Derry's 30-year MP Sir Robert Alexander Ferguson - Our Space 35
Sir Robert Alexander Ferguson (1796 –1860) was a Whig, then Liberal, MP for Derry 1830-1860. His father was Sir Andrew Ferguson, banker, mayor of Derry 1796-1798, and one of the two Londonderry City MPs 1798-1800 in the old Irish Parliament.
Robert’s mother Elizabeth was a daughter of Robert Alexander, merchant, of Boom Hall. Robert became Sir Robert in 1808 when his father died in an accident caused by his driving ‘with incautious rapidity over a bridge wanting some repairs’ at Moville, County Donegal.
A Cambridge MA, Robert became Colonel of the Londonderry Militia in 1839 and Lord Lieutenant of Co Londonderry 1840-1860.
He became High Sheriff of Donegal in 1818 and of Tyrone in 1825, then was elected MP for Londonderry City in 1830. His election was declared void; but he was re-elected at the 1831 by-election and in 1835, 1837, 1841, 1847 and 1859 until his death in 1860 aged 63.
In 1843, two years before the calamitous Famine, Ferguson was appointed to a UK government commission “for enquiring into the state of the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land in Ireland”.
Politically a reformer, he is understood to have voted in favour of the 1832 Great Reform Act and the unsuccessful 1859 Reform Bill - to extend voting rights away from the aristocracy of which Robert was clearly a part.
He never married. His house “The Farm” stood where Kingsfort housing development is now at Culmore Road. He is commemorated by his statue in Brooke Park and a stained glass window in St Columb’s Cathedral.