What does an occasional table do the rest of the time?

This page features profiles of famous people connected with Warrington.
They don't have to be born here for me to include them!

Actors, entertainers, etc are featured in Entertaining People.
Sporting Warringtonians are featured in Sporting People.
Warrington Wolves rugby players are featured on the Warrington Wolves page.

The profiles cover some aspects of their lives beyond the boundaries of Warrington.
They are presented in date of birth order, and listed alphabetically by surname in the table below.
If you think somebody should be included, let me know!

Note: some of this material is from Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. Please see the foot of the Feedback page 
for important copyright information. mywarrington is not responsible for the content of external websites.

The Mayor of Warrington, as the first person of the borough, is charged with the overseeing of Warrington Borough Council. The first mayor of Warrington was William Beamont in 1847. Elected for one year, he/she also is a diplomat of the town who is responsible for officially welcoming people and inviting people to the town. As well as this he/she is charged with officially hosting civic events of the town. In this role, the mayor promotes the town of Warrington to attract more investment and visitors to the area. For a complete list of all mayors, past and present, see the Warrington Borough Council Website.

Read more in Wikipedia.

He eventually imposed his rule on England, Scotland and Ireland as Lord Protector, from 16 December 1653 until his death, which is believed to have been by malaria.  After the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 his body was exhumed and hung in chains at Tyburn.

Read more in Wikipedia.

James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby KG (31 January, 1607 - 15 October, 1651) was a supporter of the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. He was born in Knowsley and was Member of Parliament for Liverpool in 1625 and created Knight of the Bath on the occasion of Charles I's coronation in 1626.

He was appointed lord-lieutenant of North Wales and on 7 March, 1628, was called up to the House of Lords as Baron Strange. He devoted himself to the King's cause when the English Civil War broke out in 1642. He was unable to get possession of Manchester, was defeated at Chowbent and Lowton Moor, and, in 1643, after gaining Preston, failed to take Bolton and Lancaster castles. After successfully beating off Sir William Brereton's attack on Warrington, he was defeated at Whalley and withdrew to York. Warrington in consequence surrendering to the enemy's forces.

He was chosen by Charles II to command the troops of Lancashire and Cheshire, and on the 15 August, 1651, he landed at Wyre Water in Lancashire in support of Charles's invasion, and met the King on the 17 August. Proceeding to Warrington, he failed to obtain the support of the Presbyterians through his refusal to take the Covenant, and on the 25 August was totally defeated at the Battle of Wigan Lane, being severely wounded and escaping with difficulty.

Whilst at Warrington during the English Civil War he held his headquarters close to where the Marquis of Granby public house now stands in Church Street. See Tour 1 for more.

Read more in Wikipedia. This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Richard Sherlock (11 November, 1612 – 20 June, 1689) was a clergyman. Sherlock was born at Oxton, then a village in the Cheshire peninsula of Wirral, and was baptised at Woodchurch. His father, William, a small yeoman, died while Richard was still young, but his mother gave him a learned education. He was first sent to Magdalen Hall, Oxford, whence he was removed, to save expense, to Trinity College, Dublin. There he graduated M.A. in 1633. Having entered holy orders, he became minister of several small united parishes in Ireland, where he remained till the breaking out of the rebellion of 1641.

In or about 1658 Sherlock was introduced by Sir R. Bindloss to Charles Stanley, 8th Earl of Derby, who appointed him his chaplain at Lathom. At the Restoration he was placed by the earl on a commission for the settlement of all matters ecclesiastical and civil in the Isle of Man. He fulfilled his part of this task 'to the entire satisfaction of the lord and people of that island', and returned to Latham. In 1660 he was nominated to the rich rectory of Winwick in Lancashire, now part of Warrington, but, through a dispute as to the patronage, he did not get full possession of it until 1662. Here he remained at St Oswald's Church for the rest of his life, serving the community for around 30 years.

Remaining unmarried, his rectory became a kind of training-school for young clergymen, among whom was his own nephew, Thomas Wilson, afterwards bishop of Sodor and Man. Sherlock, who proceeded D.D. (Doctor of Divinity) at Dublin in 1660, died at Winwick on 20 June 1689, and was buried in his parish church. In his will he left bequests to the poor of several of the parishes with which he had been connected.    Read more in Wikipedia.

Thomas Blood (1618 – 23 August, 1680) was an Irish-born colonel best known for attempting to steal the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London in 1671. Described as a "noted bravo and desperado", he was also implicated in one attempted kidnapping and one attempted murder of the Duke of Ormonde, had switched allegiances from Royalist to Roundhead during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and later, despite his notoriety, found favour at the court of King Charles II.

Blood was born the son of a successful blacksmith in County Meath in Ireland. His family was respectable and his grandfather a Member of Parliament and resident at Kilnaboy Castle. He was educated in England. At the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, Blood returned to England and initially took up arms with the Royalist forces loyal to Charles I. However, as the conflict progressed he switched sides and became a lieutenant in Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads.

He married Maria Holcroft, daughter of Lt-Col John Holcroft from Golborne, an officer in Cromwell's army. They married, against her father's wishes, on 16 June, 1650 in Newchurch, Culcheth, Warrington and lived at Holcroft Hall, Culcheth, now a farm.

In 1653 at the cessation of hostilities Cromwell awarded Blood land grants as payment for his service and appointed him a justice of the peace. Following the Restoration (when Charles II returned to the throne) in 1660, Blood fled with his family to Ireland.

Blood fell ill in 1680 and died on 23 August at his home in Bowling Alley, Westminster. His body was buried in the churchyard of St. Margaret's Church (now Christchurch Gardens) near St. James's Park. It is alleged that Blood's body was exhumed by the authorities for confirmation—such was his reputation for trickery. It was suspected he might have faked his own death and funeral in order to avoid paying his debt to the Duke of Buckingham. Blood's epitaph read:

Here lies the man who boldy hath run through
More villanies than England ever knew;
And ne're to any friend he had was true.
Here let him then by all unpitied lie,
And let's rejoice his time was come to die.

