Hugh Matheson (industrialist)

Educated at the Royal High School, Matheson then served a seven-year commercial apprenticeship at the Glasgow firm James Ewing & Co. During his time in Glasgow, Matheson was an active lay member of the Church of Scotland and the St. Enoch's Sabbath School Society.

[1][2] He nonetheless took a new London based corresponding agent role serving the interests of the firm working at Magniac-Jardine and Company to arrange and negotiate the sale of tea, silk and other commodities shipped to England from the Far East.

In 1845, Matheson undertook an 18-month tour to India and China in order to be better acquainted with commercial and trading opportunities in those countries.

On return visit to Britain in 1872 as a part of the Iwakura Mission Itō was to request Matheson's assistance in recruiting British academics to provide instruction at the newly established Tokyo Imperial College of Engineering.

William Ewart Gladstone, a renowned opponent of the opium Wars in China, was a regular visitor at his Heathlands home.