John Tasker (1742–1800) was a Welsh sea captain and shipowner who became the East India Company's Master Attendant at Bombay (now Mumbai) and purchased the Upton Castle estate in his native Pembrokeshire where he was High Sheriff in 1798.
Arrival in India and early maritime career
Seeking his fortune as a free mariner, Tasker was a passenger on the maiden voyage of the East Indiaman Anson and arrived at Bombay on 30 September 1764. He quickly found employment on so-called Country Ships trading along the coast of India and into China, and by 1774 was captain of the Louisa, owned by Governor William Hornby. In 1775 he was paid 10,000 Bombay rupees for carrying East India Company troops from Madras (now Chennai) to Bombay, and in December that year he was accompanied by the traveller Abraham Parsons on the Louisa'''s passage southward along the Malabar Coast. Parsons, whose account of the voyage was later published, left Tasker at Honnavar where he took on a cargo of pepper.
In the early 1780s he commanded the Shaw Birangore and the Hornby (also owned by the Governor) and, while captain of the latter, captured a vessel sailing under Spanish colours near Macao with a cargo of birds' nests. The captive ship was ransomed for two thousand dollars but, as the Hornby had no letters of marque, Tasker was unable to claim her as a prize and surrendered her to the frigate HMS Seahorse whose captain claimed her on behalf of the King.
He was in business on his own account when, in the early 1780s, he obtained government contracts to carry saltpetre, brimstone and rice from the Malabar Coast to Bombay, provided a packet service for the Bengal Presidency, and imported Madeira wine. In 1785 he was living at Calcutta (now Kolkata), where his house adjoined the landing stage known as Ross's Ghat, and was accepting freight on board the Nancy grab bound for Bombay and Surat.
Building of the Milford
The grab was probably on charter to Tasker but, in partnership with Pestonjee Bomanjee, he had commissioned the building of a 625-ton teak-hulled vessel by the Wadia family of shipwrights at Bombay. Bomanjee was then "the most distinguished and wealthiest of the Parsis" in Bengal and was a brother of the master-shipbuilder Jamsetjee Bomanjee. Their vessel was delivered in 1786 and named the Milford after Tasker's original home waters of Milford Haven. She was in almost constant employment in trade with China and Europe for the next 24 years and received her first thorough inspection in 1810 when "it was not found necessary to shift a timber".
In 1787 Tasker gave "a sumptuous entertainment to a number of English gentlemen" on board the Milford at Canton. Among the guests was the Hawaiian prince Kaʻiana, also known as Tyaana, at whose request Tasker ordered all broken victuals to be brought on deck so that Ka'iana could feed the Chinese who had gathered alongside the vessel. In October of the following year Arthur Bowes Smyth, surgeon in the First Fleet returning home via China, recorded that Tasker and the Milford were then at Whampoa (now Pazhou). Tasker may have disposed of his interest in the vessel shortly afterwards.
First return to Wales
In 1789, believing that he had accumulated sufficient funds for comfortable retirement, Tasker returned to his native Pembrokeshire and in December purchased the Upton Castle estate for £7,000. He took the waters at Bath in June 1790 but, though able to lend Lord Cawdor £10,000 on mortgage in January 1791, he returned to India later in the year seeking to augment his fortune. He left Upton Castle in the hands of his brother-in-law, Rev. John Rees, whom he had presented to the rectory of Nash-cum-Upton (the advowson of which had passed to him with Upton), and engaged Abraham Leach as steward.
Around the time when Tasker left Upton Castle, Elizabeth Bishop, sister of Mary Wollstonecraft, came to reside there as governess to some of Tasker's grand-nieces, and she continued there in an unhappy frame of mind for more than three years. The Wollstonecrafts' stepmother was a sister of Rev. Thomas Woods, whom Tasker later appointed to succeed Rees as Rector of Nash.