Blood's son Holcroft Blood became a distinguished military engineer and commanded the Duke of Marlborough's artillery at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. A number of his descendants, including Bindon Blood, Maurice Petherick, and Brian Inglis, also went on to have distinguished careers in British and Irish society.

The Holcroft name lives on in Culcheth with Holcroft Hall and Holcroft Lane.

Read more in Wikipedia.

James was born in Aberdeen, a younger son of a Roman Catholic family, and studied at Marischal College there. He later travelled through Europe, visiting Flanders, France, Switzerland and Germany, before entering the Scots College in Rome, in 1703, to train for the Catholic priesthood. Gibbs left the following year, and entered the studio of the Baroque architect Carlo Fontana, where he trained until 1709. He came to London in 1710, having attracted the notice of the Earl of Mar while abroad.

His first important commission was the church of St Mary-le-Strand (1714-1717), in the City of Westminster. Other early designs include the house of Cannons, Middlesex (1716-1720), for James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, and the tower of Wren's St. Clement Danes (1719).

Gibbs worked at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Designs for the Senate House (1722-1730) at Cambridge were begun by Gibbs, but as executed the building is probably the work of James Burrough (1691-1764). The Fellows' Building at King's College (1724-1730) is, however, the work of James Gibbs. Gibbs was awarded an honorary degree of Master of Arts in recognition of his work.

Read more in Wikipedia.

He was born in Lower Clapton, London. His father was a wealthy upholsterer at Smithfield Market in the city. His mother died when he was five years old, and, described as a "sickly child", he was sent to live at Cardington, Bedfordshire, forty miles from London, where his father owned property. His father, a strict disciplinarian with strong religious beliefs, sent the young John to a school in Hertford and then to John Eames' Dissenting Academy in London.

After school, John was apprenticed to a wholesale grocer to learn business methods, but he was unhappy. In 1748, he left England to tour France and Italy. He later set out for Portugal following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, travelling on the Hanover, which was captured by French privateers. He was imprisoned in Brest for six days before being transferred to another prison on the French coast. He was later exchanged for a French officer held by the British, and he quickly travelled to the Commissioners of Sick and Wounded Seamen in London to seek help on behalf of his fellow captives. It is widely reasonably regarded that this personal experience generated Howard's interest in prisons.

In 1758, Howard married Henrietta Leeds who died in 1765, a week after giving birth to a son, also named John, who was sent to boarding school at a very young age. The younger John was sent down from Cambridge for homosexual offences, was judged insane at the age of 21, and died in 1799 having spent thirteen years in an asylum.

High Sheriff of Bedfordshire

He took this issue to parliament, and in 1774 Howard was called to give evidence on prison conditions to a House of Commons select committee. Members of that committee were so impressed that, unusually, Howard was called to the bar of the House of Commons and publicly thanked for his 'humanity and zeal'.  

Having visited several hundred prisons across England, Scotland, Wales and wider Europe, Howard published the first edition of The State of the Prisons in 1777. It included very detailed accounts of the prisons he had visited, including plans and maps, together with detailed instructions on the necessary improvements. The following account, of the Bridewell at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, is typical:

Two dirty day-rooms; and three offensive night-rooms: That for men eight feet square: one of the women's, nine by eight; the other four and a half feet square: the straw, worn to dust, swarmed with vermin: no court: no water accessible to prisoners. The petty offenders were in irons: at my last visit, eight were women.

His final journey took him into Eastern Europe, and into the Crimea, then Russia. Whilst at Kherson, in what is now Ukraine, Howard contracted typhus and died. He was buried on the shores of the Black Sea. Almost eighty years after his death, the Howard Association was formed in London, with the aim of "promotion of the most efficient means of penal treatment and crime prevention" and to promote "a reformatory and radically preventive treatment of offenders".    Read more in Wikipedia

Joseph Priestley (13 March, 1733 - 8 February, 1804) was an English chemist, philosopher, dissenting clergyman and educator. He is known for his investigations of carbon dioxide and the co-discovery of oxygen.

Subsequently he went to Warrington Academy where he associated with other liberal-minded tutors. A sympathetic printer, William Eyres, was willing to publish his work, including his grammar book in 1761 (a remarkably liberal grammar for its day) and other books on history and educational theory. He taught anatomy and astronomy, and led field trips for his students to collect fossils and botanical specimens. Both modern history and the sciences were subjects which had not been taught in any schools before Priestley.

He married Mary Wilkinson of Wrexham on 23 Jun, 1762, and by September 1767 the combination of his finances and her health caused him to relocate to Leeds.

Other publications from him include, Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768), The Present State of Liberty in Great Britain and her Colonies (1769), Impregnating Water with Fixed Air (1772), Observations on Civil Liberty and the Nature and Justice of the War with America (1772) and Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), his publication on his discovery of oxygen.

Priestley College in Warrington is a sixth form college (for 16–19 year olds) named in his honour. Priestley Street is named after him, as was Priestley House, which has now been renamed Bank Quay House.    Read more in Wikipedia.

In 1774 she married Rochemont Barbauld, a member of a French Protestant family settled in England. In 1785 they left for the continent, for the benefit of Mr Barbauld's health. On their return about two years later, he was appointed to a church at Hampstead. In 1802 they moved to Stoke Newington. Through her book of poems, Barbauld became well known in London literary circles.

In her lifetime Barbauld was most famous for her children's books — a series of four age-adapted reading primers entitled Lessons for Children (1778-9) and her Hymns in Prose for Children (1781). Barbauld became increasingly violent towards his wife, and eventually drowned himself in 1808. There is a memoir of Barbauld written by her niece Lucy Aikin.

Barbauld Street in Warrington is named after her. Read more about her in Tour 1.

