Thomas Firbank (politician)

Sir (Joseph) Thomas Firbank (1850 – 7 October 1910) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Biography

Joseph Thomas Firbank was born in Britain in 1850. He was one of the seven children of Joseph Firbank (1819–1886), who had begun work at the age of seven in a Durham coal-mine but had become a prosperous railway contractor in South Wales and elsewhere.

In 1883 he married Jane Harriette Garrett (1851–1924).[1] They had four children: Joseph Sydney (1884–1904), Arthur Annesley Ronald (1886–1926, who became celebrated as the novelist Ronald Firbank), Hubert Somerset (1887–1913, the father of the author Thomas Joseph Firbank who wrote I Bought a Mountain, I Bought a Star and other books) and Heather (1888–1951).

In 1885 Thomas Firbank's father became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire. He himself lived in South Wales, at St Julians, Newport, but also in London at Clarges Street and from 1886 at the Coopers, Chislehurst. He became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1891. At the general election in July 1885, he was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hull East. He was re-elected in 1900 and knighted in 1902, but he left the Commons at the 1906 general election.[2]

In Who's Who he described himself as "keen on all outdoor sports and athletics, music and objects of art"[3]

He died on 7 October 1910. His widow died in 1924.

References

  1. ↑ "Sitter: Mrs Joseph Thomas Firbank née Harriette Garrett, later Lady Firbank (1851– ).". Lafayette Negative Archive.
  2. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "H" (part 4)
  3. ↑ Cited in the Introduction to The Complete Ronald Firbank With an introduction by Anthony Powell (1961).
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Sir Clarence Smith		 Member of Parliament for Hull East
1895 – 1906 		Succeeded by
Thomas Ferens


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