ARNOTT, Sir John (1814-1898), of Woodlands, Shandon, co. Cork

The son of a linen manufacturer, this Scottish-born industrialist was first apprenticed to James Russell, a draper at Cupar, Fife. Having accumulated sufficient capital in Glasgow, he moved to Ireland in 1837 and established short-lived businesses in Belfast and Cork. He achieved more success as a partner of Cannock and White, a large firm of Cork drapers which was, in 1865, renamed Arnott & Company.1Anon, Fortunes Made in Business or Life Struggles of Successful People (1901), 174, 176. A commemorative plaque was placed at his former drapery store at 51-54 Patrick Street, Cork: T. Cadogan & J. Falvey, A Biographical Dictionary of Cork (2006), 7. An ‘example of self-help by self-reliance, grit, industry, enterprise, commercial sagacity, and the highest probity’, Arnott was exceptionally successful in establishing limited liability enterprises across the United Kingdom and owned draperies and milling, brewing, and shipping companies in Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Belfast, Bristol, Glasgow and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.2Belfast News-letter, 29 Mar. 1898. Arnott also maintained commercial interests in London and the West Indies. For Arnott’s business history, see P.J. Dempsey & S. Boylan, ‘Arnott, Sir John’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, i. 166-7. He was chairman of the Cork and Macroom Railway (1860-98) and the Cork Steam Packet Company (1877-96), but did much to encourage small cottage industries, employing more than 5,000 women in crochet-making. He also established a flour mill and bakery in Cork, which helped to reduce the previously high price of bread in the city, and subsequently made similar efforts in Limerick and Dublin. Arnott gained a reputation as an excellent employer and became closely identified with the public institutions of Cork, becoming an alderman and three-times mayor of a city in which he was said to have ‘exercised an almost patriarchal rule’.3M.L. Legg, ‘Arnott, Sir John’, Oxford DNB, ii. 515-6; Freeman’s Journal, 29 Mar. 1898; Glasgow Herald, 29 Mar. 1898; Fortunes Made in Business, 176, 177. Though a Presbyterian, he was generous to both Protestant and Catholic charitable causes and was knighted by the Irish viceroy during a visit to Cork in November 1859.4Cadogan & Falvey, Biographical Dictionary of Cork, 7; Freeman’s Journal, 11 Nov. 1859; Illustrated London News, 3 Dec. 1859. Over 25 years, Arnott distributed £37,000 to Cork hospitals alone: Fortunes Made in Business, 179.

Arnott’s connections with small businesses in Kinsale, his generosity to the Neopolitan exiles,5Legg, ‘Arnott, Sir John’, Oxford DNB, ii. 515-6; Daily News, 16 Apr. 1859. Poerio and sixty-two former political prisoners of the King of Naples arrived at Queenstown in March 1859: Hansard, 8 Mar. 1859, vol. 152, cc. 1475-6. and his reputation for active philanthropy (he pledged £1,000 a year to provide local women with employment in crochet-work) facilitated his return for the borough at the 1859 general election. Entering the Commons as an ‘independent Liberal’, Arnott was claimed by the Derbyites ‘as a half supporter of the party’. However, he cleared any doubts as to his political allegiance by subscribing £50 towards the election expenses of Francis Lyons, the ‘ultra-liberal candidate’ for Cork city.6Belfast News-letter, 29 Mar. 1898; The Times, 24 May 1859. In 1859 he supported the payment of theological professors at the General Assembly’s College at Belfast, paying tribute to the character and services of the Presbyterian clergy of Ulster, but also challenged the Irish chief secretary to state what action would be taken against the Antrim militia for their part in provoking a sectarian riot in his largely Catholic constituency.7Hansard, 25 July 1859, vol. 155, c. 429; 11 Aug. 1859, vol. 155, cc. 1351-2. In 1861 he sat on the select committee on the bill for the registration of births, deaths and marriages in Ireland, raised questions on the administration of the Irish prison system, and helped to prepare a bill to relocate the county infirmary from Mallow to Cork city.8PP 1861 (425) xiv. 13; Hansard, 5 July 1861, vol. 164, cc. 412-3; PP 1861 (74) i. 533; PP 1861 (145) i. 537.

