Richard Reynolds Rathbone made investments in the New York and Canada Railway and the United Alkali Company Ltd, to support Newnham’s Liverpool Clough Scholarship. He also regularly contributed £5 to Newnham as a Guarantor Member.
Richard Reynolds Rathbone’s grandfather was William Rathbone IV (1757-1809), a Quaker cotton merchant, and the largest (and potentially first) importer of American cotton. William IV was also a founding member of the Liverpool Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and known in his family as ‘The Abolitionist’. Indeed, the Rathbone family was known as one of the Liverpool families that opposed the slave trade, despite the source of their wealth.
William IV’s sons established the company William and Richard Rathbone, their main business being cotton commission. By the 1840s, the business now known as Rathbone Brothers & Co. had brought in new partners, including additional family members. The business expanded across the globe, with dealings in Uruguay, Egypt, China and India - and so did their slave-made imports, including slave-grown grain from America, and slave grown-coffee from Brazil.
The Rathbones were also involved in the post-emancipation sugar industry in Jamaica, forming connections with the Ewarts.