William McArthur (Lord Mayor of London) William McArthur (Lord Mayor of London) Sir William McArthur, (6 July 1809 – 16 November 1887) was an Irish businessman and Lord Mayor of London, and a Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1885. McArthur was born at Malin, County Donegal, the son of Rev. John McArthur, a Methodist minister in Londonderry. In 1821 he was apprenticed to a woollen draper in Enniskillen. He moved to Lurgan in 1825 where he was a merchant and in 1831 established a drapery business in Derry initially in a partnership, but later on his own. In
Thomas Skinner (Lord Mayor of London, 1596) Skinner informing him of Her Majesty's desire that Mr. Alderman Billingsley should not be elected to the office of Lord Mayor for the following year, and requesting him to repair to London not later than the 7th or 9th of September to confer with them touching his election to that office", which he accordingly did, and was elected Lord Mayor, but died in office on 30 December of the same year. During Skinner's year of office the City was threatened with a famine. The citizens generally were in a poverty-stricken state, so much so that many who had been well