Nathaniel Eckersley
1869 painting of Eckersley by Charles Mercier
Member of Parliament
for Wigan
In office
27 March 1866 – 7 December 1868
Preceded byHon. James Lindsay
Henry Woods
Succeeded byJohn Lancaster
Henry Woods
In office
21 December 1883 – 18 December 1885
Preceded byThomas Knowles
Algernon Egerton
Succeeded byFrancis Powell
Personal details
Born1815
Died15 February 1892
NationalityEnglish
Political partyConservative
ResidenceStandish Hall

Nathaniel Eckersley (1815 – 15 February 1892)[1] was an English mill-owner,[2] banker[3] and Conservative Party politician from Standish Hall,[4] near Wigan[5] in Lancashire. He sat in the House of Commons for three years in the 1860s, and two years in the 1880s.

Career

His uncle was Colonel Nathaniel Eckersley, from Laurel House in Hindley, who served with the Duke of Wellington and at the military station established in Manchester after the Peterloo Massacre.[2]

In addition to his cotton mills,[6] Eckersley was a partner of the Wigan Old Bank, formerly Thomas Woodock's, Sons and Eckersley, which amalgamated in 1874 with Parr's Banking Company in Warrington.[3] He was Mayor of Wigan in 1853[7] and in 1873,[8] and was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire in September 1863.[9]

In January 1860 he raised the 21st (Wigan) Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps, drawn mainly from artisans employed by the local collieries and engineering works, officered by local professional men. He commanded the unit as a captain, and was later promoted to major after it joined the 4th Administrative Battalion, Lancashire Rifle Volunteers.[10][11][12]

In June 1873 Eckersley led Wigan's welcome for the Prince and Princess of Wales, who opened a new hospital in the town,[8] which the Princess named the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary.[13]

Parliament

He was elected as one of the two Members of Parliament (MPs) for Wigan at a by-election in March 1866,[4] following the resignation of the Conservative MP Hon. James Lindsay.[4] Nominations for the contest took place in the moot hall in Wigan, supervised by the Mayor Thomas Knowles.[14] The candidates then addressed the voters in the town hall. Eckersley offered himself as a "free and independent candidate", and said that until then he had never considered himself to be a politician.[14] The Mayor called for a show of hands, which he found to be in favour of Eckersley, but a poll was demanded[14] and Eckersley won 411 votes to the 349 cast for his Liberal opponent John Lancaster.[15]

He was defeated at by John Lancaster (MP) at the 1868 general election, when Liberal candidates took both seats in Wigan, and he did not stand for Parliament again for another 15 years.[15]

He was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1878,[16] and in that capacity helped to organise a fund for the dependants of the victims of the explosion on 7 June 1878 at the Wood Pit Colliery in Haydock,[17] where more than 200 miners were killed.[18]

When Wigan's Conservative MP Lord Lindsay succeeded to his father's peerage in 1880, and Eckersley was asked to stand at the by-election in January 1881, but refused.[19] Following the death in December 1883 of Wigan's other Conservative MP Thomas Knowles, Eckersley was returned unopposed[15] at the resulting by-election on 21 December 1883.[20] He held the seat until when Wigan's parliamentary representation was reduced from two seats to one by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, and did not contest the 1885 general election.[21]

References

  1. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 4)
  2. 1 2 "About the Borough: Hindley". Metropolitan Borough of Wigan. Retrieved 15 December 2010.
  3. 1 2 "Money-Market & City Intelligence". The Times. London. 19 January 1874. p. 6, col A.
  4. 1 2 3 "No. 23097". The London Gazette. 6 April 1866. p. 2253.
  5. ↑ "Townships: Standish-with-Langtree". A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6. 1911. pp. 192–199. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
  6. ↑ "Election Intelligence. Wigan". The Times. London. 27 March 1866. pp. 5, col F.
  7. ↑ "The Lancashire Strikes". The Times. London. 11 November 1853. p. 7, col C.
  8. 1 2 "Royal Visit To Lancashire". The Times. London. 4 June 1873. pp. 6, col D.
  9. ↑ "No. 22774". The London Gazette. 25 September 1863. p. 4649.
  10. ↑ Ray Westlake, Tracing the Rifle Volunteers, Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84884-211-3, pp. 146–7.
  11. ↑ Army List, various dates.
  12. ↑ Rupert Bonner, 'The Development of the Rifle Volunteer Movement in Manchester', Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Autumn 2008, Vol 86, No 347, pp. 216–35. Also at Manchester Regiment Museum.
  13. ↑ "The King's Visit To Lancashire". The Times. London. 2 July 1912. pp. 7, col B. An Out-Patients Department is being built for the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan, which was opened by King Edward and named by Queen Alexandra
  14. 1 2 3 "Election Intelligence. Wigan". The Times. London. 27 March 1866. p. 5, col F.
  15. 1 2 3 Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 332. ISBN 0-900178-26-4.
  16. ↑ "From the LONDON GAZETTE, Tuesday, Feb. 26. Lord Chamberlain's Office, St. James's". The Times. London. 27 February 1878. p. 6, col F.
  17. ↑ "The Wood Pit Colliery Explosion". The Times. London. 13 June 1878. p. 6, col A.
  18. ↑ "List of the Victims of The Wood Pit Explosion Haydock, 1878". Retrieved 15 December 2010.
  19. ↑ "Election Intelligence: Wigan". The Times. London. 17 December 1880. p. *, col E.
  20. ↑ "No. 25305". The London Gazette. 4 January 1884. p. 78.
  21. ↑ Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1974]. British parliamentary election results 1885–1918 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 209. ISBN 0-900178-27-2.
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