ABSTRACT
Watkin the railway magnate, Sir John Brunner the Northwich chemical, manufacturer, John Laird and David Maclver the Birkenhead shipbuilders, Thomas Brocklebank the Liverpool shipowner, Colonel Brocklehurst the Macclesfield silk manufacturer, and a host of others. In 1886 the Daresbury division Bench was Very similar in composition to the boards of directors of the two principal Warrington companies, Greenall’s Brewery and Parr’s Bank’, while in the Wirrall division a third of the magistrates travelled daily to work in Birkenhead and Liverpool.1 This silent revolution in county government in the forty years before the democratic reform of the 1888 County Councils Act registered the quiet absorption into county society of the new aristocracy of business.