Read more in Wikipedia. This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

John Kay (dates unknown) was a clockmaker from Warrington, Lancashire. He is known by association with Richard Arkwright for the invention of the spinning frame in 1767, an important stage in the development of textile manufacturing in the Industrial Revolution.

Kay was originally a partner of Thomas Highs (who seems to have been the true inventor) but they ran out of funds. Arkwright took Kay and the idea of the spinning frame and exploited both, with Kay doing the construction and development work that led to the creation of the water frame which made Arkwright's fortune and reputation (almost to the exclusion of Kay and Highs).

Peter Litherland (1756-1805) was a watchmaker and inventor. He was born in Warrington and later moved to Liverpool, which was then the centre of the watchmaking trade. In 1791, he patented the rack lever escapement for watches, which was more accurate than the commonly-used verge escapement.    Read more in Wikipedia.

A History of the Siege of Gibraltar

He first published his work in 1785, and a new edition of A History of the Siege of Gibraltar was published in 1905. The history of the four eventful years' siege is fully detailed also in the Memoir, attached to Green's Siege of Gibraltar (1784), of its defender George Augustus Elliot, afterwards Lord Heathfield. As a soldier, Drinkwater was more interested in the military than in the civil aspects, yet his account does give some glimpses of the sufferings of the civilians. The account was completed in 1783 and had with extreme rapidity established its reputation as a military classic.    Read more in Wikipedia

Arthur Aikin (19 May, 1773 - 15 April, 1854), English chemist, mineralogist and scientific writer, was born in Warrington, Lancashire.

Arthur Aikin.  image is in the public domain. Read more in Wikipedia.

Lucy Aikin (6 November, 1781 – 29 January, 1864) born at Warrington into a distinguished literary family of prominent Unitarians, was a historical writer.

Lucy Aikin's aunt was Anna Laetitia Barbauld (profiled earlier), a woman of letters who wrote poetry and essays as well as early children's literature. Lucy's father, Dr. John Aikin, was a medical doctor, historian, and author. Her grandfather, also called John Aikin (1713–1780), was a Unitarian scholar and theological tutor, closely associated with Warrington Academy. Lucy's brother was Arthur Aikin (1773–1854), chemist, mineralogist and scientific writer, featured above.

Lucy was educated by her father and her aunt, an early critic of the education system. She "read widely in English, French, Italian, and Latin literature and history", and began writing for magazines at the age of seventeen, and at an early age assisted her father as an editor in his writings as well.

Aikin was interested in early education, and as such published several works to assist young readers: Poetry for Children: Consisting of Short Pieces to be Committed to Memory (1801), Juvenile Correspondence or Letters, Designed as Examples of the Epistolary Style, for Children of Both Sexes (1811), An English Lesson Book, for the Junior Classes (1828), and The Acts of Life: of Providing Food, of Providing Clothing, of Providing Shelter (1858).

Aikin also translated the French texts: Louis Francois Jauffret’s The Travels of Rolando (publication appears to be around 1804), and Jean Gaspard Hess’s The Life of Ulrich Zwingli (1812), a life of the leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. She was also responsible for two creative works: Epistles on Women, Exemplifying their Character and Condition in Various Ages and Nations, with Miscellaneous Poems (1810), and her only work of fiction, Lorimer, a Tale (1814). She produced biographical works: Memoir of John Aikin, MD (1823), The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1825), The Life of Anne Boleyn (1827), and The Life of Joseph Addison (1843).

However, as memoirs and obituaries are quick to point out, she was probably most famous for her historical works: Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (1818), Memoirs of the Court of James I (1822), and Memoirs of the Court of Charles I (1833).

Under the pseudonym Mary Godolphin, Lucy Aikin is also attributed for producing versions of: Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Aesop's Fables, Evenings at Home, and Sandford and Merton, "in Words of One Syllable".

She was remarkable for her conversational powers, and was also an admirable letter-writer. She died at Hampstead, London in 1864, where she had lived for forty years.   

Joseph Crosfield (5 October, 1792 – 16 February, 1844) was a businessman who established a soap and chemical manufacturing business in Warrington, Lancashire. This business was to become the firm of Joseph Crosfield & Sons, Limited.

Joseph Crosfield was born in Warrington, the fourth son of George Crosfield and his wife Ann née Key. The Crosfield family had been Quakers since the time of George Fox and this tradition was maintained by George and subsequently by Joseph. George Crosfield was a wholesale grocer in Warrington who also had interests in a sugar-refining business in Liverpool. The family moved to Lancaster in 1799 for George to develop a sugar-refining business there, while still keeping an interest in his grocery business in Warrington under the care of his assistant, Joseph Fell. Nothing is known of Joseph’s early life in Lancaster. From September 1807, a time close to his 15th birthday, he was apprenticed for 6 years to Anthony Clapham, a druggist and chemist in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. By 1811 Anthony Clapham was also a soap manufacturer.

Soap and alkali manufacture

In 1814, Joseph’s apprenticeship having finished, at the age of 21 he decided to establish his own soap making business in Warrington. At this time soap manufacturing was growing rapidly in the Mersey valley. This was largely because of the recently developed canals and river navigations in the area, which allowed for easier transport of the raw materials into the factories and for the distribution of the finished products. A number of new large soap businesses had recently been established in the nearby towns of St Helens, Runcorn and Liverpool.

Joseph Crosfield’s soap company was established on the north bank of a loop of the River Mersey in the area known as Bank Quay. The premises occupied that of a failed wire mill and the business started with a capital of £1,500. It struggled at first, partly due to the trade depression at the time, but by 1818 it was making a profit.

In 1820 Joseph was joined in the business by his younger brother William (1805-1881). Later that year his father George died, leaving a legacy of £1,500 to Joseph. Around this time Joseph Fell also became a partner in the business and Joseph Crosfield bought the machinery from a nearby corn mill.

In addition to making soap, like many other soap makers Joseph Crosfield was involved in making candles. By the mid-1830s Crosfield’s was producing around 900 tons of soap annually. In 1832 they were the 25th largest business in the list of 296 soap makers in England and Scotland that year. Joseph carried out most of the clerical work himself in the business, employing only one clerk.

