Sir John Jarvis, 1st Baronet

Sir (Joseph) John Jarvis, 1st Baronet (25 March 1876 – 3 October 1950) was a British industrialist and philanthropist who became a Conservative Party politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1935 to 1950 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Guildford in Surrey, but is best known for his philanthropic and industrial efforts to assist the town of Jarrow in the economic depression of the 1930s.

Jarvis was the eldest son of Joseph Charles Jarvis, of Harpenden. In 1901 he married Bessie Woodfield, the third daughter of Edwin Woodfield from Enfield. They had two sons and two daughters. John Jarvis received his secondary education at The Grocers' Company's School in Hackney.

From 1921 until his death, Jarvis lived at Hascombe Court in Surrey, 500m west of the village of Hascombe, 5 km south of Godalming. The garden was designed under Jarvis's ownership by Gertrude Jekyll in 1922, and extended by Percy Cane in 1928.

During World War I, Jarvis was an advisor to government on labour relations, and after the war the government continued to seek his advice on financial matters. In recognition of these services, he was created a Baronet in 1922, of Hascombe Court in the County of Surrey, in 1922.

In early 1934 he was elected as High Sheriff of Surrey, and shortly afterwards visited Jarrow, a shipbuilding town on Tyneside which had been particularly badly hit by the Great Depression. The Depression caused a collapse in demand for ships, and the closure of Palmers shipyard in Jarrow, leading to 80% unemployment in the town. Jarvis launched an appeal named the "Surrey Fund" which eventually raised £40,000; the funds were used to buy materials to enable men in Jarrow to continue working, on tasks such as the constructing playgrounds and sports facilities and the redecoration of houses. Using his own wealth, Jarvis also bought the decommissioned liner RMS Olympic (a sistership of the Titanic) for a reported £100,000 and had the ship brought to Tyneside to be broken up, followed in 1938 by the liner Berengaria. The breaking of Berengaria was promised to directly employ 200 men in skilled and semi-skilled tasks in the new Jarrow Shipbreaking Company (based on the former Palmers shipyard), while the metal was to be used in Jarvis's new metal industries in the area, which employed several hundred people. Through Jarvis's efforts, several other new businesses were established in the Jarrow area.

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