Russell & Company

Russell & Company (Chinese: 旗昌洋行; pinyin: Qíchāng Yángháng) was the largest American trading house of the mid-19th century in China.

Canton headquarters c. 1880

Foundation

Samuel Russell arrived in China, from Connecticut, in 1819, and subsequently, in 1824, founded Russell & Company in Canton to trade opium, silk, and tea.

Expansion

In 1830, the company was merged with Thomas Handasyd Perkins' J & T H Perkins of Boston, established in Canton in 1806 by John Perkins Cushing, Perkins' nephew, and was then led by another two nephews, brothers Robert Bennet Forbes and John Murray Forbes.[1]:145

Their illegal trade at that time in Turkish opium via the island of Lintin in the Pearl River estuary was particularly lucrative.[1]:146

Russell withdrew from the company in 1836 and returned to the United States. The firm attracted numerous influential partners through the 1830s and 40s, particularly Bostonians. By 1842, it had become the largest American trading house in China and maintained that position for decades.[1]:145

Briton Nichol Latimer, resident of Shanghai and the publisher of the North China Herald, the most influential British newspaper in China, was the manager of Russell & Company’s Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. until his death in 1865.[2][3]

Facing financial difficulties, the company devolved into Shewan & Company in 1891.[1]:147

Notable people of Russell & Company

Partners

(chronologically)

  • Robert Bennet Forbes (1804–1889) was the head of Russell and Company.
  • John Murray Forbes (1813-1898), brother of R B Forbes and the great-granduncle of 2004 presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry.
  • William Henry Low, senior partner of the firm.
  • Augustine Heard, who later founded Augustine Heard & Company, a large trading house in China.
  • John Cleve Green (1800-1875) Philanthropist - benefactor of Princeton University.
  • Abiel Abbot Low, William H Low's nephew, founder of trading company A. A. Low & Brothers, served as a partner.
  • Russell Sturgis, who later became head of Baring Brothers in London.
  • George Tyson, in the 1850s in Hong Kong[4]
  • Warren Delano, Jr., the grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt (32nd President of the United States), in the 1860s, having first joined in 1833 and served as the Chief of Operations of Russell & Company in Canton.[1]:146
  • William Howell Forbes, R B Forbes' nephew, head partner in 1884.[1]:147

Officers
  • Nichol Latimer, publisher of North China Herald and founder of Nichol Latimer and Co.. Latimer was manager of Russell & Company’s Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. until 1865.

References
  1. Hamilton, Peter E (2012). May Holdsworth & Christopher Munn (ed.). Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 9789888083664.
  2. He, Sibing (2011). Russell and Company in Shanghai, 1843-1891:U. S. Trade and Diplomacy in Treaty Port China. University of Hong Kong. p. 11.
  3. King; Clarke, eds., Frank H. H.;Prescott (1965). A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911. East Asian Research Centre, Harvard University. pp. 77, 122–133.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  4. Sweeting, Anthony (2012). May Holdsworth & Christopher Munn (ed.). Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography. Hong Kong University Press. p. 71. ISBN 9789888083664.


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