Tag: Joshua Walmsley

The children of Sir Joshua Walmsley – a revised version

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This post seems to be getting rather more interest, and it is probably time to re-visit and revise it. It was published almost two years ago at the start of the whole thing. The original information came from a  website called http://www.researchers.plus.com which is now, I think, rather moribund. Some of the information was a useful spur, some was a distraction, and some just needs more verification before it can be taken as solid fact. So this is a recent update and addition to the original from November 2016.

 

So lets start with some basics. Joshua Walmsley married Adeline Mulleneux at St. James’ church in Toxteth on the 24th June 1815, six days after the battle of Waterloo. They had eight children, five girls and three boys.

  • Elizabeth Walmsley b. 1817 – d. bef 1861
  • Joshua Walmsley II b. 1819 – d. 1872
  • Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley b. 1822 – d. 1881
  • Adeline Walmsley b 1824 – d. 1842 – died aged 18.
  • James Mulleneux Walmsley b. 1826 – d. 1867
  • Emily Walmsley b. 1830 – 1919
  • Mary Walmsley b. 1832 –  d. bef.1851
  • Adah Walmsley b. 1839 – 1876

 

The eldest child,  Elizabeth married Charles Binns (1815 – 1887) in 1839. Charles was the son of Jonathan Binns, a Liverpool-born land agent and surveyor living in Lancaster. The Binns were a fairly prominent Quaker family; Jonathan Binns was a Poor Law commissioner who did a survey of Ireland in 1835 and 1836 which was both insightful, and rather heart-breaking. His father Dr Jonathan Binns was an early slavery abolitionist, and later headmaster of the Quaker boarding school at Ackworth in Yorkshire.  Charles was George Stephenson’s private secretary, and later manager of the coal mines and ironworks at Clay Cross, Derbyshire, which had been established by George Stephenson, and of which Sir Joshua Walmsley was a co-owner and director.  The family connection with Clay Cross continued for almost a hundred years. Charles and Elizabeth had four children, all girls; but Elizabeth seems to have died in the early 1850s. Charles remarried in 1871, and died in 1887.   Emily Rachel Binns, Elizabeth and Charles’s youngest daughter married Samuel Rickman. Her first cousin Adah Russell, the daughter of Adah Williams [neé Walmsley] had married Charles Russell who was a prominent London solicitor, the son of the Lord Chief Justice, and the brother and uncle of two more Law Lords.

Much less is known about Sir Joshua’s eldest son Joshua Walmsley II (1819-1872). He seems to have joined the Army, attaining the rank of captain. He lived in southern Africa for many years and served as a border agent in Natal on the Zulu frontier. He crops up as a peripheral character  in some of the accounts of the British dealings with the Zulus, particularly the Battle of Ndondakasuka – 1856, and he employed a very strange man called John Dunn as a translator in his dealings with the Zulus. In the aftermath of the battle, the young Zulu King Cetshwayo was so impressed by the equally youthful John Dunn’s conduct in the midst of Zulu internecine clan bloodletting, that he invited the Scot [Dunn]  to become his secretary and diplomatic adviser. Cetshwayo rewarded Dunn with traditional gifts of a chieftainship, land, cattle and two Zulu virgins to be his wives. This last gift greatly upset Catherine, Dunn’s 15-year-old mixed-race wife. But it did not deter him from taking at least another 46 Zulu wives. By some unofficial accounts, Dunn fathered 131 children by 65 wives, though his will records only 49 wives and 117 offspring. Catherine retained the title of “Great Wife”, giving her the privilege of being the only wife allowed to enter his presence unannounced.  How, and why he [Joshua] went to South Africa is still unknown, but the Army, and then colonial service, was probably regarded as a step up from trade. It may well also have helped escape the shadow of his father.

He was buried at St Mary’s, Edge Hill [the same cemetery as his brothers, sisters, parents, and a large numbers of the Mulleneux family including his maternal grandparents]  in Liverpool on 14th December 1872, having died at “Chantilly, Zulu Frontier, in South Africa” on 20th April the same year. He left his widow £2,000, so a fairly respectable amount of money.

Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley (1822-1882) also joined the Army. He served time with the 25th Bengal Native Infantry, and then volunteered to join the Bashi Bazouks, which was a semi-mercenary Ottoman force – the name literally translates as “crazy-heads”. The Bashi Bazouks mainly recruited Albanians, Bulgarians, and Kurds, and had a reputation for bravery, savagery and indiscipline. They weren’t salaried and relied on looting for pay. In due course he rose to the Ottoman rank of colonel, and described himself as such in the 1871 census ” Ret. Colonel Ottoman Ind. Corps, late 65th Foot [ie. a British regiment]”. So it doesn’t appear to be something he was ashamed of.  On his return to England sometime in the 1850s he started to write. The books included several describing his own military service, a biography of his late father and also some adventure novels including The Ruined Cities of Zulu Land based on Josh junior’s travels. He married Angelina Skey (b 1826) in 1870 and moved to Hampshire close to his parents.  He too was buried at St Mary’s, Edge Hill in Liverpool, along with large numbers of the family, on 12th December 1881. His burial record states he died at ” St. André “ in France, which could be any one of thirty-plus places.

The next child is another Adeline Walmsley (1824-1842), this is the second daughter born in 1824, in Liverpool. All the children are named either after their parents or grandparents, or other family members. Elizabeth is easy, named after both their  mothers, this Adeline was named after her own mother. Joshua II, Hugh, and James are named after father, grandfather, and uncle respectively. There is very little to be known about this Adeline, she appears on the 1841 census when the family have moved out of Liverpool to Wavertree Hall, then in a country village outside the city. Her death is recorded  in the autumn of 1842 in Staffordshire, just as the family had moved to Ranton Hall in Staffordshire

James Mulleneux Walmsley (1826-1867), by contrast to his brothers became a civil engineer.James aged 15 is shown at home at Wavertree Hall in 1841.  In the 1851 census, he was lodging and working in Derbyshire. He was at  Egstow House, very close to Clay Cross, suggesting he was involved with the family mining and ironworks business. His brother-in-law Charles Binns [Elizabeth’s husband] and family were already there living at Clay Cross Hall about a mile away. Ten years later, he is living with his parents, and two youngest sisters at Wolverton Park, in Hampshire.   He died on December 6th, 1867 aged 41 and was buried on December 12th with his sisters [Adeline, and Mary] at St Mary’s, Edge Hill. He died in Torquay. James was unmarried, and his addresses for probate were given as 101 Westbourne Terrace, and also Wolverton Park, Hampshire, both his father’s houses, and “latterly of Torquay, Devon”. Probate was granted to his father’s executors because Sir Josh was the “Universal Legatee”. It wasn’t granted until 1874, about three years after Sir Josh’s death in 1871. James left  a fairly respectable  £2,000.

Emily (1830 -1919) the third daughter, in contrast to James lived until almost 90, and was a widow for almost forty years. She was the second wife of William Ballantyne Hodgson (1815-1880), who was a Scottish educational reformer and political economist, even though he spent more of his time working in England. In 1839, Hodgson was employed at the new Mechanics’ Institution (later Liverpool Institute) just before Sir Joshua became mayor, and went on to become its Principal. He married Emily in 1863 and they mostly lived in London till Hodgson was appointed the first Professor of Political Economy in Edinburgh University in 1871. After he died in 1880, Emily stayed on in Edinburgh with their  children, it’s not entirely sure how many. The Dictionary of National Biography says two sons and two daughters, however I can only find Alexander Ireland Hodgson (1874-1958) and Lucy Walmsley Hodgson (1867-1931)

The youngest daughter Adah (b 1839) married a Welsh banker, William Williams, in 1866. They went to live in Merionethshire and had at least two daughters. Adah possibly died as early as 1876. Their daughter Adah Adeline Walmsley Williams (1867–1959) married Charles Russell in 1889. Charles Russell was a solicitor who worked for the Marquis of Queensbury during his libel case with Oscar Wilde. Charles Russell’s father was Lord Chief Justice between 1894 and 1900. The first Catholic to hold the office for centuries. Charles Russell was made a baronet in 1916, and then got the K.C.V.O in 1921, so I suppose that technically he was Sir Sir Charles, and Adah was Lady Russell twice over. Charles’ baronetcy was inherited by their nephew Alec Russell because he [Charles] had arranged a special remainder allowing it to be inherited by male heirs of his father. A nicely lawyerly touch given that he and Adah had a daughter, and by the time he was made a baronet it was extremely unlikely they would have a son. Adah was 49 at the time. But even better, because their daughter Monica married her cousin Alec, she, Monica, became Lady Russell as well because her husband inherited her father’s baronetcy

Gwendoline Walmsley Williams, her sister, married Denis Kane in 1897. He was an Army officer; the wedding was ” hastened owing to Mr. Kane’s being ordered to join his regiment at once in the Tirah Field Force on the Indian frontier. ” He survived that but died about a year later playing polo in India.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter XI.

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CHAPTER XI. This chapter covers events in London in February 1839. The meetings at Westminster must have been rather odd. The old Palace of Westminster had been burned down five years earlier, and work on the new Houses of Parliament had yet to start. So large parts of the buildings pictured here were either in ruins, being demolished, or temporarily repaired awaiting the new Palace of Westminster.

Old Palace of Westminster

As ever with Hugh Walmsley, it is concerned with Josh’s political life, with no mention of family. 1839 was the year that Josh’s eldest daughter [Hugh’s older sister] got married in St Luke’s church in Liverpool; a church he had bought the advowson to [right to appoint the vicar] . It was also the year he became Mayor of Liverpool. 

 

The Anti-Corn-Law League owed its origin to seven men taking a vow in October, 1838, to deliver England from the thraldom of monopoly. A succession of good harvests had of late years brought down the price of wheat, and the people lived unmindful of laws whose operation did not press upon them in time of plenty. The sky now was darkening.

The harvest of 1837 had proved bad; the winter of 1838-39 was a singularly hard one. “That year,” says Sir Joshua, ” the condition of the poor in Liverpool was so pitiable that it was made a subject of discussion at the council board. Subscriptions were raised, soup-kitchens established, but famine carried off men, women, and children. The price of wheat in January had risen to eighty-one shillings and six- pence per quarter. It was time for a strong pressure to be brought to bear from without upon Parliament, to force it to take this state of things into consideration. Public meetings were convened all over the country.”

” In Liverpool, on the 18th of January, one was held at the Sessions House. On being called for, I addressed the assembly, endeavouring to show how fallacious was the landlords’ favourite and plausible argument, ‘ that the price of labour is dependent on the price of corn.’ There was plenty of evidence to show that for the previous ten years there had been no proportional rise between wages and the price of bread.”

“For years,” he goes on to say, ” I had seen clearly that the Corn Laws were vicious and ruinous. I knew the sliding scale must be abolished, and that with it would cease the continual fluctuations in the price of food, which made life so harassing to the millions, yet I thought it possible that in the present state of trade a small fixed duty upon corn might be necessary. However, on the 22nd January, at the public dinner given by the Manchester Association, at which Mr. Bolton and I assisted, as delegates from Liverpool, all hesitation vanished from my mind. As I listened to the arguments of the different speakers, I became convinced that total and immediate repeal was the one right and just claim to be advanced. From henceforth I joined my humble endeavours with those of the Anti-Corn-Law League, to procure such repeal, with the resolve to accept no compromise.”

On the 14th February, delegates of the different manufacturing towns through England met at Brown’s Hotel. With petitions signed by three millions of the Queen’s subjects, they asked to be heard at the bar of the House of Commons in order to tender their evidence on oath as to the suffering caused by the laws regulating the importation of corn. Mr. Walmsley and Mr. James Aiken represented Liverpool at this smaller Parliament of the nation. ” Only Palace Yard separated Brown’s Hotel from the House of Commons,” continues Sir Joshua, in his notes, ” and members sneeringly called the Assembly of Delegates ‘ the House over the way.’ John Benjamin Smith, of Manchester, was our president, and admirably he fulfilled his duty. Our first care was to resolve ourselves into a general committee, and to appoint two sub-committees, whose duties were to collect evidence, transact the correspondence, and manage the financial concerns of the delegation. Of these two sub-committees I was appointed member. When these primary transactions had been gone through, the delegates passed their first resolution, with a certain solemnity of proceeding. We formally resigned all claims of protection for home manufactures, thus casting from ourselves the imputation levelled at us by the landed interest, that we were zealous to remove the protection on our neighbours’ products, but that we were willing to keep it on our own. We declared we were working ‘ to establish the true and peaceful principles of free trade, that we were seeking to institute the unrestricted interchange of industry and capital between all nations.’ The mornings were spent by the delegates in waiting singly or in deputations upon Members of Parliament, or upon Cabinet ministers. Our evenings were generally employed in arranging the programme of the next day, or in receiving those who were unable or unwilling to meet us publicly. It not un-frequently happened that it was early morning ere we retired to rest.”

