Henley, Michael, and Son

Michael Henley ([1742-1813]) was an apprentice waterman and lighterman from 1757 to 1764. By 1770 he was trading as a coal and rope merchant and three years later he acquired a wharf and premises in Wapping. In 1775 he appears to have purchased his first sea-going ship; other vessels followed, which he employed in the east coast coal trade, and later in other trades in the Atlantic, West Indies, Mediterranean and Baltic, mostly on charter. During the American War of Independence, he also chartered ships to the government as transports. In 1780 his eldest son Joseph (1766-1832) was bound apprentice to him and within a few years he was running the day-to-day aspects of the business. Michael Henley spent much of his time travelling to the various ports at which his ships called regularly, in particular Newcastle and Portsmouth, but on occasions he also visited Ireland and Scotland. The shipping activities of the Henleys increased substantially during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Between 1775 and 1832 they owned over a hundred and twenty ships. They stopped trading directly as coal merchants early in the nineteenth century, though retaining a strong interest in the trade. At the same time their ships became more involved in the West Indies trade and in the timber trades with the Baltic, North America and Canada and the Bay of Honduras. Many of their vessels were chartered to the Transport Board, after its re-establishment in 1794, as troop and horse ships or victuallers. After 1815 shipping suffered from the post-war slump and Joseph now divided his time between his shipping interests and Waterperry, his Oxford estate. He owned a smaller number of ships, which were principally involved in the North American and Baltic trades, although there were two notable Transport voyages to Ceylon and the Mediterranean between 1820 and 1822. He appears to have continued to own one or two ships up until the time of his death.