Sir John Leigh, 1st Baronet
Sir John Leigh, 1st Baronet (3 August 1884 – 28 July 1959)[1] was a British mill-owner, who used his fortune to buy a newspaper and launch his career as a Conservative politician.
Leigh, whose family resided for generations at Pennington, descended from a cadet branch of the Barons Leigh (of the first creation)[2] and was educated at Manchester Grammar School.[3]
Leigh made his fortune in the Lancashire cotton industry. In February 1918, he was created a baronet of Altrincham in Cheshire,[1][4] and circa 1921 he purchased the Pall Mall Gazette.[3][5] Sir John was rumoured at the time to be worth fourteen million pounds.[6]
He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Clapham division of Wandsworth at a by-election in May 1922 after the resignation of the Conservative MP Sir Arthur du Cros, and held the seat until retiring at the 1945 general election.[7]
References
- "Baronetcies beginning with "L" (part 2)". Leigh Rayment's Baronetage pages. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
- Burke's Peerage & Baronetage
- "Sir John Leigh, 1st Bt". ThePeerage.com. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
- "No. 30544". The London Gazette. 26 February 1918. p. 2484.
- "The Beaverbrook Papers". Parliamentary archives. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
- "The British Press". Frankfurter Zeitung. 30 July 1922 and August 1922. Retrieved 3 May 2009. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 57. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir John Leigh
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Arthur du Cros, Bt. |
Member of Parliament for Clapham 1922 – 1945 |
Succeeded by John Battley |
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New title | Baronet (of Altrincham) 1918–1959 |
Succeeded by John Leigh |