Forbes family
| Ethnicity | Scottish |
|---|---|
| Current region | United States |
| Place of origin | Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Members | John Murray Forbes, John Kerry, Brice Lalonde |
| Connected families | Kerry family |
| Estate |
Les Essarts, Naushon Island |
The Forbes family is a wealthy extended American family long prominent in Boston, Massachusetts. The family's fortune originates from trading between North America and China in the 19th century plus other investments in the same period. The name descends from Scottish immigrants, and can be traced back to Sir John de Forbes in Scotland in the 12th century. Notable family members are businessman John Murray Forbes (1813–1898), part of the first generation who accumulated wealth, and politician John Forbes Kerry (born 1943).
The first member of the Forbes family to live in the United States, John Forbes (1740–1783), a clergyman, married Dorothy Murray on February 2, 1769 in Milton, Massachusetts, where one of his three sons was born. The family is considered{{by whom|date=January 2015}2} part of the Boston Brahmin ėlite, although the Reverend John Forbes' first post on the North American continent was in British East Florida, where he became the first Anglican clergyman licensed to officiate during the English period of 1763-1783. The Forbes family has a link to the Dudley-Winthrop family directly from Thomas Dudley (1576-1653), father of Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), the first English-language female poet from America.
The Boston trading firm Perkins & Co. sent many young men of their extended family to participate in their business activities abroad. Ralph Forbes being married to Margaret Perkins, their children were encouraged in the business. Following the death overseas of his older brother, Thomas Tunno Forbes, the Perkinses encouraged John Murray Forbes to travel to China, too. There John was mentored by the Chinese merchant Houqua who treated him like a son.
Perkins & Co., like many other Boston trading firms in the early 19th century, sent ships to China to get tea for sale in America (although some was ultimately re-exported to Britain and Europe). To pay for the tea, they exported to China large quantities of silver and also furs, manufactured goods, cloth, wood, opium and any other items that they thought the Chinese market would absorb. Active trading houses, particularly those from Boston, usually kept representatives resident in Hong Kong whose main role was to look for and secure quality tea for export at good prices. This was John Murray Forbes' main job during the two years he spent in China (Gibson 2001; Malloy 1998). John Murray Forbes' brother, Robert Bennet Forbes, was more intimately involved in the importing side of the business and, at least by their own writings, had a more direct role than did John in the opium trade. (Kerr 1996; Hughes 1899).
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