Alexander Balfour was a Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 merchant and founder of the Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 shipping company Balfour Williamson

Balfour Williamson

Balfour Williamson & Co was a shipping company based in Liverpool, England, and later an export confirming house and freight forwarding company. It is now a subsidiary of Lonmin ....

.

Balfour was born in Leven

Leven, Fife

Leven is a seaside town in Fife, set in the east Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies on the coast of the Firth of Forth at the mouth of the River Leven, north-east of Kirkcaldy and east of Glenrothes....

, Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

, the son of Henry Balfour, a foundry owner. He was educated at the High School of Dundee

High School of Dundee

The High School of Dundee is an independent, co-educational, day school in the city of Dundee, Scotland which provides both primary and secondary education to just over one thousand pupils...

 and St Andrews University, and in 1844 moved to Liverpool, where in 1851 he founded Balfour Williamson with Stephen Williamson

Stephen Williamson

Stephen Williamson was a founder of the Liverpool shipping company Balfour Williamson & Co. and a Scottish Liberal Party politician.He was born in Cellardyke, Fife in 1827, the son of Archibald Williamson, a shipowner...

 and David Duncan

David Duncan (UK politician)

David Duncan was a British merchant and shipper and a Liberal politician who briefly represented the seat of Barrow-in-Furness....

.

He was a committed philanthropist

Philanthropist

A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

, and founded the Duke Street Home, to provide better conditions for sailors, and orphanages for seamen's children.

He bought a country estate at Mount Alyn, at Rossett

Rossett

Rossett is a village and a local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales.At the time of the 2001 Census, Rossett community had a total population of 3,336 people.-Geography:Rossett is geographically located near to the Welsh and English...

, south of Chester

Chester

Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

. He died there in 1886.

There is a monument to him in St John's Gardens

St John's Gardens

St John's Gardens is an open space in Liverpool, England, located to the west of St George's Hall. The gardens are part of the William Brown Street conservation area, and comprise one of the two open spaces within Liverpool's World Heritage Site. It has been a Green Flag site since 2003...

, Liverpool.