“ The general committee met daily at half-past two, in the large room in Brown’s Hotel. The meetings were public, and were attended by members of the House of Commons; Villiers, Hume, O’Connell, Wood, Brotherton, and several others, almost daily assisted and spoke. The sittings of The Anti-Corn- Law League attracted considerable attention. The large room in Brown’s Hotel was daily crowded with eager listeners. Enemies sought to sow division in our camp, declaring that the idea of unqualified repeal was an insanity, the advocacy of which could only be explained by the supposition that we, the delegates, were visionaries. Some said we were socialists, others that we were actuated by the sordid motives of manufacturers seeking to enrich ourselves by sacrificing the peasantry to our own ends. The prime minister called us ‘ madmen.’ “ I have heard many mad things in my life,”  Lord Melbourne said in the House of Lords “ but before God, the repeal of the Corn Laws is the maddest I ever heard of. “  Nor were these opponents our only antagonists. The Chartists opposed the League on the plea, that until the people were better represented it was time ill-spent to seek for the repeal of any law. The Whigs tried to win us over by proposing to make the Corn Laws a party question, promising to unite to abolish the sliding scale if the League would accept a small fixed duty instead of unqualified repeal. Under these combined influences, waverers began to appear in the camp. I sided with those who would accede to no half- measures, and would strive for nothing short of Mr. Villiers’ motion :

‘ That we should be allowed to give evidence at the bar of the House of Commons.’

” One evening, Lord Fitzwilliam, a Liberal member of the House of Lords, entered the room in Brown’s Hotel, where several of the delegates were assembled. Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, Mr. Sturge, Mr. Gregg, and I, besides some others, were present. With Lord Fitzwilliam came his son Lord Milton. A long and somewhat warm discussion ensued between the peers and the delegates. The object and plan of the League were naturally the subject of the discussion. The two lords admitted that the CornLaws, as they stood, were evil in their operation; but they argued that a small fixed duty was the only conceivable remedy for this evil.”

“Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright were our spokesmen. It interested me then, as it has often done since, to watch the vigour and earnestness with which Bright rushed into the debate, whilst Cobden listened attentively, cautiously abstaining from giving any opinion until he had heard all that could be said upon the subject, then gathering the various pros and cons, delivering his judgment with overwhelming clearness and conviction. Both held resolutely by our tenets, that total repeal was just, and that nothing short of it would they advocate ; that no other concession would satisfy the League. After a discussion that grew warmer as it went on, Lord Fitzwillam rising to go, exclaimed testily as he put on his hat:”

“ You might as well endeavour to overthrow the monarchy as to strive for total repeal “ William Rawson, one of the delegates for Manchester, replied, with flashing eyes : ” My lord, if the monarchy proves as injurious to the common interests of Great Britain, as the Corn Laws are recognised to be by all thinking men, the sooner it is overturned the better. “

“Not long after Lord Fitzwilliam became a convert to the League, and as ardent for total repeal as any of the men he had visited that February night.”

The Queen opened Parliament early in February, The royal speech made no allusion to the Corn Laws, but it was expected that both the mover and the seconder of the address would touch upon them in their speeches, Mr. Wood, member for Kendal, pledged to his constituents to advocate repeal; he was also president  of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, that had been the first to sanction the proceedings of the League;  Wood was appointed seconder of the address.

On the night Mr, Wood was to speak, the delegates assembled under the gallery. They looked eagerly forward to this speech as likely strongly to advance their cause throughout the country. To their consternation, the honourable gentleman soon involved himself in a web of contradictions. On the one hand, to redeem his pledge to his constituents, he stated that the Com Laws were most injurious to manufacturers and labourers ; on the other, he assured the ministers that the country was in a most prosperous state. Mr. Wood finished his speech amidst the laughter and applause of the whole landed interest in the House, for the picture of prosperity he had drawn struck at the very root of the argument for repeal.

Sir Robert Peel rose, and with courteous sarcasm thanked the honourable member for Kendal for the very able speech he had delivered in favour of the existing system. ” I was one of the deputation,” says Mr. Walmsley, “  who a couple of days after waited upon Lord Melbourne to lay before him the true state of the country, so different to the picture Mr. Wood had painted, repeating our prayer to be allowed to tender evidence on oath to this effect at the bar of the House of Commons. Lord Melbourne listened attentively, but held out no hope that Mr. Villiers’ motion, embodying this request, should be attended to.”

No wonder that some of the members of the smaller Parliament assembled in Brown’s Hotel began to lose heart. A crowded meeting, at which many members of the House of Commons were present, assembled on the afternoon of the interview with Lord Melbourne. Some of the delegates expressed their discouragement. Mr. Walmsley was of those who refused to share this feeling. His speech, on this occasion was an exhaustive argument establishing the identity of interests of agriculturists and manufacturers.  The Morning Chronicle of the 9th February, noticing it, said: ” It must be the business of delegates to undeceive landowners with regard to the extent of the injury they suffer from the advantages given to foreign manufacturers by our Com Laws. The speech of Mr. Walmsley is exceedingly valuable on account of the information it affords with respect to the chimerical nature of the apprehensions from foreign importations of corn.”

Let us take one more anecdote from the notes before us belonging to this period, which we think will prove interesting.

“Mr. Sturge and I were the two delegates relied upon as authorities in matters relating to statistics. We were generally together, hunting in couples. Mr. Sturge had worked with Lord Brougham, in preparing the Anti-Slavery Bill for Parliament, and now, when he came as delegate to London, to agitate for the repeal of the Com Laws, he sought out his great fellow- worker. I accompanied him. We found Lord Brougham already convinced of the justice of our cause, and ready to advocate it in the House of Lords. On many details, however he required information, and he invited us to instruct him on these points.”

” Several mornings we met at an early breakfast,, and spent hours in discussion and examination of facts.  We passed in review the fluctuation of prices during a number of years, and under the different Com Laws ; the prices of wheat in the corn-growing countries of Europe ; tables of averages of profit and of loss ; the speculations on bonded wheat. Sturge and I got the information together, and Lord Brougham listened with concentrated attention, asking questions occasionally, but making no memoranda in writing of the facts related. No point that could throw light on the operation of the Corn Laws was left out in these morning conferences.  When all had been gone through, Lord Brougham declared himself master of the subject, and announced his intention of bringing forward the motion independently in the House of Lords. It was not this, exactly, that we had anticipated.”

Mr. Villiers had been chosen, by the ‘Smaller House, on the other side of Palace Yard,’ as the leader of the Corn-Law agitation, and his speech, it was considered, should take precedence of every other.

On the 18th February, Lord Brougham called upon ‘the High Senate of the nation to hear the prayer of the people at its bar.’ In a speech of unrivalled power he embodied the facts we had collected for him, and to which he had listened without taking a single note. He stated the various prices of corn in different countries of Europe ; he traced the many fluctuations in the price of wheat in England under the different Corn Laws; and he set out this dry information in all the pomp of imagery and the varied resources of rhetoric. The speech produced an immense sensation. It was so exhaustive that it somewhat lessened the effects of Mr. Villiers’ lucid and forcible statement, delivered in the Commons the following day.

“Some of the delegates felt aggrieved that Mr. Villiers should have been pre-stalled. Mr. John Bright, especially, expressed himself somewhat warmly on the subject. When, on the next morning, Mr. Sturge and I called upon Lord Brougham, to thank him for the great service he had rendered to our cause, he received us somewhat coldly. He was aware of the strictures passed upon him by Mr. Bright and others. ‘Do those men,’ he said, ‘ think they understand how to deal with the House of Lords better than I do ? Have you so many friends that you can afford to lose one ? “

On the day of separating, the delegates passed a vote of thanks to Lord Brougham and to Mr. Villiers. Two dissentient votes were still found recorded against the motion, regarding Lord Brougham. In acknowledging this vote of thanks. Lord Brougham reverted with some asperity to the two who had differed from him in the course he had pursued. To this origin I have always ascribed the marked coldness with which Lord Brougham treated Mr. Bright through the course of his noble political career.”

On the 20th February, the little Parliament met for the last time in Brown’s Hotel. Both the Houses of Lords and Commons had refused to hear the evidence of the delegates on the plea ” of want of time.” The members therefore separated ; one course lay clear before them — they must rouse public opinion.

To enlighten and convince it was now the aim and end of the labours of the most patriotic and practically- wise set of men that ever joined together for a public purpose. The work of the League now began. We know the result, and the name of Richard Cobden is inscribed in the heart of the nation too deeply not to impart a certain reflex interest on those men who were his fellow- workers. The friendship between him and Mr. Walmsley grew and strengthened from the day they first met in the large room in Brown’s Hotel, members of that smaller but more faithful Parliament.

” We were in almost daily communication for years,” he says, “and our friendship was never broken or suffered alteration. It was on that occasion also I met Joseph Hume.”

Before closing this chapter, we must notice an address issued to the Chartists by Mr. Walmsley, in his character of president of the Tradesmen’s Reform Association, which appeared in The Morning Chronicle September, 1838, and to which he alludes as ” having attracted some attention at the time.”

At the very outset of the work forced upon the League, of rousing and instructing public opinion, a class of antagonists amongst the wretched proved one of the greatest obstacles it had to encounter.

Chartism permeated the underlying strata of society, and welded them together. The physical-force Chartists treated as enemies all who sought to reform abuses or amend the laws by any other means than the Charter. This cry for the abolition of the Corn Laws they judged a stratagem to divert popular attention from their just demand formulated in the ” Five Points.”

With much that the Chartists demanded, Mr. Walmsley, in common with some of the noblest and purest minds in England, heartily sympathised ; and, because he sympathised, he deplored the means they adopted to obtain their end. In this spirit he issued an address. The press took it up ; it was copied and commented upon by most of the leading London and provincial papers of the day ; it was printed separately, copies circulated through the country by thousands ; and many wrote to the president of the Tradesmen’s Reform Association, thanking him for having so clearly and justly expressed the views of those who, sympathising with the Chartists, yet were compelled by the course of conduct they were pursuing to keep aloof from them.

In the November of that year [1839], Mr. Walmsley was elected mayor of Liverpool. The Tories at the council board made a faint protest against his election to the civic chair ; but no other candidate was even proposed to compete the honour with one who was felt by all to have established his title to it.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter X.

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CHAPTER X.  This chapter covers 1838 to 1838 and Josh’s re-election to the council as a Liberal, or Reformer. The terms Liberal/Reformer/Whig and Radical were all used to describe the rough alliance, though the Liberal party in its modernly accepted form wasn’t officially used until the 1860’s. Josh probably regarded himself as a Reformer, and the Tradesmen’s Reform Association was without doubt an attempt to build a power-base outside the Whig [aka. Aristocratic, and landed gentry] interest. He seems to be very much in the tradition of proud northern businessmen who thought ” extending the franchise so sensible male voters would prevent profligate governments spending too much.”

At this period the scheme for the foundation of the Tradesmen’s Reform Association was conceived by Mr. Walmsley, and thirty of the leading reformers of the town entering into his views, the new society drew up its declaration of principles. [1836] Its public career was inaugurated by a banquet given to the Liberal member, Mr. Ewart. Great enthusiasm prevailed, the guests exceeding by many hundreds any similar demonstration. The Association soon became recognised as an important political body, and its numbers increased until there were two thousand five hundred names on its muster-roll. Its committee, formed of three representatives from each of the sixteen wards of the town, met weekly, while some of the leading reformers of Liverpool became its sub-presidents.

