Constituency : Edinburgh Central 1886-1900
William unseated the Liberal Unionist defector John Wilson at Edinburgh Central.
William was the son of a ship-owner from Alloa. He was educated at Alloa Academy. He worked for a coal company then as a bookkeeper for a spinning firm near Huddersfield. In the 1850s he was taken into his uncles' brewing firm then in 1856 he was loaned the money to start his own Fountain Brewery. This became very profitable with McEwan's Scottish Ale a big-seller. Ironically William himself was teetotal
William's contributions to Parliament were restricted to constituency matters although the New York Times in 1894 reported that he exerted " a tremendous personal influence in the lobby" partly through giving free lunches at his London residence. He was a close friend of Rosebery who held shares in his brewery.
William was unopposed in 1895.
William stood down in 1900 but declined a peerage in 1907 saying "I would rather be first in my own order, than be at the tail end of another .
William was a philanthropist who funded the building of the McEwan Hall at Edinburgh University. He gave paintings to the National Gallery of Scotland.
As you can see from the photo William had a somewhat unusual hairstyle. The Glasgow Evening News in 1890 described him as "one of the most interesting men in the House of Commons.Widely read and an acute thinker, no one would guess that this quiet, low-voiced man , with the delicate scholar's face, had been the architect of one of the largest fortunes of his time".
William impregnated his landlady and paid one of his cellar men to go through a sham marriage to legitimise the child. He later married the woman Helen Anderson and his "stepdaughter" Margaret Greville was his heir.
He died in 1913 aged 85.
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