IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0064 COP
Held at: National Maritime Museum
Title: De Coppet, Andre (1892-1953)
Date(s): 1618-1805
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 16 items
Name of creator(s): Andre | Coppet | De | 1892-1953 | American broker and collector
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Andre De Coppet (d 1953) was of Huguenot descent and was a prominent figure on the New York Stock Exchange. Andre De Coppet (1892-1953) was an American broker and collector of Americana. He was born in New York in 1892 to Edward J. and Pauline De Coppet. A 1915 graduate of Princeton University, he inherited a position in the family stock exchange firm of De Coppet and Doremus after the death of his father in 1916. In 1920 he wed Clara Barclay Onativia in New York. In the mid-1920s he took an interest in Haiti and invested in a sisal plantation there. Through the 1920s and 1930s, De Coppet amassed a significant collection of European and American manuscripts. The intention behind his collection was to bring together original documents illustrating the history of Europe from the twelfth century onwards. His particular interest was cultural history.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers from the collection of Andre De Coppet consisting of sixteen documents. The earliest, 1618, is an estimate of expenditure on seven ships 'at the narrow Seas' signed by the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham (1536-1624), the Comptroller of the Navy, Sir Guilford Slingsby (d 1632) and the Surveyor of the Navy, Sir Richard Bingley (fl 1590-1618). Two other seventeenth-century documents relate to prize money; a letter of 1667 from Lord Bellasis (1614-1689) to Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), with Pepys' draft reply. Three documents are addressed to Admiral Honore Ganteaume (1755-1818) from Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) and consist of an order, 1798, regarding the blockade of Alexandria, and two letters, 1798 and 1805; the former discusses possible courses of action open to the French fleet against the British in the Mediterranean. The eleven letters of Lord Nelson (q.v.), 1799 to 1805, which make up the rest of the collection, concern events in the Mediterranean after the Battle of the Nile and those leading up to the Battle of Trafalgar. Four of these are to Sir John Acton (1736-1811), Prime Minister to Ferdinand I of Naples and Sicily. Complaints about Lord Keith (q.v.) are the main subject in the letter, 1799, to Sir William Hamilton (q.v.).
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Conditions governing access:
Please contact the Archive for further information.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Please contact the Archive for further information.
Finding aids:
Detailed catalogue online at the: National Maritime Museum website .
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
The collection, a small part of the original collection, was purchased at Sotheby's through the Caird Fund in 1955.
ALLIED MATERIALS
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Edited by Sarah Drewery, Jun 2011.
Date(s) of descriptions: 2010-08-26