Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century
Chapter IV
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CHAPTER IV.
ON THE evening of the 21st of May, 1828, I am comfortably dining
in the coffee-room of a commercial inn at Birmingham, resting for a night after a
day’s coach journey. It is not an exclusive apartment devoted to the class of
travellers then popularly known as “bagmen”; but there are so many great-coats,
whips, and business-looking packages scattered about, that I am well satisfied to have
taken up my quarters amongst the guests who are served the best and charged the least. In
the manufacturing districts I have always found that the society of the
“Commercial-room” is of a superior order to that met with in similar resorts of
the country towns of the South. It is more common in the North for the principals of a firm
to travel, for the twofold object of buying in the cheapest market, and selling in the
dearest. Although I had no trade purposes to accomplish in this journey, I did not shrink
from gaining information amongst men habitually communicative, and, naturally enough,
asking plain questions themselves of a stranger who has come amongst them. Thus, on my
first tour amongst the manufacturing districts, this inquiry has been put to
me,—“Pray, sir, what do you travel in?” “In Useful
Knowledge, sir.” My answer was literally true at Birmingham. I was on my way
to Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, York, Sheffield, Derby, Notting-![]()
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ham
(returning by Birmingham), to organize Local Committees of the Society with which I had
become so intimately connected.
What pleasant remembrances are associated in my mind with journeys—not too
long, and not by night—on the outside of a fast coach. On that May morning, when I was
starting upon an important tour that would demand judgment and energy for the due discharge
of the business with which I was entrusted—and yet a pleasure trip, because disembarrassed
of commercial responsibility—my spirits rose as if the days of anxious drudgery were
overpast. My portfolio was filled with letters of introduction to persons of station and
influence. They would open my way to the best society of these great commercial
communities. I had moreover letters to his manufacturing connexions from a great
millionaire, who in a few years ceased to be a member of our Committee. He came to my
house, and begging, as he seated himself in my private room, that I would also take a seat,
delivered the papers to me with the air of a sovereign giving his credentials to an
ambassador. I did not find them very influential. The new-mown grass of the fields around
Highgate—over which the burnt clay had not yet strode to conquest after conquest—was wooing
the morning sun; the hawthorn hedges were in blossom. We creep up the hill of St. Albans,
which, twelve centuries before, had made the monk of Jarrow poetical about flowery slopes.
We dash along through Dunstable, without the opportunity of resting there to eat a lark, as
was the wont when the bar travelled in post-chaises. We rattle over the rough stones of the
narrow streets of Coventry. In twelve hours we have reached ![]()
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Birmingham. The next morning I am on my way to Liverpool by an early coach. Another ride of
continued enjoyment. The coal-fields and furnaces of Staffordshire are not picturesque, but
to me they had the charm of novelty. The Lyme was not to be compared to my own, familiar
Thames, but the bustle and dinginess of its banks had their associations with the beautiful
and useful products of the Potteries. Warrington was worthy of notice in connexion with
some of the works of the Duke of Bridgwater, and his
famous engineering wonders that had then no rivals in the grandeur of railway engineering.
The bright day has softened into twilight before I am in Liverpool. Twenty-four hours upon
the road from London to Liverpool in 1828; five hours and a half in 1864! Wondrous gain for
the accomplishment of the chief objects of human industry—for cheapening and equalizing the
prices of commodities—for bringing the producer and the consumer together in the
world’s great markets—for rooting up local prejudices, and making one family of
twenty millions of people. But—vain regret—I shall never more rejoice, as old Sam Johnson rejoiced, in the independent ride of a hundred
miles in a post-chaise, or, what was more to my fancy, the privilege, well purchased for
half-a-crown, of occupying the box-seat of a “Dart,” or a
“Regulator,” or a “Defiance,” or an “Express”;
interested in the rapid change of horses; listening to the coachman’s estimate of the
squire or the parson, as we gallop through many a pretty village; well satisfied with the
quarter of an hour for dinner, which may be judiciously prolonged ten minutes by inviting
the lord of the box to a glass after his rapid meal; and, to complete the after-![]()
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noon’s delight, a cigar in the balmy air, without what Burns describes, with reference to another sin, “the
hazard of concealing,”—an enjoyment of latter days not altogether safe, even though
the railway porter should have suspended the exercise of two of his five senses.
