Sir Richard Winfrey (8 August 1858- 18 April 1944) was a British
LiberalThe Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the mid 19th century until the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which would become...
politician, newspaper publisher and campaigner for agricultural rights.
Winfrey was born at
Long SuttonLong Sutton is a market town in Lincolnshire, England. Located in South Holland district, it lies close to the Wash.-Geography:The town has an estimated population of 5,037 in 2007. It is eleven miles east from Spalding.-Lincolnshire Fens:...
in
LincolnshireLincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire. It also borders Northamptonshire for just 19 metres, England's shortest county boundary...
on 5 August 1858. He married Annie Lucy Pattinson of
RuskingtonRuskington is a large village in the English county of Lincolnshire, on the north-south B1188 road, just north of the A153. The village has approximately 2,200 dwellings.-History:...
, Lincolnshire in 1897. His wife's brothers,
Samuel PattinsonSamuel Pattinson was a British businessman and Liberal politician.-Family and education:Samuel Pattinson was the son of William Pattinson, a Justice of the Peace from Ruskington in Lincolnshire. He was educated at Abingdon House School in Northampton. In 1897 he married Betsy Sharpley Bainbridge...
(1870-1942) and
Sir Robert PattinsonSir Robert Pattinson was the Chairman of Kesteven County Council for 20 years and briefly a Liberal MP.-Family and education:...
(1872-1954) were both Liberal MPs; Samuel for
HorncastleHorncastle was a county constituency in Lincolnshire which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. MPs were elected by the first past the post system of voting....
from 1922-24 and Robert for
GranthamGrantham was a Parliamentary constituency in Lincolnshire, England. The constituency was created in 1468 and abolished in 1997. The area formerly covered by this constituency is now mostly in Sleaford and North Hykeham...
from 1922-23.
Sir Richard Winfrey (8 August 1858- 18 April 1944) was a British
LiberalThe Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the mid 19th century until the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which would become...
politician, newspaper publisher and campaigner for agricultural rights.
Birth, Death and Family
Winfrey was born at
Long SuttonLong Sutton is a market town in Lincolnshire, England. Located in South Holland district, it lies close to the Wash.-Geography:The town has an estimated population of 5,037 in 2007. It is eleven miles east from Spalding.-Lincolnshire Fens:...
in
LincolnshireLincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire. It also borders Northamptonshire for just 19 metres, England's shortest county boundary...
on 5 August 1858. He married Annie Lucy Pattinson of
RuskingtonRuskington is a large village in the English county of Lincolnshire, on the north-south B1188 road, just north of the A153. The village has approximately 2,200 dwellings.-History:...
, Lincolnshire in 1897. His wife's brothers,
Samuel PattinsonSamuel Pattinson was a British businessman and Liberal politician.-Family and education:Samuel Pattinson was the son of William Pattinson, a Justice of the Peace from Ruskington in Lincolnshire. He was educated at Abingdon House School in Northampton. In 1897 he married Betsy Sharpley Bainbridge...
(1870-1942) and
Sir Robert PattinsonSir Robert Pattinson was the Chairman of Kesteven County Council for 20 years and briefly a Liberal MP.-Family and education:...
(1872-1954) were both Liberal MPs; Samuel for
HorncastleHorncastle was a county constituency in Lincolnshire which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. MPs were elected by the first past the post system of voting....
from 1922-24 and Robert for
GranthamGrantham was a Parliamentary constituency in Lincolnshire, England. The constituency was created in 1468 and abolished in 1997. The area formerly covered by this constituency is now mostly in Sleaford and North Hykeham...
from 1922-23. In religion Winfrey was a Congregationalist. He died on 18 April 1944 in Castor House,
CastorCastor is a village in Cambridgeshire, England.Formerly in Northamptonshire, it is now part of the City of Peterborough, four miles west of the city centre....
,
PeterboroughPeterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of as of June 2006. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. The Town Hall is north of London at Charing Cross...
.
Publishing
In 1887, Richard Winfrey purchased the Spalding Guardian, a local newspaper that was to provide the basis for the Winfrey family's newspaper interests. His next purchase was the
Lynn NewsThe Lynn News is published by East Midlands Newspapers Ltd., and appears each Tuesday and Friday in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England....
; he also started the North Cambs Echo and bought the Peterborough Advertiser. During World War II Winfrey's newspaper interests began to be passed over to his son, Richard Pattinson Winfrey (1902-1985) who himself unsuccessfully stood in the
Holland with BostonHolland with Boston was a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until 1997, when the constituency was abolished. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post voting system.- Boundaries :In 1885-1918 the...
by-electionThe Holland with Boston by-election, 1924 was a by-election held on 31st July 1924 for the British House of Commons constituency of Holland with Boston in Lincolnshire....
in 1924. In 1947, under the direction of Pat Winfrey, the family's newspaper titles were consolidated to form the East Midland Allied Press, now the
emapEMAP is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences...
media group.
Politics
Winfrey first contested South West Norfolk as a Liberal at the general election of 1895 and tried again in 1900. He was elected Liberal MP for South West Norfolk at the
1906 Liberal landslide electionThe United Kingdom general election of 1906 was held from 12 January to 8 February 1906.The Liberals, led by sitting minority Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman, won a large majority in the election...
and he held the seat until
1923The United Kingdom general election of 1923 was held on 6 December 1923. The Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, won the most seats, but Labour, led by Ramsay MacDonald, and H. H. Asquith's reunited Liberal Party gained enough to produce a hung parliament...
. He also represented
GainsboroughGainsborough is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election. The constituency was named Gainsborough and Horncastle between 1983 and 1997...
from 1923-24. His first career had been as a chemist, and he steered the Poisons and Pharmacy Act 1908 through Parliament.
Office
Between 1906-1910 Winfrey served as Parliamentary Secretary to
Earl CarringtonCharles Robert Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire KG, GCMG, PC, DL, JP , known as the Lord Carrington from 1868 to 1895 and as the Earl Carrington from 1895 to 1912, was a British Liberal politician and aristocrat.-Background and education:Born at Whitehall, London, Lincolnshire was the...
and Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture from 1916-1918.
In August 1914 as Mayor of Peterborough he was perhaps the last person to read the
Riot ActThe Riot Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which authorised local authorities to declare any group of more than twelve people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action...
after anti-German disturbances.
Winfrey was knighted in the 1914 New Year's Honours. He also served as a
Justice of the PeaceA justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice and deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
. He was Chairman of the Lincolnshire and Norfolk Small Holdings Association, Ltd and sometime Chairman of the National Educational Association. At its foundation in 1906 he was Treasurer of the Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers & Small Holders Union which in 1920 became the
National Union of Agricultural and Allied WorkersThe National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers was a trade union in the United Kingdom.It was established as the Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers & Small Holders Union at a conference of Norfolk agricultural workers at the Angel Hotel, North Walsham on 20 July 1906...
.