Richard Sharp (politician) - Family Background

Family Background

Sharp was born in Newfoundland. His father, also Richard Sharp, came from a well-known family of merchants in Romsey, England, and in 1756 joined the British army as a nineteen-year-old Ensign in His Majesty’s 40th Regiment of Foot – a regiment which would later became known as the “illustrious 40th” after distinguishing itself during the Seven Years' War against the French in North America (1756–1763). While garrisoned at St. John's in Newfoundland, Ensign Richard Sharp met and fell in love with Elizabeth Adams, a citizen of St John’s, and they were married in 1759. Richard and Elizabeth’s first son was soon born and, though naming him ‘Richard’, they can have had little idea that when he grew up he would become variously known throughout London society as ‘Hatter Sharp’, ‘Furrier Sharp’, ‘Copenhagen Sharp’ (after a famous speech that he gave as an MP castigating the British bombardment of Copenhagen) or, most famously of all, as ‘Conversation Sharp’ Long before this time, and while the Lieutenant was still in North America fighting the war, his grandfather was establishing a highly successful firm of hat-makers on Fish Street Hill in the very heart of London. Thither, in about 1763, the wounded soldier and his family returned from Newfoundland and there he died a few years later at the age of twenty eight. His grandfather had been a close friend of Isaac Watts, all the family being staunch Dissenters, so Richard was buried in the family vault within the Dissenters’ graveyard at Bunhill Fields (where his tomb-stone is still visible).

In 1769, the widow Elizabeth Sharp married Thomas Cable Davis, a partner in the hatter’s business, and they had further children, while it was not long before Richard Sharp, still in his teens, began to assume a major responsibility for the family business as evidence of his exceptional abilities.