Alexander Perceval, (1821 – 8 May 1866), sometimes spelt "Percival", was the third son of the late Colonel Alexander Perceval, Member of Parliament for County Sligo, and subsequently serjeant-at-arms to the House of Lords.
Born in 1821, Perceval was a relative of Mary Jane Perceval, the wife of James Matheson, one of the founders of Hong Kong trading house Jardine, Matheson & Co. As a result, in 1850 he became a clerk in the firm and became a partner in 1853.
[1] By 1862 he had become Taipan of Jardine's and an unofficial member of the Legislative Council of the colony of Hong Kong from 1860 to 1864.
[2] Having amassed a large fortune in the Far East, Perceval returned to Ireland in 1860, and purchased the paternal estate of Temple House from R. H. Hall-Dare, esq., of Newtonbarry, County Wexford, to whom it had been sold by Philip Perceval, esq., in 1857.
[3][4] Perceval's nineteen-month-old son Robert Jardine Percival died in May 1852 and is buried in a large chest tomb in the Hong Kong Cemetery.