Ernest Terah Hooley

He achieved wealth and fame by buying promising companies and reselling them to the public at inflated prices, but a prosecution exposed his deceitful practices.

Possibly with the assistance of an inheritance from his mother, Hooley bought Risley Hall in Derbyshire for £5,000 in 1888, and in the following year set himself up as a stockbroker in Nottingham.

[2] The rise in his fortunes coincided with the boom in bicycles that year, and until the 1898 slump in that business he had promoted 26 manufacturers with a total nominal capital of £18.6 million;[4] to impress investors he populated the boards of his companies with members of the aristocracy.

[10] In 1897, Hooley was selected by the Conservative Party as their candidate to contest the parliamentary constituency of Ilkeston, Derbyshire at the next general election.

The public prosecutor Sir Richard Muir, considered him the most attractive personality he encountered in his professional career, writing in his memoirs: "He might have made the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer this country has ever known ... 'The Splendid Bankrupt' certainly had a wonderful way with him.

"[15] However, Hooley's legacy was a string of ruined companies and firms floundering through overcapitalisation and shrunken share values, with the consequent losses for their investors.

He spent a month in Brixton Gaol for contempt of court and later in the same year received a twelve-month sentence for obtaining money on false pretences as part of a land deal.