785 William Briggs

Constituency  : Blackburn  1874-85

William  took  one  of  the  Blackburn  seats  from  the  Tories.

William  was  a  local  man  but  educated  at  Rugby  and  Oxford. He  had  a  cotton  spinning  and  manufacturing  business  in  the  town. In  1872  he adopted  an  abandoned  greyhound  who  went  on  to  win  the  Waterloo  Cup  for  him.

In  1879  William  moved  that  the  Indian  import  duty  on  cotton  goods  be  abolished.

William  was  defeated  in  1885  and  did  not  stand  in  1886. He  re-emerged  as  an  unsuccessful  Unionist  candidate  at  Clitheroe  in  1892.

He  died  in  1903  aged  56.