Cornish Mariner, Captain Joseph Banfield

Cornish Mariner, Captain Joseph Banfield

Charlotte Mackenzie

13 March 2019

At the March meeting Charlotte Mackenzie gave a talk on the career of Captain Joseph Banfield who was born in Falmouth in the mid eighteenth century. Here he lived until the age of 16, when he persuaded his parents to allow him to sign an eight year apprenticeship on an American ship which was visiting Falmouth at that time. He wrote a memoir in 1796 describing his seagoing career.

While his voyages included trading goods in the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic, he was very much involved in the slave trade, which operated from West Africa to the West Indies. He made 11 such voyages until the trade was abolished in 1807 by Act of Parliament, though trafficking continued in the Caribbean until 1811.

At times he lived in Nantucket, USA, engaged in whaling, but returned to live in Limehouse, London, where he died in 1868.