Baron Inchcape (1911).
Viscount Inchcape (1924),
Viscount Glenapp of Strathnaver (1929)
Earl of Inchcape (1929)
(Portrait P&O S.N.Co.)

Founder of the partnership of
Macdonald, Hamilton & Company
which came into existence on 1st October 1915

Rising from a bills of lading clerk to the most powerful man in British, if not world, shipping was no mean achievement. James Lyle Mackay was created a Baron in 1911 and took the title Baron Inchcape of Strathnaver, from the Inchcape Rock out in the North Sea. He was elevated to Viscount in 1924 and to an Earl in 1929. His Grandson Kenneth James William Mackay, the third Earl who was born in 1917, was responsible for the complete re-organisation of his inherited shipping empire and other interests in 1958, by founding the Inchcape Group of Companies. (The third Earl’s visit to Australia in 1958 was the precursor to the re-organisation in Australia which affected the author together with all members of the Firm).

He died in 1994 aged 76 years (The Inchcape family's old company had done likewise in 1990 Bruce McBain e-mail to Ian Byard, 27th December, 2002.) and was succeeded by his son Peter, 4th Earl.

James Lyle Mackay was born in Arbroath, Scotland, the second son and fourth child of a wealthy Scottish shipmaster and trader in August 1852. At the age of 12 years James parents died and he lost the benefit of usual home life and family ties, which forced him to become independent. He was fortunate in being one of the beneficiaries of his father’s will receiving £2,000 which was invested for him by his guardian in three East India ships, one of which was commanded by his elder brother.(1)

At the age of 19 he joined a shipping agency in London - Gellatly, Hankey and Sewell, as a junior clerk working with bills-of-lading and dealing with customs, acting as a water clerk for the entrance and clearance of incoming and outgoing vessels.(2) In 1874 Mackay set sail for Calcutta, taking three months to get there, joining British India Steam Navigation Company’s agency, Mackinnon Mackenzie and Co as their new assistant.

At this time BI’s fleet stood at about 60 vessels, totalling some 59,000 tons, enabling the company to operate along the coast of Burmah, as well as to Bombay, Karachi and the Persian Gulf, carrying about half the traffic.(3) Mackay transferred to Bombay in 1878 to set up a new office, as a result of the collapse of BI’s agents there, Nichol and Co. After only two years, at the age of 26, he was given a partnership in the Bombay agency (4). He also teamed up with two other partners the younger Duncan Mackinnon, nephew of Sir William Mackinnon 1st Baronet (created on 15th July 1889) founder of the Imperial British East Africa Company, and George Mackenzie. Mackay was awarded the Knight Commander of the Indian Empire in 1894 and having returned to Britain ceased being a merchant and employee of MM. He had by now obtained many directorships which were to keep him busy. He did, however, join the board of BI introducing new routes.(5)

1. McKeller.From Derby Round to Burketown, The A.U.S.N.Story, 345 2. K.Buckley and K.Klugman The History of Burns Philp,
The Australian Company in the South Pacific (Sydney, 1981) 135
3. McKeller.From Derby Round to Burketown, The A.U.S.N.Story, 345
4. Macdonald, Hamilton & Co. Records. Guildhall London Ms 27784-
27787
5. George Blake, B.I.Centenary 1856-1956, The Story of the British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd.(London,1956) 52

Over the years Mackay, having secured a very prominent position on the board of both BI and Gray Dawes, was in a good position when Sir William Mackinnon died in 1893 to take over the control of the Mackinnon empire. Though Duncan Mackinnon, one of Sir William’s nephews, succeeded his Uncle as Chairman of BI until his retirement in March 1913 any real power was now held by Mackay who also had
P and O in his sights.(6) During these years the two mutually operating companies had had a well established dual working relationship. As a result of Mackay’s expansionist operations in 1913 he was able to assume the position of Chairman and Managing Director by being elected to the post as a consequence of Duncan Mackinnon’s retirement.

