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Life in London
~1765 - ~1770
Elizabeth “Eliza” Knipe was born in 1765, London. Her father, Robert Knipe was a wealthy merchant and businessman. He was director of the London Assurance Company, which offered insurance for a wide variety of British cargo ships, including those involved in the trade of enslaved Africans. It is of note that at least some portion of the Knipe family fortune came from the slave trade. Eliza would later befriend and attend lectures of Liverpool-based abolitionist, William Roscoe.
For reasons unclear in the records, Robert Knipe was blacklisted from London business circles circa 1770, and the Knipe family relocated to Manchester.