Arthur Anderson (businessman)
Arthur Anderson (1792, Shetland – 27 February 1868, London) was a Scottish businessman and Liberal politician. He was co-founder of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O).
Career
He was born at Böd of Gremista, in Lerwick, and as a boy worked on the beach preparing fish. The Crown attempted to press gang Anderson but Bressay man Thomas Bolt persuaded the Royal Navy to wait until he had finished his apprenticeship before his impressment in 1808. Anderson was discharged 10 years later in London. Like many Shetland men, he was left destitute 600 miles from home in London after his service to King and country during the Napoleonic wars. Anderson eventually became a clerk in the London shipping firm of Brodie McGhie Willcox where he become a partner in 1822. They developed the shipping business between Britain and the Iberian peninsula, at one stage shipping guns and the British Legion to fight Portuguese conservatives and Spanish Carlists during their internal wars of the 1830s.
They followed this with a regular steamship service in 1830, called the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company, which soon became P&O. Despite cash crises, it expanded operations to Hong Kong and Australia, supported by government mail contracts. At his death in 1868 P&O had the largest commercial fleet of steamships in the world.
He moved to Streatham, London, and was Chairman of P&O from 1854 until his death; other chairs included the coal transport company the Union Steamship Co[clarification needed] and the Crystal Palace Co.
He served as a radical Liberal MP for the Orkney and Shetland constituency
He also founded the Shetland Journal, the Shetland Fishery Company at Vaila, and encouraged fish exports to Spain and business between Shetland and the UK mainland.
He endowed Lower Norwood Working Men's Institute, the Anderson Educational Institute in 1862 [1] (later and currently known as Anderson High School and a home for the widows of fishermen in Shetland.
He was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
His nephew James Anderson, who worked in P&O, was married to the medical pioneer Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- Shetland his home
- History of the Peninsular and Oriental
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Arthur Anderson
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament for Orkney & Shetland 1847 – 1852 |
Succeeded by Frederick Dundas |
<templatestyles src="Asbox/styles.css"></templatestyles>
 |
This Scottish business-related biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
<templatestyles src="Asbox/styles.css"></templatestyles>
   |
This article about a Liberal Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom representing a Scottish constituency is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- Use dmy dates from April 2012
- Wikipedia articles needing clarification from April 2013
- 1792 births
- 1868 deaths
- Royal Navy sailors
- Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies
- Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Orkney and Shetland
- 19th-century Scottish businesspeople
- 19th-century businessmen
- Scottish newspaper editors
- Liberal Party (UK) MPs
- Burials at West Norwood Cemetery
- UK MPs 1847–52
- Scottish company founders
- Scottish business biography stubs
- Liberal MP for Scotland stubs
