Robert Baxter of Doncaster and Westminster (1802–1889): Lawyer, Businessman, Tory and Millennialist

In the course of his long career, the solicitor Robert Baxter (1802–1889), demonstrated what W. G. Gladstone described as his ‘remarkable powers’ in a crowded career of many facets that spanned more than half a century from the 1820s to the 1880s. He exerted a notable impact upon a number of aspects of the regional economy of Yorkshire, particularly in railway and colliery development, and was active in regional politics. He also exercised an influence beyond the region, through his creation of a leading metropolitan law firm which specialised in the promotion of railway and other local Bills and acted as national agent of the Conservative Party. Beyond the world of business, he possessed an intense, if idiosyncratic, Christian faith which expressed itself both in practical ways and in a stream of publications. This article aims to describe these central and closely intertwined preoccupations of a remarkably active life that illuminate several significant aspects of business and belief in Victorian Britain.