Alfred Dent

Sir Alfred Dent, KCMG (12 December 1844 – 23 November 1927) was a British colonial merchant and entrepreneur.

He was educated at Eton College which he attended from 1858 to 1862, subsequently becoming a partner in the family business of Dent & Co.

In 1878 he induced the Sultan of Sulu to transfer his rights and claims over northern Borneo to a syndicate formed by Dent and Gustav Overbeck, the main promoters of which were Sir Rutherford Alcock, Sir Harry Keppel and Richard Biddulph Martin.

Other business positions held by Dent included chairmanship of the Caledonian (Ceylon) Tea and Rubber Estates and the Shanghai Electric Construction Company and directorships of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, the London County and Westminster Bank and the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation.

[2] In 1896 he married Margaret Aird with whom he had a son, Leslie Alfred Dent, born in 1897.