George Hibbert ( 1757 - 1837 )

Birth: Manchester, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom (1757) Death: Munden House, near Watford, Hertfordshire (08 October 1837) Burial: Aldenham, Hertfordshire Profession: Merchant; politician; plantation and slave owner Research field: Natural history; botany Education: Reverend Booth’s academy at Woolten Hall Career: Cotton manufacturer in Manchester; junior partner in G. W. S. Hibbert & Co. a West India merchant house, London (from 1780), ultimately becoming head of the firm (1790s); Chairman of the West India Dock Company; Alderman of the City of London for the Bridge Within ward (1798-1803); Whig MP for Seaford (1806-1812); instrumental in the establishment of the Jamaican Botanical Gardens at St. Thomas-in-the-East (1806); Proslavery lobbyist; Agent for Jamaica (1812-1831) in which capacity he acted as a political lobbyist in Westminster for the planter-controlled Jamaican House of Assembly; Chairman of the West India Committee; founding President, London Institution (1805); edited Caxton's translation of Ovid, Six Books of Metamorphoses (1819); edited the anonymous 'Narrative of a Journey from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Ayres' (1824); a founder of the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later RNLI (1824); book and art collector Memberships: Freemason's (1796-1806); Brooks's (1810); FSA (1812); Roxburgh Club (1816); FLS Membership: Fellow Election Date: 30/05/1811.