William Harker was a wool merchant, banker and Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 politician who represented Ripon

Ripon (UK Parliament constituency)

Ripon was a constituency sending members to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until 1983, centred on the city of Ripon in North Yorkshire.-History:...

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Harker was born at Pateley Bridge

Pateley Bridge

Pateley Bridge is a small market town in Nidderdale in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, on the River Nidd.It has the oldest sweet shop in England and is the home of the Nidderdale Museum....

, near Harrogate

Harrogate

Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. The town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters, RHS Harlow Carr gardens, and Betty's Tea Rooms. From the town one can explore the nearby Yorkshire Dales national park. Harrogate originated in the 17th...

, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, the son of Robert and Nancy Harker. He made a fortune in the wool trade at Bradford

Bradford

Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

, and became a director of the Bradford Banking Company which was later merged into Barclays Bank. In civic matters, he helped in the development of improved water supply and sewage disposal in Bradford.
Harker was elected MP

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 Ripon in 1885 but lost the seat in 1886.

Harker died in 1905, and in 1906 his daughter Gertrude had repaired the old Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, which had been deconsecrated and left as a ruin and established the Harker Memorial in Pateley Bridge Cemetery. Other family members named on the monument include his son, Robert who was killed in action in France in 1915 and a descendant Frederick, who was killed in action at sea in 1940.

The Harker memorial was in a neglected state in 2006, but it was discovered that there was a forgotten Harker Trust Fund which had been set up to maintain both the memorial and churchyard. Members of the National Federation of Cemetery Friends began to restore the monument.

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