By the 1830s Joseph Crosfield was manufacturing his own alkali by the Leblanc process, rather than using alkali from vegetable sources. Rather than manufacturing it in his Bank Quay site, he took over a bankrupt alum works in St Helens with his older brother James (1787–1852) and Josias Christopher Gamble. Here he continued to make alum and also manufactured alkali by the Leblanc process. Joseph’s younger brother Simon (1803–1864) later became a partner in this business.

Other investments

During this time Joseph’s soap-making business was making large profits but, rather than investing them into this business, he put the money into other enterprises, most of which lost money. He had an interest in glass-making, buying shares in the Manchester & Liverpool Plate Glass Company in 1836. He took out a patent for an improvement in the manufacture of plate glass, but the company failed. He also lost a considerable amount of money in a partnership in the Wharf Meadow cotton-mill. He did better with his investments into joint-stock banks, his first investment being into the Manchester Joint-Stock Banking Company. In 1831 a branch of the Manchester & Liverpool District Banking Company opened in Warrington and in time Joseph became a large shareholder and local director of this bank.

In common with many other businessmen of the time, Joseph became involved with the newly opening railways. His major interest was in the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway. After investing in this enterprise in 1830 he became a director in 1836.

Political, civic and religious life

Joseph Crosfield was also deeply involved in the political, civic and religious life of Warrington. In addition to his continuing Quaker activities, he was a Radical in politics, often campaigning on issues relating to both of these movements. He was a life governor and permanent committee member of the Dispensary and Infirmary in the town. He served on the Warrington Board of Health, which was set up in 1832 at the time of the cholera epidemic. He was involved with education, not only in setting up Quaker schools in Penketh and Warrington, but also with the founding of the Warrington Educational Society in 1838 for educating the working classes. He took an interest in the Warrington Mechanics’ Institution and the Warrington Circulating Library.

Personal life

In 1819 Joseph Crosfield married Elizabeth Goad from the village of Baycliffe in the Furness area of Lancashire. Joseph and his family lived close to his works. After his marriage his first house was Mersey Bank, a fairly large house standing in its own grounds to the west of the factory. In 1826 he leased a plot of land nearby at White Cross on which he built a new house and in which he lived for the rest of his life. His wife produced for him 10 children, 5 boys and 5 girls. Joseph died in 1844 after a short illness when he was aged 51. He was buried in the burial ground of the Friends’ Meeting House in Buttermarket Street, Warrington.

Crosfields after Joseph

Read more in Wikipedia.

William Beamont (1797–1889) was a Victorian solicitor and local philanthropist, living in the town of Warrington. He was the first mayor of Warrington after its incorporation as a municipal borough in 1847. At this time 27 councillors from the then much smaller borough were appointed to the small town hall in the centre of modern Warrington (Ask restaurant is housed in the replica building in Golden Square shopping centre today). As the town increased in size the council was moved to Bank Hall, the former home of Lord Winmarleigh for £9,700; this still serves as the Town Hall, and its "golden gates" are one of the town's attractions. As mayor, he founded its municipal library, one of the first rate-aided libraries in the UK, in 1848*. He travelled extensively, including in the Holy Land, where he met artist William Holman Hunt. His diaries, stored in the library, are a valuable source of social history. A high school, a junior school and an infants school in the town are named after him. His grave lies in the churchyard of Christ Church, Padgate, one of several Church of England churches that he helped found.    Some information from Wikipedia.

*Chetham's Library in Greater Manchester was founded in 1653, and is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.

William Allcard, born 1801, lived at Bank House on Sankey Street by the Town Hall between 1839 and 1854, and built carriages in a factory behind the house. He was heavily involved in the Grand Junction Railway, and was the chief engineer on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, where he drove the "Comet" at the opening in 1830. He was given the task of building the Sankey Viaduct on the Liverpool and Manchester, and created a nine-arch construction spanning 50 feet out of brick and stone. A minimum clearance of 60 feet was required for the boats to pass by underneath. The actual clearance was 70 feet, and the whole structure cost £45,000. He went into partnership with William Buddicom in the manufacture of railway engines. He served as the second mayor of Warrington between 1848 and 1849, and again for a second term of office between 1851 and 1852. He retired to his native Derbyshire where he died in 1861.

John Wilson-Patten, 1st Baron Winmarleigh, PC (26 April, 1802 – 11 July, 1892) was a Conservative Party politician. He was the second son of Thomas Wilson (formerly Patten) of Warrington, Lancashire, and Elizabeth Hyde, daughter of Nathan Hyde of Ardwick, Manchester. His father had in 1800 assumed the surname of Wilson in lieu of Patten in accordance with the will of Thomas Wilson, son of Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man from 1697 to 1755, to whose estates Patten succeeded. However, a few years later the family assumed the surname of Wilson-Patten.

He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. While at Oxford, he became friendly with, amongst others, Edward Stanley, later Lord Stanley and 14th Earl of Derby. In 1830 he was elected Member of Parliament for Lancashire, but stood down the following year. However, in 1832 he returned to Parliament as representative for the newly created constituency of North Lancashire, a seat he would hold for the next 42 years. In the House of Commons he became known as a supporter of industrial and labour reform, and took an active part in helping to relieve the Lancashire cotton famine of 1861 to 1865. However, Wilson-Patten did not hold ministerial office until 1867, when, aged 65, he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the last administration of his old friend Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby. He was admitted to the Privy Council the same year. He remained in this post until the following year, and then served briefly under Benjamin Disraeli as Chief Secretary for Ireland from September to December 1868. The latter year he also became a member of the Irish Privy Council. In 1874, on his retirement from the House of Commons, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Winmarleigh, of Winmarleigh in the County Palatine of Lancaster. However, he was seldom active in the House of Lords.

