Robert MacAndrew (born 22 March 1802 in Wandsworth, London, died 22 May 1873 in Isleworth, Middlesex) was a British merchant and ship-owner, marine dredger, Fellow of the Royal Society, naturalist and collector of shells.

[1] Robert MacAndrew was one of eight sons of the fruit and shipping merchant, William McAndrew, from the Scottish city of Elgin, who had opened offices in Liverpool and London around 1770.

His many business trips to Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean led to his interest in the collection of shells from the sea shore, and MacAndrew subsequently undertook a series of research trips dredging for shells around the coast of Britain and Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Norway and finally to the Red Sea at the Gulf of Suez.

In 1858 MacAndrew was elected chairman of the newly formed General Dredging Committee, which he held for two years until he was replaced in 1861 by John Gwyn Jeffreys.

[5] In 1872, together with Arturo Issel (1842–1922), he was awarded the 'Prix Savigny' of the French Academy of Sciences for his work on Testaceous Mollusca of the Gulf of Suez.