page_title: John Gerald Potter
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: John Gerald Potter / Life
caption_attribution_description: Mytton Hall
context_page_description: John Gerald Potter was an English wallpaper manufacturer, known also as a patron of James McNeill Whistler.
context_section_description: John Gerald Potter was the only son of Charles Potter (1802–1872) and his wife Grace Gordon, born at Dinting, Derbyshire in July 1829. He became a partner in Potter & Co., wallpaper manufacturers, in 1849.
  In 1854, with Robert Mills, Potter took out a patent for carpet manufacture improvements. A family partnership, "The Darwen Carpet Company", was dissolved in 1858. In 1862 Potter gave evidence to the Children's Employment Commission. In 1864 he replaced his father as senior partner of the wallpaper firm.
  Having lived in Earnsdale, Potter came to live at Mytton Hall, in Whalley. The connection with Whistler came through his brother-in-law George Chapman, a minor artist and school friend of Whistler. Potter was the first owner of Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, an 1864 picture by Whistler. He also came to own Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights of 1872, now in the Tate collection; and other paintings. In the 1890s Whistler took offence when Potter resold The Little White Girl for a profit.
  Three times an unsuccessful Liberal Party candidate for Blackburn, Potter contested the constituency first in 1865. According to the diary of Charles Tiplady, he was encouraged to do so by Ernest King, who owned the Blackburn Times. He stood again in 1868. In the resulting 1869 by-election, he stood with John Morley. He stood for a last time in 1885, for Darwen, when he had the support of Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, who had left the Conservatives to become a Liberal.
  From 1884 Potter lived in London. In 1885 he was a director of the Omaha Cattle Company. In later life, he lived on the continent of Europe.
caption: Mytton Hall, 1859 etching