Sir George Doughty (13 March 1854 – 27 April 1914) was a British ship-owner and politician from

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

. He sat in the House of Commons for most of the period from 1895 to 1914. Doughty was the son of William Doughty from Grimsby. He was educated at the Wesleyan Higher Grade School in Grimsby, and became a merchant, a ship-owner, and a partner in the Grimsby-based firm of Hagerup, Doughty and Company Ltd. He became an

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...

of Grimsby, and was twice Mayor of the town, and was a

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

(J.P.) for the

Lindsey Lindsey may refer to : Places Canada * Lindsey Lake, Nova Scotia England * Parts of Lindsey, one of the historic Parts of Lincolnshire and an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 ** East Lindsey, an administrative district in Lincolnshire, a ...

area of

. Standing as a member of the Liberal Party, Doughty was elected at the 1895 general election as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for Great Grimsby, defeating the sitting Liberal Unionist MP Edward Heneage; by a narrow majority of just 181 votes (2.2%). However, in 1898 Doughty himself left the Liberal Party to join the Liberal Unionists, and offered himself to the voters of Grimsby for re-election. He resigned his seat on 21 July by taking the post of

Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds Appointment to the position of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds is a procedural device to allow Members of Parliament to resignation from the British House of Commons, resign from the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. S ...

, and at the resulting by-election he was re-elected on 2 August with an increased majority of 1,751 votes (21.5% of the total). He was returned unopposed in

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...

, and held the seat at a contested election in

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

with a majority of 18.2% of the votes. However, at the January 1910 election he was defeated by the Liberal Party candidate Thomas Wing. He ousted Wing at the December 1910 election, retaking the seat with a majority 698 votes (4.6%), and two years later became a

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

MP when the Liberal Unionists formally merged with Conservatives (although in practice the two parties had been largely indistinguishable for more than a decade). He was

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

ed in the King's Birthday Honours in 1904. In July 1907 Doughty was engaged to be married again, to Australian journalist and author Eugenia Stone. They married on 16 August 1907 at the (Catholic) Church of St James, Manchester Square, London. In April 1914, Doughty died suddenly at Waltham Old Hall, Lincolnshire, aged 60. He had been in "indifferent health for some months" following an operation in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

while travelling back to England from

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

References

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Doughty, George 1854 births 1914 deaths Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Liberal Unionist Party MPs for English constituencies Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1895–1900 UK MPs 1900–1906 UK MPs 1906–1910 UK MPs 1910–1918 British businesspeople in shipping English justices of the peace Mayors of Grimsby Knights Bachelor Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Great Grimsby 19th-century British businesspeople