Abstract - Daniel Wait was baptised at Rangeworthy in Gloucestershire on 22

March 1730 (new style), the third son of a prosperous farmer. In 1744 his family

moved to Norton Malreward in Somerset. Daniel may have settled there with them

but by 1761 he was settled in Bristol, where he entered into the grocery trade.

Both his mother and elder brother (William) were devout Methodists, and Daniel also

became a prominent Methodist. He became a member and steward of the Methodist

society in Bristol, which met at John Wesley’s chapel ‘The New Room’ in the Horse-

fair, Broadmead. Between 1787 and 1790 he was a subscriber to the ‘Methodist

Society for the instruction and conversion of the Negroes in the West-Indies’.

Daniel was named in his father’s will (made in 1749) according to which he was

bequeathed the sum of £80.

On 5 February 1759 Daniel married Mary Williams in the church of St Philip and St

Jacob at Bristol. They had six children. The couple initially lived in the Bristol

parish of St Peter’s but in 1761 Daniel took over a shop in Castle Street from John

Wait (who was possibly his brother). The shop was located in the Castle Precincts

ward and the parish of St Philip and St Jacob. Daniel ran his business as a wholesale

& retail grocer & tea dealer from this premises from 1761 to around 1790.

In 1771 Daniel was the victim of fraud when he agreed to cash a bill of exchange

worth £10 which, unknown to him, was a forgery. Banks in London and Bristol

refused to honour the bill, and Daniel referred the matter to the authorities. The

fraudster was soon arrested and Daniel gave evidence in court for the prosecution.

The fraudster was found guilt and hung on the Bristol gallows, at the top of St

Michael’s Hill in 1772.

Daniel Wait 1730 - 1807

(First of Name)

Wholesale and retail grocer, tea dealer and sugar refiner, of the city of Bristol

by

Geoffrey Audcent © 2014, Mendip Road, Yatton, North Somerset

Daniel Wait (1730-1807)

Grocer of Castle Street, Bristol

Robert Wait (1695-1755)

Farmer of Rangeworthy and Norton Malreward

William Wait (1669-1754)

Farmer of Castle Combe

Despite suffering a loss as a result of fraud Daniel’s grocery business continued to

prosper. He used his surplus profits to invest in property, acquiring long leases on a

number of residential dwelling houses around Bristol in 1777.

In 1793 Daniel diversified his business interests into sugar refining as a partner in

“Dighton, Wait, Dymock & Co”, the company that acquired a sugar refinery in

Whitson Court on what is now Whitson street and the Bristol Bus and Coach Station.

Daniel remained a partner until at least 1797, but at some stage his place was taken

over by his son.

Daniel died in 1807 at King-square in Bristol. Probate on the will of “Daniel Wait,

Gentleman of Bristol , Gloucestershire” was granted on 31 August 1807 in London at

the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.

The Early Life of Daniel Wait

Daniel Wait was baptised at Rangeworthy in Gloucestershire on 22 March 1730 (new style), the

third son of a prosperous farmer, Robert Waite (otherwise Wayte) and his wife Rachael (nee Daniels

or Ford).

In April 1744 the family moved from Rangeworthy to Norton Malreward in Somerset, around ten

kilometres south of Bristol, where his father’s farming business prospered. However, as a younger

son Daniel did not expect to inherit the family farm and instead he went live in Bristol, where he

took up the trade of grocer.

Daniel was named in his father’s will (made in 1749) according to which he was bequeathed the

sum of £80.

Both his mother and elder brother (William) were devout Methodists, and Daniel also became a

prominent Methodist. He was a member of the Methodist society of Bristol, which met at John

Wesley’s chapel ‘The New Room’ in the Hores-fair, Broadmead (this the first Methodist chapel in

the world). Daniel served as a steward of the Bristol society (year uncertain but either 1772, 1781 or

1782),1 and appears in the Rev John Wesley’s autographed roll of the Bristol membership for 1783

with a Jane Wait (it seems he must married a second time) and his son:2

Daniel Wait ) m. Grocer Castle Street.

