Jesse Collings

Jesse Collings PC MP (2 December 1831 – 20 November 1920) was Mayor of Birmingham, England, a Liberal (later Liberal Unionist) member of Parliament, but was best known nationally in the UK as an advocate of educational reform and land reform.

Collings was the youngest son of Thomas Collings, Littleham-cum-Exmouth, Devon, and Annie Palmer. His father was a bricklayer, who later established a small building firm. He was educated at a Dame School and for a time at Church House School, Stoke, Plymouth. He started work as a shop assistant aged 15 years, later becoming a clerk and a traveller for an ironmongery firm. In 1850, he started working for Booth and Company, a firm of ironmongers in Birmingham; in 1864 he became a partner in the renamed business, Collings and Wallis. In 1879, he retired from the partnership. He came under the influence of George Dawson, worshipped, along with other prominent families, in Dawson's Church of the Saviour, and became an adherent of Dawson's doctrine of the "Civic Gospel".

In 1858 he married Emily Oxenbould, the daughter of a master at King Edward's Grammar School, Birmingham. They had one daughter.

He was a close friend of Joseph Chamberlain and supported the radical group around Chamberlain in developing local improvement schemes in Birmingham, parks, and what at the time was called "gas-and-water socialism". He took over practical management of the education committee and served as Mayor of Birmingham in 1878–79. He was responsible for free public libraries in Birmingham and was the original proponent of the Birmingham Art Gallery funded from the profits of the gas company.

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