William Rathbone V (17 June 1787 – 1 February 1868) was an English merchant and politician, serving as

Lord Mayor of Liverpool The office of Lord Mayor of Liverpool has existed in one form or another since the foundation of Liverpool as a borough by the Royal Charter of King John in 1207, simply being referred to as the Mayor of Liverpool. The position is now a most ...

Life

The notability and prosperity of the

Rathbone family The Rathbone family of Liverpool, England, were a family of nonconformist merchants and ship-owners who were known to engage in philanthropy and public service. The family origins trace back to Gawsworth, near Macclesfield, where the first Will ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

was tied to the growth of that city as a major Atlantic trading port. William was the eldest son of

William Rathbone IV William Rathbone IV (10 June 1757 – 11 February 1809) was an English ship-owner and merchant involved in the organisation of American trade with Liverpool, England. He was a political radical, supporting the abolition of the slave trade and unive ...

and Hannah Mary (née Reynolds). He was born in 1787, although the statue of him in Sefton Park erroneously gives his birth year as 1788. William went into partnership as a merchant with his brother Richard. William Rathbone was elected a Reformer (Liberal) councillor for the Pitt Street ward in Liverpool in the first ever Council election in 1835, subsequently re-elected in 1837, for the Vauxhall ward in 1845,

in 1837, and fought for social reforms. He supported

Kitty Wilkinson Catherine Wilkinson (1786–1860) was an Irish migrant, "wife of a labourer", who became known as the ''Saint of the Slums''. In 1832, during a cholera epidemic, she had the only boiler in her neighbourhood, so she invited those with infected ...

in establishing wash-houses and

public baths Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...

following the 1832

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

epidemic, was an active supporter of the

Municipal Reform Act 1835 The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 (5 & 6 Will 4 c 76), sometimes known as the Municipal Reform Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in the incorporated boroughs of England and Wales. The legisl ...

, was responsible for the distribution of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

Relief funds during the

Irish famine The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...

of 1846-1847 (see

British Relief Association The British Association for the Relief of Distress in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, known as the British Relief Association (BRA), was a private charity of the mid-19th century in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Establis ...

). Rathbone died on 1 February 1868 at

Greenbank House Greenbank House, is a Grade II*-listed building in Liverpool, England. It stands within the University of Liverpool's Greenbank Halls of Residence site, between Greenbank Road and Greenbank Lane. History Original house The original house was bu ...

, with over 1,000 mourners attending his funeral.

Family

Rathbone married Elizabeth (1790–1882), daughter of

Samuel Greg Samuel Greg (26 March 1758 – 4 June 1834) was an Irish-born industrialist and entrepreneur of the early Industrial Revolution and a pioneer of the factory system. He built Quarry Bank Mill, which at his retirement was the largest textile mil ...

Quarry Bank Mill Quarry Bank Mill (also known as Styal Mill) in Styal, Cheshire, England, is one of the best preserved textile factories of the Industrial Revolution. Built in 1784, the cotton mill is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a ...

, Cheshire and Hannah (née Lightbody) in 1812. Their children included: *Elizabeth who married John Paget *Hannah Mary who married

John Hamilton Thom John Hamilton Thom (10 January 1808 – 2 September 1894) was an Irish Unitarian minister. Life He was a younger son of John Thom (died 1808), born on 10 January 1808 at Newry, County Down, where his father, a native of Lanarkshire, was Presbyter ...

William Rathbone VI William Rathbone VI (11 February 1819 – 6 March 1902) was an English merchant and businessman noted for his philanthropic and public work. He was an English Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1868 and 1895. ...

*Samuel Greg *Philip Henry (1828–95). He was the great-grandfather of the actor

Basil Rathbone Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African-born English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume ...

.''The Rathbone Register''
by Dorcas Rathbone, indicating that William Rathbone's son, Philip Henry Rathbone, was Basil Rathbone's grandfather

Notes

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rathbone, William, V 1787 births 1868 deaths Liberal Party (UK) councillors Mayors of Liverpool

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...