Thomson Hankey

Who was Thomson Hankey?

Thomson Hankey was a British merchant, a banker and a Liberal Party politician.

Hankey was the son of Thomson Hankey from Portland Place in London, and his wife Martha, the daughter of Benjamin Harrison from Clapham Common. He became a merchant in the City of London and a director the Bank of England, serving first as its Deputy Governor and then as its Governor from 1851 to 1853.

At the 1852 general election, Hankey unsuccessfully contested the borough of Boston in Lincolnshire. He then contested the by-election in June 1853 for the City of Peterborough, where he lost by a margin of 21 votes to the Liberal George Hammond Whalley. Whalley had been returned for Peterborough at a by-election in December 1852, but an election petition was lodged and his election was subsequently declared void on 8 June 1853 on the grounds that Whalley had been complicit in the "treating" of voters. After his second by-election win, a further petition was lodged, and a committee of the House of Commons found that Whalley's election was invalid, because he had been disqualified as a result of the previous void election.