The Liverpool of 1864 is as different in its physical aspects from the
Liverpool of 1828, as it was at that time a much grander and richer place than the
“quondam village,” described by Lord
Erskine,—“now fit to be a proud capital for any empire in the
world, which has started up, like an enchanted palace, even in the memory of living
men.” But Liverpool can scarcely be said to have risen “like an
exhalation.” It has ever been growing. The “Lyrpole” described by
Leland as “a paved town which hath but
a chapel,” became an independent parish with a church in 1699, and in a
century and a half of progress had more than a hundred places of worship. Its six thousand
inhabitants at the beginning of the eighteenth century mounted up to four hundred and forty
thousand in the sixth decade of the nineteenth. But the Liverpool which I looked upon in
1828 was in a state of transition. It was a place for commercial adventurers of every kind;
but its commerce had scarcely then assumed the magnificent proportions of its great
characteristic features. Twenty-two years only had passed since the rival of Bristol in the
slave trade had a hundred and eleven vessels employed in that detestable traffic; and when
the Whigs, during their short term of power, effected its abolition, there were many who
thought that the sun of Liverpool’s prosperity was set. The Cotton Trade ![]()
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was to do a vast deal more for the great port of the Mersey than the
trade in human flesh—far more even than its tobacco trade. But the commerce of Liverpool
was in its infancy thirty-six years ago. Steam had surprisingly enlarged its traffic with
Ireland; but no steam-vessel had yet crossed the Atlantic. Canals had opened cheap
communication with the great seats of manufacture; but railways were not as yet.
Nevertheless this busy place, scarcely second to London in its commercial activity,
presented to me a series of remarkable objects, as novel as they were interesting and
suggestive.
My especial business, however, was with the intellectual and moral aspects
of Liverpool, rather than with its material characteristics. There were new docks forming;
new streets and squares springing up all around the old town; the first stone of a new
Custom-house had just been laid. There were then large open places, now covered with shops
and warehouses. There was no rival on the Cheshire shore. Birkenhead was a village of a few
straggling houses. In Liverpool there was growth rapid and decided. On the opposite bank of
the Mersey there was scarcely yet a promise of growth. On a Sunday evening I walked amidst
holiday folks through green lanes which have given place to long lines of quays and docks.
There was one work which for me had a fascinating interest—the tunnel of the
railway which was then in course of formation. I saw the blasting of the solid rock near
the shaft at which I entered. I was led on many wearisome paces to another shaft, at which
I was to mount to daylight. I was far higher up the steep ascent than at my place of
entrance. I ![]()
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had been walking in the tunnel beneath houses that stood
as securely as before, sewers that still emptied themselves, gas-pipes that still conveyed
their unfailing light. Such a triumph of engineering was then a wonder. When it was
proposed, wise men shook their heads. They were still doubtful whether the conveyance of
goods could be cheapened by the railway to Manchester. It had not entered into the
conception of the projectors of the railway, that they could carry passengers a journey of
thirty miles in an hour. The locomotive was as yet little more than a dream.
The gentlemen at Liverpool to whom I had letters of introduction were active
and zealous promoters of education. A Local Association in connection with the Useful
Knowledge Society was formed, of which Dr. Traill,
an eminent physician, was the chairman. I learnt through him that many individuals who at
first affected to underrate cheap philosophy had begun to alter
their tone; and that the mechanics connected with the Liverpool Institution read and
purchased the Treatises. “We have had,” he said in a letter, “a
few clerical opponents, and one lately preached against Mechanics’ Institutions,
and the diffusion of philosophical instruction, so as to be accessible to the lower
orders. The London University is usually coupled with these obnoxious innovations in
the minds of such alarmists, as a part of a great system that is to overthrow the altar
and the throne.” Of our Local Association, Mr. J.