Jane ) m.

Daniel ) u.

He also kept in contact with members of the Methodist society at Kingswood, allowing them to use

his grocers shop as a postal address.3 In 1770 Daniel was one of the subscribers who financed the

publication of a compendium of morals entitled ‘Antiquity: or The wise instructor. Being a

collection of the most valuable admonitions and sentences, compendiously put together, from an

infinite variety of the most celebrated Christian and heathen writers, divine, moral historical,

poetical and political.’

On 5 February 1759 Daniel married Mary Williams in the church of St Philip and St Jacob at

Bristol. They had the following children:

1 Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Volume 26 number 8 (1948), page 145. 2 Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Volume 6, Sept. 1908, pages 131 3 The Gentleman's Magazine for April 1789 Historical Chronicle, Volume 59, Part 1 (1789), page 288 – contains a letter

from John Henderson to Joseph Priestley (“Mr Urban”), dated 29 August 1774, Hanham, which ends with “P. S. Please

to direct for me at Mr. Wait's grocer, in Castle Street, Bristol.”

Daniel Wait 1730 - 1807

(First of Name)

Wholesale and retail grocer, tea dealer and sugar refiner, of the city of Bristol. Collector of the Land Tax for the

Castle Precincts ward.

1. Daniel Wait. Baptised in the church of St Peters, Bristol, on 31 August 1760. He became an

Alderman and Mayor of Bristol. He died at Bristol in 1813 aged 53.

2. Rachel Wait. Baptised in the church of St Philip and St Jacob, Bristol, on 12 April 1762.

3. William Wait. Baptised in the church of St Philip and St Jacob, Bristol, on 2 February 1764.

He entered the church and became curate of St Mary-le-Port in Bristol, and resident of King

Square, Bristol.

4. Mary Wait. Baptised in the church of St Philip and St Jacob, Bristol, on 16 June 1769.

5. John Wait. Baptised in the church of St Philip and St Jacob, Bristol, on 30 July 1770. Hung

for forgery at Newgate prison, London in 1823.

6. Caroline Wait.

At this date Methodism remained a movement within the Church of England (only later did it

develop into a separate church) and its members were therefore instructed to worship in their parish

church and to receive the sacraments there. Consequently William and his wife took their children

to the local Anglican parish church for baptism (and sometimes burial).

Daniel and Mary initially lived in the Bristol parish of St Peter’s, as this was where their first child

was baptised in 1760. However, in 1761 Daniel took over a grocery shop in Castle Street from John

Wait (possibly his brother). The shop was located in the Castle Precincts ward and the parish of St

Philip and St Jacob. The Land Tax records show that Daniel occupied this shop premises from

1761 to 1789. In 1761 it rental value was assessed as £10/10s/0d shillings per year, and he paid land

tax of £1 for half a year. Inflation over the following 28 years meant that by March 1789 the rental

value of the property had risen to £12 and he paid land tax of £1/4s/0d for half a year. Castle Street

was a busy thoroughfare and one of the principal commercial areas of Bristol. His grocery business

there prospered and by 1775 he had the following entry in ‘Sketchley’s Bristol Directory’: 4

“Waite, Daniel, wholesale & retail grocer & tea dealer, 13 Castle-street”.

On 11 January 1764 Daniel Wait was nominated as a Collector of the Land tax for the ward of

Castle Precincts. The total amount of tax collected by Daniel and his fellow Collector over the six

months was £162.

A directory of 1787 refers to “Daniel Wait and Sons, grocers” indicating that his sons John and

Daniel had joined him by this date. In 1791 the Directory of Bristol lists Daniel Wait and Sons at

No. 4 Castle Street. However on 19 December 1792 “Daniel Wait senior and Daniel Wait junior”

took a lease of a property in Broad Street from the Bristol Corporation, and this then seems to have

become their main business premises.5 His other son, John, seems to have gone into business as a

grocer on his own account with a shop in Castle Street (because a John Waite was recorded paying

Lamp Tax and Scavenger Tax on two houses (with a combined rental value of £60) in Castle Street

in 1791 and 1792).

