Lancelot Dent

Lancelot Dent was a 19th-century British merchant resident for a period in Canton, China who dealt primarily in opium.

He was christened on August 4, 1799, in Crosby Ravensworth, Westmorland, England, son of William and Jane (Wilkinson) Dent.

Lancelot took over as senior partner of trading house Dent & Co. headquartered in Canton, when his brother Thomas departed the company in 1831.

Together with Thomas, Lancelot commissioned construction of Flass House, now a grade two listed building in the Palladian style, on land inherited from their sister in England's northern Lake District.

She later married Captain John Fish and her son adopted his stepfather's surname, but Lancelot was listed as the father in documents.

Dent's verandah, showing French merchant Durant on a rattan chair, W.C. Hunter, and Captain William Hall , by George Chinnery
The east side of Dent's English home, Flass , in 2011