Sir John Leigh, 1st Baronet

For other people named John Leigh, see John Leigh (disambiguation).
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]

  1. ^ a b "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.