In 1828 Wilson-Patten married Anna Maria Patten-Bold, daughter of his paternal uncle Peter Patten-Bold. They had six children, two sons and four daughters. However, Lord Winmarleigh survived both of his two sons, Captain John Wilson-Patten (d. 1873) and Arthur Wilson-Patten (1841-1866), as well as his grandson John Alfred Wilson-Patten (d. 1889), the only son of John. Consequently, on his death at the age of ninety in 1892 the Barony became extinct.

Wilson Patten Street and Winmarleigh Street in Warrington town centre are named after him.    Read more in Wikipedia.

Sir Gilbert Greenall, 1st Baronet (11 May, 1806 - 10 July, 1894) was a British businessman and Conservative politician.

Greenall was the sixth and youngest son of Edward Greenall of Walton Hall, Cheshire. His grandfather was Thomas Greenall, who had established a brewery in St Helen's in 1762, on which the family wealth was based. Greenall assumed control of the family brewery business and also had interests in the St Helens Canal and Railway Company and in Parr, Lyons and Greenall Bank, based in Warrington. Apart from his business career he sat as Member of Parliament for Warrington from 1847 to 1868, from 1874 to 1880 and from 1885 to 1892. In 1876 he was created a Baronet, of Walton Hall in the County of Chester.

Greenall married Mary, daughter of David Claughton, in 1836. After her death in 1861 he married Susannah, daughter of John Lovis Rapp. He died in July 1894, aged 88, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his only son from his first marriage, Gilbert, who was created Baron Daresbury in 1927. Susannah, Lady Greenall, died in 1896. His son is featured later.    Read more in Wikipedia.

He was the only son of Francis and Martha Sharpe. He was educated at Greenwich, Sedbergh School and St John's College, Cambridge graduating B.A. in 1833 and M.A. in 1836. He gained a travelling scholarship in 1832 and visited France and Germany studying Romanesque and early Gothic architecture. He settled in Lancaster, Lancashire in 1835 where he practiced as an architect for 15 years. In 1843 he married Elizabeth Fletcher and with her had five children.

One of his students was Edward Graham Paley, who joined him as a partner in 1845. Together, as Sharpe and Paley, they designed nearly 40 new churches, including two all-terracotta churches, and some secular buildings, included Capernwray Hall, the remodelling of Hornby Castle and Ince Hall, Cheshire. He took part in civic life in Lancaster, serving as a councillor from 1841 and as mayor in 1848–49. During this time he became involved in sanitation and played an important part in implementing the first Public Health Act in Lancaster.

In 1850 he purchased the Phoenix foundry in Lancaster and the following year ceased work as an architect. He had been involved in the promotion of railways since the 1830s and in 1856 he moved to live near Betws-y-Coed, Caernarvonshire. There he organised the building of the Conway-Llanrwst railway. He was appointed J.P. for Lancashire and for Denbighshire in 1859. From 1863 to 1866 Sharpe lived abroad, where he constructed a horse-drawn tramway in Geneva and the Perpignan-Prades railway in France. He acquired property and iron mines on the continent but moved back to Lancaster in 1867.

During his life Sharpe published a number of works on medieval architecture. He had become a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1848 and was given their gold medal in 1875. He was also a member of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. While gathering material on the continent for further writings he died in Milan and was buried at Lancaster cemetery. A memorial to his memory is in St Paul's Church, Scotforth, which he designed in 1874, 23 years after retiring from his architectural practice.  Read more in Wikipedia.

Philip Pearsall Carpenter Rev. Dr. (4 November, 1819 – 24 May, 1877) was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in England in 1841 and received a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in 1860. His field work as a malacologist (the branch of zoology concerned with molluscs) is still well regarded today. A man of many talents, he wrote, published, taught, and was a volunteer explaining the growing study of shells in North America.

Philip P. Carpenter was born in Bristol, England on 4 November, 1819. His father was Lant Carpenter. His mother was Anna or Hannah Penn, daughter of John and Mary Penn. P. P. Carpenter, as he was called, began his education in Bristol, and later studied at Manchester College, York. He gained a B.A. from the University of London in 1841, the year of his ordination as a minister.

In the late 1840s he shunned the idea that working class men should not be literate by setting up an Industrial School to teach the unemployed male factory workers to read and write and to give them the skills required for future working life. He was a campaigner for public health in the the 1850s. He also set up ‘swimming academy’ in the Warrington canals, namely the Old Quay Canal and the Sankey Canal. He was an opponent of slavery.

He longed to visit the United States and his dream was realised in 1858 when he set sail on the steamship Kangaroo with over 6,500 of his shells. The following year he visited Montreal in Canada. In 1860 he was awarded a doctorate for his work by the State University of New York at Albany.

He married Minna Meyer in 1860. Minna was born about 1830 in Hamburg, Germany. Between 1860 and 1865 he served as curator of Warrington Museum and was the minister at Cairo Street Chapel. He emigrated to Canada in 1865.

P. P. Carpenter died on 24 May, 1877 in St Antoine Ward, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, of typhoid complicated by rheumatism.

Notable siblings

Mary Carpenter was born on 3 April 1807 in Kidderminster, Worcester, England. She died on 14 June, 1877 and was buried in Arnos Vale, Bristol, England. Mentioned in brother William's insert in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography by Charles Coulton Gillispie, she was a social reformer.

William Benjamin Carpenter was born on 29 October 1813 in Exeter, Devonshire, England. He died on 19 November 1885 in London and was buried in Highgate Cemetery, London.

Russell Lant Carpenter was born in 1816 in Kidderminster, Worcester, England, and was christened in Devonshire. He died in 1892.

Some information from Wikipedia.

Peter Rylands (18 January, 1820 – 8 February, 1887) was an English wire-manufacturer in Lancashire and a Liberal politician.

Rylands was born at Warrington, the son of John Rylands and his wife Martha Glazebrook. He was a wire manufacturer and active in local government. As early as 1843 he was corresponding with Richard Cobden on political matters. He was Mayor of Warrington from 1853 to 1854.

