Joseph Brotherton

Joseph Brotherton (22 May 1783 – 7 January 1857) was a reforming British politician, Nonconformist minister and pioneering vegetarian.

He was born in Whittington, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and was the son of John Brotherton, an excise collector, and his wife Mary. In 1789 the family moved to Salford, Lancashire, where John Brotherton established a cotton and silk mill.

Joseph received no formal education, instead joining the family firm, of which he became a partner in 1802. On the death of his father in 1809 he went into partnership with his cousin William Harvey. In 1806 he married his business partner's sister, Martha.

In 1805 he joined the Salford Swedenborgian Church. The church, led by William Cowherd, was renamed the Bible Christian Church in 1809. In 1816 Cowherd died, and Brotherton became a minister. The church required abstention from the eating of meat or drinking of alcohol. In 1812 Martha Brotherton was the author of Vegetable Cookery, the first vegetarian cookbook.

In 1819, aged only thirty-six, Brotherton retired from the family business in order to devote his energy to his ministry. He used his position to actively improve the conditions of workers and campaign for reforms. Among his achievements were the building of schools, the opening of a lending library and the establishment of a fund to support the victims of the Peterloo Massacre. He was also an overseer of the poor and a justice of the peace.

From 1815 Brotherton was a member of a group of Nonconformist Liberals, meeting in the Manchester home of John Potter, termed the Little Circle. Other members of the group included: John Edward Taylor (founder of The Manchester Guardian), Archibald Prentice (later editor of the Manchester Times), John Shuttleworth (industrialist and municipal reformer), Absalom Watkin (parliamentary reformer and anti corn law campaigner), William Cowdray Jnr (editor of the Manchester Gazette), Thomas Potter (later first mayor of Manchester) and Richard Potter (later MP for Wigan). In 1820 Brotherton, Shuttleworth and Thomas Potter founded the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

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