 1714 he was a Director of the East India Company and was created a baronet on 3 December 1714.
Page was returned as Whig MP for New Shoreham, at the 1715 general election, and supported the Hanoverian government from then on. In 1715, he became a Director of the East India Company and in 1716 became a director of the Royal Hospital Greenwich, holding both positions for the rest of his life.
Guy’s Hospital’s original Board of Governors was made from the executors of Thomas Guy’s will and a list of men in the will: nine executors and fifty-one gentlemen. All of those men served as governors of St Thomas’. Guy also established in his will that the number of governors should be between fifty and sixty. It was strictly not to exceed sixty. The president and treasurer of Guy’s were to hold the positions for life; Guy selected the first president Sir Gregory Page and treasurer Charles Joye.
Page died on 25 May 1720 in his 51st year, and was buried at Greenwich on 2 June 1720. He left four children: two sons (Gregory and Thomas) and two daughters (Mary and Sophia). The baronetcy, with his "immense fortune", was inherited by his eldest son, Gregory. His widow died at Greenwich on 4 March 1729 in her 56th year. She was buried in a vault at Bunhill Fields on the outskirts of the City of London. Her epitaph hints at a painful illness, which was possibly Meigs's syndrome. The epitaph reads in part:
Heirs
The first baronet's second son, Thomas, married a sister of Viscount Howe and was buried, without issue, at Greenwich on 4 November 1763. Gregory, the second baronet, died in 1776 when the baronetcy became extinct. The estate passed to Sir Gregory Turner, 3rd Baronet, who took the name Page-Turner in consequence. He was the grandson of the first baronet's daughter Mary (buried 18 February 1724 at Greenwich), who had married the first Turner baronet, Edward Turner. The first baronet's other daughter Sophia was the first wife of Lewis Way (a member of the Inner Temple, director of the South Sea Company , and president of Guy's Hospital). She died without issue on 2 January 1735.
Arms
His coat of arms was Azure a fess indented between three martlets Or.
Sir Gregory Page Junior married Mary Trotman, in 1689 the 17-year-old daughter of Thomas and Mary Trotman of St Augustine's London. At his marriage he was described as a brewer, living at Greenwich, in a large house opposite an entrance to the royal park. He held a brewhouse near Execution Dock, (where Tunnel Pier now is) and Wapping (now in the borough of Stepney) which he held on lease with his brother Ambrose from the Governors of Bridwell Hospital. There is a Brewhouse lane at this spot today.
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| East India House: the Leadenhall Street frontage as rebuilt by Theodore Jacobsen in 1726–9. Engraving by T. Simpson, 1766 |
He was appointed director of the East India Company on April 26th, 1706, and appeared as a Director from 1709-11, 1713, and 1715. At his next election, he appeared as " Sir Gregory Page Bt" and the following year as chairman of the East India Company in which he held stock from March 1708 to June 1720. He was created a Baronet by George I on Dec 3rd, 1714 (probably he was one of the wealthy local citizens and merchants who welcomed the arrival of King George I from Hanover when he landed at Greenwich in 1714).
Page followed in his father's footsteps as a
brewer and merchant, building a vast fortune in trade with South and East Asia.
He was on the committee of the Old East India Company from 1706 to 1708. At a
by-election in December 1708, he was elected Whig Member of Parliament for New Shoreham, West Sussex where
the prime industry was shipbuilding. In Parliament he voted in favour of the
naturalization of the Palatines in 1709 and for the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell
in 1710. But
his most lucrative commercial activity was the long-distance trade, to India
and the Far East, from which he amassed vast wealth. He was already lending
sums to the crown as early as 1694, and by the time of his first election to
Parliament held sufficient stock in the Bank and East India Company to stand
for election as a director of both institutions. He had in fact been chosen to
the committee of the Old East India Company in 1706 and remained closely
involved with the company’s affairs until his death.
Like his father, Page was a Baptist, attending the Devonshire Square meeting, and in politics a Whig. He was successful at a by-election in 1708 for New Shoreham, a borough whose involvement in the shipbuilding industry often encouraged overseas traders to put up as parliamentary candidates, and where the venality of the electorate was an even more powerful inducement to a financier like Page. He was a director of the East India Company from 1709 to 1712.
