James Matheson

Sir James Nicolas Sutherland Matheson, 1st Baronet FRS (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.

After leaving university, Matheson spent two years in a London agency house before departing for Calcutta, India and a position in his uncle's trading firm, Mackintosh & Co.

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 (Guangzhou).

Matheson first met William Jardine in Bombay in 1820. 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 Alexander Matheson lent James a small hand press for the printing of the Canton Register which James founded as the first English language news sheet in China, which was edited by William Wightman Wood, an American from Philadelphia who would later work for rival trading house Russell & Co.

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