OTWAY, Arthur John (1822-1912), of Princes Street, Hyde Park, Middlesex; Twickenham, Middlesex

First elected in 1852, Otway was one of a group of Radicals associated with Austen Henry Layard, who sought to ‘spearhead the campaign for administrative reform’ that was given impetus by the exposure of British deficiencies in the Crimean war.1M. Taylor, The decline of British radicalism, 1847-1860 (1995), 349. Otway’s background and experience equipped him to contribute intelligently in a wide range of debates. Having served as a soldier in India, he was a firm critic of the East India Company (EIC) which he claimed had ‘no sympathy whatever with the people of India’.2Hansard, 11 Mar. 1853, vol. 125, cc. 62-3. As a former soldier and the son of a famous admiral, he frequently intervened on military and naval matters. After returning to Parliament in the mid-1860s, Otway campaigned for the abolition of military flogging.

Otway hailed from an Irish family, and his father Sir Robert Otway, 1st baronet, was a distinguished naval commander. After his education at Sandhurst and in Germany, Otway served in the army 1839-46, and then trained as a barrister. In 1852 he was elected after a contest for the venal borough of Stafford, where his local connections, through his brother-in-law Lord Clarence Paget, son of the marquess of Anglesey, worked ‘greatly in his favour’.3Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 July 1852. Paget was married to Otway’s sister. Otway promised support for free trade, shorter parliaments, the ballot, non-sectarian education, adjusting income tax and law reform.4Staffordshire Advertiser, 27 Mar. 1852. He was commended to the electors by the Burton brewer and Liberal MP for Derby Michael Thomas Bass as ‘a true Reformer, a staunch free-trader and a thorough Protestant’. Otway ‘did not consider that every person should have a vote’, although he expressed a preference for a £5 borough franchise to secure a ‘large increase’ in the electorate.5Staffordshire Advertiser, 5 June 1852, 10 July 1852.

Otway voted with the free trade side in all the critical divisions of the 1852-53 session, although he opposed Joseph Hume’s motion to remove the remaining protective duties, 3 Mar. 1853. Otway also backed Jewish relief. However, his main concern was India. In his many speeches on the issue he only drew attention to injustices in the country and repeatedly assailed the EIC. On the introduction of the government of India bill, 24 June 1853, Otway expressed the progressive view that it was:

expedient to obtain from the Natives themselves some information as to their wants, their opinions, and their views in the matter. He could not think it wise or just to legislate for a population of 150,000,000, differing from us in language, laws, and religion, without having done so.6Hansard, 24 June 1853, vol. 128, c. 770.

The EIC was an ‘irresponsible bureaucracy’, a ‘rapacious company’ which had ‘impoverished, degraded and oppressed’ the Indian people.7Ibid., cc. 772-3. As the bill would continue the existing system, Otway opposed it and his fierce criticism stunned Sir James Hogg, MP for Honiton and chairman of the EIC.8Hansard, 11 July 1853, vol. 129, c. 84. In the following session, Otway intervened mainly on naval questions, although he had to deny Sir James Graham’s accusation that he was acting as the mouthpiece of navy agents in criticising one government bill.9Hansard, 16 May 1854, vol. 133, cc. 470-1.

After the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, Otway’s attention was increasingly focused on military affairs and administrative reform. He supported Roebuck’s motion for an inquiry into the condition of the army at Sebastopol, 29 Jan. 1855, which brought down Aberdeen’s government. Joining the chorus condemning military inefficiencies, 19 Feb. 1855, Otway called for the introduction of a more meritocratic system of promotion, as in France.10Hansard, 19 Feb. 1855, vol. 136, cc. 1581-3. He later recommended the abolition of army commissions by purchase and backed the call of his colleague John Ayshford Wise for meritocratic reforms in the diplomatic service.11Hansard, 1 Mar. 1855, vol. 136, cc. 2119-22; 22 May 1855, vol. 138, cc. 916-20. Otway was in the minority of 46 who divided in favour of Layard’s motion for administrative reform, 18 June 1855, and he backed Roebuck’s censure of Palmerston’s cabinet, 19 July 1855, although he had opposed Disraeli’s critical motion on the conduct of the war, 25 May 1855.

Otway opposed the annexation of Oude in 1856, which he thought was little more than an illegal land grab.12Hansard, 22 Feb. 1856, 4 Mar. 1856, vol. 140, cc. 1224, 1856-7; 21 July 1856, vol. 143, c. 1164. In his opinion, the motivation for the annexation was financial. Indian revenues had declined dramatically, leaving a big deficit, which included debts to the King of Oude. Annexing a ‘prosperous and wealthy state, with an ample and flourishing Treasury’ would reduce these problems, Otway cynically observed.13Hansard, 18 Apr. 1856, vol. 141, cc. 1218-25 (at 1221-2). He had earlier drawn attention to the use of torture by authorities in Madras, saying it was ‘universal, systematic and habitual’.14Hansard, 7 Aug. 1855, vol. 139, cc. 2008-10. He also subjected the EIC accounts to close scrutiny, complaining of their large legal expenses in particular.15Hansard, 21 July 1856, vol. 143, cc. 1163-5.