At the 1868 general election he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Warrington, but lost the seat at the 1874 general election, when he also stood unsuccessfully in the South-Eastern Division of Lancashire. In 1876 he won a parliamentary by-election in Burnley, where he was re-elected in 1880 and 1885. When the Liberals split over the First Home Rule Bill, Rylands joined the breakaway Liberal Unionists, and was returned to the House of Commons at the 1886 general election as a Liberal Unionist. He held the seat until his death on 8 February 1887 at the age of 67.

He lived at Massey Hall, Thelwall which he left to the local authority for education purposes.    Read more in Wikipedia.

William Norman VC (1832 – 13 March, 1896) of Warrington was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was about 22 years old, and a private in the 7th Regiment (later The Royal Fusiliers) during the Crimean War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 19 December 1854 at Sebastopol, in the Crimea, Private Norman was placed on single sentry duty some distance in front of the advanced sentries of an outlying picquet in the White Horse Ravine, a post of much danger and requiring great vigilance. The Russian picquet was posted about 300 yards in front of him, and three Russians came under cover of the brushwood. Private Norman single-handed, took two of them prisoner without alarming the picquet.

He later served in the Umbeyla Campaign and achieved the rank of corporal. His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Royal Fusiliers Museum (Tower of London, England).    Read more in Wikipedia.

William Kirtley (1840 - 7 October, 1919) was the Locomotive Superintendent of the London Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) from 1874 until the merger to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway at the end of 1898.

William was born in Warrington, the son of the locomotive engineer Thomas Kirtley (1810-1847). He was educated by his uncle Matthew Kirtley, Locomotive Superintendent of the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway and later of the Midland Railway, following his father's premature death. He served as a pupil at Derby Works from 1854-1860, and from 1861 to 1864 he was running foreman for the Midland Railway for the London District. In 1864 he was appointed superintendent of Derby Works. He also served as consultant to the Hull and Barnsley Railway between 1883 and 1885, prior to the opening of the line. He retired in 1898.   Read more in Wikipedia.

Sir Samuel Luke Fildes, R. A. (1843-1927) was an English painter and illustrator born at Liverpool and trained in the South Kensington and Royal Academy schools. At the age of seventeen Luke Fildes became a student at the Warrington School of Art. Fildes moved to South Kensington Art School where he met Hubert von Herkomer and Frank Holl. All three men became influenced by the work of Frederick Walker, the leader of the Social Realism movement in Britain.

In 1869 he joined the staff of The Graphic newspaper, an illustrated weekly edited by the social reformer, William Luson Thomas. An engraving in the first edition, entitled Houseless and Hungry, was brought to the attention of Charles Dickens, who was so impressed he immediately commissioned Fildes to illustrate The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

By 1870 he had given up working from the Graphic and had turned his full attention to oil painting. Works include The Casual Ward (1874), The Widower (1876), The Village Wedding (1883), An Al-fresco Toilette (1889) and The Doctor (1891), now in the National Gallery of British Art. Other works include the coronation portraits of King Edward VII  and Queen Alexandra. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1879, and academician in 1887. He was knighted in 1906. His son, Sir Paul Fildes, was an eminent scientist.

John James Webster (1845 – 1914) was an English civil engineer who specialised in designing bridges. Born in Warrington, Webster trained with Bellhouse & Co of Manchester, where he designed the landing stage at Liverpool docks, before concentrating on bridges. Some of his more notable structures included:

He died at 81 Mount Nod Road, in Streatham on 30 October, 1914 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.    Read more in Wikipedia.

Read more in Wikipedia.

Lord Leverhulme is the more familiar name of William Hesketh Lever (19 September, 1851 - 7 May, 1925), an English industrialist who was created 1st Viscount Leverhulme. He was born in Bolton, Lancashire, in 1851, and educated at the Bolton Church Institute.

(Eric) Douglas Harvey Hoyle, Baron Hoyle of Warrington, known as Doug Hoyle (born 17 February, 1930) is a British Labour politician and former Member of Parliament for Nelson and Colne (1974-79), Warrington (1981-83) and Warrington North (1983-97). Doug was chairman of Warrington Wolves rugby club for a period. In November 2010 he received a Doctor of Letters from Chester University for the outstanding contribution made to the borough of Warrington for nearly three decades and the service afforded to its residents.

His son Lindsay Hoyle has served as the Labour Member of Parliament for Chorley.    Read more in Wikipedia.

Keith Macklin, journalist and broadcaster (19 January, 1931 - 1 August, 2009) started his career at the Warrington Guardian in 1951 after serving in the RAF.

He had a varied career, but rugby league was his main passion, and he was still commenting on the game on the radio right up to his death. He had reported on every Wembley Challenge Cup Final since 1955. He became a presenter on BBCs Look North local news programme in 1960, remaining in the post for six years. He also introduced Rugby League Extra on a Saturday night, a show presented by rugby league legend Eddie Waring and BBC Manchester’s Stuart Hall in the north of England. In 1978 he became the rugby league correspondent on The Times newspaper, remaining there until 1992. Other sporting programmes include Pot Black (snooker) and Rugby Special. He also provide commentary on football matches for ITV.

He was a Methodist lay preacher and was involved in BBCs religious programme Songs of Praise. In a different move he became head of public relations for Warrington New Town Development Corporation. In 1982 he was part of the launch team on Preston’s Red Rose Radio (now Rock FM) station, where he was head of programmes.

He published his autobiography, A Two Horse Town, in 2007.

Donald Adamson (born 30 March, 1939 in Warrington) is a historian, biographer, literary critic, and translator of French literature. His books include "Blaise Pascal: Mathematician, Physicist, and Thinker about God", and more recently "The Curriers' Company: A Modern History".