As president, it was Mr. Walmsley’s custom to address the monthly meetings, in a speech wherein he handled the leading political questions of the day — the Ballot Bill, laid by Mr. Grote before Parliament, the Irish Municipal Bill, and especially the Repeal of the Corn Laws. This address was followed by public discussion. The Tradesmen’s Reform Association was destined to fail, however, in the first object for which it was formed, namely, to secure a Liberal representation for Liverpool. In June, 1838, [Hugh’s wrong it was 1837] William IV. died, and the country was plunged into the turmoil of a general election.

On the result of the forthcoming contest throughout the kingdom, Mr. Walmsley considered the fate of the Corn Laws depended. Empowered by the General and Tradesmen’s Reform Associations to select a second Liberal candidate to stand with Mr. Ewart for Liverpool, he singled out Mr. Elphinstone, an uncompromising advocate of free trade. A requisition with four or five thousand signatures appended was forwarded to Mr. Elphinstone. No candidate had ever been solicited by so many voices to stand for the borough. The public meetings at the Amphitheatre, addressed by Mr. Walmsley, were crowded. All the indications tended to confirm his anticipations that Liverpool would certainly send to Parliament two reformers ready to fight for the abolition of all monopolies.

The Tories, however, were equally zealous in their efforts to secure the representation of the town. They continued to play their part of Defenders of the Faith, generally winding up their public meetings with three cheers for the Bible ; while, on the other hand, a vague notion dominated the uneducated mind that popery or infidelity was a latent element in that heavily- laden word Liberalism. In the taverns, the country people, as they smoked their pipes and drank their beer, declared that the Liberals were enemies to the Word of God !

On the 24th July, the election took place. Conspicuous in this pageantry of ribbons and flags were the blue colours of the Tradesmen’s Reform Association. The Tories’ procession was headed by a wooden Bible, carried aloft in full view of the crowd. The Liberals adopted for their device a loaf, bounteous in size, as one manufactured in the land of Brobdingnag, and a Lilliputian loaf contrasting with it. The big loaf was dubbed the “Ewart and Elphinstone loaf,” the small loaf the “Sandon loaf.” Beer flowed freely, and in due course the streets of Liverpool became the scene of rioting and violence. Mr. Whitty brought out his men, who valiantly strove to restore order, he directing the movement of his troops like a general on a battlefield. The final state of the poll showed the defeat of the Liberal candidates, and the victory of Lord Sandon and Mr. Cresswell.

”The failure of the Liberals greatly discouraged me,” says Sir Joshua, ” but it also made me reserve to work all the more strenuously to disseminate education amongst my fellow-citizens.” ” We must, more than the Tories,” he said at the first meeting of the Association after the Parliamentary defeat, “work for the diffusion of knowledge; and by establishing reading-rooms on a scale commensurate with that of the Association, offer to the humblest member that which, while tending to strengthen conviction of the justice of our principles, will make him a wiser citizen and a better man.”

This plan of forming libraries, and of inviting down eminent lecturers, was carried out.

Notwithstanding its failure to return a Liberal representative for Liverpool, the Tradesmen’s Reform Association did not lose influence in the town. Its president had many friends and many enemies. We find his name loudly called for at all Liberal public meetings, and his words attentively followed. We also find him abused in the columns of the Tory papers. Under his leadership the Tradesmen’s Reform Association became a recognised central power, to which the inhabitants looked for the removal of any local oppression.

We must not overlook, the public duties Mr. Walmsley during this time performed as councillor. He continued to be chairman of the Watch Committee, he was appointed member of the Dock Trust and Pilot Committee, the Finance and Improvement Committees. He became president of the Educational Committee. Of his energy and fitness we have the following testimony from one who worked with him : “Mr. Walmsley’s prompt business-like determination never came out to better purpose, making him the leading member of whatever committee he attended. He neglected no detail, and no inquiry was too trifling or too irksome for him to enter into.”

The following anecdote, given to us by Mr. Tindal Atkinson, secretary to the Association, illustrates the integrity of spirit which ever actuated Mr. Walmsley :

“ The general monthly meeting of the Association was at hand; as secretary I received due notice to prepare the minutes and accounts to be laid before the members. Weighted with much occupation, the time slipped by unnoticed, and the appointed day came round before I had drawn up the required paper. I knew, however, I could rely upon my memory, and on the night in question I fearlessly occupied my place on the platform, by the president’s side. When my turn came to speak I rose, took a blank sheet of paper, and proceeding apparently to read from it, gave a detailed and very exact report of the doings and the expenditure of the Association, On resuming my seat, Mr. Walmsley, very quietly, in a low voice, said : ‘ Very clever, Atkinson, very clever indeed; but do not repeat it, or “never more be officer of mine.” ‘ I never forgot the impression those few words made upon me.”

In November, 1838, Mr. Walmsley’s turn for retiring from the council board came round. An address, signed by the majority of the burgesses, urgently requested him to allow himself to be renominated. The address thanked him for the services he had rendered in the establishment and reorganisation of the police, and the indefatigable manner in which he had discharged the various and important duties of the different committees in the council. Mr. Walmsley, accepting to stand, was re-elected to the Castle Street ward without opposition ; no Tory candidate ventured to put up for a ward so thoroughly devoted to one of the leading reformers of the town. ” Who is to occupy the civic chair for the ensuing year ? “ asks The Liverpool Mercury of the 9th November. “ We know not. If it goes by desert, if it is to be determined by real and substantial services rendered to the cause of reform, there is one man whose zeal, energy, and ability entitle him to such a compliment from the hands of his fellow-townsmen ; and, whatever may be thought of the matter in the council, we are quite sure that the great body of reformers out of doors will be very much disappointed if his claims are again passed over. To him the town is mainly indebted for the establishment of the new police, the formation and the organisation of the ‘ Tradesmen’s Reform Association.’ We need hardly say that we allude to Mr. Joshua Walmsley, or add that it is he whom a majority of reformers wish to see mayor of Liverpool.”

Owing to a combination of circumstances, unnecessary to enter into here, Mr. Walmsley was not on that occasion elected mayor.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter IX.

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CHAPTER IX.  This takes us from December 1836 to the middle of 1837. The major concern is religion and education. It’s a fairly toxic mix, combined with Catholic emancipation [the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829] and a huge increase of the Irish into Liverpool. Suffice to say, the Tories are less than welcoming……

On the eve of the termination of the reform council’s first year in office [December 1836], when, according to a clause of the Municipal Reform Bill, sixteen of its members were to go out. [Because it was a new council, with a third of the members up for re-election each year; the councillors who got the fewest votes in each ward in 1835 only served one year, the runners-up served two years, and those polling highest served for all three years of the first reformed council.]  Mr. Walmsley read a paper, entitled, “What has the new council done ?”  In it he passed in review the abuses that had been found prevalent, and the Acts that had been framed. Notwithstanding the difficulties with which it had to contend, the Council had effected a saving to the borough fund of ten thousand pounds per annum. In this paper he also expounded the system by which the Educational Committee had opened the Corporation schools to all sects and denominations.

William Rathbone V. (1787-1868) by William Smith, Walker Art Gallery; Liverpool.

Let us glance at this act of the council, one that raised a storm in Liverpool, the like of which had not been known. Mr. William Rathbone [- V. 1787 – 1868. His father William Rathbone IV [1757-1809], and grandfather William Rathbone III [1726-1789]  had been founding members of the Liverpool Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade] and Mr. [Thomas] Blackburn took the lead in the movement. Mr. Walmsley devoted to it what time he could spare from the arduous task of reforming the police.

The feeling that impelled the Educational Committee to advocate the adoption in the Corporation schools of the Irish system of education, was awakened by the spectacle of the multitude of children in Liverpool debarred from every chance of instruction. The report drawn up by the committee showed that besides numerous Dissenters, there were sixty thousand poor Irish Catholics in the town. The old corporation had quietly ignored this alien population, but threw open the doors of the Corporation schools to children of all sects, provided they attended the services of the Established Church, used the authorised edition of the Bible, and the Church Catechism. This virtually closed these schools against the Irish. The new council maintained that the State had the same responsibility as regards these children as it had towards others ; and the Educational Committee drew out a plan from that of the Honourable Mr. Stanley, Secretary for Ireland in 1831, Dr. Whately, and others, for the education of the Irish poor. Early in July, the committee laid its scheme before the council. The schools were to open at 9 A.M, with the singing of a hymn. The books of the Irish Commission were to be used. Clergymen of every denomination were invited to attend at the hour set apart for the religious instruction of the children of the various sects. The town council unanimously adopted the plan and made it public.

The storm now burst over Liverpool, and crowded meetings were held at the Amphitheatre and elsewhere, to protest against the Act, and to promote the erection and endowment of other schools, where the un-mutilated Bible would form a compulsory part of every child’s education. In vain the council invited its accusers to come and see for themselves, the un- mutilated Bible forming part of the daily education. The cry continued to be raised by the clergy, and to be loudly echoed by their agitated flocks.

” Dissenting and Roman Catholic clergymen came,” said Mr. Walmsley, ” eagerly, to teach the children of their respective flocks during the hour appointed for religious instruction ; but with the exception of the Rev. James Aspinall, the English clergy stood obstinately aloof. Soon, in addition to the meetings, the walls were placarded with great posters, signed by clergymen. These exhorted parents not to send their children to the Corporation schools, promising them the speedy opening of others, where the un-mutilated Word of God should be taught Some of the lower classes maltreated children on their way to the schools, pelted and hooted members of the committee as they passed. The characters of Mr. Blackburn, Mr. Rathbone, and my own were daily assailed in pulpits and social gatherings. Still we persevered, answering at public meetings the charges brought against us, and inviting our detractors to come and visit the schools. So particular was the Educational Committee that each child should be taught according to the creed of its parents, that every sect seemed represented. I remember one child, on being asked the invariable question on entering the schools, to what persuasion her parents belonged, answered, to the ‘ New Church.’ We were puzzled to know what the ‘ New Church ‘ was ; it proved to be Swedenborgian. She was the single lamb belonging to this fold, yet a teacher of her creed was found ready to undertake her education.”

To illustrate to what degree fanaticism blunts the moral sense of those who blindly surrender themselves to its influence, we quote the following fact :

” One day, when the hour of religious instruction had come, a clergyman of preponderating influence entered the schoolroom of the North School. The large room was divided into two compartments by a curtain drawn across it ; on one side were the Roman Catholics, on the other were the Protestants. The latter, divided into several groups, were gathered round different teachers. My wife, who seconded with all her heart this scheme of liberal education, was a daily visitor in the North School. She taught a class there — the Church Catechism and lessons from the authorised version of the Scriptures. The clergyman made the circuit of the room, passing near each group.”

” He at last approached my wife’s class and lingered near it. The lesson was taken from the Scriptures. It was no class-book of Biblical extracts she was using, but the Bible as it is used in the Protestant Church. The reverend visitor listened to the questions put and answers given, and to the children reciting their verses. The following Sunday my wife and I went to church. The preacher that day proved to be the clergyman who had a few days before visited the school. The sermon was eloquent, and, as usual, was directed against the spread of Liberalism and the ‘ Radical council.’ In the midst of the torrent of denunciation the preacher emphatically asserted that, some days before, he had visited the Corporation schools in the hour of religious instruction, and that no Bible was in use during that time.”

As the period drew nigh for the November election [1836] to replace the retiring third of the council, the religious zeal of the town burned higher. To the imagination of frightened Protestants, the Conservatives presented themselves in the reassuring role of ” Defenders of the Faith.” They played the part so well that seven Tories replaced seven of the sixteen Liberal councillors who had retired.

Matters had now reached such a pitch that, at the next meeting of the board, Mr. Birch moved that the schools be discontinued, the property sold, and the Corporation trouble itself no more with the question of education. The proposition was so unexpected that the debate upon the motion was adjourned for a fortnight.

