This book is a biography of William Schaw Lindsay (1815-1877), based on his extensive, unpublished journals and written by his great great grandson Bill Lindsay – see below for Jonathan Turner’s interview with Bill. WSL’s life is worth telling for any number of reasons, since he achieved much from inauspicious beginnings as an orphan in Glasgow and running away to sea aged 12. By the time he was 40 he was one of the world’s largest shipowners and was an MP for several years.

WSL was a thoughtful and outspoken man with strong views on the right ways of doing things, and given his position and wealth was in a position to meet politicians, other entrepreneurs, and royalty including: Abraham Lincoln; Emperor Napoleon III; Livingstone; Franklin; Garibaldi; Gladstone; Disraeli; Brunel; Nightingale and Dickens. In 1864, he suffered a severe stroke, and retired from public life to his home in Shepperton, where he edited his journals and wrote his magnum opus History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce. This was published in 1874-75, shortly before he died, and it became a reference on the topic of merchant shipping. WSL’s journal was sold by the family to the Caird Library and Bill Lindsay spent 6 years transcribing them, after which he felt able to write WSL biography. The book is unusual as it’s written in the first person, as if by WSL himself, which is possible since his journals were comprehensive, extensive, detailed and frank. Bill’s interview with Jonathan explains more about this.

There was rarely a dull moment in WSL’s life, as he had a strong work ethic, combined with drive and a talent for making things happen. Starting as a cabin boy, he quickly climbed the ranks to become a merchant captain sailing to India and beyond, and surviving hurricanes, pestilence on board, and attacks by robbers. After surviving one particularly forceful hurricane off the Cape of Good Hope in 1841, he experienced an epiphany and decided to give up his life at sea aged 25, and turned his life to ship broking. Aged 25, he was a young man for this industry, and soon established a reputation for fair dealing, and, moving to London soon made enough money to build his first ship in 1847. By the mid-1850s he owned over 20 iron ships and auxiliary steamships. Some of his ships were used in a fleet of 40 troop ships that he supplied to the French Government at the start of the Crimean War. It was at this time he decided to go into politics and stood as a Liberal in the rotten borough of Dartmouth, where he lost narrowly. The experience stood him in good stead and 2 years later he was elected MP for Tynemouth, which, conscious of the need to improve standards and safety at sea, enabled him to contribute to the consolidation and revision of the maritime laws which were the focus of the Board of Trade. In 1856, with the end of the Crimean war approaching, he decided to use his spare capacity to launch a mail service line to Calcutta via the Cape, returning to Dartmouth as the port to embark passengers. WSL returned to Dartmouth as a hero, fawned over by his erstwhile political opponents! Unfortunately, the auxiliary steamers he favoured weren’t powerful enough to meet the timelines required by the Cape merchants, and he resigned the contract after a year.

Part 6 of the book deals with WSL’s experiences in America and the Civil War (1861-65). Although no friend of slavery or racism, WSL believed the North and the South of America to be different enough to be separate countries, and held that belief throughout the war. He was accused of blockade running, a charge that he was able to provide evidence to reject. However, the pressures of politics, business and overwork led to him suffering a severe stroke, and restricted to a wheelchair at the aged of 49, he had to give up his role as an MP.

For the next 12 years, he applied himself to writing as a maritime historian, author and auto-biographer. In many respects, his enduring legacy is his writing, both his journals which provide fascinating insights to issues and the movers and shakers of the mid-Victorian age, and his history of merchant shipping.

Bill Lindsay has condensed WSL’s 40 personal journals into a very readable story that moves at pace, but still contains fascinating details and statistics that make WSL’s achievements all the more real. Anyone who would like to know more can also refer to the transcripts available in the Caird Library at the NMM Greenwich. The book is generously illustrated with 50 black and white images of the people, ships and places in WSL’s life, and would be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in maritime history, political history, or simply what makes an entrepreneur tick!

Jonathan Turner Interview about W S Lindsay biography with Bill Lindsay

How are you related to W S Lindsay?
My father was Alfred Stewart Lindsay, and so I’m a great, great grandson.

