{{short description|British politician}} {{For|the Welsh-born English cricketer|Charles Cowan (cricketer)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Charles Cowan | image = Charles_Cowan.png | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1801|06|07}} | birth_place = Crail, Fife | death_date = 1889 (aged 87-88) | death_place = Scotland | occupation = Paper-maker (1819–1847)<br />Edinburgh MP (1847–1859) }} '''Charles Cowan''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRSE}} (7 June 1801 – 1889) was a Scottish politician and paper-maker.
==Life== He was born in Charlotte Street in Edinburgh on 7 June 1801, the son of Alexander Cowan, papermaker and philanthropist, and Elizabeth Hall, daughter of George Hall a merchant in Crail in Fife. He was the eldest of eleven children, eight of whom survived until adulthood.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=47109|title=Cowan, Charles|first=Ian |last=Machin}}</ref> He was educated at Penicuik Parish School 1806-11 and then the High School in Edinburgh. He then attended university both in Edinburgh (1814–17) and Geneva (1817-18).<ref name=RoySoc />
He then followed his father into the paper-making industry.
He wrote the article on papermaking for the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.<ref>[http://www.penicuikarts.org/lookingback/paper.htm Six generations of Cowans at the Valleyfield Mills, Penicuik Community Arts Association] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060101110825/http://www.penicuikarts.org/lookingback/paper.htm |date=1 January 2006 }}</ref> In May 1819, he was sent to learn the papermaking trade at St Mary Cray, Kent, where he worked at either Lay's or Hall's mill on the River Cray.<ref name=Joy>[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~barrowsr/Stories/JoynsosnPaperMill/Paper_making_by_Joynsons_in_St_Mary_Cray_-_email_from_Charles_Joynson.htm Rootsweb]</ref>
In the general election of June 1847, he ran as a Radical free-trade candidate in Edinburgh, defeating the incumbent Whig Thomas Babington Macaulay. His initial election was declared null and void due to his being a party to a government contract, but he was re-elected in a second election that December.<ref name="OliverBoyd1850">{{cite book|title=New Edinburgh Almanac and National Repository|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6SYOAAAAQAAJ|year=1850|publisher=Oliver & Boyd|location=Edinburgh}}</ref> He was re-elected in the 1852 election in second place on the ballot, and returned unopposed in the 1857 election. He did not stand in 1859, and retired from politics.
In 1863 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.<ref name=RoySoc /> He then lived at ''Mount Grange'' a large house in the Grange on the south side of Edinburgh.<ref>{{cite journal|title=List of the Ordinary Fellows of the Society|journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh|volume=26|issue=1|year=2013|pages=xi–xiii|issn=0080-4568|doi=10.1017/S008045680002648X|s2cid=251579034 }}</ref>
He died at ''Wester Lea'', a villa in Murrayfield, Edinburgh on 29 March 1889.<ref name=RoySoc />
==Family== He married Catharine Menzies (d.1871) in 1824.
==Other accomplishments== * In 1838 he founded the Royal Caledonian Curling Club * For the year 1864-65 he served as president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts<ref name=RoySoc />
==References== ;Notes <references>
<ref name=RoySoc>{{citation|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|location=Edinburgh|first1=C D|last1=Waterston|first2=A|last2=Macmillan Shearer|date=July 2006|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=17 November 2015|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
</references>
==External links== * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-charles-cowan | Charles Cowan }}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Edinburgh | years = 1847–1859 | with = William Gibson-Craig to 1852 | with2 = Thomas Babington Macaulay 1852–56 | with3 = Adam Black from 1856 | before = William Gibson-Craig<br />Thomas Babington Macaulay | after = Adam Black<br />James Moncreiff }} {{s-end}} {{Authority control}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2017}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowan, Charles}} Category:1801 births Category:1889 deaths Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Edinburgh constituencies Category:UK MPs 1847–1852 Category:UK MPs 1852–1857 Category:UK MPs 1857–1859 Category:People from St Mary Cray