When the day for the debate arrived, the Educational Committee were ready to meet their opponents. In long and able speeches, Mr. Rathbone and Mr. Blackburn met and refuted every objection. They sketched the history of the mixed system of education, showed its essential fitness to the requirements of Liverpool, where the number of Catholics and Dissenters rendered the question of education as knotty to solve as the Government had found it to be in Ireland. They described the difficulties they had already surmounted, and earnestly pleaded that no change should be introduced into the committee’s plans until fair time for trial had been allowed it. Mr. Walmsley also spoke. He made no attempt to refute the quibbling assertions advanced against the system, but he went straight to the heart of the subject, to the humanity and justice that were the very core of it. This was no political or party question, but one in the decision of which the moral training and future welfare of a number of children were involved. He showed that one thousand three hundred children were daily taught in the schools ; if the majority were Catholics, it proved only their greater need of schools. ” The result of giving them up,” he said, ” would be to give up to vice and ignorance children whose hopes we have raised towards better things. It has truly been said that ‘ he who retards the progress of intellect countenances crime, and is to the State the greatest criminal.’ ”

By a large majority of votes, the council decreed that the mixed system should be continued in the schools.

In the month of August, 1837, Mr. Wilderspin, to whom the committee had entrusted their arrangement and organisation, announced that his work was finished. Before retiring, he wished an examination to take place of all the scholars. Clergymen attended to put the little Protestants through a sifting and trying ordeal. The result of this trial will be best expressed in an extract from a letter of the Rev. J. Carruthers.

” The examination proves that the teaching given is not of a secular kind, but on the contrary embraces an amount of instruction far exceeding what is usual in either public or private seminaries. The Bible is not excluded, is not a sealed book. The amount and accuracy of Biblical knowledge possessed is astonishing.”

Thus the children silenced by their answers the cry raised against the mutilation of the Scriptures. The innocent replies proved better than could the ablest defence, in what spirit the Educational Committee had worked, and in what spirit their enemies had judged their efforts.

Before separating, the audience who had been present, and who for the most part had come to criticise, united in passing a vote of thanks and congratulation to the Educational Committee for the work they had done, and for the excellent state of the schools.

We have dwelt at some length on this attempt of the council to establish a free and religious scheme of education in Liverpool, for it was destined to prove the rock ahead on which Liberalism was to split.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter VIII.

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CHAPTER VIII. This chapter takes us through the council elections in 1835 up to the end of 1836. Again, no mention of family, even though by this stage there were five children. Three teenagers, a ten-year old, and a six-year old, with one more daughter to come. The Municipal Reform Bill had followed the 1832 Reform Bill which extended the franchise, and reformed constituencies, and had re-organised local government. In Liverpool’s case, it increased the electorate to all rate-payers changing the corporation from a self-selected group of freemen.

 

In December, 1835, municipal affairs were creating much stir in Liverpool. The Municipal Reform Bill had become law in the preceding September, sweeping away all close corporations and restoring to the citizens their ancient municipal rights. The Corporation of Liverpool, which had usurped these privileges since the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Elizabeth [1586 – two hundred and fifty years] , had been composed of forty-one self-elected members, altogether irresponsible in their management of local transactions. Freemen alone had the right of voting for the mayor and electing the member to represent the borough in Parliament. Accordingly, the Liverpool corporation strenuously opposed the passage of the Municipal Reform Bill. It petitioned Parliament to be heard in its defence against the report of the commissioners on the state of municipal bodies, but the Legislature paid no heed to its prayer and made no exemption in favour of the borough. Henceforth every ratepayer who had resided three years in the town was entitled to have a voice in its government.

The town itself was divided into sixteen wards, each ward to elect three councillors. Mr. Walmsley was invited to stand for Castle Street, and in his address to the electors he stated his tenets. ” The principles I shall advocate at the board will be based upon my earnest conviction that civil and religious liberty is most consistent with Christianity, and I hold that the interests of mankind are best advanced by the man whose conduct in social life shows him to be guided by the rule of doing unto others as he would they should do to him.” ” My support,” he continued, ” shall be given to measures having for object the distribution of equal privileges, the reduction of local burdens, the extension of education, and the employment of the corporation funds in a way that may best conduce to the improvement of the town.”

The election took place amid considerable excitement. The first return showed the Liberals at the head of the poll in Castle Street Ward, Mr. Walmsley heading the list. At half-past four, Mr. James Branker announced the result. Forty-three out of forty-eight councillors were Liberals. Henceforth Mr. Walmsley’s position was no longer merely that of the private citizen amassing wealth for himself and family — he was a member of a body on whom devolved the duty of legislating for the general good. As member of the watch committee, he noticed that though the ” Old Charlies “ had nominally disappeared, and had been replaced by one hundred and thirty watchmen with superintendents and inspectors, they were for the most part aged and inefficient, nor were they worked on the crime-preventive principle.

The plan laid before the council for the new police was modelled on Sir Robert Peel’s organisation of that of the metropolis. Let us leave Mr. Walmsley to speak for himself as to the manner in which he took the lead in this.

” I resolved to arouse public attention and stimulate public opinion to the pitch necessary for vigorous and decisive action. To do this I set about exploring through all their ramifications the dens of crime in the borough. My position enabled me to command the aid necessary for this purpose. It was a loathsome task to undertake, but I pursued it to the end, hunting vice through all its windings till I traced it to its nurseries, and it was often at the risk of personal danger that I made this survey. Many a time, too, have I felt a sickening recoil as the mournful and appalling spectacle unrolled itself before me. I saw for myself how gradual and easy was the descent to crime, how bright-faced boys became trained thieves in time. I saw with what facility stolen property could be converted into money. I entered mean obscure shops in by-streets and lanes, where rags and secondhand dresses were exhibited in the windows, and in the back rooms of which glittered the booty the receivers had bought from thieves. I went down into damp, dark cellars, unfit for human habitations, where men and women lived huddled together. These were necessarily the headquarters of disease and crime. Step by step, I collected my information, and accumulated proofs of my assertions ; then I embodied the whole in writing, and laid it before the municipal board. “

” When I read my report on the state of crime in Liverpool, the council refused to believe it. The amount of vice in the town, I calculated, cost society upwards of seven hundred thousand pounds to maintain. There were more than two thousand notorious male thieves, besides twelve hundred boys under fifteen. There were several hundred receivers of stolen goods. Some laughed at the report, deeming such a state of things impossible, others contended that it must be founded on mistaken statistics. The matter might have dropped here, but I demanded a committee of inquiry, and it was granted. The result was such as I had anticipated. I had understated rather than overstated my case. There was no over- colouring in the picture.”

” A discussion ensued in the town council as to whether the report should be published. Some feared that it would fix a stigma upon Liverpool ; others, on the contrary, maintained that it would redound to its credit, as being the first town that had boldly confronted the evil It was finally decided that five hundred copies should be printed. The subject was taken up and was much talked about, not only in Liverpool, but in other places, and the statements it contained appeared so incredible that again doubt was thrown upon its veracity.”

An eminent member of the British Association, taking a decided stand against it, afforded Mr. Walmsley the opportunity he sought. He wished to secure publicity to his report ; to show that crime is for the most part the result of wretchedness and ignorance, from whose taint many might be rescued if a proper system of police existed. At the following year’s meeting of the Association in Liverpool, he read a paper in which again he discussed the state of crime in the town. He dwelt upon the pernicious effects of cellars crowded with human beings, and called attention to the thousands of such cellars that existed in Liverpool. Evidence was there to support his statements. It is sufficient to chronicle as one result of his efforts in this direction, that an Act of Parliament was passed, and the cellars of Liverpool were condemned.

” I was now appointed,” says Mr. Walmsley, “ chairman of the Watch Committee. Fifty-three only of the old watchmen were retained. Two hundred and eighty new men were added to the force, under the orders of one head-constable, responsible for the conduct of the whole body, and having under him a staff of superintendents and inspectors. Mr. James Michael Whitty, late superintendent of the night watch, was appointed head-constable. His tact and experience greatly aided me in framing a code of rules and regulations that have stood the test of practice. To give the new force a sense of the dignity of its office was my first care. Superannuated and infirm men were no longer to fill its ranks. Each member of it was to be a picked man, bearing a high character before being enrolled. It was trained to be preventive so far as was involved in its being directed to watch closely all that had a tendency to corrupt morals. It took me three years to mature a code of regulations, and personally to inspect the carrying out of its details. Many hours of the day, and frequently large portions of the night, I devoted to the task.”

From Mr. Whitty’s own lips we have noted down the following testimony of Mr. Walmsley’s services in the organisation of the police. “ I had practically studied the question, and was thoroughly acquainted with what ought to be done. Mr. Walmsley knew this, and listened to me with great deference, soon mastering all details as thoroughly as I did ; so that when the new police was to be formed he became chairman of the watch committee. No abler man ever presided. He was indefatigable, and used to go his rounds with me night and day, taking great interest in the efficiency and discipline of the force. There was a strong opposition on the part of the mob, but gradually we overcame all difficulties. The police of Liverpool was established. It was regulated for the most part on the same principle as the London constabulary, but fewer men did the work better. Other towns sent down inspectors to obtain information, but very few succeeded in mastering its details. The Liverpool police force was the first established out of London, and Mr. Walmsley mainly contributed to this.”

One incident will show how Mr. Walmsley met the opposition of those hostile to the new system. No attempt to reform the morals and condition of the lower classes can ever be effectual, that does not include the surveillance of public-houses. The new police force was authorised to enforce very stringent regulations. The enemies of the reform council declared this an insult to the trade, and an infraction of justice by the municipality. The publicans announced their intention to convene a meeting to protest against the tyranny of the new police, and to censure the watch committee.

Before the day appointed for the meeting, at Mr. Walmsley’s invitation, a deputation of publicans waited upon him. He listened to the tale of their supposed grievances. In his answer he at once touched the right chord, appealing to their sense of right. In the words of the publican who related the interview : “Mr. Walmsley showed us that there ought to be no divided interests in a town, that each class of civilised society depends on the other. He pointed out the great injury done to morals by disorderly public- houses, making us ashamed of our opposition to the police, and changing it into a desire to co-operate with it, in putting down customs that were a disgrace to the trade.” The deputation left with a sense that they had been practised upon by those who persuaded them that publicans were specially oppressed.

When the day appointed for the meeting came round to publicly protest against the new police force, to censure its organiser, the purport of the assembly was changed. The few promoters who spoke only did so to withdraw their names. Hearty praise was given to Mr. Walmsley, and before separating, the meeting passed a resolution ” that all publicans would henceforth join to help the police in the fulfilment of its duties.”

The diminution of crime in Liverpool at the close of the first year was the best answer that could be made to the attacks on the police. The learned Recorder, on the occasion of the quarter sessions, October, 1836, congratulated the jury upon the present calendar not containing a moiety of the  cases set down for trial that did that of the previous year.

He ascribed this result to the new police force, organised in the town and trained on the principle of prevention. The grand jury made a presentment recording its high approval of the new system, of the way each man brought before the jury had given evidence, and the activity displayed in the detection and suppression of crime.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter VII.

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CHAPTER VII.  This chapter introduces George and Robert Stephenson to the story, it takes us from 1825 to 1830. Josh is still being a corn broker, but is increasingly diversifying his business. “Mr. Sanders” is actually Joseph Sandars (1785-1860) another Liverpool corn merchant. This chapter also covers the Rainhill trials, and the death of William Huskisson – the world’s first fatality caused by a passenger train. Getting the chance to invest with the Stephensons at this stage was the equivalent of investing in Apple in 1976, or Facebook in 2004.

Between 1825-26 the famous George Stephenson took up his residence in Liverpool. This most remarkable man, of whom the world was to hear so much, came there simply as principal engineer of the company formed by Mr. Sanders for constructing a railway between Liverpool and Manchester. “ It took longer at that time,” says Mr. Walmsley, ” for the Manchester manufacturers to get their cotton from Liverpool than it had done for the same bales to come from America to England. The canal company, strong in its monopoly of transit, took life easily, stored the bales on their arrival until their turn for delivery came. No remonstrance could induce them to add to their number of boats, or to increase their speed, or reduce the rate of freights.”

Bridgewater Canal

Mr. Sanders was, as Mr. Walmsley records, the first of our merchants who took up the scheme for constructing a railway between Liverpool and Manchester. Gifted with energy, foresight, and tact, he possessed in a higher degree than I ever met in any man the power of personal influence. By him the subscriptions for preliminary expenses were collected, and to him the first great experiment owed its original impulse. He never relaxed his efforts, though the scheme encountered fierce opposition, till he brought together a body of men fully competent to carry the enterprise to a successful issue. Still more valuable than his efforts to promote the railway scheme was the moral support he gave George Stephenson at the board. His firm friendship and absolute faith in him inspired them with confidence, and that the directors should believe in their engineer was the more important, for the reason of their own utter ignorance of the details of the undertaking they had embarked in. Doubts and difficulties were constantly arising, which Stephenson’s lack of education disabled him from grappling with. He had no doubts, but others must be convinced, and the difficulty he had in expressing himself so as to demonstrate to others the feasibility of a scheme that was clear to his own mind, rendered Sanders’ staunch consistent support of the utmost value.

