41 Facts About Hugh Mason

Hugh Mason was an English mill owner, social reformer and Liberal politician.

Hugh Mason was born in Stalybridge and brought up in Stalybridge and Ashton-under-Lyne until he entered the family cotton business in 1838 after a seven-year period working in a bank.

Hugh Mason became the first Liberal to be elected councillor for Ashton-under-Lyne in 1856.

Hugh Mason was mayor of the council from 1857 to 1860 and retired from local politics in 1874 due to conflict with his own party.

Hugh Mason returned to the Liberals in 1878 when he stood for election as Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne.

Hugh Mason was voted in and supported progressive policies, which included women's suffrage, making him unpopular within his own party.

Hugh Mason was born in Stalybridge, Cheshire, on 11 May 1817 and christened there.

Hugh Mason was the youngest of four children of Thomas Mason, a former textile manager, and Mary, the daughter of John Holden, Esq.

At the age of 10, Hugh Mason was working in the mill, and his education consisted of attending Methodist Sunday schools in Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge and spending three years at a private school in Ashton-under-Lyne.

Hugh Mason worked there until 1838, when he left at the age of 21 to join the family's cotton business.

The business thrived: by the early 1850s the Hugh Mason family had built two state-of-the-art cotton mills in the Ryecroft area of Ashton-under-Lyne, known as the Oxford Mills.

Hugh Mason was able to purchase Groby Hall, in Ashton, the ancestral seat of the former Lord Greys of Groby.

In 1845, to house the workers for the mills, Hugh Mason began construction of a "workers' colony".

Hugh Mason built up what he saw as a model industrial community, and according to Hugh Mason himself, the annual death rate was significantly lower than in the rest of Ashton-under-Lyne.

Hugh Mason served as President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce from 1871 to 1874, and came to hold interests in the Bridgewater Canal Navigation Company, the Midland Railway Company, the Mersey Dock Board, and various other coal and iron companies.

Hugh Mason became popular among workers for such things as becoming the first local employer to give his workers Saturday afternoons off.

Hugh Mason is one of the first amongst those wealthy manufacturers of Lancashire who devote the hours which are not occupied by business to the service of their fellow men.

Hugh Mason has been accustomed to take a leading part in the various public improvements, and he has long been a political chief.

Hugh Mason has built for his workpeople admirable cottages, swimming baths, gymnasiums and lecture halls, but beneficent acts do not suffice to secure popularity unless there is a suavity of manner and sympathy of nature in the benefactor, and these are qualities which Mr Mason lacks.

Mr Hugh Mason is a staunch liberal, and is reckoned to be one of the oracles of the local party.

Hugh Mason's figure is a familiar one at free trade meetings where the citizens of Manchester never fail to receive him with the utmost enthusiasm.

Hugh Mason was influenced by his father's Liberal politics and strongly opposed to injustice and prejudice.

Thomas Hugh Mason was a supporter of political representation for Ashton-under-Lyne and supported the repeal of the Corn Laws.

Hugh Mason represented the Portland Place ward from 1856 until his retirement from politics in 1874.

Hugh Mason quickly made an impression and was elected mayor for three consecutive years between 1857 and 1860, which had never happened before.

Hugh Mason supported progressive measures such as opening a public park, providing public libraries, and addressing unsanitary conditions in parts of Ashton-under-Lyne.

Hugh Mason's policies led him to come into constant clashes with the Conservative members of the council.

Hugh Mason was not always popular within his own party either and he even financed his own newspaper, the Ashton-under-Lyne News, to convey his views and provide competition for the pro-Liberal Ashton Reporter.

Hugh Mason personally went to one mob during the Murphy Riots to read them the riot act face-to-face.

Hugh Mason was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of the County Palatine of Lancaster on 21 June 1862.

Hugh Mason was appointed a member of the Board of the Mersey Docks and Harbour.

Hugh Mason supported many reformist bills and became a spokesman of the Women's Suffrage Association in 1881.

Hugh Mason proposed motions for women's suffrage in 1881 and again in 1883 but was defeated on both occasions.

Hugh Mason led the women's suffrage movement until 1883 when illness forced him to retreat from public life temporarily.

Hugh Mason lost to the Conservative John Wentworth Addison by 3,152 votes to 3,104.

Hugh Mason demanded a recount, but this increased the majority by one vote; he succumbed to illness and died before the result was announced.

In 1846 Hugh Mason married Sarah Buckley, the daughter of Abel Buckley, Esq, who was the father of Abel Buckley Businessman and MP, another cotton mill owner who went on to be a millionaire businessman and landowner.

Hugh Mason next married Sarah's sister, Betsy, though it was illegal to marry one's sister-in-law in England at the time.

Betsy died after the birth of Sydney and Hugh Mason then married for a third time Annie, daughter of George Ashworth, Esq, of Rochdale in 1864.

Hugh Mason died three days after his 69th birthday on 2 February 1886 at his home, Groby Hall.

Hugh Mason was the first person to have a statue erected in his honour in Tameside; it was financed by public subscription immediately after Mason's death.