6. George Blake, B.I.Centenary 1856-1956, The Story of the British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd.(London,1956) 247

It was widely thought that P and O had bought out BI, certainly members of the Firm were given to understand that this was the case when a potted history of the line was given to each new employee upon joining. However Mackay as Chairman and Managing Director of BI was in a sound position, and the company seemingly very financially secure, to be able to take over P&O. As Blake pointed out the fact was that the Chairman of P and O, Sir Thomas Sutherland, was an old man who retired in 1914. He was replaced by his virtual and very energetic second in command, Mackay. The latter therefore became Chairman with control over both BI and P and O and therefore ‘Inchcape had achieved imperial status in terms of commerce alone’ (9)

He was quite ruthless in business and achieved great wealth, most of it initially gained in India. As mentioned previously he had become a partner in Mackinnon Mackenzie in 1885 and was ultimately to acquire control of the company and its jewel in the crown, the BISN Company. According to Jones, he invested some 47% of his ‘recorded’ investments in Mackinnon related companies all of which were operating in India.(10) MM only had a small number of shareholders and remittances were therefore paid to the partners, most of which was sent home. As an example, in 1888 Mackay received £89,500 of which about a quarter was invested in Indian based businesses (11) and he continued to beget wealth and re-investing in the Indian businesses that were providing that wealth. There was an exception when he invested in the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company when it was set up in 1887(12).

By the time Inchcape came to set up Macdonald, Hamilton & Company he was already the Chairman of B.I., P and O, and Mackinnon Mackenzie. He was in line to become Viceroy of India this, however, was opposed by Prime Minister Asquith due to Mackay having vast interests in India which precluded him from being the King’s regent there. (13) He became a Director of the Suez Canal Company, was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron and received a Doctorate from St. Andrews University. Mackay was even offered the Throne of Albania in 1921 but declined it on the grounds that, and no doubt with tongue in cheek, ‘it was not in his line’! (14)

Between 1914 and 1919 he had added further to his empire by buying outright the New Zealand Shipping Company in 1916, the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand - with the Canadian-Australasia Line in 1917, and fifty percent of Anderson & Green’s Orient Line, (founded by two well known London shipping brokers Anderson Anderson and F. Green & Co in 1887), in 1919. As a result the P&O group at that time totalled some two million tons of shipping.(15) Mackay, therefore, headed what, in today’s terminology, would be called a global multinational shipping and mechant enterprise with links that spread over Egypt, Persian Gulf, India, Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Malaya, and Australasia. Brayshay, Cleary and Selwood looked at interlocking directorships and trans-national linkages within the British Empire, between 1900 and 1930 in their profile of twelve multinational companies.(16) Their object was to examine a sample of such companies “with growing overseas, especially colonial, interests.” (17) Two of the companies examined were AUSN and P and O. (18) They found that Mackay, had directorial links across a broad business and geographical sector, through AUSN totalling 55 and through P and O 88.(19)

9. George Blake, B.I.Centenary 1856-1956, 174
10. Stephanie Jones, ‘British Mercantile Enterprise Overseas in the Nineteenth Century: The Example of James Lyle Mackay, First Earl of Inchcape’. in Studies in British Privateering, Trading Enterprise and Seamen’s Welfare, 1775-1900. Exeter Papers in Economic History, ed.Stephen Fisher, No. 17(Exeter,1987) 88
11. Ibid 89
12. Stephanie Jones, Two Centuries of Oversees Trading, 149
13. George Blake, B.I.Centenary 1856-1956. 175
14. Ibid. 176
15. Frank Broeze, ‘Distance tamed: steam navigation to Australia and New Zealand from its beginnings to the outbreak of the Great War’ in The Journal of Transport History, 3rd ser. Vol.10 No.1 (March, 1898) 18
16. Mark Brayshay, Mark Cleary, John Selwood ‘Interlocking directorships and trans-national linkages within the British Empire, 1900-1930’ in Area, Vol.37 No. 2 (2005) 209
17. Ibid. 211
18. Ibid. 212
19.Brayshay, Cleary, Selwood ‘Interlocking directorships and trans-national linkages, 214