Sir Hugh Allan (* 29 September 1810 in Saltcoats, Strathclyde, Scotland; "† 9 December 1882 in Edinburgh, Schottland) was a Scottish-Canadian banker, shipowner and a Eisenbahnmagnat. It was one of the most influential entrepreneurs of Canada in the second half 19. Century.

Life

Hugh Allan was born as a son of a sailor family, which possessed several ships, which drove from Glasgow to the sinking Lorenz stream. With thirteen years began he as an office worker in the family-own enterprise to work. 1826 he emigrated to Canada. In worked for a fast growing trading venture and ascended soon to the partner. Around 1840 the company controlled already 12 per cent of the entire overseas trade after

From 1851 to 1854 he was a president of the Chamber of Commerce of and interspersed the mechanism of a regularly operating navigation line to Great Britain, which was subsidized by the state. 1863 he took over control of the entire enterprise, which was called officially "Montreal Ocean Steamship company", in the vernacular however simply "Allan LINE" was called.

Since end of the 1850er Allan was active also in the railway business. 1871 he became a president of the Montreal Northern Colonization Railway, which operated a lucrative distance from the Laurentiden to Also at other societies it was financially involved; this always with the goal of steering as much as possible export goods on its steam ships. Business success and the close relations with struggle-high politicians made Allan one of the most influential entrepreneurs of Canada.

1871 became plans admits to build a transkontinentale railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In order to be able to apply for the execution of the lucrative project, it created the consortium "Canada Pacific Railway" (not identically to the today's Canadian Pacific Railway). The second applicant around the concession was the "inter+ Ocean Railway company". Before the parliamentary elections of 1872 he captivated prime ministers John Macdonald and further members of the conservative government and paid a considerable amount in the election campaign funds, in order to secure itself the order.

But 1873 flew up the Pacific scandal, which finally led to the fall of the Macdonald government. Allan had to withdraw itself to pressure of the public opinion from the project, remained however further with other railway companies in the business. Besides it possessed several factories and was involved in five insurance.

Already from 1847 to 1857 he had been a director of the bank OF 1861 it created its own bank, the Merchants' bank, which ascended rapidly to second largest Finanzinstitut of the country. After the enterprise would have gone 1877 almost to bankruptcy, Allan withdrew as a president. 1882 it could recover control of the Merchants' bank. But only few months later, than he in Scotland its related visited, it died at a cardiac infarct. He was buried in

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