John Carroll [1740-1819] left the family home in Creenagh co. Antrim in 1765 and made his way to Cork City. The city was being transformed into a centre of commerce with a growing number of wharfs on the banks of the River Lee. The city changed significantly through Georgian and Victorian times. In the mid 18th century a process of reclamation of the marshes surrounding the city was begun. The city fathers oversaw the construction of spacious streets in the centre of the city and many grand houses were built in this period.
John, and later his brother Isaac, were attracted to the undeveloped area of Green Marsh in John Rocque’s map of 1759, later referred to as Devonshire Marsh after the Quaker family of that name who made a large land purchase in this northern part of Cork City.
John Carroll was a Quaker and his letter of removal to the Cork meeting was agreed by the Lisburn men’s meeting on the 17th day of 11th month 1765. It seems that his father, Edward Carroll [1715-1770], was not well-pleased by his son’s departure. In his will dated 6 December 1769 he made a bequeathal to John and his younger brother William which was on condition that John ‘coms to dwells upon the above named lands and in case my son John Carroll does not come to dwell upon it I say my will is that my son William shall have what I have willed’ to John. John was also to inherit the land willed to his mother Sarah Carroll if ‘he is to join with his mother and to dwell with his mother’.
It appears that John remained in Cork apart from attending the Quaker school in Ballitore in 1767. The school catered for the educational needs of between fifty and sixty pupils ranging in age from the extremely young to the fully mature, like John. Attendance at Ballitore would have cemented John’s relationships with Quaker families away from those in co. Antrim. Indeed he was to marry Sarah Corfield from Mallughmast, co. Kildare in 1776 whose brothers Joshua and Thomas attended the school from 1758. Mallughmast is not far from Ballitore.
John Carroll was later joined by his brother Isaac, probably after the death of their father in 1770. Under the will the brothers could only sell their shares to another brother. John and Isaac might have been able to secure a loan against their inheritance which would have given them some capital to purchase a lease on part of the Green Marsh.
We know nothing about the early development of John and Isaac’s business ventures in Cork or how they came into possession of the land on the bank of the Kiln River where it flowed into the north channel of the River Lee. We know that they were involved in the timber business and that Carroll’s Bridge was constructed across The Kiln in 1782. It seems that the area was first named Frenche’s Quay according to the Rocque Map of Cork City in 1773. The first time that the name Carroll’s Quay appears is on the 1832 map by Thomas Holt. The name Carroll’s Quay remains to this day and Carroll’s Bridge is commemorated by a stone marker.
Richard S. Harrison has written extensively about the Quakers in Cork. In his 1994 article A Cork Quaker Dynasty he traces the business partnership of the brothers John & Isaac Carroll from 1793 onwards. Isaac had refused to pay Minister’s Money which replaced Church of Ireland tithes. Quakers, Catholics and dissenters refused to pay this tax.
Carroll business interests in the 19th century
The deal yard at Carroll’s Quay was shared by the brothers and then by the business partnerships they formed with their sons. From about 1805 Isaac formed a partnership with his son Edward which lasted until Isaac’s death in 1816. At that time Edward moved to England requesting the Cork Monthly Meeting to transfer his membership to the Longford Monthly meeting (comprising of Staines and Uxbridge in Middlesex). Edward married Anna Lowe in December 1816 in Uxbridge.
John carried on trading from the deal yard with his sons Joshua and Thomas. In 1809 the name of the business was recorded as ‘Joshua & Thomas Carroll, Timber Merchants’ in Holden’s Triennial Directory. The Carrolls were engaged in the Baltic Trade importing timber from Memel. This trade came to an end as Napoleon extended his grip over Europe and the Baltic ports under the Continental System from 1807. The Carrolls therefore looked towards imports from North America. In 1807 Thomas Carroll advertised the arrival of at least six deliveries from America. In the period running up to the war of 1812, American shipping had run the gauntlet of both the Royal Navy and the French navy. By necessity, the Carrolls were diversifying their business. At the beginning of 1807 they imported barrel staves from Philadelphia and Quebec and pot and pearl ashes from Montreal and New York. In October a vessel from Charleston supplied rice, mahogany, cedar, staves as well as Sea Island and Upland cotton wool.
Around this time, trade with Cork was largely carried in foreign ships, but increasingly Cork owned ships were being registered. In 1810 a ship, the Heart of Oak was surveyed in Dublin for her owners Thomas Carroll & Co. In 1813 Joshua was appointed to the Cork Harbour Commissioners – surely an indication of the Carrolls’ standing in Cork merchant and business circles. In 1819 the 145 ton Earl Talbot was built in Cork for the Carrolls. It traded with St. Ubes in Portugal, a centre for salt production, as well as voyages to Trinidad and Quebec.
Joshua and Thomas’s position as Quaker merchants enabled them to enter the business of mortgage granting and insurance. In 1823 Thomas Carroll, then living in Leitrim Street, advertised the large family house and demesne of Hyde Park and some newly built houses on the Middle Glanmire Road for letting. This period also heralded interest in investing in joint stock companies. Thomas Carroll was involved in the setting up of the Cork and Limerick Railway Company.
In September 1825, Joshua and Thomas Carroll acquired a perpetual lease to a property that ran between St. Patrick’s Quay and King’s Street (now MacCurtain Street). Initially the Carrolls traded from St.Patrick’s Quay but by 1851 the property was sublet.
As the timber trade revived at the end of the Napoleonic War the Carrolls were increasingly determined to bring in timber in their own ships. By 1826 the Carrolls had three ships registered at Lloyd’s. The Irio and Gaspee served the Quebec timber trade and the Nelson Packet served the route between Cork and London. As the export of Irish goods reduced the ships began to carry emigrant passengers.
[more to follow….. page status: work in progress.]