Overview
John Cunningham (1817 – 1871), Hispanicized as Juan Cunningham, was a British businessman and industrialist who was the manager of the McAndrew Steamship Company.
Career
Little is known about Cunningham's early life; he was born in 1817, Their company quickly expanded abroad, and within one year of its foundation, Cunningham was already in Seville, where in 1855, he proposed and promoted the creation of a Protestant cemetery for the British colony, which was approved by popular subscription and then built on land donated by the businessman Carlos Pickman. The Cementerio de San Jorge went on to house the burials of Adam Kirkwood, Bernard Whishaw, John Sydney Langdon, John Morris Mandy, Gilbert Farquharson Johnston, and John Scroop, thus becoming known as the "English cemetery". Cunningham's firm participated with 20% of the capital to establish the latter company, which revolved around steamship trips between Seville and London. Like the MacAndrews shipping company, the JCYC was also headquartered at Guzman el Bueno street.
In addition to the JCYC of Cunningham, several other British companies established themselves in Seville during the 19th century, such as the metallurgical foundry of Portilla Hermanos y White owned by the White brothers (Thomas and Isaiah), the Compañía de Agua de los Ingleses directed by Charles Arthur Friend, and the Irish-born Cádiz native William MacPherson, a key figure of the Industrial Revolution in the city; this figures, among others, were the core of the first British colony of Seville. In 1864, together with the Portilla brothers and José María Ibarra, he formed the Sociedad Industrial Sevillana, a company to refine sugar, and in the following year, he imported 20 agricultural machines. On 30 November 1868, Cunningham became a creditor and shareholder of Portilla, White y Cia for 3,146 pesetas.
On 1 October 1870, both Cunningham and the Portilla, White y Cia appear among the founding shareholders of the Compañía del Ferrocarril de Mérida a Sevilla.
Death and legacy
Coincidentally, Cunningham, Sáenz, and William Peter McAndrew all died in 1871, after which the JCYC, Miguel Sáenz y Cía, and the McAndrew & Cunningham were acquired or simply merged with the Robert McAndrew & Co, which thus underwent reorganization in 1872, and established a new subsidiary company in Seville: MacAndrews y Cía, led by Charles Eder y Gattrell. while the second was launched in October 1883. On 11 December 1878, the steamship "Lavernock" collided with Juan Cunningham and sank in the Nervión at Portugalete.