902 Robert Mackie

Constituency : Wakefield  1880-85

Robert  recaptured  Wakefield  for  the  Liberals.

Robert  was  a  corn  merchant. He  was  educated  at  Wesley  College, Sheffield. He  stood  unsuccessfully  in  1874.

Robert's  only   speech  in  parliament  was  a  brief  comment  on  the  new  boundaries  in  1885.

Robert  was  re-elected  in  1885  but  died  shortly  afterwards  aged  64.

901 William Caine

Constituency : Scarborough  1880-85, Barrow-in-Furness 1886-90 ( Liberal  Unionist ) , Bradford  East  1892-5, Camborne  1900-03

William  took  the  second  Scarborough  seat  for  the  Liberals.

William  was  a  metal  merchant's  son  from  Cheshire. He  was  educated  privately  then  went  into  the  family  business. He  was  a  Baptist  and  married  his  minister's  daughter.  He  then  became  a  leading  light  in  the  temperance  movement  being  elected  vice-president  of  the  United  Kingdom  Alliance. He  stood  for  Liverpool  unsuccessfully  in  1873  and  1874.

Once  in  Parliament   William  acquired  a  reputation  as  a  radical  for  his  temperance  views  but  in  1884  he  was  made  Civil  Lord  of  the  Admiralty. He  won  the  resulting  by-election  but  lost  a  year  later.

In  1886  William  won  a  by-election  at  Barrow-in- Furness.  He  was  opposed  by  both  the  Tories  and  the  Irish  Nationalists  who'd  got  wind  of  his  opposition  to  Home  Rule .He  immediately  began  organising  the  Home  Rule  revolt  which  led  to  the  nickname  "Brand  of  Caine"  for  the  Liberal  Unionists. He was  the  teller in  the  crucial  debate  in  1886.  He  said  of  Gladstone  after  a  party  meeting  at  the  Foreign  Office  that  he  "surrenders  the  fort  &  armaments  but  asks  for  a  cotton  pocket  handkerchief  &  some  old  muskets  that  he  might  please  the  women  and  children  as  he  marches  out".

 William  held  his  seat  in  1886 and  became  chief  whip  for  the  Liberal  Unionists   but  his  views  on  temperance  soon  caused  problems  for  the  alliance  with  the  Tories.  In  1887  he  objected  to  the  appointment  of  William  Pearce  to  the  committee  on  purchase  and  contract  in  the  navy  as  he  was  a  "disappointed  tenderer". In  1888  he  formed  the  Anglo-Indian  Temperance  Association  with  Samuel  Smith  and  went  to  India  to  promote  it.  In  1890  he  resigned  the  whip  and  fought  a  by-election  as  an  independent  Liberal. He  was  defeated  by  a  Gladstonian.  Chamberlain  wrote  that  he  was  "grieved  and  wounded"  by  William's  desertion. William  responded  that  "nine  tenths  of  what  I  want  in  politics   I  must  get  from  the  recognized  Liberal  party...  the  Tory  Alliance  has  become  unbearable  and  their  attack  on  the  whole  Temperance  movement  , which  I  could  never  subordinate  to  anything  , gave  me  emancipation".

Following  his  defeat  William  visited  India  in  1890  and  is  thought  to  be  the  model  for  the  titular  character  in   Kipling's  political  tract  The  Enlightenments  of  Pagett  MP. He  himself  wrote  a  guidebook  Picturesque  India.

In  1892  William  was  elected  for  Bradford  East  as  a  Liberal. He  soon  became  friendly  with David  Lloyd  George. He  mounted  a  one  man  campaign  against  the  Government  of  India  over  their  cannabis  policy  and  secured   the  Indian  Hemp  Drugs  Commission  of  1893/94. He  described  cannabis  as  "the  most  horrible  intoxicant  the  world  has  yet  produced". He  also  campaigned  against  the  mutoscope  for  showing  nude  figures  of  women  saying  young  men  were  being  "polluted and  degraded " by  them.

  In  1893   his  iron  company  collapsed  which  left  him  poorer.  He  was  defeated  in  1895   but  came  back   for  Camborne  in  1900. His  health  was  failing  and  after  a  trip  to  South  America  in  1902  he  died  of  heart  failure  in  1903  aged  60,

900 Sidney Woolf

Constituency : Pontefract 1880-85

Sidney's  victory  made  it  two  Liberals  in  Pontefract  for  the  first  time  since  1863.

Sidney  was  the  son  of  a  china  merchant  who  had  a  pottery  business   in  Ferrybridge.  He  was  Jewish  and  educated  at  University  College  London  and  Frankfurt. Sidney  expanded  the  business  in  Knottingley  and  became  a  prominent  citizen  in  the  town.