We need do no more than refer to the various interests that leagued themselves together against the great railway innovation, or to the superstitious dread with which it was regarded by many. The best engineering capacity in the kingdom declared Mr. Stephenson’s plan for uniting Liverpool and Manchester utterly impracticable. The projected railway must cross the heaving bog of Chat Moss, run through the rock called Mount Olives, and be carried by viaducts over rivers and valleys — in short, be driven right through all that obstructed its progress. In the face of such antagonism and such difficulties it was most assuredly necessary that the directors should feel confidence in their engineer, almost amounting to blind faith.

Chat Moss

” I had frequently heard,” says Sir Joshua, “ through Mr. Sanders of this singular man, who though often at a loss how to demonstrate by argument, had a homely mode of illustration of his own, that sometimes threw a flood of light upon a tedious discussion. For example, one day the board had been divided on the question whether the train should be drawn along or propelled from behind. “

” Stephenson took a piece of white chalk, drew a line on the table, fastened a bit of twine round the ink- stand, and bade the directors try the experiment themselves, to push and then draw the bottle over the line, and judge which was the easier mode of proceeding, and which produced the least friction. The experiment was conclusive.”

” Curiosity induced me to make Mr. Stephenson’s acquaintance. At that time I shared the fears of those who regarded the railway scheme as Utopian, but I soon learnt to have entire faith in Stephenson’s genius, and better still, I learnt to love the man, to revere his truthfulness and honesty, and value his brave tender heart. A close friendship ensued ; we spent much of our time together, and I never met a truer friend, a more consistent man, or a more agreeable companion. Our lives henceforth became in a manner bound up together.” Further on Sir Joshua says : ” There was a zest about him, a rugged outspokenness, a flavour of pungent homely humour. His speech was sharp and quick, his manner often abrupt. What he said he asserted positively, laying down the law. It was the self-reliance of a man whom experience had taught to have faith in himself. Sometimes this self-reliance might degenerate into obstinacy, but it was the obstinacy of conviction, not of conceit.”

This earnestness gave a freshness and simplicity to Stephenson’s manner that inspired a feeling of mingled tenderness and reverential enthusiasm in those who knew him well. His very foibles were dear to his friends ; they were part of him, and all his ways were expressive of ,the man. Lovingly and respectfully they spoke of him as the ” old man.” ” It was delightful to hear the old man converse on subjects familiar to him,” says Sir Joshua. ” His Northumbrian burr had a sort of cadence in it. He was not a book-reading man, but Nature had kept her book open for him to read, and every line of it he had studied. Nothing escaped his keen eye out of doors. He observed everything, and his memory was extra-ordinary. What he had once seen or read he never forgot. Geological strata, differences of soil, varieties of cattle, the construction of a bird’s nest — all were taken note of, all were thought over. Even on questions relating to speculation on philosophy and theology, his words gave evidence of deep meditation.”

” Geology was the topic he most delighted in. He loved to dilate on the great age of the earth. He had his hobbies and theories, some of the latter strikingly profound. One was that trees were nourished rather through their leaves than through their roots. His theory about coal, that it contained within itself the sun’s rays, as it were preserved, has become a received fact of science.”

” On the subject of politics, he was generally reticent. He had a certain disdain for it as a hopeless confusion, void of any law that he could grasp. Philosophers and children alike found delight in listening to him ; intellects in contact with his felt the stimulus of his powerful mind, and hearts felt refreshed by the simple poetry of his. It was sincerity combined with genius that attracted men ; and as for children, Stephenson had always a hospitable knee for them.”

” It was a joyous sight,” continues Sir Joshua, ” to see the great engineer with young people. They would hold on to his hands, trot by his side, or clamber about him as he taught them. He would tell them of ‘ the birds,’ who next to them held the warmest place in his heart, ‘ flying away when the cold blast came, and coming again when the sun shone.’ Taking up the most every-day manifestations of Nature, a bit of chalk or quartz, he would, step by step, lead them upwards with the most persuasive arguments and illustrations, speaking to them of nature in a way that made it a living book to them.”

Stephensons Rocket

“In the early part of October, 1829,” proceeds Mr. Walmsley, “came off” the trial of the engines, competing for the prize of five hundred pounds offered by the railway directors for the best steam locomotive manufactured in England. Rainhill was the scene of the trial. A level piece of railway two miles long was to be run over backwards and forwards twenty times.

 

Four engines entered the lists. Mr. Erickson’s ‘Novelty’/ Mr. Hackworth’s ‘Nonpareil’/ Mr. Bustail’s ‘Perseverance’/ and Mr. Stephenson’s ‘Rocket.’

On the appointed day, crowds assembled to witness the contest. The ‘Novelty’ was the first called out. It was a beautiful piece of machinery to the eye, but false in principle, and Mr. Stephenson knew this. As he and I stood together alongside his trial engine, someone who had witnessed the performance of the ‘Novelty ‘ came up breathless from the speed at which he had run. ‘You are beaten, Stephenson,’ he shouted out, ‘there’s no chance for the “Rocket” The ” Novelty ” has surpassed all our expectations. It has run at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour.’  

‘ How many carriages were attached to it ?’ asked Stephenson, quietly.  ‘ None,’ was the reply.

The ‘ old man ‘ gave a low laugh, then patting his engine with confiding affection, said : ‘ Is that all? The ” Rocket ” will go thirty miles an hour, carrying a whole train behind it. ‘

When its turn came, the ‘ Rocket ‘ fulfilled its master’s expectations. The prize was won by Stephenson.”

The 15th of September, 1830, at Liverpool, saw the inauguration of a new order of things. It was a brilliant day. Flags were flying ; soldiers marching to the strains of martial music, the sun shining on their weapons and uniforms, and on the holiday garbs and gear of the crowd ; all going in the direction of the new railway, leaving the streets of Liverpool to unwonted silence and solitude. Mr. Walmsley had gone with Mr. Stephenson. They were both expected back in the afternoon, but the afternoon waned, and still no sign of the returning spectators. No tidings of the day’s events had come. Groups began to form and rumours to fly vaguely. Messengers were despatched and contradictory reports spread. Night came at last, and with it the announcement of the cruel tragedy which had inaugurated the day’s proceedings. Mr. Huskisson, the advocate in Parliament of railways, had fallen a victim to the new order of things. 

William Huskisson M.P. 1770 -1830

Referring to Sir Joshua’s notes, we give his account of this ill-omened tragedy.

” Huskisson was in the train, the engine of which, named the ‘ Northumbrian,’ was driven by Stephenson. The Duke of Wellington was in the state carriage. The accident occurred at Parkside, where the ‘ Northumbrian ‘ had drawn up on a line of rail. “

” Here the eight trains that formed the procession were to pass in review before the Duke. Already the ‘Phoenix,’ driven by Robert Stephenson, and the ‘ North Star ‘ had passed There was to be an interval of a few moments, and then the ‘ Rocket ‘ driven by Mr. Locke, was expected. The excitement was immense. In spite of the placards warning passengers not to quit their carriages, men found it impossible to sit still — they got out to talk. The Duke of Wellington, seeing Mr. Huskisson standing on the bank close to the line, held out his hand to him; while they were shaking hands a shout rose from the guards, and was taken up all along the line, ‘Get in, get in ! ‘ A train rushed past ; the passengers in the carriages half thrust themselves out of the windows. “

” Someone had been knocked down. The ‘ Rocket ‘ passed on, and a mangled body was dragged from off the rails. It was Mr. Huskisson. “

” The pageant, the triumph, was now turned into a funeral procession. Stephenson drove the dying man to Eccles, putting his engine to its highest speed. The Duke of Wellington and his colleagues wished to return at once, but the directors, fearing the damage that the panic would cause to the railway interest if the ‘Northumbrian’ did not get to Manchester, persuaded them to go on.”

” At Manchester, the scene was very different from that which Liverpool had presented in the morning. At Liverpool, thousands in holiday gear had cheered the departing train ; at Manchester, thousands greeted its arrival with hootings.”

” A public demonstration had been got up against the Duke of Wellington, who was at the head of that active determined Tory party opposing Parliamentary reform, and Manchester had no representative in Parliament. Brickbats and stones were flung at us. The Iron Duke bore the attack with consummate indifference, and thus the journey and inauguration closed in painful contrast with its outset.”

”Tragic as was the occasion, Stephenson could not resist a quiet thrill of satisfaction as he remarked to me, on returning to Liverpool, that the ‘Northumbrian ‘ ‘ had driven Mr. Huskisson to Eccles at the rate of forty miles an hour. Five years ago,’ he added, ‘ my own counsel thought me fit for Bedlam for asserting that steam could impel locomotives at the rate of ten miles an hour.”

Huskisson Memorial, St James Cemetery, Liverpool

” Mr. Huskisson was buried on the 24th of September, at St. James’ Cemetery. People then remembered that when he opened the burial-ground, one short year before, he had been so impressed by the beauty of the site and the stillness of the place, that he remarked to those around him that, when his hour came, he would like this burial-ground to be his final resting-place. And there they now laid him.”

We next come to the account of an enterprise, the course of which illustrates George Stephenson’s extraordinary tenacity of purpose and Sir Joshua’s unwavering faith in him :

” When Robert Stephenson was superintending the construction of the Leicester and Swanington Railway, he came to the conclusion that coal was to be found in the Snibstone Estate, near Ashby, which was then in the market. His father concurred in his belief. A close observation of the surrounding country brought home the certainty to him that rich beds of unworked coal lay beneath the corn and turnip fields of Snibstone.”

“ Stephenson bought the estate, and then invited Mr. Sanders and me to take shares in the undertaking. We relied so implicitly on his judgment that we at once complied. The sinking began. One day Stephenson was superintending the work, when a farmer came to him : 

” ‘ I thought as much, sir,’ he said, looking at the preparations made ; ‘ I thought you were after coal, but you did not know that we have tried that dodge already and failed.’ The man evidently relished the manner in which the landowner had got the better of the engineer. “

” ‘ Oh I ‘ replied Stephenson, in his deliberate way, ‘ I thought as much ; I saw your old workings away yonder. And what made you fail, mon ; what beat you?’ “

” ‘ Only a river of water, that you’ll come to/ replied the farmer, laughing.”

” ‘You’re easily beaten, mon,’ said Stephenson, pointing to some pumping-engines and a mass of cast- iron tubbing, prepared in anticipation of such an eventuality. ‘We don’t care for your river,’ he added, with a humorous twinkle in his eye and a slight increase of the burr. “

“The next time the farmer came to look at the works, he found all had come to pass as Stephenson had anticipated. The water had burst into the shaft, but it had been pumped up and beaten back by the process called ‘ tubbing,’ practised at that time in the Northumbrian mines only.”

” So far Stephenson was victorious, but a greater difficulty was ahead; one that it was impossible to have foreseen, and which most men would have considered insuperable. A bed of green-stone, hard as granite, of unknown thickness, ran right through the land that the shaft now pierced. The contiguity of the estate to the Forest Rocks rendered this obstacle all the more serious, in that its thickness could not be estimated. Stephenson examined the unlooked-for obstacle, declared that it was but an overlap of green- stone, and persisted in asserting that coal lay below.”

” They set to work again — Stephenson confidently, and I with unshaken faith in him. Mr, Sanders in this instance did not share my fait. The process of boring was distressingly slow. Only a few inches could be pierced through daily. Sanders loudly protested, declaring the enterprise foolhardy. Stephenson was hurt. He could not demonstrate the existence of coal, he could only reiterate his assertion that it was there. With almost childish petulance he would entreat me not to allow Sanders to write to him; repeating, in his letter to me, ‘ That coal is there, on one side, coming close up to the Forest Rocks, and extending in the opposite direction. This obstruction is but an overlap of stone. Success will come if we will but persevere.’ Desirous of letting the ‘old man ‘ work on, unshackled by criticism, I offered at this crisis to buy up Mr. Sanders’ share. This offer testifying my confidence in the enterprise, removed his doubts, and he declined to sell out. Stephenson never forgot the reliance I showed him on this occasion. For many months we still bored on, without coming to coal. I confess the sight of the cold green- stone sometimes chilled my heart. “

Then I would ask : ‘Well, George, do you think you will ever come to coal?’

