Edward
Baines,
the son of Richard and Jane Baines, was born in Preston
on 5th February, 1774. Richard Baines worked as an excise officer
until he opened a small grocer's shop in the village of Walton-le-dale.
After hearing about Richard Arkwright
and his successful business in Cromford, Richard Baines became involved
in the textile industry. In 1793 he purchased some carding and roving
machines from Arkwright and started up business in the village of
Brindle, seven miles from Preston.
Edward was educated at Preston Grammar School until the age of sixteen
when he went to work for Thomas
Walker, a printer and stationer in Preston. In 1793 Walker
began publishing the Preston Review.
The political views expressed in the newspaper upset powerful Tories
in the town and the following year it was forced to closed.
Unable to work as a journalist in Preston, Baines decided to move
to Leeds where
he found work with Binns and Brown, the publishers of The
Leeds Mercury. In 1797 Edward Baines asked his father
to loan him £100. With this money he joined forces
with his friend John
Fenwick, to go into business as a general printer.
After obtaining a loan of £950 from some Whig
friends Baines bought the The
Leeds Mercury in 1801. Although the overall cost was
£1 552, his down payment was £700 followed by £500
in 1802 and £352 in 1803.
Edward Baines was a staunch Methodist
and supported the cause of the Dissenters.
He advocated that industrial towns and cities such as Leeds should
be represented in Parliament. His
greatest journalistic scoop came in June 1817 when he revealed that
the Government of Lord Liverpool was
using agent provocateurs.
Edward Baines
also strongly disapproved of the Slave
Tradeand willingly used The
Leeds Mercury to support the campaign of Thomas
Clarkson and Granville
Sharp to bring an end to slavery in the British Empire.
However, influenced by his many friends involved in the textile
industry, Edward Baines was totally opposed to factory legislation.
Although in favour of some aspects of parliamentary reform, Edward
Baines disagreed with the working class being given the vote. Edward
Baines' criticisms of those advocating universal suffrage resulted
him becoming very unpopular with radicals in Leeds.
On 16th August, 1819, Baines' son, also called Edward
Baines observed the Peterloo Massacre
and the report in The
Leeds Mercury blamed both the organisers of the event
and the officers of the yeomanry for the disaster.
After the 1832 Reform Act Leeds was granted
two members of parliament. In the next General Election Edward Baines
and The Leeds Mercury
supported the two Whig candidates, John
Marshall, the owner of the largest flax-spinning factory
in Leeds, and the historian Thomas
Macaulay. Marshall (2,012) and Macaulay (1,914) were elected.
Michael Sadler, the leader of the factory reform movement received
only 1,590 votes and was defeated.
In 1833 Thomas Macaulay
resigned his seat in order to take up a post in India. Edward Baines
was chosen as the Liberal candidate to replace Macaulay. In February
1834 Edward Baines (1,951) defeated the Tory candidate, Sir John Beckett
(1,917). In the House of Commons Edward
Baines supported the cause of the Dissenters. This included the measure
to abolish Church Rates and bill to register
Dissenters' Marriages. Edward Baines also played an important role
in the opposition to factory legislation, universal suffrage and government
control over education.
Edward Baines's son, Edward Baines was
also an opponent of factory legislation. In 1835 Edward Baines wrote
History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great
Britain. In the book Baines attacked those who had campaigned
against child labour. He accused them of providing a false picture
of what it was like to work in a textile factory. Baines claimed in
his book that "factory labour is far less injurious than many
other forms of employment". He went on to argue that many of
the factory children were born in bad health and that they "sink
under factory labour, as they would under any kind of labour."
Declining health forced Baines to retire from the House
of Commons in May 1841. His suggestion that
his friend, Joseph Hume, should replace him
was accepted. However in the election that followed, Hume was defeated
by William Becket, the Tory candidate. Edward
Baines died on 3rd August 1848.
(1)
Edward
Baines,
The Life of Edward Baines (1851)
Meetings
to petition for Parliamentary Reform were held in many parts of the
country; and amongst others in Leeds, in the month of January, 1817.
At this meeting Edward Baines was the principal speaker. He showed
the extreme inequalities and abuses in the representation, which gave
members of decayed boroughs, and withheld them from the largest commercial
towns, such as Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds.
(2)
Edward
Baines,
The
Life of Edward Baines (1851)
During
this summer occurred the dismal event in Manchester, which was popularly
and not unjustly called the Peterloo Massacre. I was an eye-witness,
and was on the hustings, having attended to observe and report the
proceedings of the meeting. I was a perfectly impartial spectator,
disapproving both of the opinions and the proceedings of Henry Hunt
and his colleagues.
On the 16th August, 1819, when seventy or eighty thousand persons
were collected at Manchester, on St. Peter's Field, to petition for
Parliamentary Reform, and when Henry Hunt was addressing the meeting,
a troop of Manchester yeomanry was ordered by the magistrates to take
Hunt and others into custody; and in execution of this most unwise
and improper order, the yeomanry dashed furiously into the midst of
an unarmed multitude, whom they trampled down and struck with their
sabres, till they surrounded the hustings, which they threw down,
and took all the persons who had been upon them into custody. Then,
galloping over the field, they dispersed the immense assemblage, who
fled in every direction. Several persons were killed and hundreds
wounded by this military outrage.
It is my conviction now, at the distance of thirty years, is precisely
the same as it was on the day of the massacre, namely, that the military
assault on the unarmed and peaceful multitude was a mad, savage, and
wicked act. Henry Hunt was not blameless: but the meeting was perfectly
peaceable; and the best proof that the intentions of its leaders were
so is supported by the fact that many young women, the daughters of
the active promoters of the meeting, were placed on the hustings,
from whence they were hurled when the yeomanry overturned the hustings,
and were cut and trampled upon in that brutal assault.
(3)
Edward Baines, The Life of Edward Baines (1851)
The
poll for Leeds commenced on the 13th February 1834. For some hours,
owing to superior arrangements and energy, Sir John Beckett. was considerably
ahead of his competitor. At eleven he had a majority of more than
200 - the numbers being Beckett 718, Baines 515, Bower 6. At one o'clock
the Tory majority had been reduced to 125. During the afternoon the
majority was slowly reduced but at the close of the first day's poll,
to the extreme mortification of the Liberals, Sir John Beckett had
a majority of 70. The second day of polling was Saturday, the market-day;
and perhaps never has there been so high a degree of excitement in
town. The friends of Edward Baines, stung with shame at their position,
made every exertion. The clothiers left their places in the Cloth
Hall and gathered round Edward Baines's Committee Room. At one o'clock
the majority for Mr. Baines was 30. At the close of poll, at four
o'clock, the numbers were as follows: Mr. Baines 1,951, Sir John Beckett
1,917, Mr. Bower 24.
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