Mickleham, St. Michael's Church

Sir John Leigh, MP

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 was descended from a cadet branch of the Barons Leigh (of the first creation)[2] and was educated at Manchester Grammar School.

Leigh made his fortune in the Lancashire cotton industry. In February 1918, he was created a baronet of Altrincham in Cheshire,[1][3] and around 1921 he purchased the Pall Mall Gazette.[4] Sir John was rumoured at the time to be worth fourteen million pounds.[5]

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.[6]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Baronetcies beginning with "L" (part 2)". Leigh Rayment's Baronetage pages. Archived from the original on 1 May 2008. Retrieved 3 May 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. ↑ "Burke's Peerage". burkespeerage.com. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  3. ↑ "No. 30544". The London Gazette. 26 February 1918. p. 2484.
  4. ↑ "The Beaverbrook Papers". Parliamentary archives. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
  5. ↑ "The British Press". Frankfurter Zeitung. July–August 1922. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
  6. ↑ 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.
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