People · taipan of Jardine Matheson, Municipal Council chairman
William Johnston Keswick
恺自威Kǎizìwēi · b. 1903
Shanghai-born Jardine Matheson manager, Municipal Council chairman in 1940-41, shot and wounded at the ratepayers' meeting of January 1941.
William Johnston Keswick (恺自威, Kǎizìwēi), a member of the Jardine Matheson family born in Shanghai in 1903, chaired the Shanghai Municipal Council in the months before Japan took over the International Settlement. The gazetteer calls him a grandson of the firm’s earlier taipan, William Keswick (耆紫薇).
He worked for Jardine’s, and by 1928 he was manager of its machinery department. The gazetteer records that he then acted as agent for Armstrong Vickers in selling tanks to the Nanjing government, and that a quarrel over commission ended in court. He joined the Council in 1936, became vice-chairman in 1939, and was elected chairman in 1940 as a Jardine manager.
The ratepayers’ meeting of 23 January 1941 became known for violence: the gazetteer says a Japanese man, Hayashi, shot and wounded him there. In the war he directed the British Army’s information service in China. The gazetteer gives no date of death.
Part of: Jardine, Matheson & Co.怡和洋行
Timeline
Connections
- Jardine, Matheson & Co.怡和洋行Machinery department manager at Jardine Matheson in 1928; elected Council chairman as a Jardine manager in 1940
William Keswick耆紫薇Grandson of William Keswick (the gazetteer calls the grandfather 克锡)