Was the family always fascinated by him or were you always fascinated by him? How did that sort of evolve that relationship with him?
The short answer is that the family wasn’t interested in him. I found out about him when I was doing my family tree, in my mid-20s. When I retired, I contacted some of the family, and they weren’t really interested in him, but I discovered that there was a lady called Hilda Kirkwood who was an archivist to the family in Lindsay’s old house, Shepperton Manor. She discovered the papers and had contacted Harper Collins to try and get a book published, but they didn’t proceed. I wanted to make sure that something was done about it. In his day, he was quite a famous guy, a bit like a Branson of his day, but he’s been largely forgotten. Now a lot of people have been forgotten, but his life was so extraordinary that I thought, right, OK, I’ve got to do something about it, and then after some conversations that didn’t lead anywhere, I thought, right, I’ve got to do it myself.

What was your background?
Pharmaceuticals. I’ve been marketing and selling primarily hospital products in obstetrics and gynaecology and infectious diseases for 35 years. And then when I retired, I thought, right, I need to try and tackle this, which has taken quite a while.

So these papers, were they in a box somewhere in an attic?
The family had sold the papers in the 1980s to the National Maritime Museum for an astonishing £20,000 in those days, so they obviously thought it was a worthwhile investment. They are available in the Caird Library in Greenwich, and they are extensive: not only do they capture a sort of who’s who in Victorian days, the movers and shakers, but there’s a lot about the wars, particularly the Crimean War and the American Civil War, and the politics behind it. So there’s a lot there to get to grips with. In the last 12 years of his life, he was in a wheelchair. So, he had time to put his thoughts together and write them down and so his papers are quite extensive, around 1,000,000 words. I visited the Caird Library, photographed each page, and then I was able to start transcribing – it’s taken six years.

Was it written when he retired or did he keep a journal when he was younger?
He had made notes at the time, which he then made into four journals, but they didn’t include all of his life. And so there are other bits and pieces that he collated together.

His handwriting, was it easy to read?
Yes, and the journals are quite readable. They’re not in old-fashioned Victorian writing and they flowed well: that was one thing he really wanted to focus on: plain English. It was actually the correspondence from others that was really difficult. And some of that was really tricky.

And do you think he was intending to publish any of his journals or was it just a reflection?
Secretly I think he would be quite pleased that this has been done. He actually says: if someone does take it up, then well and good. But you could read behind it: “don’t do it, but actually do”.

So let’s look at this point about writing in the first person because it’s quite unusual in a sense, isn’t it? Was it a hard decision?
I really struggled with it. And a lot of people who I’d sent drafts to came back saying, the academics aren’t going to like it. But from my point of view, I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong way of writing a book as long as it’s readable, entertaining and grabs the attention. I wanted to be true to his own words, so I thought, I’m going to stick to what he’s written and then top and tail at the book with, my thoughts, if you like, as if I was him. About 80% of the book is actually him in his own words, one or two chapters, particularly the Crimean War and the explosives part that comes from a book. What I’ve done is to grab the golden nuggets that really appealed in his diaries. So obviously it can’t include everything. So what I felt was appealing to people who would be reading it is most of it is curtailed. Most of the stories are in their entirety.

The whole point is, that people who are interested, particularly researchers and perhaps students interested in history, can go back to the journals themselves. This is not the definitive thing. You can never write a definitive book; new things keep on coming through. But the idea was right. If you’re really interested to know more and there is a lot more, go to the journals themselves in the Caird Library. This is just a snapshot of what they are. It’s a pretty big snapshot, but it’s by no means everything. There’s loads I had to leave out.

So how would you summarise the benefits of writing in the first person?
I think what it does is put you in his shoes, and hopefully, you live what he went through, and there was so much that he did go through, and so interesting that hopefully it will grab the attention and hopefully, it’s interesting because part of it also almost reads like a novel.

I had a choice of either writing it in an academic way that would appeal to those interested in merchant shipping and the Navy, or to try and appeal to the general public. Shipping was by and large the main focus, but there was a lot of other things involved in the story, such as politics, and so I was trying to appeal to the general public as well, and that’s a difficult balance between those who are really interested historically and those who are interested in reading a life and a biography.

And were there any other issues or difficulties that you faced having taking that decision?
Not really, I felt that, to be honest, it was a lot easier to write because there it was: 100%. All I had to try and do was just to choose what to take. But I mean the task itself, it was difficult, as there was so much to choose from! And the other thing I would emphasise is that once you’ve written the book, it doesn’t stop there, as you know. And the marketing side of things, you’ve got to get it out there!

So let’s talk a little bit about him: what do you admire about him?
Well we touched on the fact that he had that relatively small amount of education and that he wanted to better himself. So I admired that in him. And the thing that comes across throughout his life was his work ethic, it was he was a workaholic. It was work, work, work. But also treat others as you would be treated, that was the way of his business.

