12 Facts About Nathaniel Eckersley

Nathaniel Eckersley was an English mill-owner, banker and Conservative Party politician from Standish Hall, near Wigan in Lancashire.

Nathaniel Eckersley sat in the House of Commons for three years in the 1860s, and two years in the 1880s.

Nathaniel Eckersley's uncle was Colonel Nathaniel Eckersley, from Laurel House in Hindley, who served with the Duke of Wellington and at the military station established in Manchester after the Peterloo Massacre.

Nathaniel Eckersley was Mayor of Wigan in 1853 and in 1873, and was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire in September 1863.

Nathaniel Eckersley commanded the unit as a captain, and was later promoted to major after it joined the 4th Administrative Battalion, Lancashire Rifle Volunteers.

In June 1873 Nathaniel Eckersley led Wigan's welcome for the Prince and Princess of Wales, who opened a new hospital in the town, which the Princess named the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary.

Nathaniel Eckersley was elected as one of the two Members of Parliament for Wigan at a by-election in March 1866, following the resignation of the Conservative MP Hon.

Nathaniel Eckersley offered himself as a "free and independent candidate", and said that until then he had never considered himself to be a politician.

Nathaniel Eckersley was defeated at by John Lancaster at the 1868 general election, when Liberal candidates took both seats in Wigan, and he did not stand for Parliament again for another 15 years.

Nathaniel Eckersley was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1878, and in that capacity helped to organise a fund for the dependants of the victims of the explosion on 7 June 1878 at the Wood Pit Colliery in Haydock, where more than 200 miners were killed.

When Wigan's Conservative MP Lord Lindsay succeeded to his father's peerage in 1880, and Nathaniel Eckersley was asked to stand at the by-election in January 1881, but refused.

Nathaniel Eckersley held the seat until when Wigan's parliamentary representation was reduced from two seats to one by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, and did not contest the 1885 general election.