Joseph Firth Bottomley Firth

Joseph Firth Bottomley Firth (1842 - 3 September 1889) was an English barrister and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1880 and 1889.

Early life Firth was born as Bottomley in Dobroyd, Yorkshire, the son of Joseph Bottomley of Huddersfield and his wife Ann, the eldest daughter of Joseph Firth. The Bottomleys were a prominent Quaker family in the West Riding of Yorkshire, having been major landowners since the reign of Elizabeth I. He attended Ackworth School and the University of London, where he received a degree in law. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple and practiced as a barrister on the North Eastern Circuit. In 1873, his uncle, Joseph Firth of Shepley, died, and as part of the conditions of his uncle's will, he adopted the additional surname of "Firth" by royal licence to become Joseph Firth Bottomley Firth. Firth was president of the London Municipal Reform League from 1882, and author of Municipal London; or London Government as it is and London Government as it ought to be.

In 1889, a democratically elected London County Council was created, and Firth was elected as a member of the Progressive majority group. He became the first deputy chairman of the council.

Firth died suddenly from "sun stroke" at the age of 47, while in Switzerland.

Firth married Elizabeth Tatham, daughter of a sometime mayor of Leeds, in 1873.