Charles Cowan

Charles Cowan (1801–1889) was a Scottish politician and paper-maker.

He was the son of Alexander Cowan, and followed his father into the paper-making industry; he would later write the article on this for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.^[1] In May 1819, he was sent to learn the papermaking trade at St Mary Cray, Kent, where he worked at either Lay's or Hall's mill on the River Cray.^[2]

In the general election of June 1847, he ran as a Radical free-trade candidate in Edinburgh, defeating the incumbent Whig Thomas Babington Macaulay. His initial election was declared null and void due to his being a party to a government contract, but he was re-elected in a second election that December.^[3] He was re-elected in the 1852 election in second place on the ballot, and returned unopposed in the 1857 election. He did not stand in 1859, and retired from politics.

References

1. ^ Six generations of Cowans at the Valleyfield Mills, Penicuik Community Arts Association
2. ^ Rootsweb
3. ^ Oliver & Boyd's new Edinburgh almanac and national repository for the year 1850 Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1850

• Ian Machin, 'Cowan, Charles (1801–1889)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William Gibson-Craig Thomas Babington Macaulay	Member of Parliament for Edinburgh 1847 – 1859 With: William Gibson-Craig to 1852 Thomas Babington Macaulay 1852–1856 Adam Black from 1856	Succeeded by Adam Black James Moncreiff

Persondata
Name	Cowan, Charles
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Short description
Date of birth	1801
Place of birth
Date of death	1889
Place of death