At the 1710 British general election, he was re-elected MP for Shoreham despite accusations that he had bribed voters for their support. However, he did not stand at the 1713 general election. From 1713 to 1714 he was a Director of the East India Company and was created a baronet on 3 December 1714. Once in the House, Page voted in 1709 in favour of the naturalization of the Palatines, and a year later in favour of the impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell. His other activities are difficult to distinguish from those of his namesake Francis Page*. Returned again for Shoreham in the 1710 general election, this time partnering Gould against Edmund Dummer*, he was petitioned against for having perpetrated ‘great irregularities and indirect practices’, only for the petition to be dropped. He was classed as ‘doubtful’ in an analysis of the election results, perhaps on account of his Old Company associations. In fact, he remained a Whig and stood for election to the East India Company board in April 1711 on the Whig slate. He subscribed heavily to the South Sea Company, at the very least the £3,000 required to make himself eligible for a directorship, and possibly because of this investment was not among those Whigs who voted on 25 May 1711 against the amendment to the South Sea bill. He was also one of the earliest proprietors of South Sea Stock. We may safely assume that he was the ‘Mr. Page’ who acted as a teller on 15 Dec. 1710 in favour of adding certain names to the land tax commission for Kent. Conceivably he was also the Page who received a grant of leave of absence on 10 May 1712, to recover his health. He was listed as a Whig who voted on 18 June 1713 against the French commerce bill. To Crown his achievements he was the recipient of one of the baronetcies created by George I in the year of his accession 1714. Sir Jon Vanburgh had another and he went into the records as "Page of Greenwich".
The East India Company was founded in 1600, under a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth 1. This Charter conferred the sole right of trading with the East Indies, with all countries lying beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Magellan Straits, upon the company for a term of 15 years, which was confirmed "in perpetuity" in l607, 1657, and 1661. Unauthorized interlopers were liable to forfeiture of ship and cargo. There were 125 shareholders in the original East India Co., with a capital of £72,030. The early voyages of the company from 1601 to 1012, are distinguished as the “separate voyages" because the subscribers individually bore the cost of each voyage and recouped the whole profit, which seldom fell below 100%. After 1612 the voyages were conducted on the joint stockholder system for the benefit of the company as a whole. As a rule, the company themselves never owned their own ships, it was left to the wealthy London merchants to charter ships to the company. ' Undoubtedly this is where Gregory 1st Bt. and his father made much of their fortune, in this most lucrative trade, chartering ships to the East India Company, but one would imagine, conducting some of their own personal trade at the same time. Gregory Page 1st Bt as a stockholder and ship owner and now a member of parliament, would have presented just the character and background required for a main board director, thus in 1709 he was appointed a director. It was perhaps upon one of his ships, that in 1718, the several Imari, Kang h'si Chinese armorial porcelain dinner services were brought back. A set for himself, quartering his arms with those of Trotman, another I suspect for his brother Ambrose, with the Page crest, and yet another of the same pattern for his son-in-law, Edward Turner, who had married his eldest daughter Mary in 1718; hence for the first time quartering the arms of Turner with Page“ It took more than one year, from dispatching an order for dinner service on one of the East Indiamen, heading for China; before it could be made to the design required and sail Auk up the Thames to the port of London packed in tea. It was at Canton that all Chinese wares were purchased by merchants from Europe, and it is probable that all Chinese armorial porcelain for the British market passed through this port, By far the most important cargo was tea, but with it came other goods, including porcelain, taken from the Chinese or European warehouses on the waterfront of the Pearl River, ten miles downstream at Whampoa, where it was loaded on to an East Indiamen (David Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain — 1974, chapter 2.) It does not require all that amount of imagination to contemplate these hazardous journeys, not only was there the unpredictability of three separate and often treacherous oceans, but pirates, as well as armed trading vessels of their competitors. The famous "East Indiamen" held unquestioned preeminence among the merchant vessels of the world. Throughout the 17th. Century they had to be prepared at any moment to fight off Malay pirates as Well as armed vessels of their Dutch, French, and Portuguese rivals. Many such battles are recorded in the history of the East India Company, and usually with successful results.
