Sir (Joseph) John Jarvis, 1st Baronet (25 March 1876 – 3 October 1950)[1] was a British industrialist and philanthropist who became a Conservative Party politician.
He sat in the House of Commons from 1935 to 1950 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Guildford in Surrey,[2] but is best known for his philanthropic and industrial efforts to assist the town of Jarrow in the economic depression of the 1930s.
[6] In early 1934 he was elected as High Sheriff of Surrey, and shortly afterwards visited Jarrow, a shipbuilding town on Tyneside which had been particularly badly hit by the Great Depression.
[7] Jarvis also brought unemployed miners from Jarrow to Hascombe Court, his country estate in Surrey, where they built a Japanese style water and rock garden.
[10] However, on the following day Jarrow MP Ellen Wilkinson praised Jarvis's support for the town but criticised "his over-sanguine optimism", noting that the employment generated had been small-scale and temporary.
[11] Wilkinson complained that charitable works were inadequate, and that a solution to the problem required addressing the underlying cause, which was the forced closure of the shipyard.
[14] Brooke announced in February that he had resigned from the Liberal Party, and intended this time to stand as National candidate "without prefix or suffix".
In September 1951 a plaque was placed in Jarrow Town Hall commemorating Sir John and the Surrey Fund in connection with the installation of a chiming clock.