” ‘ I’ve no doubt of overcoming all difficulties,’ the ‘ old man ‘ would answer, with such quiet confidence that all my doubts would vanish. After nine or ten months the reward came, the green-stone was pierced through and a rich bed of coal was found beneath. “

” Another curious incident belongs to this story of the Snibstone mine. The original purchase had only included some seven hundred acres of land. Stephenson asserted that a coal bed extended over at least six hundred acres more. Just as the agreement to work the main seam was being completed, it struck Stephenson that other beds besides the main seam might exist

” ‘ What if such prove the case ? ‘ he asked the owner.

” ‘ Pay for the main seam, which you know exists, and you are welcome to all you find besides,’ said the landlord.

” ‘ Have you any objection to insert this in the agreement?’ asked Stephenson.

” ‘ Not in the least ! ’ replied the landlord, laughing, ‘and I’ll only ask from you a peppercorn rent for ninety-nine years.’ “

” This was done, and subsequently fourteen seams of coal were found, which under the agreement became the property of the partners.”

There is a portrait of Mr. Stephenson in the collection bequeathed by Sir Joshua Walmsley to the South Kensington Museum. It was taken some years after their first acquaintance by Mr. Daniel, an artist from whom Sir Joshua expected great things.

George Stephenson by William Daniels, 1846; V and A Collections

 

 

It represents a spare elderly man sitting very upright, as was Stephenson’s wont — active, observant, shrewd. It is a kindly face, guileless, yet with rare acuteness stamped upon it. Friends smile when they look upon it, for it is the faithful representation of the great and simple man they loved, who in age and success never lost the quiet zest for natural things he imbibed in the unconventional life of his childhood and youth.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter VI.

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CHAPTER VI. This chapter covers a period from the mid 1820’s until Josh’s retirement from the Corn Trade. It’s unclear when he stopped being a corn broker because all Hugh Walmsley tells us is a reference to 1833 and ” some years after [that] he retired.”  It is slightly odd that there is no mention of family because by 1830, five of the six Walmsley children had been born, and even if Hugh didn’t mention his brothers and sisters, he might have mentioned himself.

At the close of the third year the partners changed positions. Mr. Walmsley, now becoming principal, took the management of the town business, Mr. Booth attending the country markets.

” I determined,” he says, ” now that the control of affairs had passed into my hands, to make the firm the first brokerage business in the town. To attain this I adopted a new mode of conducting it. My partner and I were buying brokers, receiving orders from all parts of the country, and charging a small commission. We ran no risk of debt. I now made it a practice personally to inspect every bag of grain, to compare the bulk with the sample, and to become responsible for the quality and shipment of the whole, charging a small commission for so doing. This involved great personal labour, but I did not shrink from it. To this I added the habit of calling in person at the offices of the leading merchants of Liverpool, to ascertain what they had for sale and what they desired to purchase.”

George Dock, and the Goree Warehouses

“I had done this in the days of my humble beginning; and then I had learned the value of personal intercourse, and the value too of doing my own work myself. To be at my post early in the morning and late in the evening, to allow no hour of the day to find me unprepared for business, to be ready to answer every question promptly and accurately that might be put to me in connection with the corn trade ; these were the rules I took to accomplish the aim I had set before myself, and I did not swerve from them. For years my dinner was sent daily over from home to my office, in a tin box resembling those in which soldiers’ rations are carried, and kept warm by means of hot water. It was a movable feast, swallowed when time permitted.”

This strict and thorough attendance to duty soon began to reap its reward. After some years, nearly the whole monopoly of the brokerage business had passed into our hands. Enemies, jealous of this monopoly, occasionally sought to undermine the credit of the firm; but Mr. Walmsley instantly confronted slander, and at once refuted it, as in the following instance. “One day,” he says, ” our banker sent for me, and told me he had heard bad reports of my partner and myself — that we were deeply engaged in rash and ruinous speculations ; and he insinuated other irregularities. I listened quietly, returned to the office, and called for our books.”

” These I carried to the banker, and bade him examine them. From these I proved that my partner and I had remained simply brokers, that we had never bought or sold on our own account, that our means were good, and that no speculation endangered any other man’s money. Fully convinced, the banker gave the name of his informant. He was one of the best-known corn merchants in Liverpool, who had taken an unaccountable dislike to Mr. Booth. With the books under my arm I proceeded to this gentleman’s office, told him what I had heard, and requested him to examine the accounts and transactions which I laid before him ; should he find himself in error in the assertions he had circulated, I requested he would make what amends he could. This straightforward proceeding abashed the enemy. He examined the books, and the examination resulted in his becoming one of our customers, and remaining to the last a staunch friend of mine.”

Other interests besides those of business were entering into his life ; for during these years Liverpool was growing in population and increasing in trade. Public life was astir and betrayed by many symptoms the liberal tendencies that ere long were to transform the political and social aspects of the country. Meetings were held to raise subscriptions for the Spaniards, whose constitution had been attacked by the French.

Ardent appeals were made for money and sympathy for the Greeks in their struggle for independence — a struggle glorified by the death of Byron. This growth of Liberalism in Liverpool Mr. Walmsley watched with keen interest. He attended and spoke at the meetings called to express abhorrence of the slave trade. In common with many Liverpool merchants, the blot that had once sullied the commerce of the town he felt as one upon his own honour. Nowhere did Wilberforce’s endeavours to abolish slavery in every colony of England find more hearty support than in Liverpool.

In his spare hours Mr. Walmsley attended meetings called to consider the subject of the Corn Laws. In a memorandum, dated somewhere about 1826, he notices ” that the most advanced reformers had not dared as yet to advocate a total repeal ; a moderate fixed duty being as yet the most startling innovation they dared to propose.”

Liverpool Mechanics Institute

In 1826 Mr. Walmsley joined the Liverpool Mechanics’ Institute, and shortly after was elected president But these institutions, which spread quickly over the country — thanks to the exertions of men like Dr. Birkbeck and Mr. Brougham – did not effect the good expected ; although men of science and talent often gratuitously gave their time to them, becoming themselves teachers.

In 1827 the famous sliding scale [of duty on the price of corn]  came into operation, and its actual working may be understood from two instances drawn from Mr. Walmsley ‘s notes.

“ One year the harvest give every promise of being favourable, but as to this I could judge from a tour made through the agricultural districts. Naturally the sliding scale ran up to its highest point. From my personal observation I felt sure this prospect of plenty would not hold good, and that there would be a deficient harvest. Whilst others waited the action of the sliding scale, I despatched agents to buy up foreign grain and ship it for England as quickly as possible. Thus my ships would have the start in the race which I knew must soon be run. The vessels left Tamboff, two of them arriving just as the deficit I had foreseen sent the tax imposed down to the nominal price of one shilling a quarter. Head winds and a succession of storms delayed the others. Had all arrived in time, a large fortune would have been realised. As it was, the cargo of the two ships first entering not only covered all loss, but left a handsome profit on the whole.”

Singularly enough, while thus profiting by the working of the sliding scale, Mr. Walmsley by his presence and by his speeches at public meetings protested against it, and was one of the first in Liverpool to advocate repeal of the Corn Laws, and previous to the formation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, delivered lectures on the subject

“ In 1833 I fully realised,” Mr. Walmsley writes, “ the depth of folly and cruelty this tax on bread involved. The sliding scale had remained stationary so long at its highest figure, no foreign corn entered the port, and the warehouses were full of bonded grain thus kept out of the market. A large share of this belonged to me. A sudden fall in the scale announced a deficiency. The price of food rose with great rapidity, so that soon pale thin faces might be seen in the streets. To let loose the bonded corn would avert famine.”

At the last moment the storehouses were thrown open, but it was found that the wheat had been so long kept that it was rotten, and the starving people watched as load after load was thrown into the Mersey. The sad tale of “Walmsley’s corn” was long remembered, and served as a war-cry when the final agitation compelled the repeal of the Com Laws.

So far Mr. Walmsley’s career had been prosperous, but now from brokers they aspired to be commission agents. Evil times came, and some of their heaviest advances remained uncovered. Failure followed failure, and they lost considerably. In one, the firm lost twenty-five thousand pounds. [Present-day value £32.5m] In twelve months the fruit of years of toil melted away and ruin seemed imminent.

” I alone,” he writes, ” was aware of the full extent of the danger. Neither my partner nor our banker was cognisant of it. My wife alone shared the anxiety with me, and I resolved if only I could work through never again to meddle with speculation. The danger was tided over, and the firm emerged with diminished funds but untarnished credit. It was no easy task to return into the old groove, but once more we became simple brokers, and at the end of seven years won back all that had been lost.”

Mr. Walmsley now separated from his partner, carrying on business on his own account, and some years after he retired, having achieved moderate competence.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter V.

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CHAPTER V.  This is early in the 1820’s, and a rather bizarre chapter. At this point, Josh and Adeline had two very young children, so there has to be some very strong reasons for him to be following a debtor all the way to France. The story raises almost as many questions as it gives answers. Was he owed a lot of money, was the debtor a member of the family? The reference to ” the riot and hard drinking going on of a Sunday afternoon in the lower parts of Liverpool,” has a certain irony given that Adeline’s family, the Mulleneux were distillers in the city for a number of generations, and her brother John Robinson Mulleneux was a “porter brewer”.  The Sunday League was a cause Josh took up in the 1850’s to open museums to the people on Sundays – their object, they said, was “the moral and intellectual elevation of the people”.

The terms of the partnership were that Mr. Walmsley should begin by receiving one-third of the profits. With this stimulus he set to work, determined to make the firm respected through Liverpool, and to earn the wealth that would give him power and justify the confidence placed in him. Mr. Booth had been two years in business when Mr. Walmsley joined him, yet as broker he had not made much progress. Soon, however, the firm felt the influence of the strong hand that now had the principal guidance of its affairs.

During the first two years, it was part of Mr. Walmsley’s business to attend the country markets. There he met the farmers, and learned from them the condition of the agricultural districts. By this intercourse, combined with his keen observation, he gained a rare tact and foresight in harvest prospects. This, added to his singular knowledge of grain, was destined to prove invaluable to him later on, when the sliding- scale system came into operation, and when success in the trade was to depend chiefly on a happy calculation of the forthcoming harvest. These years amongst the farmers taught him other lessons besides.

“ I learned then,” he says, ” the fact that an abundant harvest was looked upon as a calamity by the growers of corn. They did not disguise that they regarded as a disaster what the people in the manufacturing towns deemed a blessing. To them agricultural plenty signified the agriculturist’s distress — low prices of wheat and high rents. Coming from a manufacturing town, where dearness of bread meant almost starvation, the antagonism between the interest of the mass of the people and that of the agriculturists impressed me strongly. It first turned my thoughts to principles which eventually ruled my whole course of life, and emphatically brought home to my heart the truths that unity of interest in a nation can alone ensure its welfare.”

Towards the close of Mr. Walmsley’s first year of partnership, an incident occurred that called forth so many traits of his character, and the circumstances of which illustrate so forcibly the manners of the day, that we give in full his account of it, only reserving the name of one of the principal actors therein.

” Several cargoes of grain for various merchants had been sold to a young dealer in Liverpool, who seemed to be doing well and enjoyed good credit. Suddenly he disappeared, a debtor to a large amount.”

” A meeting of creditors assembled, and I was asked to follow the debtor. I accepted the charge, determining if it were possible to find the man, recover the money, and reclaim the defaulter by representing to him the ruin he entailed upon his family, and persuade him to return and meet his creditors. That night I reached Congleton only to find myself too late. Taking with him his horse and gig, the defaulter had ere this reached Birmingham. To Birmingham I followed. It was difficult for a stranger to trace out one individual in a crowded city ; but I ascertained that my man had passed the night there, and leaving his horse and gig behind him, had taken the coach to London. Into that gig I stepped, using the same coachman. Time, however, had been wasted at Liverpool ; and when I reached Gerard’s Hall, Basing Lane,[was an inn, and coffee house in the City] it was only to find that the fugitive, after remaining there one night, had taken his carpet-bag and had sought the security of the London streets.”

