Alfred Baldwin (4 June 1841 – 13 February 1908) 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 ...

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 o ...

(MP). He was the father of

Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...

, the Conservative

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

. Baldwin was the 12th and posthumously born child of George Pearce Baldwin and Sarah Chalkley Stanley. He started work at the Wilden Iron and Tin Plate Company at Wilden (near

Stourport Stourport-on-Severn, often shortened to Stourport, is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of North Worcestershire, England, a few miles to the south of Kidderminster and downstream on the River Severn from Bewdley. At the 2011 ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

), which, in 1840, had been taken over by his uncle Enoch Baldwin, who ran the business with his nephews, Pearce and William, trading as ''E.P.& W. Baldwin of Wilden''. In 1879, Alfred and his brothers dissolved the partnership. Alfred then moved into Wilden House and took over the Wilden Works, changing the name of the business to ''Baldwins Ltd''. As well as being an

ironmaster An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain. The ironmaster was usually a large ...

, Alfred also became a director and chairman of the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

. At the 1892 general election, Baldwin was elected as MP for

Bewdley Bewdley ( pronunciation) is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley west of Kidderminster and southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the Riv ...

, holding the seat until his death, when he was succeeded by his only child,

, who later became prime minister of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. Other public offices held by Alfred Baldwin were those of

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 s ...

(JP) for

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

, JP for Worcestershire and Deputy Lieutenant of Worcestershire. He married Louisa Macdonald, daughter of Reverend George Browne Macdonald, a Wesleyan minister, and Hannah Jones, on 9 August 1866. Through his wife, Baldwin was connected to three famous English artists and an even more famous writer. The eldest sister,

Alice Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...

, married the art teacher

John Kipling John Kipling (17 August 1897 – 27 September 1915) was the only son of British author Rudyard Kipling. In the First World War, his father used his influence to get him a commission in the British Army despite being decisively rejected for poo ...

in 1865; they became engaged at

Rudyard Lake Rudyard Lake is a reservoir in Rudyard, Staffordshire, located north-west of the town of Leek, Staffordshire. It was constructed in the late 18th century to feed the Caldon Canal. During the 19th century, it was a popular destination for day ...

, near

Leek The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of '' Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek ( syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus '' Al ...

in Staffordshire—hence, the name of their son, the writer Rudyard. In a joint wedding with her, her sister Agnes married the painter

Sir Edward John Poynter Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet (20 March 183626 July 1919) was an English painter, designer, and draughtsman, who served as President of the Royal Academy. Life Poynter was the son of architect Ambrose Poynter. He was born in Paris, ...

. Another sister,

Georgiana Georgiana is a Catalan, English, Greek and Romanian name. It is the feminine form of the male name George and a variation of the female names Georgina and Georgia. It comes from the Greek word Γεώργιος, meaning farmer. A variant spelli ...

, married the painter

Edward Coley Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hu ...

in 1860. Alfred Baldwin paid for the construction of

All Saints Church, Wilden All Saints Church in Wilden, Worcestershire about one mile to the north east of Stourport. It was designed by William Hopkins with funds provided by Alfred Baldwin very close to his own home, Wilden House and one of his large iron works. It s ...

, which was consecrated in 1880. The original windows were replaced with 14 designs by Burne-Jones between 1902 and 1914. They are mostly dedicated to members of the MacDonald, Baldwin and Burne-Jones families; one shows

setting out on life's journey accompanied by a guardian angel.

References

History of Wilden Industrial Estates

Stained glass on show

The Baldwin Family and Wilden
*

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, Alfred 1841 births 1908 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1892–1895 UK MPs 1895–1900 UK MPs 1900–1906 UK MPs 1906–1910 Deputy Lieutenants of Worcestershire Baldwin, Alfred (politician) Directors of the Great Western Railway Parents of prime ministers of the United Kingdom 19th-century English businesspeople