Mulleneux, a most intelligent and ardent young man, was the treasurer. In
the formation of this Association I had to experience, at breakfasts and dinners, the
abundance of Liverpool hospitality. The tone of ![]()
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society, with a slight
touch of ostentation, was refined and intellectual. Roscoe had made it understood that literary acquirements were not
incompatible with mercantile pursuits. I had seen the leading men of Liverpool upon
’Change, and I had rejoiced to view the evidence of then. tastes in their libraries
and pictures. But there was no exercise of hospitality that gave me more pleasure than that
I derived from a visit to the Rev. W. Shephard, at
Gatacre. Here he received a few pupils, and strove to make them happy as well as learned.
He delighted in his pretty garden and his valuable collection of books. His dinner was
plain but excellent. He was full of ready humour and ever-present cheerfulness. Many an
anecdote did he tell me of political and literary men—of Canning and Brougham when they were
candidates for the representation of Liverpool—of Roscoe, and of
Hazlitt, who often came to see him. He was an
ardent and somewhat unsparing Whig partisan,—I should rather say a partisan in liberal
politics. His wit, his eloquence, were necessary occasionally in Liverpool, where some men
were crying “No Popery”; and others—amongst whom was a contributor to
the same “Annual” in which Mr. Shephard wrote—considered
“universal education a new and hazardous experiment.” Upon the whole
I had a very pleasant visit to Liverpool. I had talked with men of marked ability, besides
those I have named,—with Mr. Panizzi; with Mr. Rushton, then a rising local barrister, who had the
tribute of Cobbett to his eloquence as
“Roaring Ned.” I formed an intimacy or two that was
lasting, such as that of Mr. Ashton Yates. I had
plenty of employment, and I looked upon a world different from that ![]()
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to
which I had been accustomed. I fear that I did not deaden my sense of enjoyment by
penetrating into the dwellings of the Liverpool poor—into those Cellars which were then its
opprobrium, and which are still, they say, as disgraceful as the Labourers’ Cottages
of the South.
My next scene of action was Manchester. It was not an inviting place for a
stranger to wander about in, but I soon found willing guides and cordial friends. It was
not always very easy to interest the busy mill-owners in the objects for which I came
amongst them. Some were too absorbed in their ledgers to hear long explanations. Others
were wholly indifferent to matters which had no relation to the business of their lives. I
persevered; and chiefly by the exertions of a very earnest man, Mr. George William Wood (who became the first member for Manchester in the
Reformed Parliament), a Local Association was formed on the 6th of June. Mr.
Wood was its Chairman, Mr. Benjamin
Heywood its Treasurer, and a most energetic solicitor, Mr. Winstanley, its Secretary. Names famous in Manchester
Commerce are to be found in the List of the Committee, which is before me—Ewart, Greg,
Houldsworth, Kennedy, Crossley, Sharp; men of
science, Dr. Henry, Dr.
Charles Henry, Dr. Kay. Dissent was
represented by two members; but the Established Church sent no clergyman amongst us. I was
requested to call upon some dozen gentlemen of the number chosen, for the purpose of
answering questions and meeting objections. Some I saw at their factories; where I was
shown all the wonders of their machinery. I walked home with some to their villas, to
partake that plenteous meal of the North which is called ![]()
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tea. The
dinner of Manchester was at one o’clock, except on occasions of ceremony. The
contrast between the hospitality of Liverpool and Manchester was most striking. I am not
sure that I did not prefer the simplicity of the one to the display of the other. On the
5th of June Mr. Brougham had given “The
Schoolmaster” as a toast at a dinner of the London Mechanics’
Institution. It was a watchword when I went about with my friends to advocate the Diffusion
of Knowledge.
