Edmund Charles Rawlings JP (11 December 1854 – 17 December 1917), was a British solicitor, a Liberal Party politician, and a prominent

Primitive Methodist The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primiti ...

. He served as mayor of Hammersmith.

Family

Rawlings was born on 11 December 1854 at Wallingford, Oxfordshire to parents Edmund Rawlings (a Primitive Methodist minister) and Susannah Cock. He moved to London aged 14, becoming a solicitor in 1879 and forming a partnership in the City of London at Walbrook with Mr S Alford Butt (also the son of a Primitive Methodist minister). He married Amy Yates (1857-1914) in 1879 at Wilton, Wiltshire, and they had three children. He died on 17 December 1917 in

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was histor ...

Political career

In October 1900 Rawlings contested the UK General Election as Liberal candidate for Islington North.British Parliamentary Election Results 1885–1918, FWS Craig In November 1900 he was elected a Hammersmith Borough Councillor at Hammersmith's first borough council elections. He was later appointed an Alderman of the borough council. He also served as Mayor of Hammersmith from 1906-07.‘RAWLINGS, Edmund Charles’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 ; online edn, April 201
accessed 19 January 2017
/ref> He stood several times for election to the London County Council as a

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candidate, without success. In 1895 and 1901 he contested

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...

. In 1910 he contested the City of London. Rawlings took an active part in the relief of the unemployed and assistance of cripples. He also served as a Justice of the Peace for the County of London.

Electoral record

Religious activities

Rawlings was prominently involved with the Primitive Methodist movement, serving as vice-president and addressing its June 1905 conference in Scarborough. He wrote two PM publications: the ''Free Churchman's Legal Handbook'', and (with a Dr Townsend) the ''Free Churchman’s Guide to the Education Act of 1902''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawlings, Edmund Charles 1854 births 1917 deaths Liberal Party (UK) parliamentary candidates Progressive Party (London) politicians