Sir John Valentine Jardine Paterson (14 February 1920 – 12 March 2000) was a Scottish businessman whose career was mostly in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He was Chairman of the family firm, Jardine Henderson of

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

(closely related to Jardines of Hong Kong), from 1963 to 1967, Chairman of the Indian Jute Mills Association in 1963 and President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1966. He joined

McLeod Russel McLeod Russel India Ltd is an Indian tea company. It is currently the world's largest tea growing company. It is part of the Williamson Magor Group. It has Thirty One tea estates in the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam and Two in the Dooars reg ...

PLC in 1967 and was company chairman from 1979 to 1983.

Life

Born at Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, in 1920, Jardine Paterson was one of the four sons of Robert Jardine Paterson JP (1878–1942) of Balgray, near Lockerbie, a former

Coldstream Guards The Coldstream Guards is the oldest continuously serving regular regiment in the British Army. As part of the Household Division, one of its principal roles is the protection of the monarchy; due to this, it often participates in state ceremonia ...

officer, by his marriage to Constance Margaret Steel. The other sons were David (born 1914), Robert Noël (1916–1995), and Arthur James (born 1918).
Robert Jardine Paterson
' at thepeerage.com He was educated at Eton and

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

.'Jardine Paterson, Sir John (Valentine)', in ''

Who Was Who ''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It is a book, and also a CD-ROM and a website, giving information on influential people from around the world. Published annually as a book since 1849, it lists people who influence British life, according to i ...

'' (A. & C. Black, 1920–2008)
online edition
(subscription required) by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, December 2007, accessed 5 January 2011 Jardine Paterson was born into the family which had founded the

Jardine Matheson Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (also known as Jardines) is a Hong Kong-based Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and ...

company, although his branch of the family controlled Jardine, Skinner and Company of

, the Indian division of Jardines, rather than its main business based in Hong Kong. Jardine Skinner & Co. had been established in 1844 by David Jardine of Balgray and had become a major force in the tea, jute and rubber trades. His grandfather, James Jardine Paterson, was the son of Robert Paterson by his marriage to Nancy Jardine, daughter and heiress of David Jardine. On 1 October 1939, shortly after the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, when he was nineteen, Jardine Paterson received an emergency commission into the

Black Watch The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS) is an infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The regiment was created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881, when the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regime ...

and served with distinction.Alasdair Steven, 'Sir John Jardine Paterson' ( obituary), in ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'' dated 5 April 2000 On 23 April 1942, during the war, his father died at the age of 64. He resigned his commission on 17 July 1946 and was granted the honorary rank of captain. After leaving the Army, he joined the family firm, by now renamed Jardine Henderson Ltd, of Calcutta, and was a director of the company from 1952 to 1967, chairman from 1963 to 1967. He was knighted in 1967. A shrewd business man, he had to deal with the tremendous disruptions to trade caused by the partition of India in 1947, and during the years which followed he worked to rebuild the flagging jute industry. He was elected chairman of the Indian Jute Mills Association in 1963 and president of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1966. He then joined McLeod Russel PLC as a director from 1967 to 1984 and served as company chairman from 1979 to 1983, diversifying the firm's business into property and

North Sea oil North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid petroleum and natural gas, produced from petroleum reservoirs beneath the North Sea. In the petroleum industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea ...

. In 1953, Jardine Paterson married Priscilla Mignon Nicolson (1924-2018), the daughter of Sir Kenneth Nicolson MC (1891–1964), another Scottish East India Merchant, and they had one son and three daughters. He was a member of the Oriental Club and at the time of his death was living in retirement at

Norton Bavant Norton Bavant is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, southeast of Warminster. Geography The village is on the River Wylye and at the edge of Salisbury Plain. To the north lies Scratchbury and Cotley Hills Site of Special S ...

Manor in Wiltshire, which had been bought in 1947 by his father-in-law. He died on 12 March 2000.
Norton Bavant
', in A History of the County of Wiltshire, vol. 8: Warminster, Westbury and Whorwellsdown Hundreds (1965), pp. 47-58, accessed 6 January 2011

External links

Jardine Skinner Archives
at lib.cam.ac.uk (

Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of the over 100 libraries within the university. The Library is a major scholarly resource for the members of the University of Cambri ...

)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paterson, John Jardine 1920 births 2000 deaths Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge People educated at Eton College Knights Bachelor Black Watch officers British Army personnel of World War II People from Lockerbie British expatriates in India