The simile “As rich as Damer” has been used for over two hundred years in Ireland, and derives its origin from the richest, meanest, and most unscrupulous Shylock banker that modern times have produced. (The Irish Times, April 26th, 1930).

• He is also credited as being the first banker in Ireland to issue his own banknotes (proto-banknotes)
• Sadly, none survive (or, at least, have not been found and recorded yet)

Joseph Damer (c.1630–1720), land agent & wool merchant, turned banker, moneylender and infamous miser, was born at Godmanston in Dorset. His father was one John Damer, who was from a landowning family established in Somerset and Dorset. His mother was Elizabeth Damer (nee Maber), daughter of the Rev. William Maber. Joseph had several sisters and five younger brothers.

• Nothing is known of his early life and education, and his career before his arrival in Ireland is somewhat obscure. It is said (albeit without citations) that he commanded a troop of horse under Oliver Cromwell, who regarded him highly enough to send him twice to negotiate secretly with Cardinal Mazarin.
• On Cromwell’s death he is supposed to have gone to France with his friend Sir William Lockhart, English ambassador to the French court, and to have attended the wedding of Louis XIV in 1660.
• Upon the demise of the Protectorate and subsequent restoration of the monarchy in 1660, apprehensive about remaining in England on account of his former Parliamentarian military connections, he is said to have sold some of his lands in Somerset and Dorset, and to have purchased large estates cheaply in Ireland in 1661.
  • This account, perhaps based on family tradition, is not corroborated.He is said to have been an invitee at the marriage of the Sun King, Louis XIV to Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660.
• His apprehension seems to have been well founded as one of Joseph’s brothers, Edward, chaplain to the Jersey garrison under the protectorate, was deprived at the restoration.

It is certain that he came to Ireland after the restoration (c. 1661) and he bought several acres of land in Tipperary, possibly at a nominal sum. He entered the wool business, stocking his estates with 10,000 sheep.

• He shipped the wool to France, sometimes in exchange for expensive wines and brandies which he sold on at a sound profit.
• As a side-line business he became a chandler, which, by a stroke of good fortune, was to provide him with the greatest portion of his wealth – a retail dealer in provisions and supplies or equipment of a specified kind, or (possibly) a specialist manufacturer of tallow and purveyor of tallow candles and holders.
• He appears in 1667 as land agent to Erasmus Smith, a prominent Cromwellian adventurer, who had acquired large estates in Tipperary.
• Damer settled at Shronell, Co Tipperary and, in addition to running his own estates and import/export businesses, he also established himself as a moneylender, lending to other landowners on mortgages.

Joseph Damer is one of those Cromwellian adventurers that spawned a wide range of stories and myths re how he acquired his wealth, fame and fortune while in Ireland – several of these stories is recorded in The Story of the Damer Gold, collected and put into print by Joseph M. Hone, in which he recalls three rather disparaging tales

• One Tipperary tradition describes how Damer purchased a cask of tallow in Cashel, in which was hidden by monks, church plate and ornaments in solid gold from a monastery previously sacked by Cromwellian soldiers
• In another story, Hone proposes the gold was not monastery gold, but a huge stash of looted Danish Viking gold
• While in yet another Tipperary tale, Damer is said to have acquired the gold from Satan, following a pact between the two

Whatever the real origin, Hone suggests that ‘Damer’s Gold’, when melted down, provided him with the wherewithal to enter the money-lending business. There is some confusion as to when exactly Damer became a moneylender. It is likely to be well after Damer first arrived in Ireland c.1661 and Hone surmises that when Joseph’s nephew John, arrived in Ireland towards the close of the 17^th century he took over management of his uncle’s various estates allowing Joseph to live in Dublin and concentrate on the banking business.

