Robert Hyde Greg
(1795-1875)

Died aged 79

Robert Hyde Greg (24 September 1795 – 21 February 1875), was an English industrialist, economist, antiquary, and - briefly - a Member of Parliament. Born in Manchester, he was the son of Samuel Greg and Hannah Lightbody, the creators of Quarry Bank Mill, a pioneering factory of the early Industrial Revolution. His family were Unitarians, part of the prosperous dissenting community that characterised the entrepreneurial class of factory owners. He was brother to William Rathbone Greg and the junior Samuel Greg. He attended the University of Edinburgh and, after the obligatory Grand Tour of the antiquities of Continental Europe, joined his father's textile manufacturing enterprise. He was active in the city's intellectual life as a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society and was a founder of its Mechanics' Institute. He was an active member of the Liberal Party and the Anti-Corn Law League. Though he was elected to Parliament for Manchester in 1839, it was without his consent and he resigned in the following year. He was an opponent of factory reform, trades unions and worker health and safety legislation. He died at Norcliffe Hall, Styal, Cheshire and is buried at the Dean Row Unitarian Chapel, Wilmslow. Greg was also a slaveholder; tenant-in-common of Cane Garden, St Vincent Island, with 82 enslaved people.

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