Born in Culcheth, Adamson was brought up in Lymm, the son of a farmer. From 1949 to 1956, he attended Manchester Grammar School, before becoming a Scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated as a B.A. in 1959, and gained an M.A. in 1963. He was Zaharoff Travelling Scholar of the University of Oxford in 1959-1960. In 1962 he took the degree of B.Litt. Prior to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), he had the privilege of studying under Pierre-Georges Castex at the University of Paris. His thesis, entitled "Balzac and the Visual Arts", was supervised by Jean Seznec of All Souls College, Oxford.

Adamson spent most of his career teaching at university level, although he taught at Manchester Grammar School from 1962 to 1964 and then the Lycée Louis-le-Grand from 1964 to 1965. After a brief time at J. Walter Thompson, the advertising firm, from 1968 he taught at St. George's School, in Gravesend, Kent.

In 1969 Adamson joined Goldsmiths' College in the University of London, where he lectured for the next twenty years, doing much to enhance London's standing in French academic circles. In 1971 he became a Recognized Teacher in the Faculty of the Arts of the University of London, and in 1972 a member of its Faculty of Education, holding both appointments until 1989. He served as Chairman of the Board of Examiners from 1983 until 1986.

In 1989 Adamson became a Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. His personal interests include philosophy, the history of religion and genealogy. He is also a passionate art-collector, mainly of English, French and Italian paintings and drawings of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Fellowships and honours

Over the course of his distinguished career, Adamson has received a number of honours and been elected as a fellow of several prominent societies, including:

Read more in Wikipedia.

Terry Waite CBE (born 31 May, 1939 in Styal, Cheshire) is a British humanitarian and author.

In 1992, Durham University awarded him an Honorary Degree. He has been in constant demand as a lecturer, writer, and broadcaster. On 31 March 2007, Terry Waite offered to travel to Iran to negotiate with those holding British sailors and marines seized by Iran in disputed waters on 23 March 2007.

On 7 November 2008, he received an honorary degree from the University of Chester at a ceremony in Chester Cathedral.

He is patron of Warrington Male Voice Choir in recognition of the humanitarian role adopted by the choir following the Warrington bomb attacks. He is also Patron of the charity AbleChildAfrica www.ablechildafrica.org.uk, a charity working with disabled children and young people in Africa.    Some information from Wikipedia.                                           

Raymond "Ossie" Clark (9 June, 1942 - 6 August, 1996) was an English fashion designer, who was a major player of the swinging 60s scene in London and the fashion industry in that era. Born in Liverpool during a bombing raid, his parents moved to Oswaldtwistle during the war – hence his nickname. He spent his formative years in Warrington.

Showing an interest in clothes design at a young age, he enrolled at the Regional College of Art in Manchester in 1958. Here, he met the painter David Hockney, and his future wife, the textile designer Celia Birtwell. From 1962 to 1965 he attended the Royal College of Art and secured a first-class degree. First featured in Vogue magazine in August 1965. His fashion show at Chelsea Town Hall in 1967 was filmed for Pathé News

The period 1965-1974 is regarded as his zenith. His many clients included rock star Mick Jagger, as well as his wife Bianca Jagger. He made her wedding dress. The models Twiggy, Penelope Tree, Jean Shrimpton and Veruschka all wore Ossie Clark dresses as did actresses Brigitte Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor and Faye Dunaway. Marianne Faithfull, Patti Boyd, Anita Pallenburg and Jimi Hendrix were associated with Ossie.

He divorced Celia Birtwell in 1974. His company went bankrupt in 1981; he was made bankrupt in 1983. In the late 1980s and early 1990s when fears of an AIDS epidemic in the London gay community emerged, close friends who knew of his exploits on Hampstead Heath feared that Clark may contract AIDS. In 1996, he was stabbed to death by his lover, Diego Cogolato, who was later convicted of murder. Clark is compared with the fashion greats of the 1960s, Mary Quant and Biba. In 2003-2004 there was a major exhibition of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In 2006, Warrington Museum featured his work as part of their Warrington People exhibition, the conclusion of the Gateway Through Time project. 

Shah was born in Cambridge of an English mother with Spanish and Irish blood, and a father of Persian origin, but brought up in India. Shah was educated at a Scottish co-educational independent boarding school, Gordonstoun, and at both Haywards Heath Grammar School and Haywards Heath Secondary Modern School, in Sussex. He then attended a Brighton crammer, where he obtained seven GCE 'O' Levels.

He confronted the trade unions at his Warrington print works and Manchester news offices in 1983. As the owner of six local newspapers, he defeated the print unions after national strikes that went on for seven months - despite receiving death threats. He was the first person to invoke Margaret Thatcher's Anti-Union Laws to force the unions to the bargaining table. The Wapping dispute followed three years later.

Shah is also the author of several novels including The Lucy Ghosts (1991), Ring of Red Roses (1992), Manchester Blue (1993), and Fallen Angels (1994). After a break from writing, he returned in 2008 with a thriller entitled Second World.

He now owns and runs golf courses, leisure centres and hotels, including the Wiltshire Golf and Country Club, Wootton Bassett. He is building 44 holiday homes with his wife, actress Jennifer White Shah, at the Wiltshire club.

Read more in Wikipedia.

Nick Daunt (Born 30 April, 1945) is an archaeologist from Warrington. Daunt is famously known for his previous guest appearances on the Channel 4 television show Time Team (2002). Most recently, Daunt retired from Priestley College, Warrington, where he had served as a full-time teacher for over a decade. In addition to this, Daunt continues to hold lectures at Manchester University.

Whilst teaching at Priestley College, Daunt taught well-renowned enthusiasts Thomas Screeton, Amy Davies, and Olivia Ward. Thomas Screeton is known in such areas as Lymm and Warrington for his impressive and large involvement with local archaeology. He has also taught notable figures and various others who have gone on to achieve success.

Daunt currently holds a degree in Archaeology and French. He is fluent in both French and Latin. He is well known for his unique passions that were featured in guest appearances on Time Team. His extensive knowledge of Roman coinage brought him admiration from archaeologists and pupils alike.    Read more in Wikipedia.

