Alexander Livingstone Bruce

Alexander Livingstone Bruce (24 October 1881 – 12 February 1954) was a capitalist of Scottish origin, a director and major shareholder of A L Bruce Estates Ltd, one of the largest property owning companies in colonial Nyasaland. His father, Alexander Low Bruce, was a son-in-law of David Livingstone and urged his two sons to use the landholding he had acquired for philanthropic purposes. However, during almost 50 years residence in Africa, Bruce represented the interests of European landowners and opposed the political, educational and social advancement of Africans. After the death of his elder brother in 1915, Alexander Livingstone Bruce had sole control of the company estates: his management was harsh and exploitative, and one of the main causes of the uprising of John Chilembwe in 1915. During the uprising, three of Bruce’s European employees were killed and one of them, William Jervis Livingstone was held partly to blame for the revolt. Although Livingstone was carrying out Bruce’s orders, Bruce, as a leading landowner and member of the governor’s Legislative Council, escaped censure. Despite Bruce’s striving for profits, A L Bruce Estates lost money but was saved from insolvency by the colonial government’s need for land for resettlement following a famine in 1949. Shortly before his death in 1954, Bruce was able to sell the company’s Nyasaland estates, repay its debts and realise a surplus.

Agnes (born 1847), the daughter of David Livingstone and his wife Mary, married Alexander Low Bruce (born 1839) in 1875, and they had four children. The first child was a son, David Livingstone Bruce (1877–1915), the second child was a daughter who died young, the third child and second son was Alexander Livingstone Bruce (born 1881), and the fourth child was a daughter Annie Livingstone Bruce (1883–1954).

Alexander Low Bruce was a master brewer and supported East and Central African commercial and missionary organisations. After his marriage to Agnes Livingstone, he became a director of the African Lakes Company. He never visited Nyasaland, but obtained title to some 170,000 acres of land there, 162,000 acres in an estate named Magomero south of Zomba. On his death on 1893, aged 54, title to his African assets passed under his will to the A L Bruce Trust, whose main beneficiaries were his two sons.

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