Thomas Bish (5 May 1779 – 27 December 1842) was a British politician. Bish worked as a stockbroker and held a government contract for the lottery. At the 1826 UK general election, he stood in

Leominster Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England; it is located at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is north of Hereford and south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of almos ...

as a Whig. He was elected but was unseated on an

election petition An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

due to the contract he held. In 1821 Bish bought the lease to

Vauxhall Gardens Vauxhall Gardens is a public park in Kennington in the London Borough of Lambeth, England, on the south bank of the River Thames. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, it is believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660, being me ...

with Frederick Gye the elder and Richard Hughes, and started work reboot the fading glamour of the public entertainments. He sent pyrotechnist

Sarah Hengler Sarah Hengler (c.1765 – 9 October 1845) was a British businesswoman, pyrotechnist and firework artist. She was one of the "Fire Queens" of Vauxhall Gardens. Early and personal life Sarah Hengler was born in Surrey, England c. 1765. She was th ...

to Paris to learn cutting edge techniques from the fireworks artisits at the

Jardin de Tivoli The Tivoli gardens of Paris were amusement parks located near the current site of the Saint-Lazare station, named after the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli near Rome. There were several such gardens in succession between 1795 and 1842, non ...

, famed for its firework displays. Royal Vauxhall Gardens relaunched on 3 June 1822 and by the following year was attracting 140,000 visitors a season. The lottery was abolished in 1826, and this enabled Bish to stand again in Leominster at the

1832 UK general election The 1832 United Kingdom general election was held on 8 December 1832 to 8 January 1833. The first election to be held in the newly-reformed House of Commons, the Whigs under Earl Grey won a landslide victory with a majority of 224 seats. Earl ...

, winning the seat. In Parliament, he opposed the

Corn Law The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. The law ...

and supported a

secret ballot The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote ...

and shorter Parliamentary terms. He argued that the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...

should manufacture their banknotes in a manner that makes them harder to forge and that Parliament and the Court should sometimes meet in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. He also argued for the revival of the state lottery, arguing that since its abolition, many British citizens instead put money into lotteries based overseas. Bish held his seat at the

1835 UK general election The 1835 United Kingdom general election was called when Parliament was dissolved on 29 December 1834. Polling took place between 6 January and 6 February 1835, and the results saw Robert Peel's Conservatives make large gains from their low of ...

but stood down in 1837.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bish, Thomas 1779 births 1842 deaths UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1832–1835 UK MPs 1835–1837 Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies