been a reformer since his youth, driven by own impoverished beginnings and inspired by attending the speeches of the Radical politician John Bright. Bright's colleague Richard Cobden represented the town for six years, and Duckworth was present for Cobden's last speech, delivered in November 1864 in Robinson's warehouse in Rochdale. When the Liberal Party split over William Ewart Gladstone's Irish Home Rule Bill, Bright and many of the other Radicals joined the breakaway Liberal Unionists, but Duckworth broke with his mentor and supported Gladstone. He had entered local political politics, standing at the November 1884 elections to Rochdale Town Council in the Tory-held Castleton North ward, but did not win a seat. He was defeated a few weeks later at a council by-election in Castleton West, but finally made it onto the council in December 1887 when he was elected unopposed at another by-election in Castleton West. He became mayor of Rochdale for two years in 1891, and held the office for a further two terms from 1901 to 1903. He was mayor for a final term from 1910 to 1911. He was also a member of Lancashire County Council from 1892 to 1898, for Castleton and Milnrow. He first stood for election to the House of Commons at a by-election in May 1895 in Warwick and Leamington, where he lost to the Liberal Unionist candidate, Alfred Lyttelton. He did not contest the seat at the subsequent general election in July 1895, when Lyttelton was returned unopposed. However, two years later he stood at the by-election in November 1897 in the Middleton division of Lancashire, following the death of the Conservative MP Thomas Fielden. Duckworth won the seat by only 300 votes (less than 3% of the total), but at the 1900 general election he was unseated by an even smaller margin by the Conservative candidate Edward Brocklehurst Fielden, his predecessor's brother. Duckworth returned to Parliament six years later, at the 1906 general election, when he won one of the two seats in the Borough of Stockport. However, he did not defend the seat at the January 1910 general election, by which time he was 70 years old. He was knighted on 18 December 1908 and died in 1915, aged 75. Sir James Duckworth was a committed Christian, a lifelong member of the United Methodist Free Churches (UMFC). He attended Baillie Street Chapel and later Castlemere, William Street Chapel when