Sidney  was  living  in  Johannesburg  in  1897  but  later  returned  to  the  UK.

He  died  in  1918  aged  81.

899 Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson

Constituency : Knaresborough  1880-81, Brigg 1885-6, Birmingham  Handsworth  1892-95 ( Liberal  Unionist ) 

Henry  won  one  of  the  Knaresborough  seats  from  the  Tories.

Henry  was  the  son  of  the  former  MP  for  Whitby  , Harry  Meysey-Thompsn. He  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Cambridge. He  became  Gladstone's  private  secretary. In  1874  his  father  was  made  a  baronet  and  Henry  succeeded  him  just  months  later. Henry  was  a  director  of  the  Forth  Bridge  Railway  Company

Henry's  election  was  declared  void  on  petition. In  1885  he stood  unsuccessfully  at  a by-election  for  North  Lincolnshire  but  got  back  in  at  Brigg  at  the  election.

Henry  rebelled  against  Home  Rule , helping  to  organise  meetings  of  rebel  MPs  in  1886  and  stood  as  a  Liberal  Unionist  in  1886  but  was  defeated  by  Samuel  Waddy. He  moved  to  the  Liberal  Unionist  stronghold  of  Birmingham  and  was  elected  in  1892.

In  1905  Henry  went  to  the  Lords    as  Baron  Knaresborough.

Henry  was  chairman  of  the  North  Eastern  Railway  from  1912 to  1922. He  had  a  special  interest  in  bimetallism. In  1915  his  son  and  heir  was  killed  at  Ypres.

He  died  in  1929  aged  83.

898 John McMinnies

Constituency  :  Warrington  1880-85

John  took  Warrington  from  the  Tories. Since  1874  the  Crosfields,  a  chemical  manufacturing  family,  had  built  up  the  Liberal  organisation  in  the  town  founding  a  Liberal  Association  on  the  Birmingham  model  in  1878  and  delivered  the  victory.

John  was  a  cotton  manufacturer  and  an  alderman  and  magistrate  in  the  town.

John  did  not  speak  in  Parliament. In  1884  he  announced  his  intention  to  step  down  at  the  next  election.

He  died  in  1890  aged  72.

897 William Summers

Constituency : Stalybridge  1880-85, Huddersfield  1886-93 

William  unseated  the  Tory  MP  at  Stalybridge.

William  was  the  son  of  a  local  ironmaster. He  was  privately  educated  then  went  to  Oxford. He  became  a  barrister.

William  made  frequent  parliamentary  interventions  on  a  wide  range  of  subjects.

In  1885  the  Tories  reclaimed  the  seat. William  got  back  in  at  Huddersfield  the  following  year.

In  1889  William  agreed  to  act  as  Treasurer  for  the  journal  Haiasdan  , the  mouthpiece  of  the  Armenian  community  in  the  UK.

William  was  re-elected  in  1892  despite  being  unable  to  fully  campaign  due  to  ill  health. Later  that  year  he  sailed  for  Bombay  hoping  to  improve  his  health  but  he  died  at  Allahabad  of  malignant  smallpox  on  New  Year's  Day  1893.

896 Arthur Arnold

Constituency  :  Salford  1880-85

Arthur  was  the  other  Liberal  victor  at  Salford.

Arthur  was  the  son  of  a  Sussex  magistrate  and  brother  of  the  poet  Edwin  Arnold. He  was  privately  educated  and  trained  to  be  a  surveyor  and  land  agent. He  was  an  Assistant  Commissioner  of  public  Works  during  the  Lancashire  cotton  famine  and  wrote  a  book "The  History  of  the  Cotton  Famine". He  also  wrote  two  lowbrow  novels. He  was  an  advanced  Radical  and  in  1868  became  the  first  editor  of  The  Echo , an  evening  paper. He  unsuccessfully  contested  the  Huntingdon  by-election  of  1873. In  1878  he  published  "Social Politics"  setting  out  his  views  on  disestablishment, land  law, railway  nationalisation, female  suffrage , Home  Rule   and  temperance.  He  was   president  of  the  Free  Land  League  and  a  member  of  the  London  Anti-Vivisection  Society.

Arthur  was  a  frequent  questioner  of  ministers  and  made  over  100  interventions  each  year  he  was  in  Parliament.

Arthur  was  defeated  at  Salford  North  in  1885  and  1886. In  1892  he  tried  for  Dorset  North  unsuccessfully.

When  London  County  Council  was  formed  in  1889  Arthur  was  elected   as   a  county  alderman. He  chaired  the  council  between  1895  and  1897.  He  was  knighted  in  1895,

He  died  unexpectedly  in  1902 aged  68.