Nicholas Philpot Leader (19 January 1773 – 7 February 1836) was an Irish barrister, landowner, businessman and Liberal politician. He sat in the

House of Commons of the United Kingdom The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...

from 1830 to 1832. Leader was the eldest son of William Leader, who owned extensive estates in County Cork, including the family's homes at Mount Leader near

Millstreet Millstreet () is a town in north County Cork, Ireland. As of the 2022 census, it had a population of 1,722. Millstreet is within the civil parish of Drishane, and within a Poor Law Union also called Millstreet. The Millstreet Union encompasse ...

and Dromagh Castle neat

Kanturk Kanturk () is a town in the north west of County Cork, Ireland. It is situated at the confluence of the Allua (Allow) and Dallow (Dalua) rivers, which stream further on as tributaries to the River Blackwater. It is about from Cork and Limeric ...

. After education at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

, the

King's Inn The Honorable Society of King's Inns () is the "Inn of Court" for the Bar of Ireland. Established in 1541, King's Inns is Ireland's oldest school of law and one of Ireland's significant historical environments. The Benchers of King's Inns awa ...

and the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

, he was called to the Irish bar in 1798. His father's estates included the

coal mines Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

of the north Cork coalfield, which Leader developed further with the help of a government loan. An ally of

Daniel O'Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...

, he unsuccessfully contested the County Cork constituency at the 1812 general election as a supporter of Catholic Emancipation. In 1828, the year he succeeded to his father's estates, he was nominated with O'Connell's support at the Tralee by-election, but was not elected. At the 1830 general election, Leader's name was suggested for several seats, but he was eventually nominated for Kilkenny City as a Liberal supporter of reform. He was re-elected at the 1831 general election, and supported the

Reform Acts The Reform Acts (or Reform Bills, before they were passed) are legislation enacted in the United Kingdom in the 19th and 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the ...

as they passed through the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

, but vigorously opposed the Irish Reform Bill's failure to significantly expand the franchise. At the 1832 general election he chose not to sign the

Repeal Association The Repeal Association was an Irish mass membership political movement set up by Daniel O'Connell in 1830 to campaign for a repeal of the Acts of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland. The Association's aim was to revert Ireland to ...

's pledge and stood down from Parliament. Leader died at Nashville, County Cork in February 1836. His eldest son

Nicholas Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Ancient Greek, Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In ...

succeeded to his estates, and in 1861 was elected as a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

MP for

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

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* UK MPs 1831–1832 1836 deaths People from Kanturk Whig (British political party) MPs for Irish constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Kilkenny constituencies (1801–1922) 19th-century Irish landowners 19th-century Irish businesspeople Irish barristers Irish mining businesspeople Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Members of the Middle Temple UK MPs 1830–1831 1773 births Alumni of King's Inns Businesspeople from County Cork People from Millstreet {{Liberal-UK-MP-stub