Family and Education

bap. 11 July, 1694, 1st s. of Joseph Brooksbank of Hackney House and Cateaton St., Cheapside, London, warehouseman and haberdasher, by Mary, da. and h. of Richard Stamp, of Reading, Berks., e. bro. of Sir Thomas Stamp, ld. mayor of London (1692). m. 18 Oct. 1722, Elizabeth, da. of Joseph Thomson of Hackney, and Nonsuch Park, Surr., 3s. 5da. suc. fa. 1726.

Offices Held

Director, Bank of England 1728-40 and 1743-55 (with statutory intervals), dep. gov. 1740-1, gov. 1741-3.

Biography

Brooksbank, of a Presbyterian family, was an eminent Turkey merchant.1 Returned for Colchester as a Whig in 1727 ‘by the most notorious bribery and corruption’,2 he voted with the Administration. A member of the gaols committee from 1730, he was elected to the Dissenting Deputies’ committee in 1732, serving on the sub-committee appointed to confer with ministers on the question of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.3 On 30 Apr. 1733 he opposed a bill against stock-jobbing, on the ground that it would render impracticable the sale of long annuities and hamper merchants in selling their stock to complete the purchase of a landed estate within a specified time.4 He did not stand in 1734; unsuccessfully contested a by-election at Colchester in 1735; and was returned on the Administration interest at Saltash in 1743 and 1747. On 24 Apr. 1744 he opposed on behalf of the Levant Company a bill designed to break the Company’s monopoly of trade with the Near East.5 He died 24 May 1756.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Daily Courant, 18 Mar. 1735.
• 2. T. Cromwell, Hist. Colchester, ii. 290-2.
• 3. N.C. Hunt, Two Early Political Associations, 134, 145.
• 4. Chandler, vii. 385-6.
• 5. Yorke's parl. jnl. Parl. Hist. xiii. 898.