When I visited Manchester in 1828, five years were to elapse before children
and young persons working in factories would be protected by law from working an
unreasonable number of hours, and when Government Inspectors would watch over the
preservation of their health and enforce the necessity for their education. The first
Factory Act did not come into operation till January, 1834. It may well be imagined,
therefore, that in the mills I looked upon male and female children, from seven years of
age till seventeen (the employment of children under nine years was not then prohibited),
who, scarcely coming under the cognizance of the masters,—for such children were subject to
the control of the spinners,—were growing up in bodily weakness, in ignorance, and in vice.
There was then little of kindly intercourse between the employers and the employed. The
means of mental improvement for adults were very limited. A Mechanics’ Institute and
a Mechanics’ and Apprentices’ Library were indeed established in 1826. The
“Athenæum” was built several years later. It was remarked in 1842, that there
was no public park or green in which the labouring population could enjoy healthy exercise
and ![]()
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recreation. “The Peel Park,” the first of those free
pleasure-grounds which have removed this disgrace from Manchester, was not opened till
1846. So rare was any endeavour to advance the condition of the workers, to promote their
innocent enjoyments, to cherish and instruct their children in the spirit of a common
humanity, that when two letters to Mr. Horner,
printed in a periodical work of 1840, recorded what had been done in a new mill in 1832,
erected near Manchester by Messrs. Greg, there was a good deal of
incredulity as to the probable results of such a deviation from the usual course of
neglect. These gentlemen had built cottages for the operatives; they had attached a garden
to each house; they had established Sunday-schools; they had arranged out-door exercises
for the hours of leisure; they had provided hot and cold baths; they had evening parties,
to which the young people were invited by their employers. This solitary example soon had
its imitators. A factory, whether for cotton, linen, or woollen fabrics, is not now a
region especially suited for the cultivation of all the suspicions and hatreds that in
former times made the relations between the capitalist and the labourer the most dangerous
aspect of our social state. In November, 1834, Mr.
Rickards, the factory inspector of the Yorkshire and Lancashire district,
thus described its people:—“In regarding the population of what is commonly called
the principal manufacturing district, we are forcibly struck with its vast importance
in a national point of view; its condensation within limited spots; its consequent
means of free intercommunication; the intelligence, energy, and activity of many of its
members, with the coarse low habits ![]()
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of the general mass; from the
want of sound, moral, and religious education, the slaves of vice, prejudice, and
passion; easily excited by factious clamour as to real or supposed grievances, and
formidable in all such cases from their numerical and united strength; the bond of
union between masters and servants feebly knit, and resembling more the animosity of
adverse interests than the salutary influence of the one class, with satisfied
subordination on the part of the other.” Had this condition of society
continued in Lancashire till the cotton famine came to test the morality and intelligence
of its half million of factory workers, and the Christian tempers of their employers, we
may ask where we should have been in 1864!
In the factories of Manchester I had entered upon a new stage of
self-education. I had previously seen nothing of machinery, beyond the Printing machine,
whose gradual improvement and capabilities I had been watching with more than common
interest. My curiosity was roused to follow and understand, as far as I could, the great
principles of the wondrous inventions by which all the processes connected with the
spinning and weaving cotton were rapidly and cheaply accomplished. They dwelt in my mind,
and gave precision to my language when I wrote “The Results of Machinery” in December, 1830.
When I described the invention of Arkwright as
“the substitution of rollers for fingers,” I had seen the marvellous
operation in a state of improvement to which every day added something new, but in which
the principle was ever retained. When I asked in that book, how many, even of the best
informed, knew that in the cotton manufacture invention has been at work “to make
machines, that make machines, to ![]()
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make the cotton
thereon,” I had seen the “reed-making machine,” and the
“card-making machine,”—and I was enabled minutely to describe their automatic
operations. I left Manchester with a grateful feeling that I had there learnt much which I
should not readily forget. The power-loom was of comparatively recent introduction when I
first visited Manchester; but my conviction of the impossibility of the hand-loom weavers
maintaining an unequal competition, taught me to know that the time must come when the
painful strife would be ended, and the manual workers with the rude implements of past ages
would be the skilled watchers of the steam-impelled shuttle. This absorption of the one
class into the other was taking place, even in the year 1828.
