| Notes |
- His widow died 20 Feb 1804 or 1805
Check that the following dos not refer to his son.
He founded West India house of Alexander Houstoun & Co. and was one of the six founders of the old Ship Bank (or Dunlop Houston & Co.).
Lead partner from 1742 in Glasgow's premier West India House, Alex Houston & Co, which originated as partnership of William McDowall I and James Milliken I of Nevis and St Kitts.
Children baptised in the parishes of Glasgow or Renfrew: Elizabeth (1744), Isobell (1745), Jean (1746), Andrew (1748), Robert (1749), Johanna (1751), Alexander (1752), Christian (1754), James (1756).
Second cousin of William McDowall II. The father, William McDowall I brought Houston into his sugar business from the late 1720s as his agent in Port Glasgow and in Glasgow's South Sugar House. Houston's brother William captained McDowall's sugar ships (for example, The Industry, from 1731).
From 1727, The McDowall (Thomas Milliken master) regularly used the London ports (London, Deal, Gravesend, Dartmouth) in McDowalls name. On McDowall's return to Britain from St Kitts, he began changing his sugar ports from the Thames to the Clyde. In 1735 The Industry, Wm. Houston Master (and the McDowall, Thos Milliken Master), for St. Kitts are listed as belonging to 'Jas Milliken & Co'. When the Port Glasgow Customs accounts become available from 1742 (the year after James Milliken's death), all the company's ships are listed under Alexander Houston.
- (Research):In 1750 the Crawfords sold Jordanhill to a notable Glasgow merchant, Alexander Houston (one of the "Tobacco Lords"). However at the end of the century the firm of Alexander Houston & Co. got into serious financial trouble as a result of their business in slaves at a time when slavery was falling into disrepute in British eyes, and forgetting that slaves unlike other commodities had to be fed and maintained till they were sold. Jordanhill had to be sold in 1800 and it was bought by another Glasgow merchant, Archibald Smith, of the firm of Smith & Leitch.
Col. Macdowall, in 1727, bought Castle Sempill, the ancient patrimony of the Sempills, Barons Sempill; and Major Milliken, in 1733, bought the adjoining estate of Milliken, then called Johnston. They brought their business with them, making Glasgow the market for their sugar, and Port-Glasgow the headquarters oF their ships. This was enough to materially help the West India trade of Glasgow and the Clyde. But this was only a small part of what they did for it. They founded the West India house of James Milliken & Co. (which in Gibson's History appears in the list of shipowners of 1735), and out of James Milliken & Co. grew the great West India house of Alexander Houston & Co., which would be regarded as a great house even now, and did business then on a scale that one would scarce believe possible for a house of last century.
The partners in 1795 were two sons of the founder, Alexander Houston, namely, Andrew Houston of Jordanhill, and his brother, Robert Houston-Rae of Little Govan, and two grandsons of Col. W. Macdowall, namely, William Macdowall of Castle Sempill, M.P., and his brother, James Macdowall, Provost of Glasgow. This great firm failed, and there had been no such crash since the Virginian collapse in 1775, and there has been no such crash since till the collapse of the Western and City Banks. Ultimately, after untold delay and confusion, every creditor was paid in full, principal and interest; for the assets, including the great estates of the partners, realised over £1,000,000 sterling, but the Houstons were utterly ruined, and the Macdowalls were left with but a fragment of a great fortune.
???buried in the old Ramshorn cemetery in Glasgow.
|
Abt 1709 - 1777 (67 years)
(Age 83 years)