page_title: Sir William Mackinnon, 1st Baronet
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Sir William Mackinnon, 1st Baronet / Biography / Career
caption_attribution_description: (L to R) Henry M. Stanley, Sir William Mackinnon and Sir F. de Winton General Collections Keywords: Lemercier &amp; Co., Paris; Emil Pasha; Expedition; Travel; Henry Morton Stanley; Portraiture; Travels; Exploration; Emin Pasha Relief Expedition; Expeditions
context_page_description: Sir William Mackinnon, 1st Baronet CIE was a Scottish ship-owner and businessman who built up substantial commercial interests in India and East Africa. He established the British-India Steam Navigation Company and the Imperial British East Africa Company.
context_section_description: Mackinnon went to India in 1847 and joined an old schoolfriend, Robert Mackenzie, in the coasting trade, carrying merchandise from port to port around the Bay of Bengal. Together they formed the firm of Mackinnon Mackenzie & Co and Mackinnon chose to make Cossipore the base for his own activities.
  In 1856 he founded the shipping company Calcutta and Burma Steam Navigation Company, which would become British India Steam Navigation Company in 1862. It grew into a huge business trading round the coasts of the Indian Ocean, extending its operations to Burma, the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa, from Aden to Zanzibar.
  In 1865 he established Gray, Dawes and Company as a merchant partnership for his nephew Archibald Gray and Edwyn Sandys Dawes (1838–1903), knighted in 1894. The company, founded as a shipping and insurance agency in the City of London, went through several reorganizations and ownership changes, obtaining recognition as a merchant bank in 1915, becoming fully fledged as Gray Dawes Bank in 1973 (sold in 1983), and now known as Gray Dawes Group Ltd.
  In 1888, Mackinnon founded the Imperial British East Africa Company and became its Chairman. The company, supported by the United Kingdom government as a means of establishing British influence in the region, was committed to eliminating the slave trade, prohibiting trade monopoly, and equal treatment for all nations. The company would later be taken over by the British government and became the East Africa Protectorate.
  In 1889 Mackinnon was made 1st Baronet of Strathaird and Loup.
  Mackinnon promoted Henry Morton Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, first enlisting Stanley, then writing to government ministers including Lord Iddesleigh, the Foreign Secretary, and enlisting friends to form a committee which could oversee the expedition and meet more than half the cost. In 1891 he founded the Free Church of Scotland East African Scottish Mission.
caption: William Mackinnon (middle) with H.M. Stanley and F. de Winton
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