John Janvrin
Jersey-born merchant and colonial official (1762–1835)
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John Janvrin (29 August 1762 – 22 December 1835) was a Jersey-born merchant, shipowner, and colonial official active on Cape Breton Island and in the Gaspé region of present-day Canada. He was a member of the Cape Breton Executive Council during the 1790s, a lieutenant-colonel in the colonial militia, and a justice of the peace. Janvrin Island, off Isle Madame, bears his family's name.[1]
John Janvrin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 29 August 1762 |
| Died | 22 December 1835 (aged 73) |
| Occupations | Merchant, shipowner |
| Spouse | Esther Elizabeth Filleul (m. 1799) |
| Children | 11 (3 sons, 8 daughters) |
Early life
Janvrin was born on 29 August 1762 at Saint Brélade, Jersey, the son of Brelade Janvrin, a merchant, and Elizabeth de Lecq. The family belonged to the Valpy dit Janvrin line, a Jersey merchant family with North American trade links from the seventeenth century onward. In 1826 the family received permission to use the surname Janvrin alone.[1]
Business career
Early operations on Cape Breton
In 1783, or perhaps slightly earlier, two of Janvrin's brothers founded Philip & Francis Janvrin & Co. and established a fishing station at the Acadian village of Arichat on Isle Madame, south of Cape Breton Island. Janvrin arrived on Isle Madame toward the end of the 1780s and acted as the firm's chief agent in North America. He founded his own firm, John Janvrin and Company, dealing in fish and retail goods on Cape Breton. An October 1792 census recorded him as "a merchant connected with the Arichat fisheries."[1]
Janvrin ran a shipbuilding yard at Arichat and owned merchant vessels, among them the cutter Providence (1806). He also outfitted privateers during the wars with France and Spain.[1] The geographer Stephen J. Hornsby identified Janvrin & Co. as one of three Channel Islands merchant firms dominating the Cape Breton cod fishery in the early nineteenth century, alongside Remon & Co. and Philip Robin & Co.[2] In 1796, Janvrin exported 660 barrels of pickled fish to Barbados and shipped 102 barrels of pickled salmon to Portugal and 35 to Ireland.[1]
Expansion
On 17 March 1794 Janvrin received a grant of approximately 1,500 acres on an island west of Isle Madame—afterwards called Janvrin Island—where he set up a fishing post at Janvrin Harbour. On 16 May 1795, Lieutenant Governor William Macarmick authorised him to occupy Bernard Island, roughly 40 acres northeast of Isle Madame near D'Escousse, though Janvrin appears to have neglected this property.[1]
The Janvrins took part in the fishery at the Îles de la Madeleine; in 1798 Janvrin maintained three fishermen there. He was also a partner in Janvrin and Durell, which ran a fishing station on the south shore of Newfoundland.[1]
By the 1820s Philip and Francis Janvrin and Company—in which John held shares—controlled more than 600 acres together with stores, warehouses, and wharves at Arichat, Little Arichat (West Arichat), and Petit-de-Grat Island on Isle Madame. In the Gaspé, the firm was established at Grande Grave, Bassin de Gaspé, Pointe-Saint-Pierre, and Île Bonaventure; Marc Desjardins describes it as second in scale only to Charles Robin and Company.[1] Like other Jersey fishing firms, the Janvrins supplied local fishermen and purchased their cod through a credit system that left many fishermen in debt to the company. Rosemary Ommer characterised this truck system as typical of the Jersey–Gaspé fishery, in which merchant firms advanced supplies on credit in spring and accepted dried cod as payment in autumn, binding fishermen to the firm across seasons.[3]
Return to Jersey and later ventures
Janvrin returned to Jersey around 1815–1817 and during the 1820s transferred management of the Cape Breton operations to his eldest son, John. The younger John purchased the Arichat facilities on 5 February 1829 for £1,200; in 1836 the firm shipped two million pounds of cod to Brazil.[1]
In later years Janvrin entered banking and finance, becoming a partner in the London brokerage firm of DeLisle, Janvrin, and DeLisle; contemporary correspondence references "John Janvrin & Co. of the city of London."[1]
Political career
During the 1790s Janvrin sat on the Executive Council of Cape Breton, then governed as a separate colony without an elected assembly. He served for many years as a justice of the peace and in 1800 sat on a local board of trade with his brothers. After returning to Jersey, he held the office of Constable of Saint Brélade from 1817 to 1820.[1]
Military service
Janvrin held the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Cape Breton militia. Lieutenant Governor Macarmick organised the colonial militia in 1794, partly to defend against a possible French attempt to retake Cape Breton, drawing its officers from Jerseymen and Loyalists in the colony.[1]
Personal life
On 16 December 1799, at Saint Helier, Janvrin married Esther Elizabeth Filleul (1780–1864). They had three sons and eight daughters. He died on 22 December 1835 at Saint Brélade, Jersey, aged 73.[1]
Legacy
Janvrin Island, west of Isle Madame in Richmond County, Nova Scotia, retains the family name. The Nova Scotia government repossessed the island around 1894. Janvrin Harbour, a community on the island, also preserves the name.[1]
Francis's grandson Frederick Janvrin took over the Gaspé operations in 1837 and sold the family's Gaspé fishing establishments between 1841 and 1855.[1]