Reference Number: L1466/1
Date: 1823
Extent: 1 item
Provenance: Purchased for Lloyd’s Collection in 1932, alongside Horatio Clagett’s risk book of 1807.

Description: Horatio Clagett (c.1756-1815) was born in Prince Georges County, Maryland and became the European partner of Clagett & Company, run by his elder brother Thomas Clagett (1741-1792). He moved to London shortly after the American Revolutionary War, around 1783. Horatio Clagett was a Lloyd’s underwriter and developed a successful tobacco brokerage business called Clagett & Pratt at America Square in the City of London. Horatio Clagett partnered with William Pratt (1754-1830). Horatio brought his son into the business, Thomas William Clagett (d. 1860) and William brought in his nephew, William Pratt. Junior (d.1843). Thomas William Clagett was a subscriber to Lloyd’s from 1814-1836 and was declared bankrupt, with his partner William Sidney Warwick of Billiter Square, in 1837. However, the tobacco-broking firm founded by his father survived as Clagett Brachi until 2017. Thomas William Clagett was a claimant on estates in Jamaica and William Pratt appears to have advanced a mortgage for a plantation in Jamaica owned by John Willis. He, alongside his nephew, appear in a dozen claims in Jamaica from the case of Pratt v Willis. The Pratts were not Subscriber’s to Lloyd’s. In the period covered by the risk books, Clagett & Pratt were underwriting risks globally, much of which related to goods produced on plantations reliant on enslaved labour.

Notes: For more information on Horatio Clagett see the Underwriting Souls Exhibitions “The Business Relations of Slavery” and “Expertise in Enslavement”