Robert Noton Barclay
Sir Robert Noton Barclay (11 May 1872 – 24 November 1957) was an English export shipping merchant and banker and a Liberal Party politician.
Barclay was the son of Robert Barclay, a South America shipping merchant, with strong connections to the Lancashire cotton trade. He attended Uppingham School and Manchester University. In 1898 he married Helena Margaret Bythell and they had two sons, John and Robbie and three daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth and Rosalind. Barclay’s sister, Mary Jane (Quita) Barclay (1870–1939), married John Hope Simpson who was Liberal MP for Taunton from 1922-1924.
Barclay was an export shipping merchant. He succeeded his father in the family firm, Robert Barclay & Co in Manchester but he also had other extensive business interests. He was director of the District Bank from 1913, being its Deputy Chairman from 1932 and Chairman from 1936-1946. He was also a director of the National Boiler Co. and of the Manchester Ship Canal Company.
Barclay served as a Justice of the Peace for Manchester. He played a prominent role in the commercial life of Manchester, being President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce from 1914–1916 and in 1931 he was a member of a British trade delegation to Argentina led by Sir Robert Burton-Chadwick. He served as High Sheriff of Cheshire for 1937-1938. Barclay was active in several branches of social and philanthropic work in Manchester, notably as Chairman of the Manchester YMCA and as a member of the court and council of Manchester University. He was knighted in 1936 for public and philanthropic services in Manchester.
In 1929 Barclay purchased land known the Ings and Stable Hills on the shore of Derwent Water in the Lake District and presented them to the National Trust. He later acquired Wray Castle on Windermere near Ambleside and made a gift of the castle and 64 acres (260,000 m2) of the surrounding land to the National Trust.
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