Sir Jonathan Edmund Backhouse, 1st Baronet (November 15, 1849 – July 27, 1918) was a British banker.

Backhouse was a director of Backhouse's Bank

Backhouse's Bank

Backhouse's Bank of Darlington was founded in 1774 by James Backhouse , a Quaker flax dresser and linen manufacturer, and his sons Jonathan and James ....

 the family bank in Darlington

Darlington

Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, part of the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It lies on the small River Skerne, a tributary of the River Tees, not far from the main river. It is the main population centre in the borough, with a population of 97,838 as of 2001...

, County Durham, which merged with Barclays Bank, of which he became a director. He was created a baronet

Baronet

A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...

 in 1901 .

He served as a Justice of the Peace

Justice of the Peace

A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...

 (J.P.) for Durham

Durham

Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...

 and the North Riding of Yorkshire

North Riding of Yorkshire

The North Riding of Yorkshire was one of the three historic subdivisions of the English county of Yorkshire, alongside the East and West Ridings. From the Restoration it was used as a Lieutenancy area. The three ridings were treated as three counties for many purposes, such as having separate...

. He was for many years an active Liberal Unionist . In 1881 he was resident at The Rookery, Middleton Tyas

Middleton Tyas

Middleton Tyas is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. It is located nearby to Scotch Corner.-History:The name Middleton is of Anglo-Saxon origin and it means middle-farm or middle-settlement...

, North Yorkshire.

He was the son of Edmund Backhouse

Edmund Backhouse (MP)

Edmund Backhouse , banker, J.P. on the County Durham and for the North Riding of Yorkshire benches. He was Member of Parliament for Darlington.-Family:...

, Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Darlington

Darlington (UK Parliament constituency)

Darlington is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

, and his wife, Juliet (born Fox). He married Florence, daughter of Sir John Salisbury-Trelawny, 9th Baronet

Sir John Salusbury-Trelawny, 9th Baronet

Sir John Salusbury Salusbury-Trelawny, 9th Baronet , was a British Liberal politician.Salusbury-Trelawny sat as Member of Parliament for Tavistock between 1843 and 1852 and 1857 and 1865 and for Cornwall East between 1868 and 1874....

. They had six children (five sons and a daughter), most of whom distinguished themselves, though in different ways. Of these, the most famous was the fourth son, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Backhouse

Roger Backhouse

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Roland Charles Backhouse GCB GCVO CMG was an Admiral of the Fleet in the Royal Navy and First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty from 1938 to 1939.-Family:...

 who was First Sea Lord

First Sea Lord

The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...

 from 1938 to 1939. Their eldest son, the reclusive sinologist and historian Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet

Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet

Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet was a British oriental scholar and linguist whose work exerted a powerful influence on the Western view of the last decades of the Qing Dynasty. Since his death, however, it has been established that some of his sources were forged, though it is not clear...

, became the most notorious following the publication in 1976 of a biography by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton

Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper was an English historian of early modern Britain and Nazi Germany. He was made a life peer by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, choosing the title Baron Dacre of Glanton.-Early life and education:...

, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, in which he was exposed as a serial forger and confidence trickster.

Sources

• Who was who
• The Times, July 29, 1918, pg. 9; Issue 41854; col F Obituary "Sir J. E. Backhouse".