Thomas Hope (1769–1831)

Thomas Hope (30 August 1769 – 3 February 1830/1831) was a Dutch and British merchant banker, author, philosopher and art collector, best known for his novel Anastasius, a work which many experts considered a rival to the writings of Lord Byron. His sons included Henry Thomas Hope and Alexander Beresford Hope.

The eldest son of Jan Hope, Thomas was descended from a branch of an old Scottish family who for several generations were merchant bankers known as the Hopes of Amsterdam, or Hope & Co. He inherited from his mother a love of the arts, which the efforts of his father and grandfather made possible by acquiring an enormous wealth. His father spent his final years turning his summer home Groenendaal Park in Heemstede into a grand park of sculpture open to the public. After he fled to London with his brothers to avoid the French occupation of the Netherlands from 1795–1810, he never returned.

In 1784, when young Thomas was fifteen, his father died unexpectedly in the Hague just after purchasing Bosbeek on the grounds of Groenendaal Park, the house that was to house his large art collection. He shared his art collection as part of the Hope & Co. partnership with his cousin Henry Hope. This cousin was just completing work on his Villa Welgelegen further up the road. Missing his father and grandfather, and preferring the company of his mother and brothers to his uncles in Amsterdam, Thomas did not enter the family business. Instead, at the age of eighteen, he began to devote more and more of his time to the study of all the arts, especially the architecture of classical civilisation, during a series of tours to other countries. During his grand tour through Europe, Asia and Africa, Hope interested himself especially in architecture and sculpture, making a large collection of artefacts which attracted his attention (e.g. the Hope Dionysus).

Thomas Hope returned to the Hague when his mother died in 1794. That same year, the three Hope brothers, along with their elder cousin Henry Hope, who was the executor of their mother's will, fled to London before the oncoming French revolutionary forces marching on Amsterdam. In their haste to remove their art collections to the safety of London, the Hopes left their houses, summer homes and parks full of wall decorations, furniture, and heavy statuary. Later, after the French occupation, Thomas's younger brother Adrian Elias would return to live at Groenendaal Park full-time and expand the gardens. Cousin Henry always hoped to return to his home, Villa Welgelegen, but he died in 1811 before King Willem restored Dutch sovereignty in 1814.

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