Andrew Spottiswood

Andrew Spottiswoode (19 February 1787 – 20 February 1866) was a Scottish printer, publisher and politician, MP for Saltash from 1826 to 1830, and Colchester from 1830 to 1831.

Life Spottiswoode was born in London on 19 February 1787. He was the fourth, but third surviving, son of John Spottiswoode (d. 1805) of Spottiswoode, Berwick, and Margaret Penelope Strahan. Among his siblings was brother, Robert Spottiswoode. On their father's death in 1805, his eldest brother, John Spottiswoode, inherited their father's Scottish estate and property in Tobago.

His paternal grandparents were John Spottiswoode, an eminent advocate and legal author, and Mary ( Thomson) Spottiswoode of Fife.

He was educated at Edinburgh High School.

King's Printer

In 1830, Strahan was granted a renewed 30-year patent as King's Printer. It resulted in a successful petition against Spottiswoode's election in Colchester, on the grounds that he was a government contractor. The monopoly it conferred was also contested by Joseph Hume, a Radical colleague of Daniel Whittle Harvey to whom Spottiswoode had come second in Colchester (which elected two members). Hume made allegations about the patent, beginning a period in which the status of the monopoly was brought into play. A criticism of him by the Baptist minister Thomas Curtis, due to allegations of inaccurate printing, was published in 1833.

Political career Spottiswoode was returned unopposed on the Russell interest as a Member of Parliament for Saltash, serving from 1826 to 1830.

Rosa Spottiswoode (1821–1898), who lived at Drydown and never married. William Spottiswoode (1825–1883), the mathematician and physicist; he married Elisa "Lise" Taylor Arbuthnot, a daughter of William Urquhart Arbuthnot (son of Sir William Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet), in 1861. George Andrew Spottiswoode (1827–1899), who married Grace Frances Hammick, eldest daughter of the Rev. Sir St Vincent Hammick, 2nd Baronet.

Spottiswoode died at his London home at 12 James Street, Buckingham Gate on 20 February 1866. Following his death, both Rosa and Augusta inherited equal shares in his four life assurance policies and thirteen shares each in the London Gas Light Company. and Cyril Andrew Spottiswoode (1867–1915).

Through his son George, he was posthumously a grandfather of Capt. John Spottiswoode (1874–1914) of the 6th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps, who was killed in action at Gheluvelt during World War I; he had married married Sybil Gwendolen Ginsbury in 1907. His sister, Mabel Spottiswoode, married Robert Stansfield Herries (elder brother of Sir William Herries, both nephews of William Wickham, MP, and grandsons of Henry Lewis Wickham, Receiver General of Gibraltar).