In fact, the main thing I would say about Lindsay was that he stuck to his principles, which sometimes meant that he was annoying! He must have annoyed so many people when he was in the North-East. For instance to give you an idea that the whole idea of him trying to get a lighthouse built following the tragedy. And here was this young upstart in his mid-20s who’d come along there had been at sea. He was a Scot. He must have annoyed the hell out of these people and at the council, but he fought it through and managed to get it built.

The other thing is that he actually was quite benevolent in some ways assisting people in need. And I’ll give you an example; there was a cobbler in Sunderland who had a wife and 11 children. He invested all his money in a ship and took a mortgage out and raised money. Lindsay was the person who chartered the ship and it was sent out to Europe. It went out full of coals and Lindsay organised it to be coming back with grain. But the company in charge of getting the grain back 44 had gone bust by the time and they had to try and get another cargo. The upshot was that the cobbler lost a lot of money, £100, which was a lot of money in those days and Lindsay could have left it there, but he contacted the guy and said, well how much have you lost? And he said £170. So Lindsay, who then hadn’t made that much money, he gave him the £170. The cobbler spread the word and Lindsay secured a lot of business.

Where did he get his principles from?
His uncle (who he lived with as a child) was a minister and I think he instilled them in him; obviously Lindsay went to church and he did read the Bible and know it, so some of that did stick with him.

And do you think he was likeable?
Yes, because I think several people admired his drive. Richard Cobden (of Cobden and Bright and the Corn Laws) for instance. He was a good friend of his, and quite a few eminent people were friends.

One of the things he lacked was a bit of diplomacy. I mean his ego must have been quite big and I think he was to a certain extent a bull in a china shop. Once he got a grip of something, he was going to carry it through. He could have perhaps sat back a little bit and reflected more or decided the bigger picture.

And what about his family life?
That was interesting. One thing that hasn’t come across in the book is his son: William Stewart Lindsay, my namesake. He was an only son, and he went through two inheritances, and had a divorce, which was very unusual in the 1870s. Lindsay had tried so hard to get him involved in various different jobs and set him up, and he just failed. And in the end, he sent him out to New Zealand as a remittance man, relying on a monthly cheque.

What about the rest of his family?
What about his wife, Helen? I mentioned this, but to my amazement, in his diaries he said I probably married the wrong sister! He was absolutely besotted by Helen’s sister, and they went for many rides in his pony and trap. His wife Helen was, whether she played on it or not, but she was seen as the sickly wife, and here was the sister who was vibrant and healthy! So I was amazed that he actually admitted that.

When you look back from a historical perspective with the benefit of 100 years, as you say, what do you think were his more and most enduring achievements?
He did a lot of good for shipping: the government did call on him for advice. Again, he annoyed the hell out of the Admiralty by complaining about their mismanagement of the Crimean War. But I think out of that came reform. So I think he did implement reform in the government, and they probably wouldn’t admit to it because he was just a thorn in their side.

I think he definitely did support the poor and that came across very strongly in his fight to become an MP. He supported labourers and the workers and didn’t really like the aristocracy.

What about Mr Lindsay and your plans for the future?
One of the things obviously I mentioned is trying to get his name known so that, people involved in merchant shipping do realise that he had a role to play. So there’re more talks, there’re more articles, but now I want to try and get people interested in merchant shipping.

In the Royal Navy, they keep meticulous records, but in the merchant navy, you rely on either people’s diaries or shipping lines who have kept their records and that’s often not been the case. A lot of merchant shipping lines have merged, so a lot of data has been trashed. And so a lot of the history behind merchant shipping has been lost.

When I’d finished transcribing his journal, I thought, right, I’ve finished, I’ve gone through everything. I’ve transcribed everything. But there was a little note in the Caird Library records that said “Merchant shipping data used for his journal and his book on merchant shipping”. So I just thought, right, I’ll dig out this. Well it’s a huge mass of information on the people that he contacted in those days giving their whole story. Whether I’ve got the time and the ability to be able to go through that is another matter!
We’re an island race and yet shipping seems to have, apart from yachting and things like that, we’re missing. A lot of the people involved in the historical societies are getting older. Are we attracting the youngsters? And we need to try and do that. We need to try and get an interest from the youngsters in the history of merchant shipping.

Well, that’s a great note on which to end our conversation, looking to the future, and getting more and younger people involved and interested in our maritime heritage – very much what SWMHS is here to help you do – please keep in touch!