787 Robert Ferguson

Constituency  : Carlisle  1874-86

Robert  took  over  from  Edmund  Potter  at  Carlisle.

Robert  was  the  son  of  a  cotton  manufacturer. He  became  a  partner  in  the  family  firm  and  was  Mayor  of  Carlisle  in  1855  and  1858. His  father  was  a  former  mayor  and  MP  for  the  seat.

Robert  opposed  female  suffrage  because  he  believed  few  women  actually  wanted  the  vote  - "the  main  objection  is  the  inevitable  lowering  of  political  spirit  by  the  introduction  of  an  indifferent, if  not  a  reluctant, contingent".

Robert  was  a  Fellow  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries. In  1864  he  published  The  Teutonic  Name  System  a  work  on  surnames  which  led  a  fellow  historian  Mark  Lower  to  observe  that  "Like  the  rest  of  us  who  explore  the  mazes  of  nominal  etymology  this  author  sometimes  falls  into  a  bog  or  quagmire, visible  to  all  eyes  but  his  own".  He  was  a  friend  of   the  poet  Longfellow. 

He  died  in  1898  aged  81.