The East Indian Company continued to exist as a trading company until the Pitt government passed the India Bill of 1784, which passed much of the control held by the company to the government, to exercise political, military, and financial superintendence over British possessions in India. From this date the direction of Indian policy passed definitely from the Company to the Governor—General in India and the Ministry in London. In 1813 Lord Liverpool (Prime Minister) passed a further bill restricting the company's control, abolishing its monopoly of Indian trade, whilst leaving it with a monopoly of the valuable China trade, chiefly tea. Finally, under Earl Grey's Act of 1883, the company was deprived of this trade. In August 1858 its remaining Indian administration duties passed to the Government. In all, four members of the Page family and three generations were shareholders and directors of the East Indian Company, spanning almost a century. Gregory Page of Wapping, Sir Gregory Page 1st Bart. of Greenwich (also chairman in 1716), Ambrose Page Esquire of Bow, and Sir Gregory Page 2nd. Bart. of Greenwich. It was also during this period that the paths and lives of the Page and Turner families were to cross and become irrevocably entwined.
The Turners in turn had left the serenity of the Warwickshire and
Leicestershire countryside, in the main with a legal background, to seek their
fortunes in the City of London. As such three generations of Johns termed
themselves merchants, and the brothers of the 3rd. John, Edward had been a
director of the Company in 1717, 1718, 1721 to 1723, while John was a director
of the South Sea Company. It can only be conjecture, but it seems reasonable to
suppose that the first two John Turners, 1622—1694 and 1650—1708 as successful
and equally wealthy merchants, would more than likely have been shareholders in
the East India Company. The final seal in this relationship was the uniting in
1718 by the marriage of Edward Turner of Ambrosden, Oxfordshire, and Mary, the
daughter of Sir Gregory Page 1st. Baronet of Greenwich.
Some indication of the integrity, personality, and achievement of Gregory 1st Bt, and the esteem in which he was held by servants of the East India Company, may be seen in the dedication that appears in Captain Daniel Beeckmans (a Captain of an East Indiamen) "Borneo", published 1713 ( at least a year after Sir Gregory had retired as Chairman).
It reads :
"To the Honourable Sir Gregory Page Bart. —Sir, The indefatigable pains and care you always took in promoting the advantages of the Honourable East India Company; the eminent zeal that has always appeared in you for the good of your country in general; together with the obligations I am under for the many favours I have had the honour of receiving already at your hands, have induced no to take the liberty of imploring, most humbly, your patronage to this work; begging your acceptance thereof, as a small testimony of the gratitude I owe you. The great and uncommon qualifications you are endowed with, render you the fittest person,
I know of, to countenance a work of this nature: And I don't question, but the
protection of a gentleman of so extensive a knowledge in trade will make it
meet with more regard and respect than it could otherwise expect. If what observations
1 have here made may be so happy as to merit your approbation, I shall think
any pains well bestowed; and my chief end is entirely answered by showing with
how profound a respect I am, Sir, your most humble and most obedient servant.
D. Beechman”.
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| 1754 engraving of Old South Sea House, the headquarters of the South Sea Company, which burned down in 1826, on the corner of Bishopsgate Street and Threadneedle Street in the City of London |
Sir Gregory had been an early proprietor in the South Sea Company when it was founded in 1712 and when he died his trustees sold his holding for £200,000 at the peak of the boom just before the "Bubble" burst. His fortunate heir and son thus became possessed of an even greater fortune than his father. £43 Million in today's money. Ambrose, the younger brother and business partner, shared some of Gregory's business enterprises including brewing. He was named in 1711 as a beer contractor to the Navy, following a public inquiry in the previous year into profiteering by earlier contractors. He also had a substantial share-holding in the South Sea Company but with less happy results than his brother. Unfortunately, as it turned out he was a director of the Company from 1715 to 1721. In the latter year the prices rose dizzily before the inevitable crash.
