William Nicholson (distiller)


William Nicholson, was a British Member of Parliament, London gin distiller, cricketer and philanthropist in the Victorian era.
Nicholson played as a gentleman amateur from 1845 to 1869 and was twice elected as MP for Petersfield in Hampshire to represent the Liberal Party in 1866 and in 1880, before serving as President of Marylebone Cricket Club.

Background and career

Of ancient Scottish extraction, the Nicholson family moved from Westmorland to London in the 18th century becoming established as gin distillers.
Born in 1824 at Upper Holloway near Stoke Newington, Middlesex, he was the youngest son of John Nicholson, Master of the Distillers' Company, by his wife Ellen Payne, younger daughter of Richard Payne, a Freeman of Rochester in Kent. His uncle, William Nicholson, was also elected Master Distiller.
Educated at Harrow before going up to Trinity College Cambridge, his family owned the J&W Nicholson & Co. gin distilleries, based at Clerkenwell and Three Mills by Bow, of which he became a director then chairman in 1854.
Nicholson was a right-handed wicketkeeper-batsman, who made 148 known appearances as a Gentleman between 1846 and 1858; mainly associated with Marylebone Cricket Club, he also played for the Gentlemen of Middlesex and Middlesex CCC.
In 1866, MCC finally purchased the freehold of Lord's Cricket Ground in the sum of £18,333 6s 8d using money advanced by Nicholson, after being elected one of the first five Trustees of the MCC in May 1864. Nominated as President of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1879, Nicholson loaned MCC a further £21,000 in 1888 to secure the purchase of Henderson's Nursery and enabling its new Lord's Pavilion foundation stone to be laid in 1889.
Nicholson served as a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Hampshire, and was appointed High Sheriff of Hampshire.

Member of Parliament (1866–1885)

In July 1866 Nicholson was elected unopposed as the Member of Parliament for the Borough of Petersfield in Hampshire, at a by-election caused by Conservative MP Sir William Jolliffe's elevation to the peerage. Returned to parliament in 1868, Nicholson was defeated at the 1874 general election. He was re-elected for Petersfield at the 1880 general election and held the seat until the parliamentary borough was disenfranchised under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, being transferred to a new county division of Hampshire; with a wider geographical area, and a franchise expanded under the Representation of the People Act 1884, the new constituency's electorate was more than ten times larger, increased from 801 in 1880 to 8,202 in 1885. In April 1885 Nicholson announced his resignation from the Liberal Party, declaring that he would contest the next general election as a Liberal-Conservative Unionist. Adopted by the local Conservative Association as PPC, at the general election in December that year he lost the seat by a narrow margin to Liberal Viscount Wolmer, and was again defeated at the 1886 election.

Distillery accident

On 12 July 1901, his 29-year-old son Godfrey Maule Nicholson, a company director and brother-in-law to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Edward Bradford, died together with two other distillery staff, while trying to rescue fellow distillery worker, Thomas Pickett, who had been overcome by carbon dioxide while investigating a well.
The Helping Hands sculpture at Three Mills Green in Bow stands in memory of this tragedy, as too does the City Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice plaque in Postman's Park.

Family and personal life

In 1858 Nicholson married Isabella Sarah Meek, only daughter of Master Distiller John Meek, by whom he had 14 children:
Nicholson was seated at Basing Park near Alton, Hampshire, and died in 1909 at his townhouse in South Audley Street, London.