Elias Mocatta

Mocatta was born on 16 February 1798, and was from a Bristol background.^[1][3] He is recorded as born in London.^[4] In a Sephardic family, he was an older brother of Isaac Lindo Mocatta, who was involved in his Venezuelan enterprise in the 1840s, and of David Alfred Mocatta, and son of Moses Mocatta (1768–1857).^[5][6]

Mocatta spent about 15 years in Venezuela, c.1821 to c.1836, and retained long-term financial connections there.^[7] He was in Caracas from 1825, and welcomed Simón Bolívar there on behalf of the expatriates in 1827.^[8]

During this period Gran Colombia broke up into the republics of Colombia (initially as the Republic of New Granada), Ecuador and Venezuela. Mocatta was still involved in managing the affairs of the external debt of Gran Colombia, as divided up between the republics, in the 1850s, acting for the creditors.^[9] Also at this period the Foreign Funds market in London flourished briefly and speculatively, launched in 1823 and suffering a crash in 1825.^[10] Moses Mocatta was involved in it, and became one of the "Spanish bondholders" group lobbying in 1827 for the London Stock Exchange to handle and regulate foreign bond dealings.^[11] Unification of the Foreign Funds and Stock Exchange trading took place in steps, completed by 1835.^[12]

The expatriate British in Caracas and La Guaira were not numerous, but they were commercially influential . One of Elias Mocatta's associates was John Boulton (1805–1875) (see es:Familia Boulton), a major business figure in early Venezuelan history: Boulton gave Mocatta a power of attorney in 1827. Powles, Ward, Lord & Co. of La Guaira were important in commerce, with George Ward and Henry Joseph Lord acting for John Diston Powles and London partners.^[13][14]

Mocatta acted for Mocatta & Co. of Liverpool in commercial matters and handled letters of credit. He built up business relationships with Boulton and Powles trading houses, in La Guaira. He is found in business in Caracas from 1825, firstly with the sale of a vessel. He was Caracas agent for Powles, Ward, Hurry & Co. from 1826 to 1830, and acted also for other firms. E. Mocatta & Co. of La Guaira was set up around 1830. His brother Samuel was in Venezuela in the 1820s, and became involved in the business.^[15]

Socially, the Mocatta family were on good terms with Robert Ker Porter in Caracas, and Aizenberg comments that it is possible to reconstruct much of their life there from his diary.^[1] The Mocatta family also became close to Robert's sister, the famous novelist Jane Porter, author of Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) and The Scottish Chiefs (1810).^[16]