African Lakes

The African Lakes Corporation plc (ALC) was a British company originally set-up in 1877 by Scottish businessmen to co-operate with Presbyterian missions in what is now Malawi. Despite its original connections with the Free Church of Scotland, it operated its businesses in Africa on a commercial rather than a philanthropic basis. It had political ambitions in the 1880s to control part of Central Africa and engaged in armed conflict with Swahili traders. Its businesses in the colonial era included water transport on the lakes and rivers of Central Africa, wholesale and retail trading including the operation of general stores, labour recruitment, landowning and later an automotive business. The company later diversified, but suffered an economic decline in the 1990s and was liquidated in 2007. One of the last Directors of the company kindly bought the records of the company and donated them to Glasgow University Archive Services, where they are still available for research.

The predecessor of this company was established as the Livingstonia Central Africa Company in 1877 with its head office in Glasgow by a group of local businessmen and its first managers were two brothers, John Moir and Frederick Moir. It was renamed The African Lakes Company Limited in 1878 and The African Lakes Corporation Limited in 1894. John Moir left the company in 1890, but Frederick Moir returned to Scotland in 1891 and continued to work for it there. All three of the original directors of the Company and several of the original shareholders were connected to the Foreign Missions Committee of the Free Church of Scotland, the parent body of Livingstonia Mission. Their aim was to set up a trade and transport concern that would work in close cooperation with the missions, to combat the slave trade by introducing legitimate trade, to make a profit, and to develop European influence in the area. The company's shares were acquired by the British South Africa Company in the 1893. Once the British South African Company acquired control of the company, it lost its former connection with the Free Church of Scotland and, whatever had been its aim before, it became part of an exploitative operations of its parent company. In 1893 the business of The African Lakes Company Limited was transferred to The African Lakes Trading Corporation Limited, a company registered in Scotland, which re-registered as a public limited company named The African Lakes Corporation plc in 1982.

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