Robert Perks

Sir Robert William Perks, 1st Baronet (24 April 1849 – 30 November 1934) was a British Liberal politician.

He was the son of George Thomas Perks (1819–1877), a Wesleyan Methodist preacher (who served as minister of Wesley's Chapel from 1862 to 1865). He was educated at Kingswood School and at King's College London (1867–71). Failing to enter the Indian Civil Service, he qualified as a solicitor in 1875 and in 1876 became a partner of Henry Fowler, 1st Viscount Wolverhampton.

He was elected to Parliament at the 1892 general election as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Louth. Perks was a prominent member of the Liberal Imperialists and its successor the Liberal League, in both organisations acting as treasurer.

Perks saw himself as "the member [of Parliament] for Nonconformity" and collaborated closely with Hugh Price Hughes and the leader of the pro-Rosebery Imperialist faction to establish a Nonconformist Parliamentary Council in 1898. In his role as Treasurer of the National Council of Free Churches, he opposed the Education Act 1902, albeit unsuccessfully, but his endeavours played a role in the Liberal victory of 1906.

In 1898, Perks proposed the creation of the Wesleyan Methodist Twentieth Century Fund (also known as the 'One Million Guinea Fund') which aimed to raise one million guineas (£1.1s. or £1.05) to build a church in Central London. The fund had raised £1,073,682 by the time it closed in 1909, part of which was used to purchase the former Royal Aquarium site for the construction of the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster.

He was made a baronet in 1908, and retired from Parliament at the 1910 general election.

In 1932 at the age of 83 Perks was elected vice-president of the Methodist Conference as the man most responsible for Methodist Union.

He died in 1934 aged 85 and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery. His son, Robert Malcolm Mewburn Perks, succeeded him in the baronetcy. His daughter, Edith Mary, married Sir Bertram Allen in 1908.