Anthony Calvert

Anthony Calvert (1734-1808) was the managing partner of Camden, Calvert & King, the London firm which won the contracts for Australia's Second and Third Fleets. He is a notorious figure because of his role in the slave trade, and the ill-fated Second Fleet (the first image below is from a painting of the Elder Brethen of Trinity House in the 1790s, kept at Trinity House on Tower Hill; the second is from a private collection).

Born into a maritime family at Whitby, he moved to Wapping, a maritime suburb to the immediate east of London in the 1750s. He was in partnership with the Camden brothers by 1760, taking over as managing partner by the middle of the 1770s. Around 1783, he moved their counting house to The Crescent on Tower Hill - the front of this building, which was his London home, still stands today (in the photograph below, Ken Cozens, who did the pioneering research on Calvert and the firm, can be seen standing in front.)

They were one of the largest slave trading firms in London, but they were much more than that - at their peak, they owned 27 vessels operating in a wide range of different trades around the world. The Botany Bay trade was of interest to them because it provided a back door into the East India trade.

Calvert retired to his country home at Broadstairs on the Isle of Thanet and died there in November 1808. In accordance with his instructions, he was buried without any 'pomp or parade'.