Thomas Wilde Powell (1818–1897) was an English solicitor and stockbroker, now remembered as a patron of architects and artists.
He was the son of James Powell, a bank clerk living in 1830 in Briggate, Leeds in Yorkshire, and his wife Christiana Wilde, daughter of Theophilus Wilde, He entered Leeds Grammar School in early 1833, where the headmaster was Joseph Holmes, and his rival Edwin Gilpin, who became Archdeacon of Nova Scotia.
[1] Closing down his stockbroking business, Powell spent some time in 1849 with family at Holme Lodge in Swaledale, a few miles from Thirsk.
[13] When the Reading Railroad's financial troubles came to a head in 1880, Powell corresponded with Franklin B. Gowen, on behalf of the committee of London bondholders chaired by Lord Cairns.
Powell was acting largely for McCalmont Brothers & Co. of London, who had acquired a controlling interest the Railroad, and had fallen out with Gowen in mid-1880, leading to his temporary departure.
Powell brought up matters of outside dealings of Adolph E. Borie, and his brother-in-law H. Pratt McKean, and Gowen was unable to accept the imputations of dishonesty in these supporters.
[17] With other bankers and financiers, Heseltine, Powell & Co. acquired natural resources in the industrialising West Virginia.