The Ashton family had been prominent in the cotton and cloth manufacturing industry for many years.

Ashton was elected to the House of Commons for Hyde in 1885 but lost his seat the following year.

That year, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Ashton of Hyde in the County of Chester.

Apart from his political career, Ashton was a Justice of the Peace for Cheshire and Mountfield, East Sussex, and was invested as an Honorary Fellow of Oxford University in 1923.

[1][2] Ashton married Eva Margaret James, daughter of John Lewis and his wife, Jane Ramsden Ashworth, in 1886.