In my various conversations with the intelligent manufacturers of
Manchester, and through the evidence of my own senses, I learnt to estimate the benefits of
that relaxation of the system of Protection for native industry which was just beginning to
operate. Huskisson’s measure for removing
prohibitory duties upon foreign silks had been in force two years. The echo was still heard
throughout the country of the prophecy of ruin and starvation to fall upon hundreds and
thousands “for the support of an abstract theory.” In Manchester, silk
mills were springing up, that would furnish new and profitable employment to hundreds and
thousands. At the close of the Session of 1828—about six weeks after I had looked upon the
manifestation of what a free-trade policy might accomplish—Mr.
Charles Grant had said in the House of Commons—“It has been
admitted on all hands that if the old machinery were ![]()
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adhered to,
it would be impossible to compete with foreign rivals. Very recently only the spirit of
enterprise and improvement that marks our other manufactures has exercised its
influence upon that of silk. New establishments have started up in different parts of
the kingdom; at Cardiff and at Macclesfield—while at Manchester they have risen like
exhalations.” At Manchester, also, I learnt to estimate the enormous mischief
of Excise duties in their retardation, if not destruction, of profitable industry. I
visited some of the dye-works and print-works. There were ingenious processes to be
seen—the beginnings of the triumphs of chemical science; artists were engraving blocks and
cylinders; but there was an incubus upon the manufacture pressing upon its vitality, in the
shape of threepence halfpenny a square yard levied upon all printed calicoes of whatever
quality. It was a tax bearing as hardly upon the servant-maid’s coarse-patterned
cotton gown as upon her lady’s flowery muslin. The exciseman was in the print-works
at all hours. The important secrets of the trade could not be concealed from him. The
operation of printing could not be commenced till the officer had measured the white cloth;
and not a piece of printed goods could be sent away till the officer had stamped it. Of the
impost which produced 2,000,000l., only 600,000l. found its way to the Exchequer. This oppressive tax was one of the first to be
swept away by a more enlightened fiscal policy. It was wholly abolished in 1831. The excise
regulations were the great bar to experiment and improvement. In twenty years after the
removal of the duty, such was the progress of mechanical invention and the application of
science, that upon the same premises, with ![]()
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the same amount of labour
and with the same expenditure of capital, double the quantity of cloths were printed which
were printed previous to the removal of the duty. I had learnt at Manchester a lesson as to
the effects of excessive taxation and vexatious supervision which I might some day apply to
the paper manufacture.
At Manchester, in 1828, I witnessed the first development of that public
spirit which, in its gradual expansion, produced the “Exhibition of Art
Treasures” in 1857. “The Manchester Institution” was in course of
erection. Those who professed to believe that the absorbing pursuits of manufacturing
capitalists would shut out the enjoyments of Taste, would have received a lesson from the
words of Mr. Heywood (the Treasurer of our Local
Association) in presenting 500l. to the Institution, for the purpose
of bestowing an annual reward for the most meritorious production of its students.
“Allow me to hope that many who, like myself, can look back with gratitude and
respect to a long connection with the town of Manchester, will, by promoting the
interests of this Institution, endeavour to obtain for the town a character as enduring
as that which, surviving the loss of wealth and commerce, still renders illustrious
those communities where the refinements of Art were, once united to the enterprises of
Trade.”
