Thomas Hanbury

Sir Thomas Hanbury (21 June 18329 March 1907) was an English businessman, gardener and philanthropist. He built the Giardini Botanici Hanbury, or Hanbury botanical gardens, at Mortola, between Ventimiglia and Menton, on the coast of Italy near to the border with France. Early life Thomas Hanbury was born on 21 June 1832 at Bedford Road, Clapham, Surrey. He was the fourth child and third son of a pharmaceutical chemist, Daniel Bell Hanbury (1794–1882), and his wife Rachel, née Christy, (c. 1802–1876). His eldest brother was the botanist and pharmacognosist Daniel Hanbury (1825–1875). The Hanburys were Quakers, and members of the family had been members of the Society of Friends since its beginnings in the seventeenth century. His great-aunt was the philanthropist and centenarian Elizabeth Hanbury. Thomas Hanbury was sent to predominantly Quaker schools, first in Croydon, and then in Epping. He remained a Friend all his life. China From 1849 Hanbury worked for the tea brokers William James Thompson & Sons in Mincing Lane, London. In 1853 he travelled to Shanghai, which had opened to foreign commerce in 1843. With three partners and with the financial backing of his uncle, he started Hanbury & Co., merchants in silk and tea. The partnership dissolved in 1857, and Hanbury and Frederick Bower entered into a new one, Bower, Hanbury & Co., which diversified into currency trading and cotton broking. Hanbury became extremely wealthy, and was the largest holder of property in Shanghai.