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| Hogarthian image of the 1720 "South Sea Bubble" from the mid-19th century, by Edward Matthew Ward, Tate Gallery |
Ambrose was denounced at a Board meeting by a fellow director, Captain Maggot, for having nominated himself to £50,000 worth of the third issue of the stock ad and then sold his holding at a profit of 250 percent. It Profited him very little in the end for under the South Sea Sufferers Act of 1721 all the directors of the Company were obliged to declare the amount of their total fortunes and to forfeit a large part of these to help recompense the thousands who had lost everything. Page was found to have gross assets of £57,923 and a net amount of £34,817 (which were almost certainly under-valuations) of which he was allowed to retain only £10,000 (£2.1 Million in today's money). He nevertheless continued to live in some comfort in a house in Duke Street, Westminster until he died in 1743.
In 1708 Gregory Page 1st Bt sought the nomination for New Shoreham and was elected its member in December that year. He was to serve as its representative at Westminster, supporting the Whig faction, until his death in May 1720 — with a short break in 1714. Page was returned as Whig MP for New Shoreham, at the 1715 general election, and supported the Hanoverian government from then on. In 1715, he became a Director of the East India Company and in 1716 became a director of the Royal Hospital Greenwich, holding both positions for the rest of his life. Page did not stand for re-election in 1713, but was returned again to Parliament as a Whig in 1715 when he was once more accused of ‘illegal practices’ at Shoreham. Page always voted with the Government and made little impression on the Parliamentary process except where it touched on his business interests. For example, he served on the Treasury Board, ostensibly as a Director of the East India Company ~ he had been appointed as a Director in 1709, became Chairman in 1716, and remained on the Board until his death. As a Director and an MP, he was one of those who discussed the Board of Trade report supporting the home woolen trade against imported stained calico from India. Page, who made most of his money from shipping and the Indies trade would not have supported the wool men; but it was not until a year after his death — 1721 — that an Act was passed which prohibited the wearing of stained calicos.
Not surprisingly, Page was one of the first investors in the stock of the South
Sea Company when it was floated in 1711 — his son Gregory and brother Ambrose
also invested in the company, with differing success which increased his fortune posthumously. In 1714 he was one of two local
baronets created by George I (1714—1727) in the year of the Hanoverian
accession — the other was John Vanbrugh.
A consistent supporter of the
government, he was an active member of the London Whig club and organized the
party’s electoral campaigns for the common council of the City. During his
later years, he was busy in the land market, purchasing the manor of Westcombe
in Greenwich, an estate in Bedfordshire for his younger son, and property in
Hertfordshire. In 1718 he was described by one hostile observer, about his role in the East India Company, as ‘a great manager, a stiff Anabaptist,
and . . . promoter of . . . Anabaptist's in the greatest stations in the Indies’.
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| Park Terrace House built by Sir Gregory Page 1st Bt circa 1699-1700 on north side of Greenwich Park between Park Street and Maze Hill shortly before demolition in 1821, painting by Thomas Fisher. |
Although Sir Gregory Page's Brewery was at Wapping on the North side of the Thames, he had his home in Greenwich on the south side. He had a house opposite Greenwich Park bellow Maize Hill, on the land sold to him by Sir John Morden Bt, being a portion of " Payne's field" at the SE corner of what is now Park Vista and the road to Woolwich. Sir Gregory purchased in 1699 eight acres of land in Park Terrace (now Vista and formerly Park Wall) on the north side of Greenwich Park. The House he built here in 1699 was called Park Terrace or the Red House. There is a watercolour by Thomas Fisher of the House in 1821 shortly before it was demolished. It was at this house where he entertained George I on his arrival from Hanover. The house was later demolished in 1822. The house was described by Drake as brick with stone dressings surrounding the windows and iron gates facing the park. It was famed for its chimney-pieces and plate-glass windows. Behind it there were extensive lawns, conservatories, and a raised terrace walk. His son Gregory Page 2nd Bt later added a large library measuring 57 by 19ft.
When Sir Gregory Page. Bart, of Greenwich, died in May 1720, he left an estate worth between £500,000 and £700,000, as well as £100,000 in particular legacies for his wife and children. His trustees, bound by probate, sold his South Sea Company stocks and shares (then at their peak of value) and added another £200,000 to the family funds. His brother, Ambrose, was less fortunate: as a member of the Board of Directors, he was obliged, Under the South Sea Sufferers Act of 1721, to declare the total amount of his assets and repay some of the gross profits made by him in his South Sea speculation to help some of the many thousands who had been ruined by the venture.
