Cast in Stone

Media metadata | Métadonnées multimédias

Robert Ascroft

has biography | a une biographie

British politician and lawyer of the nineteenth century. Ascroft was a Lancashire-based solicitor and member of the Conservative party; he served as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Oldham. In 1899, Winston Churchill considered joining him as the second Conservative candidate from Oldham; the plan was discarded because of Ascroft’s death. Ascroft acted as a legal advisor to the Association of Operative Cotton Spinners, which was founded in 1870.

While Ascroft’s role in securing workers’ rights has been remembered positively in Britain, the British cotton textile industry itself had deep colonial associations. In the late nineteenth century, the British cotton textile industry was supplied with raw materials from India and Egypt. In 1895, for instance, Ascroft actively opposed Indian import duties in Parliament, which could have offered some tariff protection to the new Indian industries. This became politically controversial in India as politicians, such as Dadabhai Naoroji and R. C. Dutt, complained of the ‘deindustrialisation’ of the country and its use as a source of cheap raw materials as well as a captive market for mass-produced goods. From the 1920s, M.K. Gandhi led campaigns of boycotting Lancashire-produced goods and a promotion of Swadeshi or Indian-made goods for Indian consumers.

was born | est né

1 January 1847

died in | est mort par

19 June 1899

has nationality | a la nationalité

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

has type | est de type

depicted

is referred to by | est référencé par

Wikipedia

National Portrait Gallery

Mark Metcalf blog

Archive of the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners and Twiners

Internet Archive - Winston Churchill, My Early Life (London: The Reprint Society, 1944)

Internet Archive - Dadabhai Naoroji, Poverty and Un-British rule in India (London: Swann Sonnenschein and Co., 1901)

Hansard - 'Import Duties on Indian Cotton' 3 September 1895 vol 36 cc 1670

Hansard - 'Extension of Railways (India)', 20 July 1896 vol 43 cc 146-7

Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014)