Charitable Corporation - The Partnerships of Five and Of Four

The Partnerships of Five and Of Four

A little while after Thomson became warehousekeeper, several of those involved in the management of the Corporation started speculating in shares on a very large scale. This seems to have begun because Grant owed money to Thomson, and both he and Burroughs had debts to Robinson from earlier stockjobbing. The Partnership of Five consisted of Sir Alexander Grant, William Burroughs, William Squire, George Robinson, and John Thomson. In October 1727, they began to buy the Corporation's shares, this all being handled by Robinson who was a stockbroker in Exchange Alley. They then heard of lead mines in Scotland belonging to Sir Robert Sutton and others, whose sale they proposed to the York Buildings Company. They bought shares in it, and those shares rose in value.

While Grant was in Scotland, they needed to buy more shares at a time of difficulty in February 1728, due to the petition of the City of London. The chronology of this is confused as the petition was later (see below). These shares were bought for the account of four partners (excluding Grant, who was in Scotland about mines). All this was financed by borrowing money from the Company on false pledges. At one point they thought that the profits would redeem all pledges, except Robinson's. The management of affairs was left to Thompson. The purchases were made by various persons as trustees, but Robinson persuaded the trustees that their pledges to transfer the stock to the rest of the syndicate were lost, and got the shares issued to himself, further swindling his partners to the amount of £100,000.

The partnership of five also invested in the Duke of Argyll's mines in Morvern and Mull, Grant and Burroughs buying (at a premium) in April 1730 the lease granted to Sir Alexander Murray in 1727. The Morvern mines were in fact at Glendow. They took mines on Kinlochalin and on the estate of MacLean of Kingairloch, also mines at Aar and Sandhall in Norway. All these were financed by loans on false pledges.