Constituency : South Durham 1865-85, Barnard Castle 1885-1903
Joseph replaced his relative Henry at South Durham.
Joseph was the son of Joseph Pease the first Quaker MP representing the same constituency from 1832 to 1841. As a businessman Joseph had a finger in many pies, a banker, wool manufacturer, mine owner, iron master and railway magnate as chairman of the North Eastern Railway. He was the largest employer in Darlington. He was also President of the Peace Society and the Society for Suppression of the Opium Trade which had been founded by his grandfather. He opposed the death penalty.
Joseph was an entrepreneurial Liberal who denounced state intervention in property rights and contracts.
In 1882 Joseph became the first Quaker baronet. He turned down a peerage from Gladstone in 1894.
In 1886 Joseph introduced a motion to abolish the death penalty and a bill to outlaw liquor sale on a Sunday. He called for additional Cabinet deliberations to modify the Home Rule policy and advised Gladstone to withdraw the Home Rule Bill and substitute a resolution "confirming the general principles of it ". His advice was ignored but he did not desert Gladstone. In 1891 he introduced a motion condemning the opium trade as "morally indefensible" but it foundered on the question of compensation to India. In 1895 he took on Arthur Henderson as his agent.
Joseph ran into financial trouble late in life. The Pease Bank collapsed in 1902 and Joseph had to sell off most of his art collection.
He died in 1903. Henderson won the by-election for Labour.
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