Frederick Chance

Sir Frederick William Chance KBE JP DL (26 December 1852 – 31 August 1932)^[1] was a British Liberal Party^[2] politician from Carlisle. He sat in the House of Commons from 1905 to 1910.

Frederick Chance

Background

Chance was from a long-established family of businessmen and politicians in Carlisle. He ran the family's cotton-manufacturing firm in the town, Ferguson Brothers,^[3] and served as Mayor of Carlisle in 1904, before becoming a member of Cumberland County Council.^[3] Both his grandfather Joseph Ferguson and his uncle^[3] Robert Ferguson had been Members of Parliament (MPs) for the borough of Carlisle and he was a brother-in-law of Sir Henry Seton-Karr,^[3] the MP for St Helens.

Carlisle's MP since 1886 was William Court Gully, who served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1895 to 1905. Ill-health forced Gully to resign as Speaker in May 1905,^[4] and at the by-election in July 1905 Chance was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Carlisle.^[5] He was re-elected unopposed in 1906,^[6] and held the seat until the January 1910 general election,^[1] when he did not stand again.^[2]

He was High Sheriff of Cumberland in 1915.^[7]