Origins of the Surname of Hope - Section 4
4 Amsterdam/Rotterdam Hopes
James Hope a grandson of John Hope - the Royal Trumpeter and Burgess of Edinburgh - see family tree on the Edinburgh Hope page was the ancestor of the founder of the merchant bank of Hope & Co in Amsterdam. His son Henry Hope married his second cousin Anne Hope of Craighall (1634-1721) in 1657 at Ceres Parish Church - the church for Craighall in Fife - they had at least three children born in Rotterdam, Archibald (1664-1743), Margaret (b 1667) and Henry (b 1669). Archibald who married Anna Claus is recognised as the founder of Hope @ Co. Archibald and Anna had eight sons and three daughters - six of the sons were involved in Hope @ Co. In 1767 Oliver Hope only son of Isaac Hope - who was one of the sons of the above Archibald - matriculated his coat-of-arms with the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh. Oliver differenced his arms from that of Craighall by adding a red Crescent below the gold Chevron and also adding a red Annulet (ring) on the Chevron. There were branches of Hope & Co apart from Amsterdam including the High Street in Edinburgh. The long term success of Hope & Co can be gauged by the recollections of Elizabeth Grant who in her memories recalled a visit to Amsterdam in 1819 that “The banker Mr. Hope has quite a noble villa near the mere, with wonderful gardens round it.” It is not clear which of the Hopes this banker was but the villa was Weglegen near Haarlem. This building is now the centre of local government for the province of Noord-Hollond. The Hope town house was at Keizergracht 444-446 which is now the Amsterdam Municipal Public Library. It was under the management of Henry Hope that the bank enjoyed its most successful period and was heavily involved in the Dutch East India Co. The South Sea Bubble crash of 1720 must have sent some of the Dutch Hopes scampering for cover overseas although most would return to Holland. With the approach of Napoleon's army in 1794, Henry Hope's great grand son John Hope (1737- 1784) and his sons and relatives fled to England from Holland with most of their great wealth. They purchased a house in Cavendish Square in London from their Scottish kinsman Lord Hopetoun.
The family purchased other fine properties namely Deepdene in Surrey that became the home of John's son ,Thomas Hope 1769-1830, an author and fine furniture designer. Thomas married Louisa de la Poer Beresford daughter of Baron Decies, the Right Rev. William Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam in Ireland. Thomas and Louisa had three children that headed a dynasty that became known as the Beresford Hope families. Descendants of the de la Poer Beresford family survive in Ireland in the form of the 9th Marquis of Waterford and Lady Waterford and their historic mansion Curraghmore House in Waterford.
Thomas's brother Henry Philip Hope 1769-1831, was a collector of fine gems and purchased as what was to be known as the Hope diamond. He also purchased a huge salt-water pearl that became the Hope Pearl. Henry bought and restored a georgian country house in Castleblayney in County Monaghan, Ireland in 1860 that he called Hope Castle. This house is now part of the Lough Muckno leisure park.
More about this Hope family after their arrival in England on the London and South-East section of the English Hopes page.
The fabled Hope Diamond, now in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, (presently insured for US$ 250 million) is named after the Hope banking family as several members - Henry Philip Hope - Henry Thomas Hope etc owned the diamond between c1824-1901. There is a good coverage of the story of the Hope diamond on Wikipedia.
The Hope Pearl is in the Natural History Museum in London.
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