SEMPLE, JACOB [SSNE 6345]

Surname

SEMPLE, SEMPEL,SEMPELL

First name

JACOB, JAKOB, JAMES

Nationality

SCOT

Region

CATHCART, LANARKSHIRE

Text source

James Semple lived and traded in Stockholm, predominantly as an iron merchant, but also as a major ship owner. He was the son of John Semple, "sometime laird of Cathcart". It is not clear when he came to Sweden, but he wrote several letters to the Momma-Reenstierna family between 1650-1665 and he became a burgess of Stockholm in 1666. By September 1669, Semple had procured a reccomendation from the British Ambassador for the free export of 150 lasts of pitch from Sweden for which he paid the Swedish Tar Company for permission. This was noted in a letter from the Directors of the Swedish Tar Co. to Charles Marscoe in London on 25 September 1669 as that merchant was to recieve the goods. In 1671 Semple wrote to Kommerskollegium seeking permission to bring into Sweden and then re-ship a foreign vessel full of salt. That same year he procured a licence to export 4,000 lasts of pitch and tar per annum for three years. Given the outbreak of the third Anglo-Dutch war, this concession was to embarrass the 'renovated' Tar Company of 1672. Through this grant and some supplies from the the Tar Company, some 1,200 lasts of tar and 200 of pitch were imported into London between 1673-1675. James Semple died by 1678 and his family became involved in a dispute over the transfer of his estate in Sweden to his closest male relatives. Sir William Semple of Cathcart was his first cousin once removed while James Thomson of HM's Exchequer was his cousin through Semple's mother. They applied to the Scottish Privy Council for support because the magistrates of Stockholm and others on whose land Semple's estate lay were unhappy about transferring it until the relationship was proven. The Council ordered the Director of the Chancery to expedite such proof as soon as possible. 

 

Sources: Correspondence from and about James Semple is found in Riksarkivets ämnessamlingar. Personhistoria https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisning/A0073822_00184#?c=&m=&s=&cv=183&xywh=1154%2C1328%2C5988%2C3453

Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 3rd series, V, 1676-1678, pp.144-145; Stockholm Stadsarkiv: Borgare i Stockholm. Register 1651-1688, p.240; Swedish Riksarkiv, Förteckning över Momma-Reenstierna Samlingen, part C: brev till Bröderna Momma-Reenstierna ingångna skrivelser, section 3, Affärer och processer med nedan nämda enskilda personer, E2604, 136, 1650, 1651, 1665; Swedish Riksarkiv, Kommerskollegii Underdåniga Skrivelser 1651-1840 - James Semple, 05/12/1671; H. Roseveare, (ed.), Markets and Mercjants of the Late Seventeenth Century: The Marscoe-David Letters, 1668-1680 (Oxford, 1987), pp.123, 164 and 298; Leos Müller, The Merchant Houses of Stockholm, c.1640-1800 (Uppsala, 1988), pp.87, 182; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.180, 212, 229.

Service record

SWEDEN, STOCKHOLM

Arrived 1650-01-01

Departed 1676-12-05

Capacity IRON AND SALT MERCHANT, SHIPOWNER, purpose MERCANTILE, TRADE, COMMERCE