Henry Butler Ratcliffe (1845 – 9 April 1929) was a British

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 ...

politician. He was elected as

Conservative and Unionist The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, ...

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 ...

(MP) for Bradford Central at the 1918 general election. He retired from Parliament and did not contest the 1922 general election, when Bradford Central was won by the Labour Party candidate, William Leach. Ratcliffe was born in 1845 and attended

Bradford Grammar School Bradford Grammar School (BGS) is a co-educational independent day school located in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. Entrance is by examination, except for the sixth form, where admission is based on GCSE results. The school g ...

, before joining his father’s butcher’s business,''

Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...

and Leeds Intelligencer''. Obituary: Wednesday 10 April 1929, page: 6. later becoming President of the Yorkshire Federation of Butchers. He served as a Bradford City councillor in 1881–83 and from 1891, and became leader of the Conservative Party on the Council and chairman of a number of council committees. He died in Bradford on 9 April 1929 at the age of 84. Outside politics, Radcliffe served as President of the Bradford Third Equitable Building Society, and for over sixty years was a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

lay reader In Anglicanism, a licensed lay minister (LLM) or lay reader (in some jurisdictions simply reader) is a person authorised by a bishop to lead certain services of worship (or parts of the service), to preach and to carry out pastoral and teaching f ...

in the

diocese of Bradford The Diocese of Bradford is a former Church of England diocese within the Province of York. The diocese covered the area of the City of Bradford, Craven district and the former Sedbergh Rural District now in Cumbria. The seat of the episcopal ...

. He married in 1871 and had three sons. His wife and two sons pre-deceased him, the surviving son taking over the family butcher's business.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ratcliffe, Henry Butler 1845 births 1929 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1918–1922 Politicians from Bradford Businesspeople from Bradford