John Ashton Yates

John Ashton Yates FRSA (1781 - 1 November 1863) was a British politician.

Yates's father, John Yates, was a Unitarian minister who served at Kaye Street Chapel in Liverpool, later known as Paradise Street Chapel; his mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of a merchant, John Brooks Ashton. One of his brothers was Joseph Brooks Yates, merchant and antiquary.

Yates was educated by a Unitarian minister, William Shepherd, at Gateacre, Liverpool, before he studied commerce at the Presbyterian-run Manchester Academy. His teachers included Thomas Barnes, the minister of Cross Street Chapel, and John Dalton. He was particularly close to Dalton, who had previously taught his father at the Academy and with whom he went on a walking tour.

He was apprenticed to the firm run by the William Rathbone family. One of his contemporaries there was Thomas Bolton, who also had a political career ahead of him.

Yates became a merchant and broker in Liverpool. The firm of Yates and Cox, iron merchants and nail manufacturers, was a partnership with his brothers, Richard Vaughan Yates, who established Prince's Park, Liverpool, and Pemberton Heywood Yates.

He was the Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) for County Carlow, Ireland, between 1837–1841. He stood unsuccessfully for the Bolton seat in Lancashire at the 1832 general election and lost his Carlow seat in the 1841 contest.

Yates was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1820 and wrote several books related to the Corn Laws and economics. Despitehis own involvement in slavery, he also wrote in opposition to it. His interest in old paintings and engravings, which he collected, was influenced by William Roscoe, who was another Unitarian MP from Liverpool. He was also a member of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society from its origin in 1812; their obituary described his art collection as "one of the finest private minor collections in the metropolis".

He was connected with several railways, in 1830 he was one of the initial proprietors of the Wigan Branch Railway, the Manchester and Leeds Railway and in 1836 the Blackwall Railway.

Probably a member of Renshaw Street Chapel in Liverpool, Yates served as president of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association in 1841 and 1856. Throughout his life, he retained a connection to the Academy, which became known as Manchester New College; he served as an official of it.

Yates' daughter, Mary Ellen Yates, was the second wife of Robert Needham Philips, another member of parliament, whose first wife had been a cousin to his second, being the daughter of Yates' brother, Joseph. It was at Philips' house in Manchester that he died on 1 November 1863, having suffered from a declining memory for the previous two years.

William James, who was also an MP, was his cousin.