Thomas Bayley Potter

Thomas Bayley Potter DL, JP (29 November 1817 – 6 November 1898) Potter received his early education in George Street, Manchester, then at Lant Carpenter's school in Bristol. He subsequently attended Rugby School under Thomas Arnold and then University College London.

In business On graduating, Bayley went into the family business in Manchester. His father died in 1845, at Buile Hill, his home. His elder brother John, knighted in 1851, took over most of his father's role; the firm then traded as Potter & Norris. Thomas became the major partner in it when his brother Sir John died in 1858. Not long after Taylor's death, Potter withdrew from business activity, to concentrate on politics.

In 1865, Potter entered the British House of Commons and sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochdale. This was the seat of Cobden, who had died that year. Potter kept it until 1895. In the House of Commons he was known as "Principles Potter".

A personal friend of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Potter also supported Italian unification. The finance for Garibaldi's purchase of the island of Caprera was arranged at a dinner given by him.

Last years Potter was a Justice of the Peace for Manchester and Lancashire, and for the latter also Deputy Lieutenant.

At the end of his life Potter spent his vacations in Cobden's old home, The Hurst, at Midhurst in Sussex. He died there on 6 November 1898, aged 80, and was buried in Heyshott four days later.

Family Potter was twice married:

Firstly, on 5 February 1846, to Mary Ashton, daughter of Samuel Ashton, at the Unitarian Chapel of Gee Cross. She died in 1885, at Cannes. Mary Potter was one of those petitioning in 1867 for a suffrage society in Manchester. Secondly, on 10 March 1887, to Helena Hicks, daughter of John Hicks Bodmin, at St Paul's Church, Lambeth, Surrey. William Gaskell was an assistant minister there, to John Gooch Robberds, from 1828 to 1854 when Robberds died; his wife Elizabeth Gaskell published her first novel Mary Barton in 1848. Mary Potter perceived a upsetting connection between the murder of her brother Thomas Ashton in 1831, a result of industrial tensions, and the novel's murder plot. The author denied any conscious use of Thomas Ashton's story, of which she knew, but the Potter family saw the plot device as referring deliberately to it.

Richard Ellis Potter The fourth son, Richard Ellis Potter (1855–1947), was educated at Eton College, and at age 17 took part in the third of Benjamin Leigh Smith's expeditions, in 1873 to Svalbard. Letters that he wrote to his father remain.

He was in Dallas in the 1880s, where he worked for Texas Land & Mortgage, a Scottish company managed by the Irish Courtenay Wellesley, as a valuer of land, and helped introduce the games of lawn tennis and golf to the city. He and his brother Arthur were both left money in 1887 under the will of George Scrivens, a family connection. He married Harriott Isabel Kingscote in 1899, and was father of Arthur Kingscote Potter.

In later life Potter resided at Ridgewood, Almondsbury, in Gloucestershire. He became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1899.