Sidney Woolf

Sidney Woolf (16 June 1837 – September 1918) was an English pottery manufacturer and a Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 to 1885.

Life

He was the son of Lewis Woolf, a china merchant of London, who had ventured into the pottery business at Ferrybridge, Yorkshire.^[1] He was educated at University College, London and at Frankfurt. He was involved in his father's pottery business and in 1857 had a large pottery built called the "Australian Pottery" which he and his brothers ran with the Ferrybridge Potteries at Knottingley.^[1] On 29 October 1864, he was one of the leading citizens of the town who formed the Knottingley Town Hall & Mechanics' Institute Company Limited, which developed Knottingley Town Hall, and he became its chairman.^[2] He was also chairman of Knottingley school board.^[3]

At the 1880 general election Woolf was elected as a member of parliament (MP) for Pontefract. He held the seat until 1885.^[4]

Family

Woolf married Isabel Nunes Benvenuta Carvalho, daughter of David Nunes Carvalho of London in 1860. Her brother Solomon Nunes Carvalho was a travel photographer.