Hester Pinney

Hester Pinney (3 July 1658 at Broadwindsor, Dorset – 19 February 1740), was an English businessperson in partnership with her sister Rachel Pinney. They dealt in lace like her sisters Sarah Pinney and Jane Hoare. Hester was organising outworkers, and later importing sugar from Nevis where her exiled brother Azariah Pinney was making a fortune, owning slaves and dealing in sugar.

Life Pinney was the eighth of the ten children of the Presbyterian minister and preacher John Pinney (1620/21–1705) and Jane French (1614–1693). When her father was exiled from his church, the family decided to trade in lace. Her sisters Jane Hoare and Sarah Pinney were already trading when Hester moved to London and engaged in trade with her sister Rachel in 1682. They had a lace shop in the Royal Exchange. They sold laces from Devon and yarn from Antwerp, and they arranged the import of yarn which then went to out-workers.

Hester Pinney was particularly noted for her business skill and her ability in successful negotiations. She manage to bribe officials to allow her brother who had been involved with the Monmouth Rebellion to escape punishment. He dealt there in lace and sugar.

When George Booth died in 1726 she had been living in the same house for three years. She was his only executor. He left her property in West Ham and Houndsditch and the manor of Monken Hadley twelve miles outside London.