William Schaw Lindsay was a Victorian Shipping Reformer. Nine years afloat, losing many friends to the dangers of the sea, compounded by cost cutting negligence of employers, made him both self-reliant and tireless in pursuit of improvement. In Business, Politics and Writing, he sought to show there was a better way, not just the ways things had always been done. An advocate of technology, he built up his business with ships of his own design, auxiliary steamers that defied convention, combining the advantages of sail and steam.

Not afraid to go it alone, sometimes his determination and expertise opened doors (Napoleon III confides in him concerning maritime diplomacy). Other times it made him enemies (his support for Confederate independence, when almost all his business contacts were in the Northern states). As an MP, in the three elections he stood, unlike his aristocratic rivals, he refused to resort to hiring gangs of miners to intimidate, or strategically placed brass bands to silence free speech or free beer to decide elections.

WS Lindsay’s journals are in the Archives of Royal Museums Greenwich. Bill Lindsay has done a wonderful job of bringing his ancestor’s fascinating story to life, illustrating maritime politics, technology and international diplomacy, as well as the relationship between the state and private sector, in Victorian England.

Martyn Salmon, Royal Museums Greenwich, 3 April 2023