Robert Ascroft
Robert Ascroft , JP. MP, was a prominent Lancashire solicitor and an English politician. He was one of the two Members of Parliament for Oldham between 1895 and his death, as a member of the Conservative Party. He was known as the "Workers' Friend" and after his death a public subscription enabled a statue of him to be erected in Alexandra Park, Oldham.
Robert Ascroft is mentioned in Chapter XVII of Sir Winston Churchill's book 'My Early Life'. In the seventeenth Chapter, entitled 'Oldham', Mr Churchill recalls the day where Mr Ascroft, MP for Oldham, talked to him about running the constituency together. Oldham was a two-member constituency and evidently Mr Ascroft believed the young Winston -a war hero and celebrity- was ripe for the job.