4 Sketchley’s Bristol Directory of 1775, page 100. 5 Bristol records office – References 761/23a and 761/23b – lease by Corporation of Bristol to Daniel Wait senior and

Daniel Wait junior dated 19 December 1792.

During the General Election of 1781 Daniel voted in the Castle Precincts ward (being noted as “fr St

James”) and cast his vote in favour of the Tory candidate, Mr George Daubeny, a leading Bristol

business man and sugar refiner.6

Daniel defrauded in 1771 and testifies in court against the fraudster

(who is subsequently hung on the gallows at the top of St Michael’s Hill)

As a wealthy grocer it seems that Daniel would sometimes agree to cash bills of exchange for

persons that he trusted - since he often used bills of exchange in the course of his trade as a grocer,

and had contacts in London who could redeem them for cash when necessary. However, on 19 July

1771 he was presented with a bill, to the value of £10, by an Irishman of recent acquaintance named

Jonathan Britain. He accepted the bill and paid for it with cash. Despite a nagging suspicion that the

bill might be a forgery, on 24 July, he sent it off to a business contact in London asking him to

present the bill for payment at Nelson & Co’s bank. However, the bank refused to honour it and

returned it to Bristol by the next post. Daniel then tried to get a friend, Mr Henry Davies, a linen

draper of Mary-le-Port Street to submit the bill for him, before trying to cash it himself at Lloyd,

Elton & Co’s bank in Bristol. Thy also refused to honour the bill and returned it to Daniel, with the

word ‘forged’ written on it - which made it impossible for Daniel to cash it anywhere else.

Faced with the loss of a significant sum he referred the matter to the authorities, who ordered

Jonathan Britain be brought for trial in the Guildhall at Bristol on a charge of uttering forged bill of

exchange. The trial took place in May 1772 and Daniel appeared as a prosecution witness on 2 May.

He was cross-examined by the prisoner, but a conviction was never in doubt. Jonathan Britain was

hung from the gallows at the top of St Michael’s Hill (near the site of the present Cotham parish

church) on 15 May 1772. As the victim of fraud Daniel lost the sum of £10, but the perpetrator of

the crime lost his life.

The trail and execution of the “artful and infamous” Jonathan Britain (who was also implicated in

other crimes of sedition and arson) were widely reported across England in many journals and

publications.7

Daniel’s property investments in Bristol

Despite suffering a loss as a result of fraud Daniel’s grocery business continued to prosper. He made

sufficient profits to invest in property, acquiring long leases on a number of residential dwelling

houses in Bristol. In 1777 he acquired a long lease on two properties in the parish of St. James for

the sum of £108 (by an indenture dated 29 September 1777), one of them was in the Horsefair

nearly opposite the sign of the Fox (an ale house) and the other was situated in a court nearby called

Stephen's court.8 On the same day he acquired, for £120 the lease of a messuage (“lot 8”) adjoining

6 The Bristol Poll-Book, Being a List of Persons who Voted at the Election ... 1781, page 89. 7 For example, see (a) The trial of Jonathan Britain: capitally convicted of forgery, May the 2d, 1772, at the Guildhall

in the city of Bristol, printed by S. Farley; and sold by the several booksellers in Bristol:- also by S. Bladon, London; J.

