John Burns, 1st Baron Inverclyde, (24 June 1829 – 12 February 1901) was a Scottish ship owner.

Biography

Born in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

he was the son of Sir George Burns, 1st Baronet, a founder of the shipping company

G & J Burns G, or g, is the seventh Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western Languages of Europe, European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in Englis ...

and a partner in the Cunard Steamship Co. and his wife, Jane Cleland. After school, he attended

Glasgow University The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in post-nominals; ) is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ...

and took the general arts degree before joining the family firm about 1850. He married Emily (d. 1901), daughter of George Clerk Arbuthnot, in 1860, with whom he had two sons and three daughters. As a young man he had been in the

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

at the fall of

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

in 1855; he had subsequently been an advocate of good coastal defences and was the first to suggest to the government the use of merchant vessels for war purposes. His father handed over control of the family businesses to him in 1860, the year he married, and he became a key figure, first as a partner, then as chairman, in the reconstruction and subsequent flotation of Cunard in 1878. Cunard began to replace its fleet of wooden paddle steamers with iron ships, first paddle driven, but increasingly employing the screw propeller. The first iron screw steamer was the China in 1862. Burns was particularly keen on economy, and the Cunard Line quickly adopted the new compound engine with the Batavia in 1870. Under Burns, Cunard was also quick to order a steel vessel, the first in their service being the SS ''Servia'' in 1881, which, apart from the '' Great Eastern'', was the largest liner afloat at the time. By the 1890s, following his father's death, he began the process of handing on the management to his two sons, George and James. George A. Burns followed as Cunard chairman, as well as being partner and director of G. and J. Burns Ltd. James C. Burns, was widely involved in Clyde shipping circles and became chairman of the Glasgow Shipowners' Association at that time. Lord Inverclyde was a deputy lieutenant of Renfrewshire, of Lanarkshire, as well as of the county of the city of Glasgow. He was also a justice of the peace in Renfrewshire. As an honorary lieutenant in the

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original ...

, Burns was involved in setting up a

training ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house class ...

scheme which was established on HMS ''Cumberland''. He travelled widely, and was a Fellow of The

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. He was also a member of the

Royal Yacht Squadron The Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS) is a British yacht club. Its clubhouse is Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom. Member yachts are given the suffix RYS to their names, and are permitted (with the appropriate warrant) to we ...

, The Travellers', and The Glasgow Clubs. He was author of several literary works, including ''A Wild Night, Glimpses of Glasgow Low Life'', and, in 1887, ''The Adaption of Merchant Ships for War Purposes''. He inherited his father's Baronetcy in 1890 and was created Baron Inverclyde, of Castle Wemyss in the county Renfrew on 28 July 1897. Burns had acquired

Castle Wemyss Castle Wemyss was a large mansion in Wemyss Bay, Scotland. It stood on the southern shore of the Firth of Clyde at Wemyss Point, where the firth turns southwards. History It was built around 1850 for Charles Wilsone Brown, a property developer ...

from Charles Wilsone Brown of Wemyss Bay in 1860, and had the building enlarged and remodelled in

Scottish Baronial Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th-century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Scot ...

style by

Robert William Billings Robert William Billings (London 25 July 1812 – 14 November 1874 London) was a British architect and author. He trained as a topographical draughtsman, wrote and illustrated many books early in his career, before concentrating on his architec ...

. In 1878, John Burns and his wife accompanied several other people, including writer

Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope ( ; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among the best-known of his 47 novels are two series of six novels each collectively known as the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire ...

, on a trip to Iceland aboard the Burns ship ''Mastiff''. Trollope described the trip in his book '' How the 'Mastiffs' went to Iceland''. He died at Castle Wemyss on 12 February 1901; his wife Emily, dying the next day. They were interred together. He was succeeded by his son, George Arbuthnot Burns, 2nd Baron Inverclyde (1861–1905)

References

The Glasgow Story
*History of the Cunard Steamship Company, 1886 {{DEFAULTSORT:Inverclyde, John William Burns, 1st Baron 1829 births 1901 deaths Businesspeople from Glasgow Nobility from Glasgow Scottish businesspeople in shipping Ship owners People associated with Inverclyde Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria 19th-century Scottish businesspeople Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Royal Naval Reserve personnel