I next visited Leeds. This busy town had then acquired the reputation,
which it has not altogether lost, of, being the most disagreeable place in England. Until I
had crossed the bridge over the Aire, and, upon the top of the coach, had got into the
broad and open Briggate, I thought that for crookedness, narrowness, and dirt its streets
could compete with any town in ![]()
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England. I perhaps felt this the more
from the pleasurable scene I had experienced when I had escaped from the smoke of
Manchester, to enjoy the hills beyond Oldham. How much more should I have felt it had I
travelled through those exquisite valleys which the railway tourist sees too rapidly on his
way from the metropolis of cotton to the metropolis of woollen. My business, however, in
Leeds was to see men. I made the acquaintance of one whose statue: has been placed in their
noble Town-hall by his grateful townsmen,—Edward
Baines, the founder of “The Leeds
Mercury.” I need not say that he warmly seconded my exertions; for a more
liberal and more earnest man did not live, to carry on the course of political and social
improvement which was then beginning. I visited the great flax factories of the
Marshalls and the Gotts. I saw the
Cloth-hall. I learnt something of the domestic manufacture of the West Riding. I saw cloth
factories, and was thus enabled to describe,—not the machinery by which wool is converted
into cloth with the greatest saving of time and material,—but the great division of
employment in the process of manufacturing wool into cloth. I briefly described, in
“The Rights of
Industry,” published in November, 1831, all the various stages of labour and
skill which I had witnessed. “Between the growth of the fleece of wool and the
completion of a coat by a skilful tailor—who, it is affirmed, puts five-and-twenty
thousand stitches into it,—what an infinite division of employment! what inventions of
science! what exercises of ingenuity! what unwearied application! what painful, and too
often unhealthy labour! And yet, if men are to be clothed well and cheaply, all these
manifold processes ![]()
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are not in vain; and the individual injury in
some branches of the employ is not to be compared with the suffering that would ensue
if cloth were not made at all, or if it were made at such a cost that the most wealthy
only could afford to wear it.” But in my visit to the principal seat of the
woollen manufacture, I could observe how legislation was still at work to neutralize the
efforts of science and ingenuity for enabling others besides the rich to wear a good coat.
For the protection of Agriculture, the Importation of sheep’s wool was subjected to
Customs duties, sometimes high, sometimes moderate, but always oppressive, as much by their
uncertainty as by their positive weight. These were not abolished until 1842. For the
protection of Manufactures, the Exportation of British wool had been prohibited since 1660;
and the absolute prohibition existed until 1825. When the prohibition against the export of
wool was removed, the manufacturers of the West Riding saw what French ingenuity could do
with the long-treasured combing wool of England. They did not sit down in despair; but very
soon produced stuffs that might compete with the most beautiful of the French. When I was
at Leeds in 1828, this emulation was doing for the woollen manufacture what it was doing
for the silk. Then, the wool of Australia was almost unknown. No one could have dreamt that
from a Colonial empire, which few knew otherwise than as the Botany Bay of Convicts, would
come a supply of wool, not only vast in quantity but of so silky a quality as to change the
whole character of the finer fabrics. When South America had sent us the wool of the
Alpaca, manufactories sprang up at Bradford upon a grander scale than even modern Leeds
could ![]()
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rival in its gigantic flax-mills. No one could have believed, in
1828, that woollen rags, then chiefly thrown upon the dunghill to rot for manure, could, by
a judicious combination with wool, be made to produce useful articles of clothing which, if
wool alone were used, would be beyond the means of the great mass of the working community.
“Shoddy,” the commercial name for woollen rags, has given to millions warm and
cheap winter garments and light and pleasant summer ones. If legislators, in the desire to
imitate the benevolence of their predecessors in preserving “the staple” of
manufactures, should prohibit the use of “shoddy,” we are told that one-third
of the woollen mills in the kingdom would be closed, and distress brought upon the West
Riding of Yorkshire as great as that produced in Lancashire from the want of cotton.*
|
* See Mr. Godwin’s Jury Report on Class
XXI. of International Exhibition, 1862.
|
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Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-1792)
Inventor of a spinning machine patented in 1769 and cotton manufacturer.
Edward Baines (1774-1848)
Educated at Hawkshead School, where he was a contemporary of Wordsworth, he was a
printer, proprietor of the
Leeds Mercury, historian, and whig MP for
Leeds (1834).
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Scottish poet and song collector; author of
Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect (1786).
George Canning (1770-1827)
Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a
supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.
Francis Egerton, third duke of Bridgewater (1736-1803)
The son of the first duke (d. 1745); after education at Eton, he succeeded to the title
in 1748 and built first arterial canal in England, the Bridgewater Canal. He was an art
collector.
Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823)
Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending
the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the
short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).
