Hugh Mason (30 January 1817 – 2 February 1886) was an English mill owner, social reformer and Liberal politician. He was born in Stalybridge and brought up in Stalybridge and Ashton-under-Lyne until he entered the family cotton business in 1838 after a seven-year period working in a bank. Having originally opposed trade unions, Mason became a paternalistic mill owner, creating a colony for his workers with associated facilities and ensuring that they experienced good conditions. During the Lancashire Cotton Famine of the 1860s he refused to cut workers' wages although it was common practice. Mason became the first Liberal to be elected councillor for Ashton-under-Lyne in 1856. He was mayor of the council from 1857 to 1860 and retired from local politics in 1874 due to conflict with his own party. Mason returned to the Liberals in 1878 when he stood for election as Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne. He was voted in and supported progressive policies, which included women's suffrage, making him unpopular within his own party. He was MP from 1880 to 1885. When he died in 1886, aged 69, Hugh Mason had amassed £290,933 (now about £17 million). Early life and business career Hugh Mason was born in Stalybridge, Cheshire, on 11 May 1817 and christened there. He was the youngest of four children of Thomas Mason, a former textile manager, and Mary, the daughter of John Holden, Esq. The family had moved to Stalybridge from Derbyshire in 1776. After working as the manager of a mill in Ashton-under-Lyne, Thomas established his own business in 1815 in partnership with James Booth and Edward Hulton at Currier Slacks Mill in the town. Rapid growth in their enterprise saw them expand into the Bank Mill and Royal George Mills in the 1820s and Albion Mill in the 1830s. At the age of 10, Hugh was working in the mill, and his education consisted of attending Methodist Sunday schools in Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge and spending three years at a private school in Ashton-under-Lyne. After leaving school at the age of 14, Mason got a job with the district bank while he attended night school in his spare time. He worked there until 1838, when he left at the age of 21 to join the family's cotton business. He became the driving force behind the business. The business thrived: by the early 1850s the Mason family had built two state-of-the-art cotton