Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Rochdale
What position did Thomas Bayley Potter take in May 1893?
Thomas Bayley Potter Thomas Bayley Potter DL , JP ( 29 November 1817 – 6 November 1898 ) was an English merchant in Manchester and Liberal Party politician . Early life . Born in Polefield , Lancashire , he was the second son of Sir Thomas Potter and his wife Esther Bayley , daughter of Thomas Bayley , and younger brother of Sir John Potter . Potter received his early education in George Street , Manchester , then at Lant Carpenters school in Bristol . He subsequently attended Rugby School under Thomas Arnold and then University College , London . In business . On graduating , Bayley went into the family business in Manchester . His father died in 1845 , at Buile Hill , his home . His elder brother John , knighted in 1851 , took over most of his fathers role ; the firm then traded as Potter & Norris . Thomas became the major partner in it when his brother Sir John died in 1858 . He brought in as partner Francis Taylor ( 1818–1872 ) , who had worked for Potter & Norris , around 1865 , and the firm traded as Potter & Taylor . Not long after Taylors death , Potter withdrew from business activity , to concentrate on politics . Liberal politics . Potter became Chairman of the Manchester branch of the Complete Suffrage Society in 1830 . While he was generally aligned with the Radicals , there was a rift between their leaders John Bright and Richard Cobden over the Crimean War , which the Potter brothers supported ; and Sir John Potter successfully stood against Bright in 1857 . Potter , who was in many ways a follower of Cobden , tried to smooth matters over at the end of the 1850s . In 1863 Potter was the founder and president of the Union and Emancipation Society . Initially simply the Emancipation Society , it was prompted by Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation that had freed enslaved people on 1 January 1863 . Potter put his own money into the organisation , which adopted the pamphleteering publicity tactics of the Anti-Corn Law League , and ran frequent meetings . It was joined by prominent supporters of the Union in the American Civil War , including Edward Dicey , J . S . Mill and Goldwin Smith . In 1865 , Potter entered the British House of Commons and sat as Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Rochdale . This was the seat of Cobden , who had died that year . Potter kept it until 1895 . In the House of Commons he was known as Principles Potter . Potter established the Cobden Club in 1866 and was honorary secretary until his death . He had proposed a political science association in a letter to J . S . Mill of 1864 , taking as model the Social Science Association . It operated as a publisher , funded education in economics , and held an annual dinner , under a name suggested by Thorold Rogers . It was fundamentalist about free trade . A personal friend of Giuseppe Garibaldi , Potter also supported Italian unification . The finance for Garibaldis purchase of the island of Caprera was arranged at a dinner given by him . Last years . Potter was a Justice of the Peace for Manchester and Lancashire , and for the latter also Deputy Lieutenant . He sold the Buile Hill mansion to the Bennett family , and in 1902 it was purchased by Salford Council . At the end of his life Potter spent his vacations in Cobdens old home , The Hurst , at Midhurst in Sussex . He died there on 6 November 1898 , aged 80 , and was buried in Heyshott four days later . Family . Potter was twice married : - Firstly , on 5 February 1846 , to Mary Ashton , daughter of Samuel Ashton , at the Unitarian Chapel of Gee Cross . She died in 1885 , at Cannes . Mary Potter was one of those petitioning in 1867 for a suffrage society in Manchester . - Secondly , on 10 March 1887 , to Helena Hicks , daughter of John Hicks Bodmin , at St Pauls Church , Lambeth , Surrey . Potter had four sons and a daughter by his first wife . The third and fourth sons , Arthur and Richard , and the daughter Edith , survived their father . Thomas and Mary Potter were in the Unitarian congregation of Cross Street Chapel . William Gaskell was an assistant minister there , to John Gooch Robberds , from 1828 to 1854 when Robberds died ; his wife Elizabeth Gaskell published her first novel Mary Barton in 1848 . Mary Potter perceived a upsetting connection between the murder of her brother Thomas Ashton in 1831 , a result of industrial tensions , and the novels murder plot . The author denied any conscious use of Thomas Ashtons story , of which she knew , but the Potter family saw the plot device as referring deliberately to it . Richard Ellis Potter . The fourth son , Richard Ellis Potter ( 1855–1947 ) , was educated at Eton College , and at age 17 took part in the third of Benjamin Leigh Smiths expeditions , in 1873 to Svalbard . Letters that he wrote to his father remain . He was in Dallas in the 1880s , where he worked for Texas Land & Mortgage , a Scottish company managed by the Irish Courtenay Wellesley , as a valuer of land , and helped introduce the games of lawn tennis and golf to the city . He and his brother Arthur were both left money in 1887 under the will of George Scrivens , a family connection . He married Harriott Isabel Kingscote in 1899 , and was father of Arthur Kingscote Potter . In later life Potter resided at Ridgewood , Almondsbury , in Gloucestershire . He became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1899 . References . - Attribution