John Bolton

Lieutenant-Colonel John Bolton (22 March 1756 – 24 February 1837) was an English merchant, Volunteer Corps officer and slave trader. During the Napoleonic Wars, he raised an 800-strong battalion of the Liverpool Volunteers regiment to defend against Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom.

Life

John Bolton, third and final son of the apothecary Abraham Bolton (died 1764) by his wife, Ann, née Philipson, was born in King Street, Ulverston, Lancashire, on 22 March 1756. The surname was probably originally spelt Boulton.

John was educated at the local grammar school, and apprenticed at Liverpool to the firm of Rawlinsons & Chorley, merchants in the West Indies cotton trade, who sent him to the Caribbean, where he was employed by them, on St. Vincent and later St. Lucia, between 1773 and 1783.

Personal life

Bolton married Elizabeth Littledale (born 1768), daughter of the merchant Henry Littledale, and sister of Bolton's future business partner Anthony Littledale, at St Marylebone Church, London, on 31 May 1797. The marriage was barren. Elizabeth died a widow on 22 September 1848.