Tommy Tickler (30 September 1852 – 19 January 1938) was an English businessman and
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 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 ...
in Lincolnshire.
Life
Tickler was the son of George Tickler, a miller from
Withern
Withern is a village in the civil parish of Withern with Stain, in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the A157 road, and south-east from Louth. Stain was once an independent parish but was combined with With ...
in Lincolnshire .
He established his own fruit growers and preservers business, serving as Managing Director (MD) of T.G. Tickler Ltd, which operated from Grimsby and
Southall, and was also MD of Heathcote Pottery Ltd of
Swadlincote
Swadlincote is a former mining town in the district of South Derbyshire, England, lying within The National Forest area. It borders the counties of Leicestershire and Staffordshire, south-east of Burton upon Trent and north-west of Ashby-de ...
in Derbyshire. He 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) in Grimsby, and for fifteen years he was a member of
Grimsby Town Council, serving as
Mayor in 1907.
Tickler was elected as the
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Great Grimsby at a
by-election in May 1914 following the death of the Conservative MP
Sir George Doughty.
Doughty had held the seat for almost 20 years, with a short break in 1910.
Family
In 1878 he married his childhood companion, Frances Wells, second daughter of W. T. Wells, of The Hall, Withern. All five of his sons served in the British army and survived the First World War.
Ticklers Jam
From a small grocery business established in 1877, Tickler soon ran one of the largest factories in Grimsby, producing jam and marmalade. ‘Tickler’s Fruit Growers & Preservers’ was taken over in the late 1950s.
At the outbreak of
World War I, Ticklers secured a contract with the government to supply front lines with plum-and-apple jam —– a contract worth £1m between 1914 and 1918. Its empty jam tins were used as makeshift grenades referred to as ‘Tickler’s artillery’.
In popular culture
A song about Tickler's Jam was popular with British troops in the trenches, and is nostalgically sung by Robert Graves in one interview. The song went:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1gl6dHuAzQ
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tickler, Thomas
1852 births
1938 deaths
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1910–1918
UK MPs 1918–1922
Mayors of Grimsby
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Great Grimsby
English justices of the peace