5 Amsterdam Hopes
A grandson of John Hope - James Hope was the ancestor of the founder of the merchant bank of Hope & Co in Amsterdam There were branches elsewhere 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.” This banker was Henry Hope and 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. With the approach of Napoleon's army in 1794, Henry Hope and his relatives fled to England. He purchased a house in Cavendish Square in London from his Scottish kinsman Lord Hopetoun. The family purchased other fine properties namely Deepdene in Surrey that became the home of Thomas Hope an author and fine furniture designer. Another Henry Hope, in 1860, bought a georgian country house in Castleblayney in County Monaghan, Ireland that he called Hope Castle. This house is now part of the Lough Muckno leisure park. The fabled Hope Diamond, now in the Smithsonian, is named after the Hope banking family as several members including Henry Hope owned it for a spell between c1824-1901.
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