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John Ashton Yates FRSA (21 June 1781 – 1 November 1863) was a British Whig politician and railroad investor.

Early life

He was a son of Elizabeth (née Ashton) Bostock Yates and John Yates, a prominent Unitarian minister who served at Kaye Street Chapel in Liverpool, later known as Paradise Street Chapel. Among his siblings were brothers Joseph Brooks Yates, a merchant, and James Yates, a minister and scholar; both brothers were prominent antiquaries.

His father was the only child of John Yates, a schoolmaster, and his mother was the youngest daughter of merchant John Brooks Ashton of Woolton Hall near Liverpool, and the widow of physician John Bostock. From his mother's first marriage, he had an elder half-brother, John Bostock, who was also a physician. William James, who was also an MP, was his cousin.

Yates was educated by a Unitarian minister, William Shepherd, at Gateacre, Liverpool, before he studied commerce at the Presbyterian-run Manchester Academy. His teachers included Thomas Barnes, the minister of Cross Street Chapel, and John Dalton. He was particularly close to Dalton, who had previously taught his father at the Academy and with whom he went on a walking tour.

Career

He was apprenticed to the firm run by the William Rathbone family. One of his contemporaries there was Thomas Bolton, who also had a political career ahead of him. Yates became a merchant and broker in Liverpool. The firm of Yates and Cox, iron merchants and nail manufacturers, was a partnership with his brothers, Richard Vaughan Yates, who established Prince's Park, Liverpool, and Pemberton Heywood Yates. In 1830, he was one of the initial proprietors of the Wigan Branch Railway, the Manchester and Leeds Railway and in 1836 the Blackwall Railway.

Yates stood unsuccessfully for the Bolton seat in Lancashire at the 1832 general election. He was the Whig Party Member of Parliament (MP) for County Carlow, Ireland, between 1837 and 1841, but lost his Carlow seat in the 1841 contest.

Interests

In 1820, Yates was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and wrote several books related to the Corn Laws and economics. Despite his own involvement in slavery, he also wrote in opposition to it. His interest in old paintings and engravings, which he collected, was influenced by William Roscoe, who was another Unitarian MP from Liverpool. He was also a member of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society from its origin in 1812; their obituary described his art collection as "one of the finest private minor collections in the metropolis".

Probably a member of Renshaw Street Chapel in Liverpool, Yates served as president of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association in 1841 and 1856. Throughout his life, he retained a connection to the Academy, which became known as Manchester New College; he served as an official of it.

Personal life

Yates was married to Frances-Mary Lovett, a daughter of Francis Mary (née Gervais) Lovett and the Rev. Verney Lovett, Rector of Lismore (a brother of Sir Jonathan Lovett, 1st Baronet). Together, they lived at Dingle Head, Toxteth Park, and were the parents of five daughters:

• Frances Mary Yates (d. 1895), who married Sir Richard Musgrave, 4th Baronet of Tourin, a son of Sir Richard Musgrave, Bt, in 1845.
• Mary Ellen Yates (1822–1897), who was the second wife of Robert Needham Philips, MP for Bury, whose first wife had been a cousin to Mary, being the daughter of Yates' brother, Joseph.
• Ellen-Mellissina Yates, who died young.
• Isabella Yates, who died unmarried.
• Sophia Yates (1827–1900), who married to Louis Tennyson-d'Eyncourt, a cousin of Lord Alfred Tennyson and the youngest son of the Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt of Bayons Manor, MP.

Yates died at Philips' house in Manchester on 1 November 1863, having suffered from a declining memory for the previous two years.

Descendants

Through his daughter Frances, he was a grandfather of Maria Musgrave, who married Hon. Cosby Godolphin Trench, the second son of Frederick Trench, 2nd Baron Ashtown. Their grandson, Nigel Trench, became the 7th Baron Ashtown, and married, as his second wife, Dorothea Mary Elizabeth (née Minchin) von Pless (the former wife of Hans Heinrich XVII Wilhelm Albert Eduard, 4th Prince of Pless).

References

Notes

1. Another contemporary apprentice at the Rathbone firm with whom Yates remained friends was Thomas Bolton, who later became mayor of Liverpool.
2. "Local and Personal Act, 11 George IV & 1 William IV, c. lvi:An Act for making and maintaining a Railway from the Borough of Wigan to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the Borough of Newton in the County Palatine of Lancaster, and Collateral Branches to communicate therewith" (PDF). UK Parliament. 29 May 1830. Retrieved 12 April 2020.

Citations

1. ^ Bebbington, D. W. (April 2009). "Unitarian Members of Parliament in the Nineteenth Century — A Catalogue" (PDF). Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society. 24 (3): 54. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
2. ^ "John Ashton Yates: Profile & Legacies Summary". Legacies of British Slave-ownership. UCL Department of History 2018. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
3. McLachlan, Herbert (1950). "John Dalton and Manchester, 1793-1844". Essays and Addresses. Manchester University Press. p. 64.
4. "RECORDS OF YATES, COX AND COMPANY, IRON MERCHANTS AND NAIL MANUFACTURER, OF LIVERPOOL". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
5. ^ "Obituary". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 12 (575): 33. 27 November 1863.
6. "Manchester and Leeds Railway". The Manchester Guardian (1828-1900). 30 October 1830. p. 1. ProQuest 473357093.
7. "Blackwall Railway". The Manchester Guardian (1828-1900). 27 August 1836. p. 1. ProQuest 473406616.
8. ^ "Report". Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. XVIII: 3–4. 1864.
9. Burke, Sir John Bernard (1838). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the extinct and dormant baronetcies of England, by J. and J.B. Burke. p. 326. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
10. ^ Burke, Bernard (1868). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland. Harrison. p. 1718. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
11. Mair, Robert Henry (5 January 1867). Debrett's illustrated House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1881. Dean & Son. p. 187.
12. Oxford Archaeology North (October 2008). Philips Park House, Prestwich, Greater Manchester: Archaeological Evaluation (PDF). p. 10.
13. "Sophia Tennyson d'Eyncourt". britishmuseum.org. The British Museum. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
14. "Ashtown, Baron (I, 1800)". Cracroft's Peerage. Heraldic Media Limited. Retrieved 20 October 2020.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Ashton Yates

• 1781 births
• 1863 deaths
• English Unitarians
• UK MPs 1837–1841
• Whig (British political party) MPs for Irish constituencies
• Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Carlow constituencies (1801–1922)
• People from Gateacre
• British art collectors
• Politicians from Liverpool
• Committee members of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge