House of Battier, Zornlin & Co
London-based company/merchant house (DNA: DAC, Negotie-journal, 1789-1791, no. 589-590)
Actors
Related actors
- Battier, Veronique - married Schweighauser, Jean Daniel in London in 1756. She is described as linked to the firm. The firm is described as interested with Thelusson in the affarir of the Danish Asiatic Company in 1778. (Delobette, Edouard: Ces Messieurs du Havre. Negociants, commissionnaires et armateurs de 1680 a 1830, p. 145)
- Possibly Battier, Christopher, book keeper of the Asiatic Company, sentenced for massive fraud in 1785. Brother of Batter, John Ralph. (Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens in England & Ireland 1701-1800, The Publications of The Huguenot Society of London, vol. XXVII, 1923, p. 160)
Timeline
1778 - The Danish merchant Ryberg, Niels reinsured ships here (Rasch: Niels Ryberg, p. 206)
1781 - Described as merchants in 10 Devonshire Square. (Bailey's Northern Directory)
1783 - Described as merchants in 10 Devonshire Square. (Longman: The New Complete Guide to All Persons who Have Any Trade Or Concern with the City of London..)
1788 - The company name appears on a letter from a French slave captain in Accra to Le Havre via London. "Manuscript transit mark" applied (Spink.com)
1792 - Bill of exchange drawn by Andreani, Count on Battier, Zornlin & Co was sent by Jefferson, Thomas in Philadelphia to Donald, Alexander. (Founders Online)
1797-5-31 - Bought goods from the East India Company for export. (Henchman: Observations on the Reports of the Directors of the East India Company ..)
1799 - Bankrupted - described as a big Swiss firm. (Margrit Schulte Beerbühl: The risk of bankruptcy among German merchants in eighteenth-century England, p. 15) Claims against the company came from Vienna, Milan, the Royal Prussian Bank of Franconia in Fürth and from the US. (Pihlajamäki et al (ed.): Understanding the Sources of Early Modern and Modern Commercial Law, p. 331)
1799-12-14 - During their bankruptcy, the ships CLARA NORBERG and SOPHIA MARGARETHA are mentioned, likely belonging to the firm. (London Gazette)
1821-3-21 - Bankrupted - described as located in Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate-Street, London. Battier and Zornlin are described as merchants, dealers, chapmen and copartners. (The London Gazette, Part 1) The bankruptsy of Battier & Zorlin was a significant economic failure, that severly affected many of the company's about 340 creditors who were dispersed around the world from southern Europe to the U.S. The consequences were felt especailly hard in Basel, from where the company's founders originated. (Understanding the Sources of Early Modern and Modern Commercial Law courts, Statutes, Contracts, and Legal Scholarship Series:Studies in the History of Private Law, Volume: 25/14 Heikki Pihlajamäki et al. (eds.), p. 331)
Notes
See Hoppit, Julian (1987), Risk and Failure in English Business 1700-1800, Cambridge University Press, pp.156-160.
