George Hammond Whalley

George Hammond Whalley (22 January 1813 – 8 October 1878) was a British lawyer and Liberal Party politician.

He was the eldest son of James Whalley, a merchant and banker from Gloucester, and a direct descendant of Edward Whalley, the regicide. George was educated at University College London, gaining a first class degree in Metaphysics and Rhetoric, and entered Gray's Inn in 1835, being called to the bar in 1839. He was an assistant tithe commissioner between 1836 and 1847, writing over 200 articles for the Justice of the Peace between 1838 and 1842. In 1838 and 1839 he published a pair of treatises on the Tithe Acts, which were expanded, bound and published in 1848 as The Tithe Act and the Whole of the Tithe Amendment Acts.

In 1846 he married Anne Wakeford, with whom he had a son and two daughters. During the Irish Potato Famine in 1847 he established several fisheries on the Irish west coast. In 1852 he was made High Sheriff of Caernarvonshire, a Deputy Lieutenant of Denbighshire, and a captain in the Denbighshire Yeomanry.

He was chairman of the Llanidloes & Newtown Railway, the first in Montgomeryshire, from its inception in 1852 and was the first chairman of the Mid Wales Railway in 1859. He was also active in the Railway Benevolent Institution and the National Temperance League

He unsuccessfully stood for Parliament at the 1852 general election in Montgomery, and was returned to Parliament on his second attempt at a by-election in December 1852 for the City of Peterborough. There were reports of irregularities in the election, which had been heavily influenced by Earl Fitzwilliam, and his election was voided on 8 June 1853. A second by-election was held on 25 June 1853, when Whalley was re-elected. Another election petition was lodged, and a Committee of the House of Commons was established in July 1853 to investigate the case. The committee determined that he had not been legitimately elected, and reinstated his opponent, Thomas Hankey. He was once again elected, however, in the 1859 general election.

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