Thomas Firbank (politician)

Major Sir Joseph Thomas Firbank (16 May 1850 – 7 October 1910) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Early life

Joseph Thomas Firbank was born in Britain in 1850. He was one of 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.

Political career

In 1885, Thomas Firbank's father Joseph became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire.

Thomas Firbank became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1891. At the general election in July 1895, he was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hull East. He was re-elected in 1900 but left the Commons before the 1906 general election.[1]

He was knighted in the 1902 Coronation Honours,[2] receiving the accolade from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 24 October that year.[3]

Personal life

Firbank lived in South Wales, at St Julians, Newport, but also in London at Clarges Street and from 1886 at the Coopers, Chislehurst.

In 1883, Firbank married Jane Harriette Garrett (1851–1924).[4] 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 Who's Who he described himself as "keen on all outdoor sports and athletics, music and objects of art."[5]

He died of heart failure in Tunbridge Wells in 1910.[6] His widow died in 1924.

gollark: That's nice.
gollark: What do you mean?
gollark: "Modular" laptops.
gollark: People seem weirdly interested in Framework given that they are still ridiculously tightly integrated, more so than even Haswell-era laptops with their PGA things.
gollark: If this happens right after my computers all implode, guess I just lose access to everything.

References
  1. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "H" (part 4)
  2. "The Coronation Honours". The Times (36804). London. 26 June 1902. p. 5.
  3. "No. 27494". The London Gazette. 11 November 1902. p. 7165.
  4. "Sitter: Mrs Joseph Thomas Firbank née Harriette Garrett, later Lady Firbank (1851– )". Lafayette Negative Archive.
  5. Cited in the Introduction to The Complete Ronald Firbank with an introduction by Anthony Powell (1961)
  6. "Obituary: Sir Thomas Firbank". The Times. Times Newspapers. 8 October 1910. p. 11.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Sir Clarence Smith		 Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull East
1895 – 1906		 Succeeded by
Thomas Ferens


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