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| Sir Gregory was buried at St Alphege Parish Church Greenwich on 2 June 1720. |
Vault for Sir Gregory Page 1s Bt, in Crypt at St Alphege Parish Church
Greenwich on 2 June 1720.
The Will of SIR GREGORY PAGE (first Barnet) of Greenwich, Kent, may be summarized
as follows:
DIRECTIONS as to burial and payments If debts
RECITING
Marriage Settlement which he confirmed
BEQUEST to his wife of his house: in Greenwich for life and then to his son
Gregory forever
BEQUEST is the wife of his house and brewhouse in Wapping near Execution Dock
held on lease from Bridewell Hospital for ' residue If the term and then to his son
Gregory
POWER to wife to grant leases at the same
REQUEST of Jewelry, plate, linen, etc to
wife legacy of £10,000 for life and then to son Thomas Page
BEQUEST of £20,000 is son Thomas Page
BEQUEST of legacy of £100 to Mary, wife of Edward Turner to whom he had already
given £10,000 on her marriage settlement
BEQUEST If £8,000 to daughter Sophia, to be invested in land and settled on Sophie Page at 18 or on her children
APPOINTMENT of Testater’s wife as
guardian of infant children If already dead, then his son Gregory
ALLOWANCE of £150 a year for each child till of age to be paid to Testater's
wife as guardian
BEQUEST of any lapsed legacies to elder Son Gregory
BEQUEST to sister Elwik of £100
BEQUEST of £100 to Trustees of the Poor it ‘he Congregational Meeting at
Pinners hall
BEQUEST of £20 to Mr. Turner, Minister a Greénwich
BEQUEST of £20 to the poor of the parish of Greenwich
REQUEST of £20 to the peer of the Parish of Wapping "where I was born"
BEQUEST of £20 to be divided among all his servants as his widow should think
fit
BEQUEST
of £100 each to brother Ambrose Page and brother-in-law John Elwick and William
Dawson (trustees to protect contingent remainers )
BEQUEST
of residue to oldest Son Gregory who was appointed sole Executor
SIGNED on November 4, 1717. '
CODICIL (Undated and Unsigned)
increased the legacy to the wife to £20,000 a year for life and then to son
Thomas Page
AND £20,000 more to son Thomas Page, thus making his whole reversionary
interest on inheritance £60,000
AFFIDAVIT of John Pott of St Peter's Cornhill Oylman and Robert Watson of East
Greenwich identifying Will, unsigned Codicil, and the
signatures of the deceased
PROBATE granted November to 1721 to the eldest non-Sir Gregory Page, second
baronet
NOTES on the above
A large portrait of the Testater's wife Lady Mary Page (formerly Trotman) at Denham Place, Bucks, the seat of Lord Vansittart, in 1947. His daughter Mary
married Sir Edward Turner Bt of Ambrosden Oxon, and through their son, the Page
estate descended to the Page-Turners.
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| Westcombe Manor |
Westcombe Manor was rebuilt in 1723 by Sir Gregory. He went on to lease the house on a long lease to Captain Galfridus Walpole, (younger brother of Sir Robert, and uncle of the present Earl of Orford).
His widow died at Greenwich on 4 March 1729 aged 56. She was buried in a vault at Bunhill Fields on the outskirts of the City of London. Her epitaph hints at a painful illness, which was possibly Meigs syndrome. The epitaph reads in part:
In 67 months, she was tap'd [tapped] 66 times and had taken away 240
gallons of water, without ever repining at her case, or ever fearing the
operation.
The Four Children :
Gregory Page 2nd Bt born 1687. of which more later
Thomas Page, lived at Battlesden (Beds) the estate purchased for him by his brother Gregory. Thomas married the Hon Juliana Scrope Howe b. 1701 (sister of Admiral Earl Howe. Earl Bathurst sold Battlesden to Sir Gregory Page Bt of Wricklemarsh.