” What was to be done by a stranger in the great city, without so much as a letter of introduction to help him ? The police was a force somewhat more numerous and more active in limb than the watchmen in Liverpool ; but it was not yet reformed by Sir Robert Peel, and there were peculiarities in its organisation. Before long it was borne in upon me that an impartial observer might be justified in the belief, that it was a body cunningly devised to protect malefactors rather than to prevent crime and pursue offenders. No help could I expect from this quarter, and how without its aid could track my offender ?”

” I ordered a number of handbills to be printed, offering a ‘handsome reward ‘ to any informant. Thereon the personal appearance of the young defaulter was elaborately portrayed. Who was to circulate these handbills, and to whom were they to be given ? I resolved to circulate them myself. “

” For three weary days I walked through the London streets from early morning till late in the evening, giving to every cabman on every stand one of my printed bills. When the drudgery of the day was over, I went to places of public amusement, not for the sake of the entertainment, but to scan the faces of those present. Late on the third night I was returning home tired, but satisfied I had done what man can do to fulfil my mission, when I overheard the following dialogue between two porters standing at the door of my inn.”

“l say, Jim, that chap from Liverpool thinks himself mighty clever, with his handbills, and his a-trudging through the mud ” said one, “ but don’t he wish he may get it ? “

” Removing the short clay pipe from his mouth, the fellow addressed puffed out a long wreath of smoke and laughed, “ Ay, ay ; does he take us for fools with his ”handsomely rewarded?” Don’t we know what that means — just nothing at all. If he’d said he’d give a “ fiver,” we’d ‘a found his individual sharp enough. Bill ? “

“ That ‘ud a bin two pun ten each,’ Bill was calculating, when I turned away deeply mortified. They were right ; my efforts had been thrown away, for I had overlooked the essential condition of success.”

“ Next morning I was up before dawn, rectifying my mistake. I obliterated the ‘handsomely rewarded” and wrote down, ‘five pounds,’ in the bills in my possession, directing new ones to be printed. Then once more I set out to distribute those myself, placing two in the hands of my unconscious counsellors. From the police I expected little; five pounds was too modest a sum to waken up their dormant faculties. ! My second tramp, with the golden promise held out of a ‘ fiver’ proved as fruitless as the first. I was contemplating returning to Liverpool a beaten man, when one day, sauntering down Cheapside, still distributing my handbills, a tap on the shoulder made me look round, and the pleasant sight of the genial face, broad-brimmed hat, and stiffly cut coat of the Quaker friend from Liverpool greeted me. ‘ Thee won’t find him here,’ he said, and he proceeded to tell how a letter from the fugitive to his wife had been intercepted. It was dated Brighton. He was on his way to America, and he asked her to join him there.”

“Forgetful of past failure, I started off in pursuit. At Brighton I found the runaway had gone to Dieppe. Days passed before another vessel sailed. I had now provided myself with a London detective, a shrewd and experienced man, for ignorant as I was of the habits and laws of France, to have followed alone would have been useless. At last we started for Dieppe, there to learn that the delinquent had gone on to Havre. Thither we followed, and that night ascertained the fugitive was still there. The net was tightening round his feet. I knew the man and the haunts he would choose. In the third restaurant we entered we saw him at dinner with some American friends. The man I had sought for days through the London streets, whom I had pursued across the sea was there, only divided from me by a thin partition. I sprang forward to seize him, but the detective’s hand held me back.”

“We are not in England ; their ways are not ours,’ he said. ‘We must go at once before the commissary of police, make our declaration, and leave the capture to them.”

” To the commissary accordingly we went. The defaulter could not be arrested for debt, but we had a hold over him for travelling under a false passport. I offered to remain under the surveillance of the police until papers were procured from England. Orders for arrest were issued, and we were politely bowed out. I had a presentiment of being baffled ; but when I asked if there was any danger of escape, the commissary laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and assured me that at ten o’clock on Monday morning, if I came to the police-office, I should find my prisoner waiting for me. There was nothing to be done but to obey.”

” The following day was Sunday. I strolled along the quay, the cliffs, and the town. It was a beautiful day, and all the inhabitants of Havre had turned out of doors. They thronged the jetty, and strolled about the shore. Whole families were out together, from the little children tumbling about to the grandfathers playing with them. The merry-go-rounds were in full swing, violins were scraped, ninepins were being knocked down, games were going on in all directions. What fresh clean caps the women wore ! The men had clean ‘ blouses,’ the very fish-women had extra long earrings and bright stockings under their short petticoats. Sunday was evidently considered here a day of gladness. Priests in long black robes were going in and out amongst the crowd chatting with their parishioners, and enjoying the surrounding brightness. I retired to a lonely cliff, overlooking the sea, painfully impressed with the scene. Yet I could not but acknowledge that I saw no trace of drunkenness here, that the amusements were all innocent. With painful distinctness I contrasted the bright spectacle with the riot and hard drinking going on of a Sunday afternoon in the lower parts of Liverpool ; there the labourer drank himself to sleep or to temporary madness, here the working man spent the day in innocent recreation with his family. That Sunday the germ was planted that later on expanded into the Sunday League.”

” Punctual to our appointment, Monday morning at ten we presented ourselves to the commissary of police, only to find my foreboding realised. The prisoner had escaped. The police, piqued at their failure, made every possible effort to retrieve it.”

” Expresses were sent out in every direction, but the fugitive slipped through the noose thrown around him. Had he seen me that Saturday night, and secreted himself in some outward-bound vessel for America? By the commissary’s order, every vessel in the port of Havre was searched, and at every search I was present At last one day an American ship was weighing anchor. Suspicion was aroused. We boarded her, and searched every nook and cranny. Suddenly I detected a space between two bales; pushing my hand down I clutched a human head, and triumphantly dragged its unfortunate owner from his place of refuge. He was not the man I sought, but a murderer for whom the police had long been on the look-out With this incident ended my search. I had failed, and my failure had been caused by some foolish formality. The insufficiency of the police, the intricacies of the system as it then existed, were forcibly brought home to me on this occasion.”

” Some time elapsed before tidings were obtained of the fugitive. It then appeared that he had seen me that Saturday night at Havre. As he was jovially dining with his friends he had caught sight of me. All the time he had been aware that he was pursued, and that I was his pursuer. During that time, where- ever he went, he declared afterwards, he carried two pistols — one to shoot me with, the other to shoot himself, rather than surrender his person. That Saturday night he had fancied himself safe, and had left his portmanteau and pistols at his inn ; while we were making our report he escaped, not returning to his hotel, but making for Dieppe, from thence to England, then on to America. The pistols and portmanteau were found by the French police, and handed over to me. I did not know then what work the weapons were intended for ; my object had been to persuade the man to come home, boldly meet his creditors, and save his reputation. I thought I had arguments strong enough to prevail ; but it was fortunate we had not met face to face, for the man who had vowed to kill me was reckless and desperate, and would assuredly have kept his word.” 

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter IV

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CHAPTER IV.  This all takes place between 1816 – 1819.

The young couple took a house in Gloucester Street, at a rental of seventeen pounds per annum; the furnishing of which proved no easy matter, but by his old age there was no greater delight to Sir Joshua than the retrospect of these happy days, to tell of their many straits, and the difficulty they had to make the two ends meet, of their various vicissitudes and unvarying affection.

It was a time when the bare necessaries of life were hard to get, for the harvest of 1816 proved the worst England had known for years. The Corn Laws of 1815, prohibiting the importation of grain until homegrown wheat had reached eighty shillings per quarter, increased the distress. Misery was widespread over the country ; in Liverpool we find twenty thousand persons depending upon parish relief for support, and to feed this starving multitude the rate of one shilling and threepence levied upon the pound. As it inevitably happens, the heaviest burden fell upon small incomes, and accordingly it became imperative upon Mr. Walmsley to devise some means by which to increase his.

“My first resolve,” he says, ” was that my duty to my employers should not be interfered with, nor the time I owed them encroached upon. To solve this problem of reconciling the two conflicting interests seemed no easy matter, yet it was not long before I hit upon a plan, and I set to work at once. At the county markets, of which Warrington and Manchester were the principal, I was getting well known. My discrimination in grain had earned me a reputation. I now determined to try some modest speculations on my own account. I therefore bought small packets of rice, arrowroot, Indian corn, and disposed of them at those markets. My plan succeeded beyond my expectations. It saved us from penury. Those small speculations in grain succeeded so well in the county markets that I took a room, or rather a barn, in South John Street. There, in the early morning, I weighed out my packages and carried them to their various destinations. I was never a moment behind time at Messrs. Carter and Piers’ office, although before this regular business hour I had often done a hard morning’s work. I never slackened my energy in my employers’ interest, and in the early hours I was earning more than double the salary they allowed me. Thanks to Peter Evans’ training, on the Corn Exchange I was recognised as a first-rate judge of cereals. By plunging my hand into a sack, I could recognise by the touch alone the quality and kind of grain it contained.”

Queens Dock, Liverpool

To this period belongs an incident which Sir Joshua often related :

“ One morning, very early,” he said, ” I issued out of my modest warehouse, carrying a heavy bag of rice on my back. It was destined for Mr. Harrison, a ship-biscuit baker, residing close to the dock. The percentage on it would be barely two shillings. I quietly wended my way — few passengers being in the streets as yet — when suddenly on approaching Queen’s Dock, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of porters, shaking their fists in my face, yelling that I was encroaching on their rights, that I was taking the bread out of their mouths. They threatened to throw me and my bag into the river. The crowd of furious men was swelling. The expression of their faces, their gestures, told me that the execution of their threat was imminent. No help could be looked for from the ‘ Old Charlies.’  For one moment I was startled, then I leaned my back and my bag up against a wall. I shouted at the top of my voice, bidding them be still. I told them, I too was poor, poor as the poorest of them. I was the last who would encroach upon the poor man’s rights, but I claimed that right for myself — the right to earn honestly what lay in my power. I told them what percentage this bag of rice would bring me, scarce enough to pay one of them to carry it to its destination ; and this I could not give, for it would be the price of my dinner.”

“The words appealed to the men’s sense of fair play, and their yells were turned to cheers. When I moved on they walked behind me in procession, hurrahing lustily. Mr. Harrison, attracted by the noise, came to his door to ascertain its cause. He was not a little astonished to see his expected rice-dealer coming towards him, his bag hoisted on his back, surrounded by a cheering crew of dock-porters. He could scarcely believe his eyes, but when I told him the story of that morning’s adventure, he offered there and then to take me into partnership. The days of my apprenticeship however not being ended, I could not accept his offer.”

Circumstances were brightening in the little household in Gloucester Street When, after two years, the eldest son was born, [Again this is a little hazy with the facts, Joshua Walmsley II was born in 1819, four years after the marriage, and Elizabeth Walmsley, the eldest daughter was almost two.] Mr. Mulleneux, who had been watching his son-in-law’s career, forgave the two offenders. His daughter’s husband might be poor, but he was made of the right stuff; his principles and aims were upright and manly, and his determination to carry them out indomitable.

The following is the account Sir Joshua gives of his coach-travelling days, as Messrs. Carter and Piers’ salesman :

” The speed at which coaches travelled now was very different from the slow old days of my childhood. Once I remember having left Liverpool at seven in the morning, breakfasting at Prescott, dining at Warrington, taking tea at Hallam’s Green, eating Eccles cakes at Eccles, and reaching Manchester at eight. The thirty-six miles had taken thirteen hours to perform. Now the thirty -six miles were accomplished within three hours and a half. Travelling had become safe too. Highwaymen were almost an extinct race. During the time I travelled thrice weekly between Liverpool, Warrington, and Manchester, there was but one coach robbery on record, and by a sort of poetic justice the robbed man was himself his employer’s robber. The hours of travel we often spent in playing whist. There was a Quaker whose name was well known in Liverpool, a worthy member of the Society of Friends. He often travelled down by the Warrington coach, or in the gig. He did not play whist himself, but he lent his great- coat to be spread on the players’ knees to form a temporary table. He also held the candle for them when it was too dark to distinguish hands. With unaccountable interest he watched the game, and often when I was about to play a wrong card he would jog my elbow, a hint I always followed.”

