Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood

Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, 1st Baronet, (9 May 1801 – 12 April 1866) was an English landowner, developer and Member of Parliament, who founded the town of Fleetwood, in Lancashire, England. Born Peter Hesketh, he changed his name by Royal assent to Hesketh-Fleetwood, incorporating the name of his ancestors, and was later created Baronet Fleetwood. Predeceased by an older brother, he inherited estates in west Lancashire in 1824. Inspired by the transport developments of the early 19th century, he decided to bring the railway to the Lancashire coast and develop a holiday resort and port. He hired architect Decimus Burton to design his new town, which he named Fleetwood; construction began in 1836. Hesketh-Fleetwood was instrumental in the formation of the Preston and Wyre Railway Company and with his financial support, a railway line was built between Preston and Fleetwood which opened in 1840.

Hesketh-Fleetwood married twice and had several children, most of whom died in infancy. His new town flourished, but the expense of building it left him close to bankruptcy and forced him to sell most of his estates including Rossall Hall, which had been his family home. He left Lancashire and died in London, succeeded by his son Louis.

Peter Hesketh was born in 1801 at Wennington Hall, in Wennington, near Lancaster, the second son of Robert and Maria (née Rawlinson) Hesketh. He had an older brother, Edward, a younger brother, Charles, and a younger sister, Anna. He was descended (through his paternal grandmother) from the Fleetwood family who had owned the large Rossall estate in West Lancashire for over 200 years. Robert inherited the estate in 1819 on the death of his elder brother, Bold, and the family relocated to the manor house, Rossall Hall, on the Fylde coast. On Robert's death in 1824, the estate passed to Peter, his elder brother Edward having predeceased him in 1820. By that time the family's land extended from Heysham in the north, to North Meols, near Southport, in the south, and encompassed most of the Fylde.

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