People · merchant, Municipal Council chairman, taipan of Jardine Matheson
William Keswick
耆紫薇Qízǐwēi · 1835–1912
Jardine Matheson partner and Shanghai Municipal Council chairman in 1865–66, who urged the Council to extend settlement roads west beyond the racecourse.
William Keswick (耆紫薇, Qízǐwēi) was a British merchant of Jardine Matheson and chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1865 and 1866. The gazetteer says he was the son of a niece of the firm’s founder, William Jardine; he reached China in 1855 and became manager of the firm in 1859.
From that position he pushed the company’s trade into Japan, moving among Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama, and in 1862 he was elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. As Municipal Council chairman he argued for building roads beyond the settlement’s boundary around the racecourse, running west from Xizang Road to Jing’an Temple. The gazetteer treats him as one of the core figures in Jardine Matheson’s rise as a business group.
Part of: Jardine, Matheson & Co.怡和洋行
Timeline
Connections
- Jardine, Matheson & Co.怡和洋行Manager of Jardine Matheson from 1859
- William Johnston Keswick恺自威Grandson of William Keswick (the gazetteer calls the grandfather 克锡)