HOSKINS, Kedgwin (1777-1852), of Strickstenning, Much Birch, Herefordshire

A country banker and landed gentleman, Hoskins generally offered silent support to the Whig leadership after 1832, but went his own way when the interests of his agricultural constituency, Herefordshire, required it. He was one of the Liberal MPs who opposed the repeal of the corn laws in 1846. Robert Biddulph, Reform MP for Hereford, 1832-7, described him as ‘a worthy country gentleman’.1Hereford Journal, 2 Aug. 1837.

Hoskins was a partner with John and Richard Jones and Nathaniel Morgan in banks based in Hereford and Ross. In the 1820s he established himself as one of the leading Reformers in Herefordshire, and was a regular presence at Whig meetings in the county.2HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 711-13. He was returned as a Reformer for the county in 1831, and loyally backed the reform bill. His vote in 1832, against his own government, in favour of a select committee on the glove trade, an important industry in his constituency affected by foreign competition, highlighted his independence.3Ibid., 712.

Returned unopposed at the 1832 general election, Hoskins made a notably non-partisan speech, appealing to the local interests of the county.4Hereford Journal, 19 Dec. 1832. Unlike his colleague Sir Robert Price, Hoskins was much more willing to vote against Whig ministers in favour of measures that promised to relieve agriculture. For instance, he was in the minorities that supported Matthias Attwood’s motion for currency reform and Sir William Ingilby’s proposal to reduce the malt duty, 24, 26 Apr. 1833, and backed the marquess of Chandos’s call for a select committee on agricultural distress, 21 Feb. 1834. These votes protected Hoskins from the challenge of a self-styled ‘farmers’ friend’ at the 1835 general election, when he topped the poll.

In the ensuing session, Hoskins sided with the Whig leadership in the key party divisions on the speakership, the address and Russell’s Irish church motion, 19, 26 Feb., 2 Apr. 1835, but again supported Chandos’s motion for agricultural relief, 25 May 1835. He backed the Whigs’ proposed reforms of the Irish church and Irish municipal corporations. Although he had opposed the ballot in the division lobby, at the 1837 general election, when he was returned unopposed, Hoskins said he would support it if electors could not be protected in any other way, although he refused to give a pledge.5Hereford Journal, 2 Aug. 1837.

Hoskins continued to back the Whigs in the key party divisions of the late 1830s, but remained opposed to anti-corn law motions, 15 Mar. 1838, 18 Mar. 1839, 26 May 1840. He supported Melbourne’s government in the vote of confidence, 31 Jan. 1840, and over Baring’s budget, 18 May 1841. Absent from the division on Peel’s motion of no confidence, 4 June 1841, he paired off in favour of the ministry. His votes prompted a correspondent to the Morning Post to snipe that Hoskins had been corrupted by Price into becoming a blind supporter of the government. ‘Once a kind-hearted man, and averse to public life, indeed intending to have sat in only one Parliament’, Hoskins had ‘become enamoured of a higher state of life, and is altogether a changed man’.6Morning Post, 8 June 1841.

This was hardly fair. The reason why Hoskins, unlike Price who was ousted, was again re-elected unopposed at the 1841 general election, was precisely because he promised to oppose a fixed duty on corn, ‘let the proposition come from whatever quarter it may’. This was consistent with his past conduct, which put the agricultural interests of his constituency above his party loyalty when the two were in opposition. Tellingly, he was willing to support the proposed reduction in duties on foreign sugar, which did not affect his constituency’s economic interests.7Hereford Times, 19 June 1841. It was with good reason, then, that Hoskins could state at the nomination that ‘his politics were unchanged’.8Hereford Journal, 7 July 1841.

Hoskins was in the minority that opposed the Whigs being voted out of office, 27 Aug. 1841, but was conveniently absent from most of the votes on commercial and fiscal policy in the following session. His attendance thereafter remained generally poor, although he supported William Miles’ amendment to reduce the duty on colonial sugar, 17 June 1844. He continued to vote against Villiers’s anti-corn law motions, and opposed Peel’s motion for a committee of the whole House on the importation of corn, 27 Feb. 1846, which initiated repeal, but he was absent from later divisions.

Hoskins retired at the 1847 general election. On his death in 1852, the Conservative Hereford Journal remarked that ‘his memory will be long and fondly cherished in the hearts and affections of his friends and the poor of the surrounding neighbourhood, to whom he was ever a most liberal and unostentatious benefactor’.9Hereford Journal, 29 Dec. 1852. His interests as a trustee and mortgagee passed to Thomas Hardwick, of Hereford, while his widow inherited the remainder of his estate. On its failure in 1863 Hoskins’ old bank was acquired by the Midland Banking Company.10HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 712.