Background
Edward Colston was the son of William Colston, a Bristol merchant of good position, was born at Bristol on the 2nd of November 1636. He is generally understood to have spent some years of his youth and manhood as a factor in Spain, with which country his family was long connected commercially, and whence, by means of a trade in wines and oil, great part of his own vast fortune was to come.
Career
Edward Colston seems to have settled in London, and to have bent himself resolutely to the task of making money.
In 1689 he was chosen auditor by the vestry at Mortlake, where he was residing in an old house once the abode of Ireton and Cromwell.
In 1691, on St Michael's Hill, Bristol, at a cost of £8000, he founded an almshouse for the reception of 24 poor men and women, and endowed with accommodation for " Six Saylors, " at a cost of £600, the merchant's almshouses in King Street.
In 1708; at a cost of £41, 200, he built and endowed his great foundation on SaintAugustine's Back, for the instruction, clothing, maintaining and apprenticing of 100 boys; and in time of scarcity, during this and next year, he transmitted " by a private hand " some £20, 000 to the London committee.
He died at Mortlake in 1721, having nearly completed his eighty-fifth year; and was buried in All Saints' church, Bristol. Colston, who was in the habit of bestowing large sums yearly for the release of poor debtors and the relief of indigent age and sickness, and who gave (1711) no less than £6000 to increase Queen Anne's Bounty Fund for the augmentation of small livings, was always keenly interested in the organization and management of his foundations; the rules and regulations were all drawn up by his hand, and the minutest details of their constitution and economy were dictated by him.