Mr. Walmsley had long been following with keen interest the progress of steam navigation. He foresaw that this marvellous propelling power would usher in a new era in commerce. Men’s minds were divided on the subject, some holding the expectation of any great change for the better resulting from it to be visionary, whilst others watched and half believed.

Mr. Egerton Smith, in the columns of The Liverpool Mercury, strenuously advocated the use of steam to tow sailing-vessels out to sea. Pointing to the ruinous delay caused to merchants by the prevalence of north-west winds off the coast, detaining whole fleets for weeks in the Mersey, he urged that by the use of steam they might be towed out and go on their way, and also that during calms the river and docks might be relieved from momentary pressure.

Gradually he went further and collected evidence to prove how steam might be applied to sea-going ships.

” The famous Dr. Lardner vigorously opposed the idea. He admitted that on the calm waters of the great American rivers it might work, but to apply it to ocean-going ships was insanity. At a lecture, to which I listened with breathless attention, the doctor laughed to scorn the notion of steam as an ocean- going motive power. He stated boldly and decisively that not only was it an impossibility, but that it would ever remain so, that no vessel ever could cross the Atlantic and carry her own coal. This he theoretically demonstrated to the satisfaction of his hearers and himself. On the 30th June, 1815, I formed a unit in a great crowd assembled on the frontage towards the river. About noon of that day arrived the first steamboat ever seen on the Mersey. I shall never forget my emotion as I watched the strange ship ploughing the waters, and sending puffs of smoke upwards in the air.”

Beaumaris and the Menai Straights

He records his first trip in a steamer :

“ One of the first steamships seen on the Mersey was placed at the disposal of the mayor, Jonathan Hollinghead, and the municipality, in order that by means of a short trip to Beaumaris and back they might satisfy themselves of the practicability of steam as a motive power. A ticket was offered me, and I gladly availed myself of it. It was a glorious day, but just sufficient sea on to make the plunging of the vessel testify to the power of the engine. The destination was reached in safety, and the mayor and his guests landed, visited this lovely and romantic spot, then once more embarked, and the St. George steamed out of the little harbour amid the wild cheers of the inhabitants, who crowded the shore to behold the crowning wonder of the age. The afternoon sun was shining brightly, the sea had gone down. On deck a bounteous repast was laid, the host’s jovial merriment communicating itself to all his guests. Presently two Manx herring-boats were seen luffing up into the wind, their sails shivering to slacken their way, in order that the fishermen might gaze on a vessel advancing without sails. Willing to gratify them, the captain slackened speed, and the St. George steered right between the two tiny craft. The boats, as it neared them, both filled and stood on the same tack. The breeze was fair, and they easily kept way with the steamer, one to starboard, the other to port. Suddenly, one of our party seized an apple and flung it at one of the fishermen. Another and another followed, then a volley, and the mania spreading, apples, oranges, cakes were thrown in a perfect storm. It was the broadside of the ship-of-war together with the file-firing of the marines. The mayor forgot his dignity and shouted with glee. Aldermen and common-councilmen grew young again, and grave grey-haired men pelted and shouted like children. A moment the fishermen were staggered and utterly bewildered, then with a howl of vengeance, they seized upon their finny prey, and the air grew dark with herrings. They fell in showers upon the assailants, the deck was slippery with them, the table was covered with them, still on they came, thicker and faster.

‘Go ahead full steam !’ shouted the captain, and the St. George obeyed, drawing out of Herring reach, while the mayor gave a parting cheer, and hurled his hat in defiance in the direction of the Manxmen, whose responding shouts were heard as the lost hat bobbed up and down on the waves.”

Thus a naval encounter marked Mr. Walmsley’s first trip to sea.

The time of his apprenticeship now approached its close. He could choose his future path. Messrs. Carter and Piers offered him a liberal salary to remain. Mr. Harrison was ready to take him into partnership. There was a third opening for him : Mr. Booth, a gentleman he had often travelled with, who had begun business two years before, also offered to make him his partner. It had often occurred to Mr. Walmsley that a first-rate and secure business might be got together in the corn trade by buying brokers. Mr. Booth agreed to the plan, and Mr. Walmsley closed with the offer. His reputation at the different markets, his knowledge of all his future customers, had formed for him an extensive commercial acquaintance, and he felt sure of success.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter III

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CHAPTER III. – This is 1815. On Saturday 24th June, six days after the Battle of Waterloo Joshua Walmsley and Adeline Mulleneux got married at St. James’ church in Toxteth. He was twenty-one years old, she was nineteen. It’s not quite the romantic tale uncle Hugh tells us below. As can be seen from the marriage register, it was a conventional marriage, the banns would have been read aloud on three Sundays before the wedding ceremony, and not a rush straight to the church to find a vicar to marry them instantly. This is however a chapter that contains almost all the detail about any sort of personal life.

When Joshua Walmsley obtained the long-wished-for post, he had a stronger incentive to push his fortune than the remembrance of his father’s prognostics — the only woman he had ever loved had promised to become his wife. We can dwell but lightly on the details of this story of a love that began in childhood, and endured to the last day of a long and eventful life.

” When I was seven years old,” he says, ” I met at a dancing-school Adeline Mulleneux, aged six. She was the daughter of a wealthy wine merchant. I remember we noticed each other the first day of my arrival. Soon after I was allowed to escort her home from the dancing-school, and very proud I felt to be her protector. We played together in the old court, and we loved each other. A story is still told how a portrait of Adeline, as a baby, was shown to me. It represented her sitting in her mother’s lap, grasping three enormous cherries in her tiny fingers.  “Do you like it?’ asked Mrs, Mulleneux. After gazing solemnly at it for a long time, it is related that I answered: ‘Yes, but I like herself much better.’  The family bantered little Adeline on the conquest she had made ; but we were soon separated, for the state of my father’s affairs obliged him to send his children into the country. Years elapsed, and we met again at Mr. Knowles’ school Adeline Mulleneux, who was now eighteen, came there to take drawing lessons, and as I was the principal teacher, we met. Once more we became intimate, and once more we loved each other. When I took my seat on the high stool in Mr. Carter’s office, with a salary of forty pounds [present-day value about £35,000], and a prospect of seventy [present-day value about £75,000] in four years, she had promised to become my wife when I should be in somewhat more prosperous circumstances.”

” I now took a modest lodging at Edge Hill, and resolved to live upon one shilling a day [That works out to £18,5s. per year which would have a present-day value about £16,500]. Bread and milk for breakfast, a penny roll and a basin of soup were my daily bill of fare. My duties were those that fall to apprentices in a large establishment — the post- office, petty cash, and the copying of letters. I thought the time must still be very far off when I could walk into Mr. Mulleneux’s house and ask the rich merchant to give me his daughter. But I had her promise and knew it was steadfast enough to stand any test, and for my part, above all other prizes, my mind was set to win this one.”

Here then we find the young man in possession of the long-coveted berth in a merchant’s office. The old days with their irksome duties have passed away, leaving only wholesome traces of their hard discipline. His new duties were subordinate, and could train him to be only an ordinary clerk, and in this routine he might have remained for years, but he determined to make himself of special value to his employers. His natural energy spurred him on ; and then there was, too, that secret incentive, that goal which he kept ever in view, and which, sooner than he thought, was to crown the runner with victory. Thus he tells how he set about acquiring a knowledge of grain, which was the qualification of most value in the office of Messrs. Carter and Piers : —

” Old Peter Evans was their warehouseman. He was a practical man of the old school, and liked to see a lad eager to learn, and when I questioned him about samples of grain he answered readily. Peter was willing to teach me all he knew. Twice a week before breakfast, and long before my appointed hour for work, he and I used to meet and go together to the stores and ships. The old man would take samples and show them to me. The number and variety of grain at first bewildered me. It seemed a hopeless task trying to learn to distinguish them all. But perseverance conquered in the end. Peter now began to take pride in a pupil who was mastering the mysteries and intricacies of grain. He grew ingenious in devices to puzzle me, till at last I was a match for all his resources. Then he would take a handful of every sort of grain and pulse — English, Irish, Scotch, foreign — and spreading them before me, ask the quality, weight, and condition of each ; of what county, province, and country they were, with such observations as the case required. All the while he watched me from under his shaggy eyebrows, and would give a satisfied growl when the answer proved correct.”

” Peter prided himself on possessing a knowledge of grain beyond anyone in Liverpool, and I was on the way of becoming as great an adept as himself. No one knew of these early meetings in the stores and ships, and my employers wondered at my sharpness. Customers also soon discovered my proficiency, and sometimes consulted me in preference to old Peter.”

” Scarcely had I been a year in Mr. Carter’s service when the traveller and salesman, Mr. Robinson, a very able man, gave notice, on his entering into partnership with one of the leading merchants of Liverpool. This was a serious loss, and Mr. Carter, puzzled how to fill up the vacancy, consulted his retiring salesman. Mr. Robinson pointed me out as the man best fitted to fill the post. Accordingly it was offered to me, but no mention was made of an increase of salary, although my predecessor’s had been a large one. Morally speaking, however, the rise was a great one, and I closed with the offer at once.”

The year 1815 was a memorable one for England and Liverpool. Peace with America was restored. On a brilliant spring morning in April, the British flag flying at her mainmast, the American at her mizen peak, the Mild sailed up the Mersey — the first American vessel, come on a peaceful enterprise, that had entered the port for nearly three years. Some months later came news of Waterloo and of Bonaparte’s final downfall. But the year was to be marked for the young man by an event, more important to himself personally than the vast changes which were gradually being effected.

Mr. [Hugh] Mulleneux refused to sanction his daughter’s engagement. The wealthy merchant had more ambitious views for his child than a marriage with a poor clerk with no apparent prospects ; but the lovers were not to be deterred by such considerations. They were willing to wait, but determined to be faithful to one another. According to the ordinary course of events, there could hardly be a more unrealisable romance than was theirs. Any jury of wise men would have given a unanimous verdict against the marriage. A poor clerk, with a salary of fifty pounds per annum, and a prospect of seventy pounds, whose compulsory economy amounted to extreme privation, offering himself to a lady of position and expectations, with no other plea than that she loved him.  Family prejudices and family prudence had to yield to it, nevertheless, and it was not the modest lover who precipitated the crisis. They met one day and spoke to each other in presence of Mr. Mulleneux. That afternoon, Mr. Walmsley received a note bidding him attend next morning at the office of Mr. Mulleneux’s eldest son[also called Hugh]. Never did a day of more perplexing foreboding break upon the course of true love, for the note was couched in terms that showed some decision was pending.

The account of that interview and its result we give in Mr. Walmsley’s words :

” I went at the appointed hour with a beating heart : what new turn of affairs did this meeting bode? In a corner of the room Adeline sat, brightening the dingy office to me. Young Mulleneux’s expression was very stern as he looked at me, and, pointing to his sister, said :

‘ Are you prepared to marry this lady?’

The question was meant for a clincher. The thought of my poverty rushed full upon me ; but there was no sign of fear in Adeline’s face.

‘ Yes,’ I answered boldly.

” But when, sir ? ‘ asked my interlocutor derisively.

‘ At once,’ I replied quietly.

“ Perhaps I had better send for a coach ? ‘ said young Mr. Mulleneux ironically.

‘ We can walk,’ I answered undauntedly, going up to my betrothed. There was no faltering in the hand she laid upon my arm. To St. James’ Church we accordingly walked ; but none of the necessary preliminaries had been gone through, and the clergyman refused to perform the ceremony. We made an appointment to be at church the next morning at half-past ten.

Matters having reached this pass, Mr. Mulleneux made no further opposition. ‘ Let them marry,’  he said, ‘ but I will never see them again.’

 

At half-past ten next morning we met at the altar. The ceremony was performed. Adeline Mulleneux and I plighted our troths to each other. Then we parted ; I to return to my work, my wife to go to the house of friends, but not to her home.

” On my entering the office, Mr. Carter’s greeting showed he knew the reason of my late arrival. ‘Are you aware of the cost of living ? ‘ he asked me with a grim smile.  I knew the cost well ; and, although I was supremely happy, I was not without misgivings.”