Sir Alan Sykes, 1st Baronet
Sir Alan John Sykes, 1st Baronet (11 April 1868 – 21 May 1950) was an English businessman in the bleaching industry and Conservative politician in Cheshire.
Sykes was born at Cringle House Cheadle, the second son of Thomas Hardcastle Sykes of the Sykes Bleaching Company and his wife Mary Platt daughter of John Platt MP for Oldham. He was known as Jack. He was left motherless in 1875, and in 1881 went away to Rugby School, following his brothers and cousins. He then went to Oriel College, Oxford and while at Oxford joined the Freemasons, to which he remained deeply committed in his adult life. He entered the family bleaching company at the age of 23 and worked his way through the various departments of the bleachworks before becoming manager. Sykes played cricket for Cheshire Gentlemen and hunted with the Cheshire hounds. He became a Justice of the Peace in 1897 and was active in the 3rd Volunteer Battalion, Cheshire Regiment until 1904. After his father died in 1901, he took on a number of local civic positions in , becoming treasurer of the Infirmary and a Governor of the Grammar School. Sykes was interested in agriculture, running Edgeley Home Farm and the family's estates in Canada of 13,000 acres (53 km2) in Saskatchewan. He travelled extensively in his early years to America and Canada, and also to South Africa, Egypt, India and Russia and was an early enthusiast for motoring and flying.
In 1907 Sykes was adopted as the Conservative candidate for Knutsford and a year later gave up the management of the Edgeley Bleachworks, while remaining director of the Bleachers' Association. In April 1910, he was appointed deputy lieutenant of Cheshire, and from 1910 to 1911 he was mayor of Stockport, the fourth generation of the family to hold this office. Before and after the first world war, Sykes was a leading Conservative organizer in the North West, chairing the Lancashire and Cheshire Federation of Junior Unionist organization. In January 1910, as a keen Tariff Reformer, he was elected MP for Knutsford, taking control from the Liberal. Unsatisfied with the political support he was receiving from the local press, in 1912 he gained control of the Stockport Advertiser Group, which was in fact owned by Swain & Co under the direction of an uncle. In parliament he kept up persistent questioning in support of local interests, and was a leading member of a group of MPs critical of the Government's neglect of Territorial Army and the Volunteer Forces before and during the First World War. In 1916 he served the Government as commissioner reviewing permits for aliens.
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