Sir James Pender, 1st Baronet (28 September 1841 – 20 May 1921) was a British businessman, yachtsman and Conservative Party politician. He sat in 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 ...

from 1895 to 1900.

Early life

Pender was the eldest son from Sir John Pender's first marriage to Marion Cairn. His father was the founder of the

Eastern Telegraph Company The Eastern Telegraph Company was a British telecommunication company that operated undersea telegraph cables between the United Kingdom and India and countries on-route as well as cables from the United Kingdom to North and South America. It wa ...

, which later became Cable & Wireless. His younger half-brother was Sir John Denison-Pender, father of

John Denison-Pender, 1st Baron Pender John Cuthbert Denison-Pender, 1st Baron Pender (11 May 1882 – 4 December 1949) was a British Conservative politician. He retired from politics in 1922. In 1925 he was vice-chairman and joint managing director of Cable & Wireless Ltd., and go ...

Career

He was a Director of

Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company Enderby's Wharf is a wharf and industrial site on the south bank of the Thames in Greenwich, London, associated with Telcon and other companies. It has a history of more than 150 years of production of submarine communication cables and associ ...

(Telcon) taken over decades later by

British Insulated Callender's Cables British Insulated Callender's Cables (BICC) was a major British cable manufacturer and construction company of the 20th century. It has been renamed after its former subsidiary Balfour Beatty. BICC was created via the merger of two long establi ...

, Director Globe Telegraph Trust, Director Direct United States Cable Company Ltd, Director Eastman Kodak New Jersey, and the Chairman of Eastman Kodak (UK) from 1898 until 1913. He unsuccessfully contested Northamptonshire Mid at the 1892 general election. He was elected at the 1895 general election also sat as Member of Parliament for Mid Northamptonshire, and held the seat until his defeat at the 1900 general election. In 1897 he was made a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

, of Thornby Hall in the County of Northampton.

Yachting

In 1902 Pender won the King's Cup at the

Royal Yacht Squadron The Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS) is a British yacht club. Its clubhouse is Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom. Member yachts are given the suffix RYS to their names, and are permitted (with the appropriate warrant) to we ...

regatta at Cowes with his yawl ''Brynhild'' ( Charles E. Nicholson design, 1899), beating the

Kaiser Wilhelm Kaiser Wilhelm is a common reference to two German emperors: * Wilhelm I, German Emperor (1797–1888) * Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) Kaiser Wilhelm may also refer to: * Kaiser Wilhelm (baseball) (1874–1936), early 20th century baseba ...

's schooner ''Meteor III'' (Archibald Cary Smith design, 1902); the prize was presented to him by

Albert Edward, Prince of Wales Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910. The second child ...

. It was rumoured at the time that the Prince gave up yacht racing in favour of horse racing (at which he was very successful) as his Yacht ''

Britannia The image of Britannia () is the national personification of United Kingdom, Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin was the name variously appli ...

'' regularly lost to the Kaiser's yawl ''Meteor II'' (

George Lennox Watson George Lennox Watson (30 October 1851 – 12 November 1904) was a Scottish naval architect. Born in Glasgow, son of Thomas Lennox Watson, a doctor at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and grandson of Sir Timothy Burstall, engineer and entrant at th ...

design, 1896). James Pender Bt was the Rear Commodore of

Royal Thames Yacht Club The Royal Thames Yacht Club (RTYC) is the oldest continuously operating yacht club in the world, and the oldest yacht club in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are located at 60 Knightsbridge, London, England, overlooking Hyde Park. The clu ...

in 1904, and during that year he won the

Kaiserlicher Yacht Club Kaiserlicher Yacht-Club, "Imperial Yacht Club", was one of the forerunners of the Kiel Yacht Club. Known also as "Küz" from its acronym KYC, it was a prestigious yacht club located in the harbor city of Kiel, Germany. German Emperor Wilhelm II, G ...

regatta with ''Brynhild'' at the

Kieler Yacht-Club Kieler Yacht-Club (''Kiel Yacht Club'') is one of the oldest yacht clubs in Germany. It is located in the harbor city of Kiel. This club is well known for some of the yacht racing events it organizes. The main one is the yearly Kieler Woche (Kie ...

and was presented with the prize by the Kaiser, who had anonymously (as he always used to at the Kiel Yacht Club) donated that prize to the Kiel Yacht Club in the name of 'A friend of Sailing'. In 1908, Pender's new Camper & Nicholsons 23mR ''Brynhild II'' defeated the Sir Thomas Lipton's ''Shamrock'' and Myles Burton Kennedy's ''White Heather II'' (both

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

designs) in the Cowes regatta and the King's Cup. James Pender's other yachts ''Lamorna'' and ''Florinda'' (later rechristened ''Gosport Mistake'' and ''Siesta'') were all built and designed by Camper & Nicholsons.

Personal life

Pender married Mary Rose Gregge-Hopwood of

Hopwood Hall Hopwood Hall is a Grade II* historic house in Middleton, Greater Manchester, England, which was the ancestral country home of the landed gentry family of Hopwood who held it from the 12th century, passing to the Gregge (later Gregge-Hopwood, ...

. They lived at Donhead House,

Donhead St Andrew Donhead St Andrew is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Wiltshire, England, on the River Nadder. It lies east of the Dorset market town of Shaftesbury. The parish includes the hamlets of West End, Milkwell and (on the A30 ...

, Wiltshire. Sir James Pender is buried with his wife Mary Rose at St Andrew's Church, Donhead St Andrew, Wiltshire.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pender, James 1841 births 1921 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1895–1900 British male sailors (sport) English businesspeople

James James may refer to: People * James (given name) * James (surname) * James (musician), aka Faruq Mahfuz Anam James, (born 1964), Bollywood musician * James, brother of Jesus * King James (disambiguation), various kings named James * Prince Ja ...

Politicians from Wiltshire