George Latham
(1827-1886)
3 July 1861

Volume 4, page 162, sitting number 4720.

[Identified as 'G. W. Latham, Esq.' in the Silvy daybooks, this is George William Latham of Sandbach in Cheshire.]

Born in Marylebone on 5 April 1827, George William Latham was the son of physician John Latham of Bradwall Hall near Sandbach, who was President of the Royal College of Physicians from 1813 to 1819.

Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford (BA 1849, MA 1852), he was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1852.

In 1855, with the aid of subscriptions from supporters within the county, he founded the Bradwall Reformatory for Boys at Walnut Tree Lane, Sandbach. The premises were officially certified to accommodate up to 60 boys, aged 14 to 16, committed by magistrates. As well as providing the site for the school on his own estate, Latham also took on the role of its honorary manager. The reformatory provided its inmates not only with basic education but also with industrial training, chiefly agricultural in nature. ‘They are taught draining, hedging, ditching, now to use a hoe and a fork, how to mend their tools, and to do rough carpenter’s jobs, so that when they leave the school want of employment may not lead them into crime. Some are employed in cleaning the house, in cooking and washing. Some, especially in harvest time, go to the neighbouring farmers for the day. All have three of four hours of school work before and after the day’s labour’ (Letter from Latham to the Cheshire Observer, 20 February 1858). Bradwall’s farmland eventually encompassed 110 acres and 20 cows were kept. Cheese was produced and sent to market.

On 21 August 1856, at Westdean Church in Sussex, Latham married Elizabeth Sarah, eldest daughter of Reverend William Robinson Luttman-Johnson of Bindeston House, Sussex (Morning Post, 23 August 1856). The marriage produced two sons, of which one died in infancy, and one daughter. 

The couple appear on the 1861 and 1871 censuses living at Bradwall Hall, Sandbach.

Latham unsuccessfully contested the division of Mid Cheshire three times (in 1863, 1880 and 1883) as the Liberal candidate. In the 1885 general election he was elected the Member of Parliament for the Crewe division of Cheshire but, after his health broke down, did not defend his seat in the general election of the following year (Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 6 October 1886).

George William Latham died, aged 59, on 4 October 1886 at Bradwall Hall, Sandbach. He left an estate valued at £4774.