Constituency : Leicester 1856-62
John was a Unitarian hosiery manufacturer. He was Mayor of Leicester three times between 1840 and 1855. His brother William had been an MP for the Isle of Wight but resigned when John entered Parliament in 1856. John founded the Leicester Political Union in 1830. He was a supporter of parliamentary reform looking unsuccessfully to promote his own moderate Charter in place of the Six Points . He also supported the Anti-Corn Law League. After the Chartists' day had passed John sought to channel working class dissent into the Liberal party on a platform of manhood suffrage and church disestablishment. From 1847 he was locked in a long battle for control of Leicester's electoral machine seeking to advance radical candidates where previously a Whig/Radical slate had been the norm. His opponents called him a "Dictator" and "Red Republican" at the head of "a Chartist clique". His mouthpiece was the Leicester Mercury.
John was a radical and philanthropist. He was respected as a model employer who had voluntarily abolished frame-rents in the firm when the issue came before Parliament in 1853.
John came forward in 1856 to force a moderate Whig from standing at a by-election and was elected unopposed.John was not a great success in the House where his "homely style" was patronised and he stopped speaking after his first year.
John suffered a big political setback when the Tories captured the seat after Joseph Noble's death in 1861. The Liberals had to reunite and John realised he would have to surrender much of his power. A United Liberal Registration Society was formed.
The brothers' preoccupation with politics seems to have cost them in business and the American Civil War was another big blow. In 1862 they had to sell the firm and their mansions . John resigned his seat and withdrew from public life, living in a terraced house near the prison.
He died in 1871 aged 61. A statue was soon erected by public subscription.
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