Thomas Owen Wethered

Thomas Owen Wethered (26 November 1832 - 22 February 1921) was an English Conservative politician and brewer who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1880.

Family background and early life

Wethered was the eldest son of Owen Wethered of Great Marlow and his wife Anne Peel, a daughter of the Rev. Giles Haworth Peel, of the Grotto, Basildon, Berkshire. His grandfather, who died in 1854, had been vicar of Ince in Cheshire and was the son of Jonathan Peel, of Accrington, a younger brother of Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet, so was a first cousin of the British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel.[1] His father was said to be "descended from the well-known family of that name, so long in residence at Ashlyns, Great Berkhamsted," and first recorded there in 1431.[2] They had been brewers and maltsters at Marlow since the middle of the 18th century.[3] The young Wethered was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Lewis Carroll. In the author's diaries a note reading "Harvey sang too, and Wethered" refers either to him or to his younger brother Owen Peel Wethered (1837-1908).[4]

In 1849, his grandfather Thomas Wethered died at the age of 88, leaving a fortune of £100,000 and a brewery producing 24,500 barrels of beer a year which owned a hundred public houses in Buckinghamshire.[3] One Marlow pub called The Two Brewers had a portrait on one side of its sign of an 18th-century Thomas Wethered, founder of the firm, with the member of parliament and brewer Samuel Whitbread on the other side.[5]

Life

Wethered became an ensign in the 1st Bucks Rifle Volunteers, a unit of the Volunteer Force,[6] resigning his commission in 1865 in favour of his younger brother Owen Peel Wethered.[7]

In 1862, Wethered's father died, leaving his business to his sons.[3] Wethered was already living at Seymour Court, Great Marlow.[8] He later enlarged the house, which was on a low hill one mile north of the town.[9]

At the 1868 general election Wethered was elected Member of Parliament for Great Marlow. He held the seat until 1880,[10] but did not stand in that year's election and was succeeded by another Conservative, Major-General O. L. C. Williams.

With his two brothers, Wethered owned the family brewery in Marlow, known as Thomas Wethered and Sons, and he was often described as a brewer.[11][12] Most of his contributions in parliament were to do with the licensed trade.

Wife and children

On 9 September 1856, Wethered married Edith Grace, a daughter of the Rev. Hart Ethelston, Rector of St Mark's, Cheetham Hill, Manchester.[8] Their eldest daughter, Edith Ethelston, married John Danvers Power, MVO, a barrister; their second daughter, Constance Anne Ellen, married William George Steuart-Menzies of Culdares, DL JP, of Arndilly House, Craigellachie, Banffshire.[13] Another daughter, Laura Sophia, married Francis William Grubbe.[14] Wethered died on 22 February 1921 at the age of 88, his widow on 1 September 1924.[8]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ The Annual Register, December 1854, p. 378 online
  2. ↑ Brandon Barringer, L. Wethered Barroll, The Wethered Book (1967), p. 1
  3. 1 2 3 Derek Ayshford, Great Marlow Breweries online at bucksfhs.org.uk
  4. ↑ Edward Wakeling (ed.), Lewis Carroll's diaries: the private journals of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson 1995), p. 70
  5. ↑ Leigh Hatts, The Thames Path (2005), p. 105
  6. ↑ Debretts House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1870
  7. ↑ Bulletins and other state intelligence: Part 2 (1865), p. 1889
  8. 1 2 3 Bernard Burke, Genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry (Vol. 3, 1937), p. 2410
  9. ↑ Kelly's directory of Berkshire, Bucks and Oxon, 1883, p. 355
  10. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "G" (part 2)
  11. ↑ The Sessional Papers Printed by Order of the House of Lords, or Presented by Royal Command, in the Session 1878-9, (42 & 43 Victoriae) (1880), pp. 478 and 495
  12. ↑ The Royal kalendar, and court and city register for England (1878), p. 73
  13. ↑ Walford's county families of the United Kingdom (1913), p. 813
  14. ↑ Joseph Jackson Howard, Visitation of England and Wales, Volume 1 (1893), p. 29

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Thomas Peers Williams
Brownlow William Knox		 Member of Parliament for Great Marlow
1868 – 1880 		Succeeded by
Owen Lewis Cope Williams
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