Thomas Barnes (MP)

Thomas Barnes (1812 - 24 April 1897) was a Liberal British Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolton who had substantial business interests, including cotton manufacturing in Farnworth, as Thomas Barnes & Co. Ltd., and as chairman of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. He was elected an MP on three occasions.

Thomas Barnes was born in 1812. He was one of three sons of James Rothwell Barnes who, along with Thomas Bonsor Crompton, was a significant figure in the development of Farnworth. Barnes senior established the first steam-powered weaving mill in Farnworth and later, in 1832, brought cotton spinning to the town.

Barnes junior had many business interests aside from his cotton-manufacturing business, Thomas Barnes & Co. Ltd., in Farnworth. These included significant involvement in the Assam Railways and Trading Company, the Bank of Bolton, the Farnworth and Kearsley Gas Company, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, the Provincial Insurance Company, the Royal Sardinian Railways, a Welsh slate quarry, and the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay Railway.

Barnes resigned his chairmanship of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway but remained a director and major shareholder after becoming a Liberal MP for Bolton in the election of 1852. He held the seat until 1857, then tried unsuccessfully to win the Bury constituency in the 1859 election. Having regained unopposed the Bolton seat made vacant by the resignation of Joseph Crook in 1861, he retained it in 1865 but lost again in the 1868 general election, when the two available seats were won by John Hick and William Gray. He chose not to stand in the 1874 general election but was invited to do so, once again for Bolton, in that of 1880. By this time he was once again chairman of the railway company. He refused the offer due to ill-health. He also served as a Justice of the Peace and as a Deputy Lieutenant of the Duchy of Lancaster.

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