Constituency : Sheffield Attercliffe 1894-1909
J ( his Christian name doesn't seem to have been recorded ) took over at Sheffield Attercliffe when Bernard Coleridge succeeded to his father's title. J had a struggle to get the Liberal nomination. The local trade council preferred a more working class representative and selected a man called Charles Hobson instead. Neighbouring Liberal MPs decried the choice and eventually Hobson withdrew after an open meeting of the Liberal Council overwhelmingly backed J. Despite receiving little support from the NLF who didn't send up any speakers and facing an ILP candidate ( a first for the party ), J won reasonably comfortably. Afterwards a certain Ramsay McDonald requested membership of the ILP saying "Attercliffe came as a rude awakening, and I felt during the contest that it was quite impossible for me to maintain my position as a Liberal any longer".
J was a wealthy timber merchant and town councillor. He also had a farm in the Midlands. He was a nonconformist. In 1892 he became Mayor of Sheffield just as it attained city status. The following year he organised a conference in the city to try to end a coal strike.
J 's maiden speech attacked the Agricultural Land Ratings Bill of 1896 as unfair to the urban population. He was an infrequent contributor in the House.
In 1897 J bizarrely became the first President of the General Union of Railway Clerks although he resigned on health grounds after a year.
In 1895 and 1900 J was elected unopposed.
In 1909 J decided to retire and resigned his seat. Many accounts of Labour's triumph at the by-election wrongly assert that he had died.
He died in 1914 aged 79.
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