Sir George Strickland, 7th Baronet MP for Yorkshire in 1831. In 1844 it seems to have been his opposition that was the principal objection to a projected railway joining Bridlington and York, proposed by George Hudson, which would have passed through Boynton; the railway was never built. In 1865, he inherited from Nathaniel Cholmley extensive estates at Whitby, Howsham and North Elmsall. In accordance with the terms of Cholmley's will, Strickland adopted by Royal Licence the surname Cholmley and the arms of Cholmley and Wentworth in place of his own and lived the remaining nine years of his life as Sir George Cholmley. On his
George Hudson long had business interests in the town with some of the property he inherited from his uncle, Matthew Bottrill, being located there. The building of the railway to the town had led Hudson to form and become the chairman of the Whitby Building Company which developed the West Cliff area of the town in the 1850s. In 1865 West Cliff was mortgaged to the NER although Hudson hoped to recover it and start further developments. Hudson returned to Whitby on 11 June 1865 where his opponent was the sitting Liberal MP Harry Thompson. Thompson was also the chairman of the