Mary Page died 1724 and married Sir Edward Turner bt of Ambrosden (created baronet 1731) chairman of the East India Company 1733
Sophia died in 1736 buried at Bunhill Fields married Lewis Way of Richmond in 1721, married 4 times barrister of the inner temple ad director of the South Sea Company, and president of Guys Hospital, he was buried at Denham Bucks.
The first baronet's second son, Thomas, married a sister
of Viscount Howe and was buried, without
issue, at Greenwich on 4 November 1763. Gregory, the second baronet, died
in 1776 when the baronetcy became extinct. The estate passed to Sir Gregory Turner, 3rd Baronet,
who took the name Page-Turner in consequence. He was the grandson of the first
baronet's daughter Mary (buried 18 February 1724 at Greenwich), who had married
the first Turner baronet, Edward Turner. The first baronet's other
daughter Sophia was the first wife of Lewis Way (a member of the Inner Temple,
director of the South Sea Company , and president of Guy's Hospital).
She died without issue on 2 January 1735.
His coat of arms was Azure a fess indented between
three martlets Or.
Various Artifacts relating to Sir Gregory Page 1st Bt in museums and private collections
A
GEORGE 1 SILVER-GILT CUP AND COVER, on gadrooned circular spreading foot, the
body applied with cut-card work chased with lambrequin on a matted ground and leaf capped scroll
handles, gadrooned rim, similarly chased domed cover and baluster finial, engraved with two
coats-of-arms, by Paul de Lamerie, 1721, Britannia Standard, the cover unmarked, the gilding later 111/4in. (29cm.) high
The first arms are those of Page impaling those of
Trotman, for Sir Gregory Page, 1st Bt. born about 1669, brewer of London
and subsequently one of the directors of the East India Company. He married in
1689 Mary, daughter of Thomas Trotman. Sir Gregory was MP. of New
Shoreham in three parliaments 1708-1713 and from 1715 until his
death. The second arms are those of Way of Denham Place,
Buckinghamshire quartering those of Lockey and Hill. Lewis Way of
Streatham and the Old Court Richmond, Surrey was a member of the Inner Temple,
Director of the South Sea Company, and President of Guy’s Hospital. He was
born in 1698 and died in 1771 having been married four times, His first
marriage was to Sophia, daughter of Sir Gregory Page
A PAIR OF GEORGE 1 BLACK AND GOLD LACQUER AND JAPANNED HALL CHAIRS, each with arched high
back with reentrant corners painted with the coat—of—arms of Page of Greenwich with solid seat on hipped square tapering legs with pierced scrolled spandrels and centered by an armorial device, on pad feet, distressed and partially restored (2)PROVENANCE:
Made for Sir Gregory Page, lst Bt., of Greenwich (1668—1720)
Sir Gregory Page, 2nd Bt., Wricklemarsh, Kent (1689-1775), Mentioned in the 1775 inventory of Wricklemarsh in the Basement 6 Japanned chair: with coats of arms, a wainscot dining table, and a chimney screen’
The late Sir Gregory Page, 2nd Bt., Wricklemarsh, Kent, Christie‘s house sale, 24 April 1783, lot 13, ’No. XI Basement Room. An old stove, six japan chairs, a wainscot table, and a wig block' (165. to Tomlinson)
The arms are those of Sir Gregory Page, 1st Bt., M.P. for New Shoreham 1708-13 and 1715-20. It is likely that the commission of these chairs celebrated his creation as a baronet in December 1714. The lacquer backs and seats would have been made in Canton for Sir Gregory, a director and later Chairman of the East India Company. The japanned frame would have been made up in England. This appears to have been a popular model of hall chair for those in the East India trade. The set of eight made for Sir William Heathcote with chinoiserie landscapes as well as coats-of-arms on the backs were first sold in these Rooms as part of the Heathcote heirlooms, 26 May 1938, lot 118. Heathcote was also involved in the East India Trade although in opposition to the monopoly of the East India Company represented by Page.
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| George I plain pear shaped Beer Jug by Jacob Margas 1715 arms of Trotman impalling Page Sir Gregory Page 1st Bt |
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| Pint
Kangxi, Imari tankard, and charger with the Page arms impaling Trotman circa 1718 |
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