Founder Samuel Russell | ||
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Russell & Company (Chinese: 旗昌洋行; pinyin: Qíchāng Yángháng) was the largest and most important American trading house in Qing dynasty China from 1842 to its closing in 1891.
Samuel Russell founded Russell & Company in Canton, China, in 1824. Dealing mostly in silks, teas and opium, Russell & Company prospered, and by 1842, it had become the largest American trading house in China. Russell withdrew from the company in 1836 and returned to the United States. Briton Nichol Latimer, resident of Shanghai and the publisher of the North China Herald, the most influential British newspaper in China, was the manager of Russell & Company’s Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. until his death in 1865. The company kept retained market dominance until its closing in 1891.