James Cochran Stevenson

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James Cochran Stevenson (9 October 1825 – 11 January 1905) was Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for South Shields from 1868 to 1895 and also owned, along with two of his brothers, a chemical factory in Jarrow: the Jarrow Chemical Company.

The family moved from Glasgow, where James went to university, to Tyneside in 1844 when his father became a partner in the Jarrow company's alkali works. After he retired in 1854, James, the eldest son, managed the company from 1854 with one of his father's partners, John Williamson. Under their control it became the second largest chemical company in the UK.

He was also for a time the owner of the Shields Gazette and played an active part in civic life, campaigning for improvements in sanitation, road-widening, river Tyne development schemes and more. He was mayor of South Shields before becoming MP. Francis Goodall, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, says that while Stevenson was a religious man with a strong sense of public duty and commitment to the local area, his chemical works, using the Leblanc process, caused pollution and imposed harsh working conditions on employees, despite being the first Tyneside factory to offer a Saturday half holiday.

His daughter Hilda was also an MP and married Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford (1870-1949), who was an important member of the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments in the 1930s.

His daughter Louisa married Sir Kenneth Skelton Anderson, 1st Baronet of Ardtaraig (1866-1942), the son of the Rev. Alexander Anderson and Mary Gavin of Aberdeenshire. He was the owner of the Orient Steam Navigation Company.

[edit] References

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
National Register of Archives'
Collection of Sir Kenneth Skelton Anderson at The British Library of Political and Economic Science