Generally regarded as a moderate and ‘very mild and inoffensive politician’, Arnott’s primary concern was the care of destitute children. In August 1859, having witnessed the conditions prevailing in the Cork Union Workhouse, he published his findings and moved for a select committee to inquire into the alleged excess of mortality of children in Irish workhouses.9Cadogan & Falvey, Biographical Dictionary of Cork, 7; Freeman’s Journal, 29 Mar. 1898, 11 Jan. 1862; 15 Aug. 1859; PP 1860 (C. 2654) xxxvii. 327. Having already suggested the establishment of a reformatory school system in 1858, he jointly brought in the Irish industrial schools bill to provide for the education and industrial training of destitute and refractory children in April 1861.10The Times, 29 Mar. 1898; PP 1861 (118) ii. 649. Prior to that, in the July 1860 debate on the Irish poor relief bill, he had claimed that the existing legislation had been ‘a complete failure’ and caused the permanent pauperism of those who received relief. He called instead for a new and ‘more humane and economical system’ of poor law administration.11Hansard, 24 July 1860, vol. 160, c. 145. Arnott is credited with being ‘largely instrumental’ in carrying the reforms ‘which regularized the nursing and boarding out’ of pauper children that were adopted by the majority of Ireland’s 160 poor law unions.12‘Arnott, Sir John’, Oxford DNB; The Times, 29 Mar. 1898; Fortunes Made in Business, 176. He took the leading role on the select committee on Irish poor relief, which sat between March and July 1861, but did not bring in the relevant bill of February 1862, which was prepared by John Hennessy and William Gregory.13Hansard, 7 Mar. 1861, vol. 161, c. 1627; PP 1861 (408) (408-I) x. 1, 647; PP 1862 (4) iv. 557. Not being ‘a Parliamentary orator in any sense of the word’, he does not appear to have contributed to debate on the measure: Fortunes Made in Business, 176. Never having ‘really cared for municipal or Parliamentary life’, and finding the expense of patronising the notoriously venal borough of Kinsale an increasing burden, Arnott took the Manor of Hempholme, 28 May 1863.14Freeman’s Journal, 29 Mar. 1898. Having been spoken of as a candidate for Dublin city at the 1865 general election, Arnott entered the contest at Youghal, but did not go to the poll. He settled instead for representing the North City ward on the city council of Cork, where he had done much to improve the city’s water supply.15Leeds Mercury, 27 June 1865; Freeman’s Journal, 27 Nov. 1865; HP Commons, 1832-68: ‘Youghal’; Belfast News-letter, 28 July 1874.

Fuelled by successful speculations on the Stock Exchange, Arnott further expanded his business interests, purchasing the Irish Times for just £35,000 in 1873 and the Belfast Northern Whig (for £17,500) in 1874. He turned the ailing Irish Times into the most prosperous newspaper in Ireland and an influential prop to the establishment in Ireland.16On his death, the Irish Times was valued at £500,000. Arnott quickly divested himself of the Belfast newspaper, having been unable to influence its sectarian standpoint: Fortunes Made in Business, 178. A convinced unionist throughout his career, he actively opposed Gladstone’s home rule bill in 1886, publishing his own views on the country’s commercial potential in his pamphlet ‘An Alternative Policy for Ireland’.17The Times, 29 Mar. 1898; Fortunes Made in Business, 178; Cadogan & Falvey, Biographical Dictionary of Cork, 7. Arnott also attempted to mediate in the rent dispute on the Ponsonby estate in County Cork in 1889-90. He also developed the Passage and Rushbrook Docks (1872-97) and influenced the establishment of a transatlantic steam-packet station at Queenstown. He consolidated his own shipping interests by becoming chairman of the Bristol Steam Navigation Company in 1877, though in the same year he experienced his only serious reverse in business when, having lost a sum of between £200,000 and £300,000, he was forced to prosecute a partner in the Glanmire milling company for falsifying accounts.18Belfast News-letter, 14 Apr. 1877, 29 Mar. 1898; Freeman’s Journal, 13, 14, 16 Apr. 1877, 29 Mar. 1898; Fortunes Made in Business, 181, and see Illustrated London News, 2 Apr. 1898.

Arnott was an extremely methodical and painstaking businessman, being possessed of ‘a singularly retentive memory’ and outstanding mathematical ability (‘his big brainy head’ attesting to ‘the high order of intellectuality with which he was gifted’). Yet he was regarded as an amiable man, being ‘modest and unostentatious’ in his private life.19Freeman’s Journal, 29 Mar. 1898; Glasgow Herald, 29 Mar. 1898; Belfast News-letter, 29 Mar. 1898; Fortunes Made in Business, 181. In later years he continued his charitable work, building a convalescent hospital in Youghal. A keen sportsman, he also promoted horse racing (establishing the Cork Races, 1861, and the Phoenix Park racecourse) and yachting and provided extensive leisure and educational facilities in Cork. He was created a baronet in 1896, when he also purchased the duke of Devonshire’s estate at Bandon for £270,000 and created a people’s park there. He died after a short illness on 28 March 1898 at his home, Woodlands, at Montenotte, co. Cork, and was buried on 31 March in St. Luke’s cemetery at Douglas, co. Cork. He was succeeded as baronet by his eldest son, Lieutenant-Colonel John Alexander Arnott (1853-1940), who was forced to contest with his mother the terms of his father’s will, which had accorded him sole administration of the estate.20‘Arnott, Sir John’, Oxford DNB; Belfast News-letter, 29 Mar. 1898; Glasgow Herald, 21 Jan. 1899. The estate was valued at £656,268, his will containing charitable bequests of £45,000, including £2,000 for the poor of Auchtermuchty, Arnott’s native town: F. Boase, Modern English Biography, iv (1908), 174; Fortunes Made in Business, 181.