Richard Lane Allman (1813 – 22 December 1904) was an Irish businessman from Bandon in

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

. He was also an

Irish Liberal Party The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites and reformist ...

politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

from 1880 to 1885. His brother was the botanist and natural history professor George Allman.

Early life

Allman was the son of James C. Allman and his wife Sarah née Lane. The family were entrepreneurs in Bandon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Initially they ran a cotton mill at Overton, near Bandon, but when this declined they established

Bandon Distillery Allman's Bandon Distillery was an Irish whiskey distillery which was established in 1826 in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland. The distillery closed in 1929 following financial difficulties. However, agents for the company trading under the name Allm ...

in 1826.

Business life

Allman's distillery produced up to 600,000 gallons of whiskey per year, which was mostly exported. However, trade was badly hit by

prohibition in the United States In the United States from 1920 to 1933, a Constitution of the United States, nationwide constitutional law prohibition, prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtai ...

and by the

great depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Production stopped in 1925, and the business closed in 1929.

Parliament

At the general election in April 1880, Allman unsuccessfully contested the borough of Bandon. He lost by 15 votes (175:200) to the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Percy Broderick Bernard, a nephew of the 3rd Earl of Bandon whose family had held the seat for most of the 19th century. However, Bernard resigned from the House of Commons in June 1880, and at the resulting by-election on 25 June 1880, Allman was elected 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 ...

(MP) for Bandon. He had won 217 votes, against the 172 for the Conservative J. W. Payne. The borough was disenfranchised at the 1885 general election.

References

External links

* 1813 births 1904 deaths People from Bandon, County Cork Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Cork constituencies (1801–1922) Irish Liberal Party MPs UK MPs 1880–1885 {{Liberal-UK-MP-stub