William Tennant (United Irishmen)

William Tennant (1759–1832), often spelled William Tennent, was an Ulster Presbyterian banker and member of the Society of the United Irishmen, a revolutionary republican organisation in late 18th century Ireland.

William Tennant
Born26 June 1759
County Antrim, Kingdom of Ireland
Died20 July 1832
Belfast, County Antrim, United Kingdom
OccupationBanker
Known forIrish Revolutionary
Political partyUnited Irishmen

Early life

William Tennent was born in 1759 in County Antrim, Kingdom of Ireland the eldest son of Reverend John Tennant[1] a Scottish Presbyterian minister who settled in Ulster in the mid 18th century and was associated with the seceding faction of Ulster Presbyterians.[2] As a young man he served as an apprentice with John Campbell, a Belfast merchant and banker. He joined the Belfast Chamber of Commerce in 1783, and was junior manager in the New Sugar House in Waring Street. He eventually became a partner in this business, and he held partnerships in the distilling firm of John Porter & Co. and the Belfast Insurance Co. By the time he reached adulthood, Tennant was a very prosperous businessman.[3]

The United Irishmen

The Society of United Irishmen, originally proposed by Tennant's friend in Dublin, William Drennan, was formed in Belfast by a group of the town's more radical Presbyterian reformers, enthused by the French Revolution and Thomas Paine's vindication of The Rights of Man. They had read Theobald Wolfe Tone's Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland in which he argued that that division between Catholics and Protestants was being used by English and landed interests to balance "the one party by the other, plunder and laugh at the defeat of both." He put forward the case for unity between Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. In October 1791 they invited Tone and his friend Thomas Russell for what proved to be the Society's nagural meeting.

According to Bardon; Tennant was a key leader of the Society in Ulster, and an advocate of violent revolution,[4] while Jonathan Wright states that Tennant must be considered one of the highest-ranking members of the secret organisation in Ulster.[5] It is unclear when he joined the Society, but as early as December 1792; Tennant was listed as one of twenty-one committee members tasked with building out the organisation.[6] Other members of this committee included Henry Haslett and Drenna's brother-in-law Samuel McTier.

According to Wolfe Tone, Tennant had been a member of a pre-United Irishmen secret society in Belfast which included McTier and Haslett, as well as Samuel Neilson and Gilbert McIlveen.[7] This was the Jacobin Club described by William Drennan's sister Martha McTier in 1795 as an established democratic party in Belfast, composed of "persons and rank long kept down" and chaired by a "radical mechanick".[8] When April 1795 Earl Fitzwilliam, Lord Lieutenant for just fifty days, was recalled to London for publicly urging support for Emancipation, and the general prospects for reform appeared buried, these Jacobins with their radical ideas flooded United Irish societies.[9]

Arrest and Imprisonment

During the rebellion of 1798, he was arrested for his membership of the United Irishmen, and imprisoned on a prison ship in Belfast Lough with William Steel Dickson, Robert Hunter and Robert Simms. On 25 March 1799, Tennant, Dickson, Hunter, and Simms joined the United Irish 'State Prisoners' on a ship bound or Fort George, Highland prison in Scotland.[10] This group, which included Samuel Neilson, Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Russell, William James MacNeven, and Thomas Addis Emmet arrived in Scotland on 9 April 1799. Tennant would spend two years there.[11]

Unlike the more high-profile prisoners like O'Connor and MacNeven who would not be released until June 1802, Tennant, Dickson, and Simms were permitted to return to Belfast in January 1802[12] due to the pleas of his brother.[13] [14]

Later career

With William Drennan, Tennant and his brother Robert, were co-founders in 1810 of the Belfast (later Royal Belfast) Academical Institution, its mission to render "less expensive the means of acquiring education; to give access to the walks of literature to the middle and lower classes of society; [and] to make provision for the instruction of both sexes."[15] He was co-founder, in 1809, of the Commercial Bank, and he worked in the bank until it became Belfast Banking Co. in 1827. He was on the Board of the Spring Water Commissioners and the Belfast Banking Company, and was Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce.[16] Tennent eventually became the town's richest merchant and banker.[17]

Later life

In 1814, Tennant purchased the village and demesne of Tempo, County Fermanagh. He bequeathed property to the Presbyterian Church, and died of cholera at the age of 73.[18] He left behind at last 13 illegitimate children, all of whom he recognised and supported.[19]

Notes
  1. Madden 1860, pp 168.
  2. Torpin 2013.
  3. Bardon 2013.
  4. Bardon 2013.
  5. Torpin 2013.
  6. Madden 1860, pp 7.
  7. Madden 1860, pp 13
  8. Martha McTier to Drennan, [March 1795]. Public Records Office Northern Ireland, Drennan Letters T.765/548, cited
  9. Curtin, Nancy (1985). "The Transformation of the Society of United Irishmen into a mass-based revolutionary organisation, 1794-6". Irish Historical Studies. xxiv (96): 473.
  10. Madden 1860, pp 172.
  11. William's second younger brother, John, who had been involved with the United Irishmen, fled to France in 1797.
  12. Madden 1860, pp 183
  13. Madden 1860, pp 168.
  14. Dr. Robert (1765-1837) Having qualified he became a ship’s doctor but, after 1799, remained in Belfast, looking after the business of his brother William whilst he was in prison.
  15. Bardon, Jonathan (1982). Belfast: An Illustrated History. Belfast: Blackstaff Press. p. 80. ISBN 0856402729.
  16. Newman 2016.
  17. Bardon 2013.
  18. Newman 2016.
  19. Bardon 2013.

References
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