Peter Ewart (1767-1842)
The son of the Revd John Ewart; educated at Edinburgh University, he was a mill-owner and
engineer in Manchester.
Charles Grant, baron Glenelg (1778-1866)
Educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn, he was a member of the
Speculative Society, MP, Irish chief secretary (1818), and colonial secretary (1835),
created Baron Glenelg in 1835.
Samuel Greg the younger (1804-1876)
The son of the mill-owner Samuel Greg (d. 1836); after education at Edinburgh University
he succeeded his father in the firm and was a philanthropist and president of the Society
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
English essayist and literary critic; author of
Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817),
Lectures on the English Poets
(1818), and
The Spirit of the Age (1825).
Charles Henry (1804-1892)
The son of William Henry (d. 1836), educated at Edinburgh University he was, like his
father, a Manchester physician and chemist.
William Henry (1774-1836)
Educated at the Manchester Academy and Edinburgh University, he was a physician and
chemist active in the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.
Sir Benjamin Heywood, first baronet (1793-1865)
The son of the banker Nathaniel Heywood; educated at Glasgow University, he was a
Manchester banker, a founder of the Manchester mechanics' institution, and Whig MP for
Lancashire (1831-32).
Leonard Horner (1785-1864)
Scottish geologist, brother of Francis Horner; he was educated at Edinburgh University
and was secretary of the Geological Society (1810) and fellow of the Royal Society
(1813).
Henry Houldsworth (1797-1868)
Educated at Glasgow University, he was an inventor and cotton-manufacturer in
Manchester.
William Huskisson (1770-1830)
English politician and ally of George Canning; privately educated, he was a Tory MP for
Morpeth (1796-1802), Liskeard (1804-07), Harwich (1807-12), Chichester (1812-23), and
Liverpool (1823-30). He died in railway accident.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
English man of letters, among many other works he edited
A Dictionary
of the English Language (1755) and Shakespeare (1765), and wrote
Lives of the Poets (1779-81).
John Kennedy (1769-1855)
Born in Scotland, in 1784 he migrated to Lancashire where he became one of the pioneering
cotton manufacturers.
John Leland (1503 c.-1552)
English poet and antiquary; his
Collectanea were published by
Thomas Hearne in 1716.
James Mulleneux (1859 fl.)
He was a Liverpool distiller, philanthropist, and member of the Society for the Diffusion
of Useful Knowledge.
Sir Anthony Panizzi (1797-1879)
A carbonaro who escaped to London in 1823 where he became professor of Italian at
University College London before becoming an influential librarian at the British Museum
(1831). He was a friend of Ugo Foscolo.
Robert Rickards (1771-1836)
He was an East India Company official before serving as Whig MP for Wootton Basset
(1813-16) and inspector of factories in Yorkshire and Lancashire (1833-36).
William Roscoe (1753-1831)
Historian, poet, and man of letters; author of
Life of Lorenzo di
Medici (1795) and
Life and Pontificate of Leo X (1805). He
was Whig MP for Liverpool (1806-1807) and edited the
Works of Pope,
10 vols (1824).
William Shepherd (1768-1847)
Educated at the dissenting academies at Daventry and the New College, Hackney, he was a
Unitarian minister and schoolmaster at Gateacre near Liverpool, a political radical, and
member of William Roscoe's literary circle.
Thomas Stewart Traill (1781-1862)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a Liverpool physician and associate of William
Roscoe before being regius professor of medical jurisprudence at Edinburgh in 1832.
Thomas W. Winstanley (d. 1845)
Manchester solicitor; he was a member of Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
and the Chetham Society.
George William Wood (1781-1843)
Of Singleton Lodge, the son of the Rev. William Wood of Leeds; he was a Manchester
merchant and Whig MP for South Lancashire (1832-35).
John Ashton Yates (1782-1863)
The son of John Yates of Liverpool, a Presbyterian minister; he was educated under
William Shepherd of Gateacre and was a Liverpool broker and pamphleteer, elected MP for
County Carlow in Ireland (1832).
