John Ralph Fenwick (14 November 1761 – 11 January 1855) was an English physician in Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham City.
Well-connected, he was a militia officer and magistrate, on close terms with the Whig aristocratic leaders and politicians of the north-east of England.
[2] His background was brought up much later, in a by-election campaign of 1826 when the matter was topical, by George Silvertop speaking for Lord Howick.
[7] In early 1794 he wrote to Wyvill, expressing confidence that universal suffrage had wide popular appeal, and optimistic about the troubles the administration had with disaffection.
[12] In 1807 at a Durham County Meeting, Fenwick opposed an address to the King, after the fall of the Ministry of All the Talents.
[14] Fenwick was a long-standing friend and political correspondent of Charles Grey, who as Prime Minister pushed through the Reform Bill 1832.
[15] The wait was a long one, and the Newcastle group of Fenwick, Charles William Bigge, Thomas Headlam and James Losh tired of Grey's tentative approach, by the 1810s.
[19][2] In 1822 the campaign of Thomas Joplin, from Newcastle, against the monopoly of the Bank of England, gained support in County Durham.
[21] The national Anti-Slavery Society ran campaigns to end British slavery in 1823 and 1826, in which James Losh and Fenwick spoke at local meetings.
[24] Shipperdson, Fenwick and William Nicholas Darnell, rector of Stanhope, made up the Society's initial committee.