Born in Leven, Fife on 2 September 1824, Alexander Balfour was the eldest son of Henry Balfour of Dawyck, a member of the Scottish landed gentry and foundry owner, and his wife Agnes Bisset. Educated at the High School of Dundee and St Andrews University, Balfour moved to Liverpool in 1844 and went on to become one of the city’s most consequential merchant figures of the nineteenth century.
Balfour Williamson and Commercial Life in Liverpool
In 1851, Balfour co-founded Balfour Williamson alongside Stephen Williamson and David Duncan, establishing a shipping company that grew into a major Liverpool trading house. Beyond commerce, he was a committed philanthropist who founded the Duke Street Home to improve conditions for sailors, and created orphanages for seamen’s children – work that reflected the welfare concerns common to Liverpool’s maritime community. He married Janet Roxburgh, daughter of a Free Church of Scotland minister, and the couple had eight children. Among the family’s later connections, his grandson Neil Roxburgh Balfour was the former husband of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia.
Legacy in Education and Public Memory
In 1885, Balfour co-founded Edge Hill College – now Edge Hill University – making it the first non-denominational teacher training college for women in England. The university has named a Halls of Residence Balfour in his honour. After purchasing a country estate at Mount Alyn near Rossett, south of Chester, he died there on 16 April 1886 and is buried at Christchurch Cemetery, Rossett, in Wrexham. In Liverpool, a statue by sculptor Albert Bruce-Joy commemorates him in St John’s Gardens, close to the city centre.