Carnan, Reading; W. Jackson, Oxford; R. Raikes, Glocester; 1772, (b) The Town and country magazine, or universal

repository of knowledge, instruction, and entertainment, Volume 4, printed for A. Hamilton, Jr. 1772, page 277, and (c)

The lady's magazine or entertaining companion for the fair sex: appropriated solely to their use and amusement, Volume

by Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1772 . 8 The Bristol charities: being the report of the commissioners for inquiring concerning charities in England and Wales,

so far as relates to the charitable institutions in Bristol, Volume 1 (1831), page 445: The parish are in possession of two

dwelling-houses, standing in the same place, which it is not doubted are the houses in question. The letting has been for

terms of years, determinable with lives, as appears by the following instruments: …By an indenture, dated 29th

September, 1777, between Christopher Lilley, merchant, and others, surviving feoffees of the messuages and

hereditaments belonging to the parish church of St. James, and commonly reputed to be St. James's church lands, of the

one part; and Daniel Wait, of the other part; it is witnessed, that, for the consideration of £108, the said Christopher

west end of St James’ church in Whitsun Court, that was in occupation of Paul Hill.9 This lease was

for up to ninety-nine years and for as long as sons, named as Daniel aged 17 years, William aged 12

years and John aged 7 years, should live. Two weeks later, on 16 October 1777, he acquired the

lease of an additional property - a messuage, yard and stables - also in Whitsun Court for £192.10

In 1790 he signed a further deed, dated 15 May, concerning a messuage adjoining the west end of St

James’ church, also in Whitsun Court.11 These properties stood on what is now Whitson street and

the Bristol Bus and Coach Station.

Daniel becomes a partner in a Bristol sugarhouse

During the 1790s Daniel diversified his business interests into sugar refining. Sugar refining had

become one of Bristol's most lucrative industries and there were over twenty sugarhouses clustered

near to the quaysides, where raw sugar imported from the Caribbean was refined. The refining

process required enormous and lofty constructions sometimes occupying a whole length of a street,

typically with lots of tiny windows and two or three tall chimneys. Daniel’s earliest links with sugar

refining date from 1786, when he appears as a business associate of a German sugar refiner working

in Bristol, by the name of Gunter Henry Kroger, concerning the latter’s sugar house in Tucker

street.12 Seven years later, in 1793 Daniel, together six partners, acquired a sugar refinery in Whitson

Court.13 This sugarhouse was advertised for sale in Felix Farley's ‘Bristol Journal’ on 30 November

1793. It was described as “a roomy and convenient house with implements and utensils complete,

having a garden, coach house and a large dwelling house for the boiler or clerk.” It stood on what is

now Whitson street and the Bristol Bus and Coach Station, and was adjacent to the residential

properties houses in Whitson Court, for which he had acquired long leases in 1777.

Daniel and his partners - “Dighton, Wait, Dymock & Co” - initially leased the sugar house from Mr

Andrew Pope, for a period of 14 years from 1793, at a yearly rental of £175. This arrangement

allowed them to maximise their working capital (by not spending it all upfront on purchasi9ng the

freehold of the sugar house) but led to problems, when a speculator from the north of England

acquired the freehold in 1803. Faced with the possibility of having to leave Whitson Court in 1808

Dighton, Wait, Dymock & Co were compelled to purchase the property outright from their new

landlord, who forced them to pay an inflated price.

As a wholesale grocer, Daniel’s involvement in the sugar refinery would have been welcomed by

the other partners - as his grocery would provide a ready outlet for the refined sugar. Daniel was still

a partner in Dighton, Wait, Dymock & Co four years later in 1797, but at some stage his place in the

partnership was taken over by his son.

Lilley, and others, did thereby demise to the said Daniel Wait, all that messuage or tenement, situate in a street called the

Horse-fair, in the parish of St. James, nearly fronting the sign of the Fox; and a small tenement behind the same, situate

in a court called Stephen's court, to hold the same to the said Daniel Wait, his executors, administrators, and assigns,

from the date of the said indenture, for the term of 99 years, if Charles Whittington Hooper, and Charles his son, and

Jane his daughter, should so long live, at a rent of £1. 9 Bristol records office, P.St J/VCD/5/2/1 10 Bristol records office, P.St J/VCD/5/1/5 11 Bristol records office, P.St J/VCD/5/2/4 12 See article entitled Whitson Court Sugar House, Bristol, by I V Hall in the Transactions of the Bristol and

Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1944, Vol. 65, 1-97. 13 A number of historians have identified Daniel’s son, also called Daniel, as the partner in Dighton, Wait, Dymock &

Co, and whilst it is certainly true that whilst Daniel Wait junior became a partner in this firm, it was Daniel Wait senior

who was initially involved with the firm (up to at least 1797). Evidence for this is a notice, dated 19 April 1797, which

appeared in the London Gazette stating that the partnership of Dighton, Wait, Dymock & Co had been dissolved and

reconstituted under the same name, after one of the partners had decided to leave the firm. The notice named the seven

partners, who included “Daniel Wait, Sen.” - London Gazette 1797…..page 367.

The Methodist Society for the instruction and conversion

of the Negroes in the West-Indies

The Bristol sugar refining industry was intimately linked with the ‘triangular’ slave trade until 1807.

Daniel therefore benefited from both the trading of slaves, as well as from their labour on the sugar

plantations of the Caribbean. It is perhaps ironic that at the same time as investing in a sugar house

“Mr Wait sen[ior]” became a regular subscriber, between 1787 and 1790, to the ‘Methodist Society

for the instruction and conversion of the Negroes in the West-Indies’.14 His brother William and son

Daniel were also subscribers to this missionary society.

In June 1799 “Daniel Wait of Bristol, grocer” and “Daniel Wait the younger of Bristol, grocer” are

named in deed (a conveyance by lease and release) of a messuage in Morford Street, Bath.15 They

are both named in a further deed relating to the same property in March 1800.16 And “Daniel Wait

of Bristol, gent” is named in an assignment relating to the same property in September 1806.17

Daniel died on 18 August 1807, his death being recorded in The Gentleman's Magazine in the

following terms “In King-square, Bristol; Mr Daniel, many years a wholesale grocer in that city”.18

A notice of his death also appeared in a Bristol newspaper on 21 August 1807, which recorded “On

Tuesday morning died at his house, in King Square, Mr, Daniel Wait, many years a respectable

grocer of this city, whose strict integrity through life gained him the esteem of all his

acquaintance.” 19

It is not known where he was buried (no burial is recorded in the parish of St James).

Probate on the will of “Daniel Wait, Gentleman of Bristol , Gloucestershire” was granted on 31

August 1807 in London at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.20

14 Thomas Coke, A statement of the receipts and disbursements for the support to the missions established by the

Methodist society: for the instruction and conversion of the Negroes in the West-Indies, addressed to the subscribers

(1794). 15 Bath records office ref BC153/1942/3 - Conveyance by lease and release dated 26/27 June 1799. 16 Bath records office ref BC153/1942/4 - Conveyance by lease and release dated 21/22 March 1800. 17 Bath records office ref BC153/1942/7 - Assignment dated 1 September 1806. 18 The Gentleman's Magazine (1807) Voluje LXXVIII, second part, page 789. 19 Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Volume 6, Sept. 1908, pages 131. 20 The National Archives, reference: PROB 11/1466/291: Prerogative Court of Canterbury: Will Registers - Will of

Daniel Wait, Gentleman of Bristol , Gloucestershire. 31 August 1807.

The parish

church at

Rangeworthy

in

Gloucestershire

where Daniel

was baptised in

1730

The parish

church of St

Philip and St

Jacob at

Bristol, where

Daniel was

married in

1759

The parish church

of St Peter, in

Bristol, where

Daniel’s eldest

The parish church

of St Peter, in

Bristol, where

Daniel’s eldest

child was baptised

Castle Street in Bristol

where Daniel ran a grocer’s

shop between 1761 and

1791 (before the Second

World War, during the Blitz,

after the war and today)

Above – demolition of the sugar house in Whitson Court, Bristol.

Below - the site today (Whitson Street)

John Wesley’s Methodist chapel ‘The New Room’ in the Horse-fair, Broadmead, Bristol - the first

Methodist chapel in the world – of which Daniel was a member and steward.