881 Ashton Dilke

Constituency : Newcastle-upon-Tyne  1880-83

Ashton  recaptured  the  second  Newcastle  seat  for  the  Liberals.

Ashton  was  the  younger  brother  of  Charles  Dilke. He  was  educated  privately  and  at  Cambridge  though  he  left  the  latter  before  taking  a  degree  to  visit  Russia  in  1892. He  studied  the  language  and  society  in  a  Russian  village  before  contracting  tuberculosis  which  permanently  damaged  his  health. In  1874 he  published  a  couple  of  pieces  about  Russia  in  the  Fortnightly  Review. The  following  year  he  bought  the  Weekly  Dispatch  of  which  he  had  two  spells  as  editor.   In  1878  he  published  a  translation  of  Turgenev's  Virgin  Soil.

Ashton  had  the  reputation  of  a  radical  but  he  never  spoke  in  the  House. He  supported  women's  suffrage  and  his  wife  Margaret  was  on  the  executive  committee  of  the  National Society  for  Women's  Suffrage.

Ashton  was  forced  by  ill  health  his  seat  in  February   1883. He  was  living  in  Algiers  at  the  time  and  died  there  the  following  month  aged  32.