Apart from all of the begrudgery around how he acquired his wealth, one story that seems to be true is that Joseph Damer was a miser that did not ‘splash the cash’ or display his wealth. From the moment he arrived in Dublin, Damer seems to have earned his later miserly reputation:

• Despite being one of the wealthiest men in Ireland, Damer rented a room in the London Tavern on Fishamble Street in Dublin, from where he ran ‘a cold calculating money-lending business’
• With many an estate falling into his hands when the mortgagee failed to meet his commitments, Damer added to his already considerable wealth
• The London Tavern, during reign of Charles II (in the 1660s) was described as “a timber house slated, a base court, a back building more backward, and a small garden in Fishamble-street.” In this tavern was the office of Joseph Damer.
• He was known as a ‘Banker, Usurer and Money Scrivener’, not in the habit of giving to beggars on the street, friendless and going about shabbily dressed, he acquired a reputation as a miser.
  • Sir John Thomas Gilbert provides a sardonic elegy from the pen of Jonathan Swift, said to be composed the very day Damer died at the age of 91, July 6^th 1720,

‘An elegy on the much lamented death of Demar (sic), the famous rich Usurer’;

He walk’d the streets, and wore a threadbare cloak;
He dined and supp’d at charge of other folk;
And by his looks, had he held out his palms,
He might be thought an object fit for alms.
So, to the poor if he refused his pelf,
He used them full as kindly as himself.

Where’er he went, he never saw his betters;
Lords, knights, and squires, were all his humble debtors.
And under hand and seal, the Irish nation
Were forced to owe to him their obligation.
Oh! London Tavern, thou hast lost a friend,
Though in thy walls he ne’er did farthing spend;
He touched the pence when others touch’d the pot;
The hand that sign’d the mortgage paid the shot.”

However, given Swift’s prejudice towards bankers, Hone suggests it would be unfair to judge Damer by this scornful description of him. Fraser argues he never took more than the common interest, eight percent, the amount allowed by law.

• Almost two centuries later, such was the notoriety acquired by Damer, that Lady Gregory felt compelled to pen a play titled, Damer’s Gold, for which Irishplayography.com (Irish Theatre Institute) provides the synopsis;
  • ‘Damer is a miserable old man who inspires little affection among his relatives. His stock of gold, however, interests them greatly’.

So what became of the stock of gold upon the death of the miser Damer?

• Having never married, Damer bequeathed the bulk of his land and money to his nephews, John and Joseph. His estate, valued at nearly £400,000, allowed both to be among the great landowners of Ireland.
  • His nephew, John, inherited his uncle’s original landed property as well as several more estates in Munster, Connacht and Leinster.
  • His other nephew, Joseph, inherited estates in Tipperary. He came over from Dorset and settled in Roscrea with his wife Mary Churchill.
    • They had three sons, Joseph, John and George and two daughters, Mary and Martha.

Despite his reputation for miserliness, Damer was a benefactor of Presbyterianism and, by some accounts, Unitarianism. He and his nephew John (1673?–1768) were among the trustees and managers of the General Fund established in 1710 to support the protestant dissenting interest.

• Another fund was established in 1718 to support the congregation in New Row in Dublin.
• Joseph was an associate of prominent dissenting clergy, including Nathanael Weld and Daniel Williams (qv), who appointed him an executor of his will.
• Joseph Damer bequeathed £500 to the Blue Coat (King’s Hospital) School in Dublin in his own will.
  • His nephew (and main beneficiary) John Damer bought Roscrea from the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham (that institution had, in turn, bought the town from the Butler family in 1703).
  • Unlike his misery uncle, John Damer didn’t waste any time in displaying his immense wealth. He built the first Damer House (a house in the style of Queen Anne, constructed within the walls of a 13th century castle around which grew the town of Roscrea), shortly afterwards.
    • This house no longer exists
    • A later house (built in the Palladian style) is thought to have been built over it
• From c.1718 (or possibly 1725), Damer Hall served as Damer School, a co-educational primary school for Unitarian and Jewish children.
  • It was funded by the Damer Endowment, a trust bequeathed by wealthy landowner and banker Joseph Damer (1630-1720)
  • His bequests also helped to establish the Damer Institute for destitute widows at 27 Parnell Street.

Bibliography:

A History of the City of Dublin, Sir John Thomas Gilbert. MH Gill, (1854).

The Story of the Damer Gold, Joseph M. Hone, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review Vol. 39, No. 156 (Dec., 1950), pp. 419-426 Published by: Irish Province of the Society of Jesus.

Joseph Damer: A Banker of Old Dublin, A. M. Fraser, Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Mar. – May, 1941), pp. 41-53, 79 Published by: Old Dublin Society.