Thomas Ashton, 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde
Thomas Ashton, 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde (5 February 1855 – 1 May 1933), known as Lord Ashton, was a British industrialist, philanthropist and Liberal politician who became a peer.
Born in Fallowfield, near Manchester, he came from a family of cotton manufacturers. He studied at Rugby School and University College, Oxford, and later ran the family business.
In politics, Ashton was elected Member of Parliament for Hyde in 1885 but lost the seat the next year. He tried Hyde again in 1892 without success, but was elected MP for Luton in 1895 and held that seat until 1911. In 1911 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Ashton of Hyde, in the County of Chester.
During the First World War, he chaired the Cotton Exports Committee. He also served as a Justice of the Peace for Cheshire and for Mountfield, East Sussex, and was a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society from 1881. He was made an Honorary Fellow of Oxford University in 1923.
He married Eva Margaret James in 1886, and they had four children. He died on 1 May 1933 in Vinehall Street, Sussex, aged 78; the title passed to his eldest surviving son, Thomas Henry Raymond Ashton. Lady Ashton died in 1938.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:12 (CET).