Russell Rea PC (11 December 1846 – 5 February 1916) was an English

ship-owner A shipowner, ship owner or ship-owner is the owner of a ship. They can be merchant vessels involved in the sea transport, shipping industry or non commercially owned. In the commercial sense of the term, a shipowner is someone who equips and expl ...

from

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

and

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politician. He sat in the

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in two periods between 1900 and 1916.

Early life and family

Rea was the third son of Daniel Key Rea from Eskdale in

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

and his wife Elizabeth, who was the daughter of Liverpool shipbuilder Joseph Russell. He was educated privately. In 1872 he married Jane Philip Mactaggart, the daughter of Peter Mactaggart from Liverpool. They had two sons and a daughter, Ada Hope Russell Rea (1870-1922). The older son,

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(1873–1948), entered politics and became a Member of Parliament (MP) for most of the period from 1906 to 1935, and was ennobled in 1937 with the

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of Baron Rea. The younger son ran the Liverpool branch of the family business.

Career

Business

In the 1890s, he founded the ship-owning and merchant company of R. and J. H. Rea in Liverpool. The business grew to have branches in

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, and

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

, and Rea was senior director of all main company and all its subsidiaries. He was also deputy chairman of the

Taff Vale Railway The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stage ...

Politics

Rea was the Liberal candidate at the November 1897 by-election in the Exchange division of Liverpool, where he lost by only 54 votes (1% of the total) to the Liberal Unionist candidate Charles McArthur. At the 1900 general election, he was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for

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, where he was re-elected in

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

. He became a Privy Councillor in 1909. However, at the January 1910 election, he lost his seat to the Conservative Party candidate Henry Terrell. However, he returned to

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only 9 months after his defeat, when he won the October 1910 by-election for

South Shields South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England; it is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. The town was once known in Roman Britain, Roman times as ''Arbeia'' and as ''Caer Urfa'' by the Early Middle Ag ...

. Rea was appointed as a Junior Lord of the Treasury in 1915, but his health broke down in November 1915, and on 5 February 1916 he died of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to Cardiac cycle, fill with and pump blood. Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF ...

at his home in

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, aged 69. His funeral was held in

St Margaret's, Westminster The Church of St Margaret, Westminster Abbey is in the grounds of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square, London, England. It is dedicated to Margaret the Virgin, Margaret of Antioch, and forms part of a single World Heritage Site with the Pal ...

, and he was buried in Golders Green.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rea, Russell 1846 births 1916 deaths Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1900–1906 UK MPs 1906–1910 UK MPs 1910 UK MPs 1910–1918 English businesspeople in shipping Businesspeople from Liverpool Politicians from Liverpool Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom 19th-century English businesspeople