William Jardine

Jardine, one of seven children, was born in 1784 on a small farm near Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. His father, Andrew Jardine (abt. 1750- d. 1793), died when he was nine, leaving the family in some economic difficulty. Though struggling to make ends meet, Jardine's older brother David (1776-1827) provided him with money to attend school. Jardine began to acquire credentials at the age of sixteen.

In 1800 he entered the University of Edinburgh Medical School where he took classes in anatomy, medical practice, and obstetrics among others. While his schooling was in progress, Jardine was apprenticed to a surgeon who would provide housing, food, and the essential acquaintance with a hospital practice, with the money his older brother, David, provided.

He graduated from the Edinburgh Medical School on 2 March 1802, and was presented a full diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He chose to join the service of the British East India Company (EIC) and in 1803, at the age of 19, boarded the East Indiaman Brunswick as a surgeon's mate in the East India Company's Maritime Marine Service. Taking advantage of his employee's "cargo privilege", he traded successfully in cassia, cochineal and musk during his 14 years as a surgeon at the firm.

On his first voyage, Jardine met two men who would come to play a role in his future as a drug trafficking merchant. The first was Thomas Weeding, a fellow doctor, and surgeon of the Glatton, one of the other ships in the convoy. The second was 26-year-old Charles Magniac who had arrived in Guangzhou at the beginning of 1801 to supervise his father's watch business in Canton in partnership with Daniel Beale.

By leaving the East India Company in 1817, Jardine was able to exploit the opportunity afforded by the company's policy of not transporting opium but contracting the trade out to free traders. Jardine entered into partnership with retired surgeon Thomas Weeding and opium and cotton trader Framji Cowasji Banaji. The firm did well and established Jardine's reputation as an able, steady and experienced private trader. One of Jardine's agents in Bombay, who would become his lifelong friend, was Parsee opium and cotton trader Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy.

Both men were on the Brunswick when the crew of a French ship forcibly boarded her. Jeejeebhoy long continued as a close business associate of Jardine and that a portrait of Jeejeebhoy hung in Jardines' Hong Kong office in the 1990s was tribute to that.

In 1824, a very important opportunity arose for Jardine. Magniac & Co., one of the two most successful agency houses in Canton, fell into disarray. Hollingworth Magniac, who succeeded his brother Charles Magniac after the latter's death in Paris, was in search of competent partners to join his firm as he was intent on leaving Asia.

He was also forced to have his brother, Daniel, resign from the firm after marrying his Chinese mistress. In later years, Jardine had helped Daniel by sending his young son Daniel Francis, his child by his Chinese wife, to Scotland for school. Magniac invited Jardine to join him in 1825 and, three years later, James Matheson joined the partnership.

Magniac returned to England in the late 1820s with the firm in the hands of Jardine and Matheson. Contrary to the practice at the time of retiring partners removing their capital from the firm, Magniac left his capital with the firm in trust to Jardine and Matheson. The firm carried on as Magniac & Co. until 1832 as the name Magniac was still formidable throughout China and India. Magniac wrote of William Jardine:

You will find Jardine a most conscientious, honourable, and kind-hearted fellow, extremely liberal and an excellent man of business in this market, where his knowledge and experience in the opium trade and in most articles of export is highly valuable. He requires to be known and to be properly appreciated.