Robert Archer

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Robert Archer
Person Robert Archer
Title
First name Robert
Middle name(s)
Last name Archer
Suffix
Spouse of
Widow of
Occupation Grocer
Secondary shorebased occupation
Mariner occupation
Associated with ship(s)
Training Not apprentice
Is apprentice of
Was apprentice of
Had apprentice(s)
Citizen Unknown
Literacy Signature
Has opening text
Has signoff text
Signoff image {{{Transcription image}}}
Language skills English language
Has interpreter
Birth street
Birth parish
Birth town
Birth county
Birth province
Birth country
Res street
Res parish Saint Olave Old Jewry
Res town London
Res county
Res province
Res country England
Birth year 1613
Marriage year
Death year
Probate date
First deposition age
Primary sources
Act book start page(s)
Personal answer start page(s)
Allegation start page(s)
Interrogatories page(s)
Deposition start page(s) HCA 13/72 f.354v Annotate
Chancery start page(s)
Letter start page(s)
Miscellaneous start page(s)
Act book date(s)
Personal answer date(s)
Allegation date(s)
Interrogatories date(s)
Deposition date(s) Jun 23 1658
How complete is this biography?
Has infobox completed Yes
Has synthesis completed No
Has HCA evidence completed Yes
Has source comment completed No
Ship classification
Type of ship
Silver Ship litigation in 1650s
Role in Silver Ship litigation


Biographical synthesis

Evidence from High Court of Admiralty

Robert Archer, a forty-five year old Grocer of Saint Olave Old Jury, London, deposed in the High Court of Admiralty in June 1658. He was examined upon a libel in the case of "Benjamin Ballenger against Kate and others".

His deposition concerned the weight of hogsheads of sugar brought from Barbados at the end of the year 1656. He contrasted net and gross weights, stating that a hogshead of sugar without the hogshead at that time and from that place weighed about four and a quarter hundred weight, and that the sugar and the hogshead together weighed about five hundred tons. He stated that Muscavado sugar from Barbados "unpurged and before excise payd" could be sold in London in April and May 1657 for thirty-seven shillings per hundred weight.[1]

His expertise was the result of "being a Grocer by trade" and "now trading cheifly in sugars in London", which he had done for the last ten years. He referred to his account books to confirm the prices and weights of the sugars in his testimony.

Robert Latham (1983) has an entry for the Archer family of Bourn near Cambridge in the companion volume to the complete edition of Samuel Pepys' diaries. He identifies "The fair Betty" Archer from this family, who was admired by Pepys in his undergraduate days. He states that her sister Mary ("said to be worth £1000") married Clement Sankey, ex-Fellow of Magdalene, in 1669. He further states that their uncle lived in the Old Jewry and "was possibly Robert Archer, citizen and grocer, of that street, who occurs in a will of 1659."[2]

Comment on sources

  1. HCA 13/72 f.354v
  2. Robert Latham, The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Companion (Berkeley, Los Angeles (1983), p.10, viewed 27/07/2016