Peter Brimelow (born 1947 in Warrington) is a British-American financial journalist, author, and founder of VDARE. Brimelow is a paleoconservative and maintains that America's culture and way of life are threatened by immigration. His nonprofit organization VDare Foundation and online journal VDARE.com carries immigration-restrictionist articles and related topics.  

Brimelow has been the editor of many publications, including Forbes, the Financial Post, and National Review. Outside financial circles, he is best known for his writings on immigration policy and hosting the anti-illegal alien website Vdare.com. Brimelow founded the Center for American Unity in 1999 and served as its first president, though he is no longer affiliated with the organization.

He studied at the University of Sussex (BA, 1970) and received an MBA from Stanford University in 1972. Brimelow subsequently emigrated to Canada. After a brief stint as a securities analyst, he settled down in Toronto and became a business writer and editor at the Financial Post and MacLean's magazine. From 1978 to 1980, he was an aide to senator Orrin Hatch in Washington D.C. In 1980 he moved to New York, working mainly for Barron's and Fortune. Brimelow was senior editor of Forbes Magazine from 1986 to 2002. He was married to Maggy Laws Brimelow (1953-2004), a Canadian, until her death after an eight-year battle with breast cancer. He and his late wife have two children, a son and a daughter. He married again in 2007.

Brimelow's books include the national best-seller Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, The Wall Street Gurus: How You Can Profit from Investment Newsletters, The Worm In The Apple: How The Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education and The Patriot Game. Alien Nation deals with immigration policy and the influx of illegal aliens as well as legal immigrants. The Worm in the Apple discusses the adverse effects of public education and teachers' unions on American youth.

Read more in Wikipedia.

David Banks (born 13 February, 1948 in Warrington) is a former British newspaper editor. He attended Boteler Grammar School in Warrington.

Banks worked in journalism through the 1970s, and developed a friendship with Kelvin Mackenzie. By 1979, Banks was assistant chief sub-editor at the Daily Mirror, then went to work with MacKenzie at the New York Post. In 1981, Mackenzie returned to the UK, and Banks became managing editor of the Post, but in 1983 followed MacKenzie back to work at The Sun as Assistant Editor. He led strikebreakers during the Wapping dispute.

In 1986, Banks returned to New York as editor of the Daily News but, the following year, he moved on to become Deputy Editor of The Australian, then in 1988 Editor of the Sydney Daily Telegraph. In 1992, he returned to the UK to become Editor of the Mirror, then in 1994 became Editorial Director of the Mirror Group, Consultant Editor of the Sunday Mirror.

Later in the 1990s, Banks presented breakfast shows on LBC and then Talk Radio UK. In the 2000s, he wrote a regular column for the Press Gazette. He married in 1975 in Wales and has a son and a daughter.

Read more in Wikipedia.

Howard Ben Tré (born 13 May, 1949) is an American artist and sculptor known for his large-scale cast glass sculptures. He has become increasingly known lately for his public space artwork.

Howard Ben Tré's work is in museum and public collections worldwide. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Corning Museum of Glass in New York; and The National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan, among others.

In 1990, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. presented a ten-year retrospective of his work that travelled nationally. In 1994, his sculptures, drawings, and works on paper were exhibited by the Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice.

Professor Michael John Driscoll (Born 27 October, 1950 in Warrington) is an economist, Chair of the Coalition of Modern Universities in the UK, member of the board of Universities UK, and Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University in London. He attended Boteler Grammar School in Warrington. From Trent Polytechnic, he obtained a BA in Economics in 1973.

He lectured Economics at the University of Birmingham from 1977-89. From 1989-91 he was Head of Economics at Middlesex University. Driscoll rose from a humble background to become one of the youngest Vice-Chancellors of the UK since 1996. He is a prominent exponent of equal opportunities and widening access to education. He was Chairman of the Coalition of Modern Universities from 2003-7 (became Million+ in 2004).    Retrieved from Wikipedia.

Frances Broomfield is an artist and illustrator who was born in Warrington in 1951. She attended St.Oswald's Primary School in Padgate, and watched George Formby's funeral go past her Grandma's house on Manchester Road. She studied at Warrington Art School and later at Newport Art College, before living in London for several years. She has taken part in many exhibitions in the UK and USA and her work is in collections, private and public, around the world, including Warrington Museum & Art Gallery where she had a solo exhibition. Since 1980 she has exhibited with Portal Gallery London and featured in their book "A Singular Vision - 50 Years of British Painting". Her work has been seen on TV, MTV, and in magazines and books, including Colin Dann's "Animals of Farthing Wood", the Oxford University Press "Alice in Wonderland" series, and most recently in "The Real Alice in Wonderland" by C M Rubin (2010). Type Frances Broomfield in your search engine for more about her work, including saatchionline.com and www.bridgemanart.com where you can view some of her creations. (Information supplied)

Robin Jarvis (born 8 May, 1963) is a British children's novelist who writes fantasy novels, often about anthropomorphic (having human characteristics) small mammals - especially mice - and Tudor times. A lot of his works are based in London, in and around Deptford and Greenwich where he used to live, or in Whitby. His first novel - The Dark Portal, featuring the popular Deptford Mice - was the runner-up for the Smarties book prize in 1989. 

Jarvis was born in Liverpool, the youngest of four children, but grew up in Warrington, attending Penketh High School. His favourite subjects at school were art and English and he went on to study Graphic Design at Newcastle Polytechnic. After college, he moved to London and worked in the television and advertising industries as a model-maker. He lives in Greenwich, South London.
See his official website.   Information from Wikipedia.

Helen Walsh (born 1977 in Warrington) is a writer. At the age of 16, she moved to Barcelona, Spain. Her first novel entitled Brass won a Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, Once Upon a Time In England, was published in 2008 and won a Somerset Maugham Award.
Check out her official website. Read more in Wikipedia.