MP For Boston
In 1856 Ingram became the Liberal candidate in a by-election in his home town of Boston. With help from his friends Mark Lemon and Douglas Jerrold at Punch, and from the team at The Illustrated London News, Ingram advocated a policy of social reform. He told the people of Boston they needed a "representative who is at once the product and the embodiment of the progressive spirit of the age". The electorate responded to Ingram's message and he won an overwhelming victory. However, several daily newspapers attacked Punch and The Illustrated London News for the part they had played in Ingram's victory.
He continued his campaign for social reform in the British House of Commons until his death four years later.
Ingram was instrumental in bringing the railways to Boston, which forged new links with other parts of the country and got the town on track for a new era of growth. He also played a major part in supplying fresh piped water to the town, a move which was met with rejoicing and brass bands when the taps were turned on for the first time.
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Famous quotes containing the word boston:
“The Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish people. Yet from the parlor windows all along the coast you may see families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,—to realize the deluge. Every vessel is an ark.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)