Sir Daniel Harvey (10 November 1631 – August 1672) was an English merchant and diplomat who was the English Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1668 to 1672.
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Life
Harvey was born in Croydon on 10 November 1631, the first surviving son of Daniel and Elizabeth Harvey. His grandfather Thomas was a wealthy merchant and former Mayor of Folkestone who had nine children, the eldest of whom was the anatomist William Harvey.
Harvey was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating in 1647; Like his father, he was a member of the Turkey or Levant Company whose main source of profits was the lucrative trade in dried currants. In 1651, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Montagu, Baron Montagu of Boughton and shortly afterwards purchased an estate at Coombe, Surrey.
Career
The Harveys were Royalist sympathisers during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms while the Montagus had been prominent supporters of Parliament. This made Daniel's marriage to Elizabeth an important connection and in 1654 he was made Sheriff of Surrey. The Montagus were also closely involved in the negotiations leading to the 1660 Restoration of Charles II. Harvey was elected Member of Parliament for Surrey in the Convention Parliament, knighted in May 1660 and appointed custodian of Richmond Park. Most importantly, Charles renewed the Levant Company's monopolistic charter in 1661.