Sir Edward Baines (1800-1890), journalist, politician, educationist

Sir Edward Baines was born in Leeds in May 1800, son of Edward Baines (1774-1848) and his wife Charlotte. In 1815 he began a career in journalism working for his father's newspaper, the Leeds Mercury, first as a reporter then editor from 1818. He went into partnership with his father in 1827.

He was an MP for Leeds from 1859 to 1874, after which he did much work campaigning for social reform movements. Baines was a founding member of the Leeds Literary and Philosophical Society and he became a significant figure in the formation of the Yorkshire College of Science in 1884, which became the University of Leeds in 1904. Baines was the benefactor for the building of the Baines Wing, a Grade II listed building on the University of Leeds campus.

Both Edward Baines and his father were trustees of the Leeds General Cemetery Company from its early days in the 1830s and they were both buried there.

He married Martha Blackburn (d. 1881) in 1829, with whom he had seven children. Baines died in 1890.