Otway supported Cobden’s motion which censured Palmerston’s handling of China policy, 3 Mar. 1857, and retired from Stafford at the ensuing general election. He canvassed at Bridgwater, but did not stand.16The Times, 26, 27 Mar. 1857. At the 1859 general election Otway was beaten at the naval dockyard borough of Chatham by the Derby government’s nominee, and in 1861 he was defeated at a by-election for Tynemouth, after remarking that he was not a ‘thick-and-thin’ supporter of Palmerston.17The Times, 30 Apr. 1859; The Standard, 24 Apr. 1861. However, Otway finally returned to the House after being elected for Chatham at the 1865 general election, almost certainly with government backing as his brother-in-law Lord Clarence Paget, MP for Sandwich, 1847-52, 1857-66, was secretary to the admiralty in Palmerston’s ministry.18Daily News, 29 June 1865; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 53-4. He now championed the cause of government dockyards, which included Chatham, against private contractors and on a variety of other issues took positions calculated to appeal to his constituents.19Hansard, 9 Mar. 1866, vol. 181, cc. 1877-9. He called for ‘open competition’ in the navy so that lowly sailors could rise up the hierarchy and pressed for pay increases for dockyard workers.20Hansard, 16 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, c. 468; 7 May 1867, vol. 187, c. 94.

Although Otway supported the Liberal government’s 1866 reform bill, he warned that he would oppose the third reading unless the clause stripping dockyard workers of the franchise was dropped. As an alternative safeguard against government influence, he suggested introducing the secret ballot into dockyard boroughs.21Hansard, 15 Mar. 1866, 26 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 284, 2138. However, despite this ‘one great blot’ he gave the reform bill his ‘cordial support’ and voted against the Adullamite motions of Lords Grosvenor and Dunkellin, 27 Apr. 1866, 18 June 1866.22Hansard, 26 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 2141-2. In the divisions on the 1867 representation of the people bill, Otway supported the enfranchisement of compounders and lodgers, the partial disenfranchisement of small boroughs and increased representation for the largest towns.

However, Otway played little part in the debates on reform in 1867 as his attention was generally focused on army questions. His resolution to abolish corporal punishment in the army and royal marines in peacetime was passed by 108 votes to 107, 15 Mar. 1867.23Hansard, 15 Mar. 1867, vol. 1951-7, 1990-1. When Sir John Pakington ignored the vote on account of its slender majority, Otway raised the issue in the debates on the government’s mutiny bill.24Hansard, 21 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 290, 292. Pakington’s proposed concession did not entirely satisfy Otway, who moved his own amendment to the bill, 28 Mar. 1867. The original clause was struck out and Pakington’s amendment passed 225-131, but Otway’s proposal to restrict flogging in wartime was rejected, prompting him to sarcastically congratulate the government ‘whips’ on their work.25Hansard, 28 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 771-5, 794-5, 796. Thereafter, Otway served on the committee on army retirement, supported the proposals of army reformers such as Augustus Anson, MP for Lichfield, and complained of wasteful spending in the army estimates.26Hansard, 7 June 1867, vol. 187, cc. 1747-8, 1750; 6 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 777-8; PP 1867 (482), vii. 7. He moved the reduction in land forces by 2,758 men, 23 Mar. 1868, after criticising the growth of military expenditure in peacetime, but was forced to reluctantly withdraw his motion.27Hansard, 23 Mar. 1868, vol. 191, cc. 82-9. A few days later he expressed his frustration that attempts to reduce army estimates were always blocked by an ever-willing supply of MPs ‘ready to rush in from the gastronomical department to support the minister’.28Hansard, 26 Mar. 1868, vol. 191, cc. 288-9.

Otway was re-elected for Chatham at the 1868 general election, after which he was appointed as an under-secretary of state for foreign affairs by Gladstone. He resigned in 1871 at the government’s unwillingness to adopt an assertive policy resisting Russian encroachments in the Near East.29J. Parry, The politics of patriotism: English liberalism, national identity and Europe, 1830-1886 (2006), 284. Defeated at the 1874 general election, Otway was returned for Rochester in 1878, which he represented until his retirement in 1885. Between 1883 and 1885 he was chairman of ways and means, during a period when the obstruction of Parnell’s Irish party and ‘other circumstances rendered the chairman’s duties extremely burdensome, especially to a man who had already given the best part of his life to Parliament’.30The Times, 10 June 1912.

In retirement, Otway edited and published the letters of Lord Clarence Paget and Layard, the latter book including a sketch of his friend as a parliamentarian.31Autobiography and journals of Admiral Lord Clarence Paget, ed. A.J. Otway (1896); Sir A. Henry Layard, autobiography and letters, 2 vols. (1903). In 1881 Otway succeeded his brother as 3rd baronet, however the death of his only, unmarried son in 1884 meant that the baronetcy became extinct on his death in 1912. Otway’s correspondence with Layard is held by the British Library.