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James La Roche
English slave trader and politician
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir James La Roche, 1st Baronet (24 June 1734 – September 1804), or Laroche, was an English slave trader and politician. He was a younger son of John LaRoche, Member of Parliament.[3]
Life
La Roche became a Bristol slave trader, a partner with James Laroche the elder (died 1770), his uncle and a major figure there in the slave trade of the 1730s and 1740s, in James Laroche & Co.[4][2][5] He was Sheriff of Bristol for 1764–5 and a master of the Society of Merchant Venturers in 1782–3.[2]
La Roche represented Bodmin in Parliament between 1768 and 1780. He had financial troubles from the time of his first election, and he suffered bankruptcy in 1778.[3]
In 1776 La Roche was created a baronet, of Over in the Parish of Aldmondbury in the County of Gloucester.[6]
La Roche died in September 1804, aged 70, when the baronetcy became extinct.[3]
Property
James La Roche inherited estates in Cornwall, from John Robartes, 4th Earl of Radnor, an associate of his father, in 1757.[3] He purchased the Elizabethan mansion Over Court near Almondsbury, Gloucestershire.[7][8] He had there two enslaved Africans as servants.[9]
In 1774 La Roche mortgaged an estate in Antigua that had passed to him from his wife. The mortgage was held by the merchant Justinian Casamajor (1746–1820).[3][2][10]
