Mr Atkinson’s Rum Contract: The Story of a Tangled Inheritance

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Dip Into NEW PAPERBACKS [jsb_filter_by_tags count="15" show_more="10" sort_by="total_products"/] A selection of recent paperbacks. Like many well-to-do Georgian families, the Atkinsons’ wealth was acquired at a terrible cost, through the labour and lives of enslaved Africans. very well written story of the rise of the Richard Atkinson and then the demise of the great fortune he made - as well as a good tale, it is also a portrait of the country at a time of massive change with lots of familiar characters.

This was an enjoyable read, with the author digging into the archives of his family to paint a portrait of Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. As ubiquitous as her admirer, Lindsay appears everywhere: we find her entertaining Dr Johnson at dinner, philosophising with David Hume in Edinburgh, and embarking on a European jaunt with Maria Fitzherbert, mistress to the Prince of Wales.

Richard “Rum” Atkinson was an 18th-century adventurer of the kind you might find in a picaresque novel. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. As another review described, at the moment, this is an extensive family record as opposed to something for a wider audience. Instead, though he does engage with it, it’s on a fairly superficial level, the general attitude being that this was not a great thing, but without dwelling much on the details.

The youngest son in a line of Westmorland tanners, he became a merchant and profiteer, a director of the East India Company, an MP, an Alderman of the City of London, a disappointed lover, a slave owner, and the posthumous initiator of the most almighty family feud. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The paperwork that he produced and generated was mind-numbing; it’s no wonder Atkinson had to give up his day job. Also fascinating given the increasing acknowledgement of the role or slavery in the development of the UK and the author faces that head on, and it gives it a contemporary resonance. This book is a detailed history of Richard Atkinson's family, including much about its slave owning past in Jamaica.It seems appropriate, as we enter the 19th century, that the second half of the book should read like the proceedings of Jarndyce v Jarndyce in Dickens’s Bleak House. It is a journey through British and colonial history, told with incredible and vivid detail, but also the moving and fascinating history of a family. The author's namesake is some mover and shaker whether it be Government contracts to supply the redcoats battling George Washington with rum one of the much needed supplies or domestic political shenanigans battling Fox and co.