John Leslie Urquhart (11 April 1874 – 13 March 1933) was a Scottish mining engineer, entrepreneur and millionaire.
Early life
He was born on 11 April 1874 to Scottish parents, Andrew and Jean Urquhart, in Aydın, from Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire. His father was engaged in the export trade of licorice root and paste, the extract from which was widely used in the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries, as well as confectionery production.
Urquhart went to an English school in Smyrna from age 7. In 1887 the family moved to Scotland, settling at Portobello, Edinburgh. Urquhart went to school there, then in Edinburgh, and in 1890 took up an engineering apprenticeship with Crow, Harvey & Co. of Glasgow, also attending evening classes at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College. His father was at Oudjari (Ujar), now in Azerbaijan, with a business venture. He also studied chemistry under Stevenson Macadam at Edinburgh University, and in 1896 was set for a career in the oil industry. He was diverted, however, to Ujar and his father's licorice interests there, as the manager of the Oriental Trading Corporation factory there. Thomas Urquhart, his uncle and an engineer who had supervised the Gryazi–Tsaritsyn railway line in Russia, may have influenced his decision. The oil at Baku was possibly another factor: he made a trip there in 1897, and by 1898 had made good progress in the local languages.
Oilman in Baku
In 1902 Urquhart was offered work by the Schibaieff Petroleum Company, at a time when licorice was in glut, and became a manager for them at Baku. The factory was sold and the Oriental Trading Corporation wound up in 1903, as the American Liquorice Trust sought to create a cartel. British capital was at this point prominent in the Baku oilfields, with at least five companies buying in from 1896. There was some notable sharp practice in deals.
The dealings of George Tweedy, in particular, for Baku-Russian Petroleum, brought Charles Leslie, a director of the company, to Baku in 1904. He struck up a friendship with Urquhart. When he was forced to leave the oil business, two years later, Urquhart was able to set up the Anglo-Siberian Company in London, for mining, by combining his contacts with Leslie's.
The change was precipitated by political events, starting with a wave of strikes in Baku, and the fall of Sergei Witte, in 1903. It was followed by the Russo-Japanese War, and communal violence between Armenians and Tatars in Baku during February 1905. In private, Urquhart, who employed Tatars and spoke their language, entirely took their side. The disturbances of the 1905 Russian Revolution that took place in Baku in September of that year were particularly bloody. Urquhart was awarded an Albert Medal for Lifesaving, the citation noting his position as British Vice-Consul in Baku, and his actions to save four British workmen in September 1905, with Tatar and Cossack support.
After a complex series of events and negotiations, Urquhart left revolutionary Baku on instructions from the British Foreign office and companies, reaching Moscow on 25 September. His life was said to be in danger, but he was also much criticised.
Kyshtym
Urquhart's setting up of the Anglo-Siberian Corporation then led to other vehicles for capital. The Perm Corporation was likewise intended to exploit minerals in the Urals, and Anglo-Siberian took it over in 1908, once it had acquired the Kyshtym Mining Works of 1900, a Russian company. The Kyshtym Corporation Ltd. then bought the shares from the Perm Corporation. Exploratory surveys at Kyshtym for Anglo-Siberian had confirmed the presence of deposits of copper, iron and sulphur; and gold in the Soymonovsk Valley. The result was that the mineral resources of the Kyshtym estate were controlled by a board chaired by Charles Leslie, on which Urquhart sat. In autumn 1908 Urquhart and Semmy Joseph Blumlein, managing director, went to Kyshtym and supervised investment, including rail track and a smelter.
The complex corporate situation proved unstable, because of tensions between British interests related by cross-holdings. American interests became involved. In 1911 Alfred Chester Beatty visited Kyshtym, on behalf of the American interests. By 1912 the future direction was set for investment in the Urals, with Beatty and Urquhart allied, and the British group around Leslie excluded.