Sir James Nicolas Sutherland Matheson, 1st Baronet (17 October 1796 – 31 December 1878), born in Shiness, Lairg, Sutherland, Scotland, was the son of Captain Donald Matheson, a Scottish trader in India. He attended Edinburgh's Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh. He and William Jardine went on to co-found the Hong Kong based trading conglomerate Jardine Matheson & Co. that became today's Jardine Matheson Holdings.
China and Hong Kong
In 1807, Matheson was entrusted by his uncle with a letter to be delivered to the captain of a soon-to-depart British vessel. He forgot to deliver the missive and the vessel sailed without it. Incensed at his nephew's negligence, the uncle suggested that young James might be better off back in England. He took his uncle at his word and went to engage a passage back home. However, a chance encounter with an old sea captain instead saw Matheson departing for Canton.
Matheson first met William Jardine in Canton in 1818. The two men later formed a partnership which also included Hollingworth Magniac and Daniel Beale. At first the new firm dealt only with trade between Canton, Bombay and Calcutta, at that time called the "country trade" but later extended their business to London.
In 1827 he provided a small hand press for the printing of the Canton Register, the first English language newspaper in China, which was edited by William Wightman Wood, an American from Philadelphia who would later work for rival trading house Russell & Co.
On 1 July 1832, Jardine, Matheson and Company, a partnership, between William Jardine, James Matheson as senior partners, and Hollingworth Magniac, Alexander Matheson, Jardine's nephew Andrew Johnstone, Matheson's nephew Hugh Matheson, John Abel Smith, and Henry Wright, as the first partners was formed in Canton, and took the Chinese name 'Ewo' (怡和 "Yee-Wo" Literally Happy Harmony). The name was taken from the earlier Ewo Hong founded by Howqua which had an honest and upright reputation.
In 1834, Parliament ended the monopoly of the British East India Company on trade between Britain and China. Jardine, Matheson and Company took this opportunity to fill the vacuum left by the East India Company. With its first voyage carrying tea, the Jardine clipper ship Sarah left for England. Jardine Matheson began its transformation from a major commercial agent of the East India Company into the largest British trading hong, or firm, in Asia from its base in Hong Kong.
Jardine wanted the opium trade to expand in China and despatched Matheson to England to lobby the Government to press the Qing government to further open up trade. Matheson's mission proved unsuccessful and he was rebuked by the then British Foreign Secretary the Duke of Wellington. In a report, he complained to Jardine over being insulted by an "arrogant and stupid man". Matheson returned to Asia in 1838 and the following year Jardine left for England to continue lobbying.
Jardine's lobbying efforts proved more effective than his partner's and he succeeded in persuading the new British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston to wage war on Qing China. The subsequent First Opium War led to the Treaty of Nanking which allowed Jardine Matheson to expand from Canton to Hong Kong and Mainland China.
After Jardine died a bachelor in 1843, his nephews David and Andrew Jardine assisted James Matheson in running the Hong as Tai-Pan. Matheson retired as Tai-Pan during the early 1840s and handed over to David Jardine, another nephew of Jardine.
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China
On 29 November 1834, Matheson became chairman of the newly formed "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China". The committee members represented a wide section of the business and missionary community in Canton: David Olyphant, William Wetmore, James Innes, Thomas Fox, Elijah Coleman Bridgman, Karl Gützlaff and John Robert Morrison. John Francis Davis, at that time chief superintendent of British trade in China, was made an honorary member.
Return to Scotland
Matheson married Mary Jane Perceval on 9 November 1843. Her father, Michael Henry Perceval (1779–1829), was the illegitimate nephew of assassinated British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. Matheson bought the Scottish Isle of Lewis in 1844 for over half a million pounds and built Lews Castle, near Stornoway. In 1845, he began a programme of improvements on the island, including drainage schemes and road construction. He increased the programme during the Highland Potato Famine and by 1850 had spent some £329,000 on the island. Between 1851 and 1855 he assisted 1,771 people to emigrate. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1846.
As a result of his actions during the famine, Matheson was rewarded with a baronetcy in 1850. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashburton from 1843 to 1852 and for Ross and Cromarty from 1852 to 1868. He died at the age of 82 in Menton, France. The baronetcy became extinct on his death.
After his death, his wife erected a memorial to him in the grounds of Lews Castle.
- Mackenzie, Alexander History of the Mathesons with Genealogies of the Various Families (1900)
- Greenberg, Michael (2000). Tuck, Patrick J. N., ed. British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–1842 9. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-18998-5. p. 39
- Waters, Dan (1990). "Hong Kong's Hongs with Long Histories and British Connections". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch 30: 219–256. ISSN 1991-7295. p. 222
- Haddad, John Rogers (2008). The Romance of China: Excursions to China in US Culture: 1776–1876. Columbia University Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780231130943.
- "William Jardine". Retrieved 13 April 2011.
- Cheong, W.E. (1997). The Hong Merchants of Canton: Chinese merchants in Sino-Western trade. Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-0361-6. p. 122 Online version at Google books
- Dong, Stella (2000). Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-688-15798-X. p. 6
- Elijah Coleman Bridgman; Samuel Wells Williams (1835). The Chinese Repository. Maruzen Kabushiki Kaisha. p. 381.
- "Auction of Fine Portrait Miniatures Including the Judy & Brian Harden Collection London, Knightsbridge 25 May 2011". Bonhams. 25 May 2011. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
- "Fellows Details". Royal Society. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
- "Lady Matheson's Memorial". The Stornoway Trust. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by James Matheson
- Overview of Sir James Matheson
- The Opium Wars: how Scottish traders fed the habit from The Scotsman
- Sir James Matheson a 19th century improver with links to references for further study
|Parliament of the United Kingdom|
|Member of Parliament for Ashburton
1843 – 1847
Sir James Mackenzie
|Member of Parliament for Ross and Cromarty
Sir Alexander Matheson
Hugh Duncan Bailie
|Lord Lieutenant of Ross-shire
|Baronetage of the United Kingdom|
(of The Kews)
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