John Frederick Lees

John Frederick Lees (1809 in Oldham – 1867 in Cheltenham) sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a Member of Parliament for Oldham from 1835 to 1837.

The grandson of a cotton manufacturer, he was a local mill-owner, mine-owner, and landowner: the Lord of the manor and an Oxford graduate, but dismissed as "a gentleman... qualified neither by age nor ability to fulfill the duties of a member of the imperial parliament" by the Manchester Times:Hansard reports him to have made no speeches in Parliament.

Thanks to internal squabbles (principally over the desired relationship between the state and the Anglican church) amongst the Radicals of Oldham, he was elected as a 'Liberal Conservative' at a by-election caused by the death of William Cobbett, narrowly defeating John Morgan Cobbett (Cobbett's son) after another Radical candidate (Feargus O'Connor) withdrew on the first morning of the poll. Lees attributed his victory to the absence of the organised 'intimidation system' he claimed had been practiced in the previous contested election (that of 1832). By the general election of 1837 the Radicals had regrouped, and Lees came bottom of the poll: this he attributed to the return of intimidation and 'exclusive dealing'.

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