John Tobin

John Tobin was born in 1762. He was a slave trader, merchant, and mayor of Liverpool. He was the captain and owner of multiple slaving voyages between 1793-1803. In 1798, Tobin married Sarah, daughter of James Aspinall who was a prominent Liverpool slave trader. After abolition,Tobin was one of the pioneers in establishing “legitimate” trade links between Africa and Liverpool, facilitated by his connections with the ruling elite class in Calaber which was the centre of palm-oil trade at the time. By the 1820s, his success in using the slave trade’s abolition to further his own wealth proved so successful that he was one of the largets African traders in Britain by the 1830s. He was also politically influential; He was part of the Tory party consisting of Liverpool elites, eventually becoming Mayor in 1819, a win which according to his opponents he only achieved through bribery.