Alfred Lafone

Lafone was born in the West Derby area of Liverpool, the fourth son of Samuel Lafone.[2] His half-brother was Samuel Fisher Lafone (1805-1871), a powerful and influential businessman based in Montevideo, dealing in cattle and hides, the wealthiest British resident in South America[3] who in 1843 made a spectacular land purchase in Uruguay, and had purchased a large estate on East Falkland.[4]

He was educated privately,[2] and moved to Bermondsey in London where he joined the leather and hide factors business of Boutcher, Mortimore and Company.[5]

He was elected in 1870 as a member of the London School Board,[5] and was re-elected in 1873.[6] In 1873[7] he purchased the large mansion house and estate of Hanworth Park, near London. At the 1885 general election he unsuccessfully contested the new Bermondsey division of Southwark,[5] losing by only 83 votes (1.2% of the total) to the sitting Liberal MP Thorold Rogers.[8] He had been selected by the local Conservative Association in preference to John Dumphreys, who had been put forward as a Conservative working man's candidate.[9]

However, he defeated Rogers at the 1886 election,[10] taking the seat with a swing of 3.4%.[8] In 1888, he chaired a committee set up to raise funds for the establishment of a series of South London Polytechnics.[11] The first of the three institutes was Goldsmiths College in New Cross, which opened in 1891, followed in 1892 by the Borough Road Polytechnic, of which Lafone became a governor.[12]

By 1892 he had become a Justice of the Peace (JP) for Middlesex,[13] but at the 1892 general election he lost his seat in Parliament to the Liberal Party candidate Reuben Barrow, on a swing of 7.9%.[8]

He stood again in 1895, with the active support of the local Liberal Unionist Party.[14] On election day, his campaign was assisted by many loans of carriages, including from the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Yarborough, Lord Iveagh, and Baroness Burdett-Coutts.[15] The sitting Liberal MP, Reuben Barrow, was supported by processions of workingmen,[15] but Lafone regained the seat with a majority of 360 votes (4.4% of the total).[8]

Lafone retired from Parliament at the 1900 general election, on account of his "advanced age";[16] he was by then 79 years old.[1]

In 1852 Lafone married Jane Boutcher, daughter of William Boutcher of Grateley in Hampshire.[5] She died on 9 April 1885.[17]

He died aged 90 on 26 April 1911, at his mansion house Hanworth Park having been ill for about four months.[18]

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Alfred Lafone