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Edward Baines, the son of Richard and Jane Baines, was born in Preston on 5th February, 1774. Richard Baines worked as an exercise 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 History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835)
It is alleged that the children who labour in factories are often cruelly beaten by the spinners or overlookers that their feeble limbs become distorted by continual standing and stooping, and they grow up cripples. That they are compelled to work thirteen, fourteen or fifteen hours per day. Views such as these have been repeatedly given of factory labour which have persuaded many to think they must be true. But this is the exception not the rule.
(2) Edward Baines, The History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835)
The human frame is liable to an endless variety of diseases. Many of the children who are born into the world, and who attain the age of ten or twelve years, are so weakly, that under any circumstances they would die early. Such children would sink under factory labour, as they would under any circumstances.
(3) Edward Baines, The History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835)
It is not true to represent the work of piecers and scavengers as continually straining. None of the work in which children and young persons are engaged in mills require constant attention. It is scarcely possible for any employment to be lighter. The position of the body is not injurious: the children walk about, and have the opportunity of frequently sitting if they are so disposed.
(4) Edward Baines, The History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835)
The noise and whirl of the machinery, which are unpleasant and confusing to a spectator unaccustomed to the scene, produce not the slightest effect on the operatives habituated to it. The only thing that makes factory labour trying is that they are confined for long hours, and deprived of fresh air: this makes them pale, and reduces their vigour, but it rarely brings on disease. The minute fibres of cotton which float in the rooms are admitted, even by medical men, not to be injurious to young persons.
(5) 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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