biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1800–71)
|
| biography:
| Financier, born near York, North Yorkshire, N England, UK. He was a linen-draper there until, inheriting £30 000 in 1828, he went into local politics and invested heavily in the North Midland Railway, making York a major railway centre, and became known as ‘the railway king’. He bought large estates, was three times Lord Mayor of York, and was elected MP for Sunderland (1845). The railway mania of 1847–8 plunged him into ruin; he was accused of fraud, and lost his fortune and influence. |
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