Hester Pinney

Hester Pinney (3 July 1658 at Broadwindsor, Dorset – 19 February 1740), was an English businessperson.
She 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 in 1682, the family moved to London and engaged in trade. They sold laces from Devon and yarn from Antwerp, and the entire family was engaged in the family business, also her sisters Jane Hoare and Rachel Pinney.
Hester Pinney was particularly noted for her business skill and her ability to successful negotiations with their business associates, and therefore entrusted by her family to handle such affairs and, eventually, with more and more of the family business. She imported sugar from the West Indies through an associate, started a lace-making school and lent money for interest as a banker. Her contribution to the family business made the entire family wealthy.
After the death of her father in 1705, she also successfully engaged in speculation, and her business became more independent. She is noted to have been a significant member of the London business world. It was unusual for an unmarried woman of her time period to achieve such a position. Pinney never married, which would have placed her under the legal guardianship of her husband, but she had a long-term relationship with her business lawyer, George Booth, without being married to him. They had no children.