Park Lane House Park Lane Broughton Park

Italianate villa in the neighbourhood of Manchester for William Slater - Colvin

William Slater (1796–1889), solicitor, was born at Somerville, Pendlebury, on 18 December 1796, the son of a cotton manufacturer. Slater was educated at the private school of the Revd J. Bell in Alderley, Cheshire, and later at another private school near Halifax. In 1815 he was articled to the firm of Sharpe, Eccles and Cririe, of King Street, Manchester, and was admitted as an attorney in the Hilary term of 1820. He became a partner in the firm in 1823 (a firm whose founder, William Fox, also a partner in the banking firm of Jones Loyd & Co., left £150,000 on his death).

During his long and successful legal career, Slater dealt with private clients, public bodies, and corporations. According to one of his clients, Sir Charles Shaw, a former police commissioner for Manchester, Slater's talents in conveyancing were generally considered to be without equal in Lancashire. He was solicitor to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and from 1839 to the Manchester and Birmingham Railway. When the two companies became part of the North Western Company in 1847, Slater was one of the few people to be issued with a life pass to travel anywhere on the railway system. In his capacity as solicitor to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, he was present at the opening ceremony of the company on 15 September 1830 and witnessed the first railway accident, which resulted in the death of William Huskisson the tory politician.

As a parliamentary lawyer Slater's formidable legal skills ensured that he was much in demand, and to him was entrusted the legal work connected with the promotion of the Manchester Rectory Division Act of 1850, which he piloted through parliament on behalf of the churchwardens of Manchester. He included the Byrom family of merchants and bankers among his clients, and he also acted as solicitor for the Bridgewater and Clowes estates. He was solicitor to the Wilton family and was a personal friend of Thomas, earl of Wilton. Slater also acted as legal adviser to the Mersey and Irwell Navigation Company, the Old Quay Company, Manchester grammar school, Henshaw's Blind Asylum at Old Trafford, Henshaw's Blue Coat School at Oldham, and a variety of other charities and turnpike trusts. Renowned for his phenomenal memory, in 1885 Slater was called to give evidence before the vice-chancellor of the palatine court of Lancaster regarding certain deeds. This he did viva voce and included all the details as to time, place, and even the room in which certain interviews occurred—events which had happened some forty-five years before.