Sir Frederick William Chance (26 December 1852 – 31 August 1932)[1] was a British Liberal Party[2] politician from Carlisle. He sat in the House of Commons from 1905 to 1910.
Background
Chance was from a long-established family of businessmen and politicians in Carlisle. He ran the family's cotton-manufacturing firm in the town, Ferguson Brothers,[3] and served as Mayor of Carlisle in 1904, before becoming a member of Cumberland County Council.[3] Both his grandfather Joseph Ferguson and his uncle[3] Robert Ferguson had been Members of Parliament (MPs) for the borough of Carlisle and he was a brother-in-law of Sir Henry Seton-Karr,[3] the MP for St Helens.
Carlisle's MP since 1886 was William Court Gully, who served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1895 to 1905. Ill-health forced Gully to resign as Speaker in May 1905,[4] and at the by-election in July 1905 Chance was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Carlisle.[5] He was re-elected unopposed in 1906,[6] and held the seat until the January 1910 general election,[1] when he did not stand again.[2]
He was High Sheriff of Cumberland in 1915.[7]