Politics
Hesketh was appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1830. In 1831 he was invited to stand as a Tory Party candidate for the constituency of Preston. He had similar views to Tory statesman Robert Peel and readily agreed to stand. Hesketh-Fleetwood opposed monopolies, slavery and capital punishment and was in favour of reforming the Corn Laws. At the 1832 general election, he was elected—along with his friend, Henry Stanley—Member of Parliament for Preston, in the first parliament following the Reform Act. He made his maiden speech to parliament in 1834.
Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, and in June the following year Hesketh-Fleetwood was knighted in the Coronation honours list and created Baronet Fleetwood. He was remained MP for Preston until the 1847 general election, although towards the end of his parliamentary career he was recorded as a Liberal MP. In 1840 he translated Victor Hugo's pamphlet, The Last Day of a Condemned Man, with a foreword entitled "Observations on capital punishment" that made clear Hesketh-Fleetwood's abolitionist stance on the issue.
Read more about this topic: Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“One might imagine that a movement which is so preoccupied with the fulfillment of human potential would have a measure of respect for those who nourish its source. But politics make strange bedfellows, and liberated women have elected to become part of a long tradition of hostility to mothers.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“The word “revolution” itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the “revolution” of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the “revolving door” of a politics which has “liberated” women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)