EVANS, William (1788-1856), of Allestree Hall , near Derby, Derbyshire

One of the ‘non-elité’ MPs elected to the 1818 parliament, Evans was an extremely wealthy provincial industrialist, banker and landowner whose Liberalism was complementary, rather than antagonistic, to the Whig party.1I. Christie, British ‘non-elité’ MPs 1715-1820 (1995), 117. A strong supporter of the reforms of the 1830s, by the time of his retirement his opinions seemed rather conventional. He was born into a family whose varied business interests had been established by his grandfather, Thomas Evans (1723-1814), who founded Derby Bank, inherited lead mines, and acquired watermills through marriage, which he converted to spin cotton in 1783. After his father’s decease, Evans’s mother, the daughter of the early industrialist Jedediah Strutt, married his uncle Walter, who ran the cotton enterprise. Inheriting and retaining shares in the family concerns, Evans also purchased a substantial amount of land in the south of the county, including the Allestree estate in 1825, and was lord of the manors of Parwich, Brailsford, Alkmonton, and Newton Grange.2F. Boase, Modern English Biography, Supplement (1912), ii. 250-51; M. Boyes, Allestree Hall (n.d.), 6-14; Burke’s landed gentry (1847), i. 383; S. Glover, The history and gazetteer of the county of Derby (1833), ii. 16, 19, 160; HP Commons, 1820-32; G. Turbutt, A history of Derbyshire (1999), iv. 1430, 1455, 1503, 1514-15.

In 1826, he sought election for Leicester, challenging the Tory corporation which had long controlled the town’s representation. He was defeated after spending £20,000 transporting out-voters, being out-spent by the corporation.3Many estimates of the cost of the election were made at the time and after, but this figure is taken from a Commons speech by Evans’s brother-in-law, Thomas Gisborne: Hansard, 26 Feb. 1835, vol. 26, c.365. For other figures see HP Commons, 1820-32; Gent’s Mag. (1856), xlv. 526; PP 1835 (116), xxv. 503. However, Evans’s deep pockets were better able to absorb the costs than his opponents, for whom the contest ultimately proved financially ruinous.4HP Commons, 1820-32; PP 1835 (116), xxiii. 45, 48, xxv. 477, 488, 502-06; A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester: a history of Leicester, 1780-1850 (1954), 146-57, 201-204, 208-10; VCH Leics. iv. 140-52. Returned by a compromise for the same constituency in 1830, and with another reformer the following year, Evans’s Corporate Funds Act, passed in 1832, which made the use of corporation money or property for electoral purposes illegal, was a calculated move against the Leicester Tories.52 & 3 Will. 4, c.69. He was returned at the top of the poll at the 1832 election, along with the other incumbent, and continued his campaign against the corporation, presenting a petition from Leicester which called for reform signed by 5,000 inhabitants, 22 Apr. 1833.6CJ lxxxviii. 296. For Evans’s accompanying speech on the same day, which is not recorded in Hansard, see Morn. Chro., 23 Apr. 1833; see also Hansard, 3 May 1833, vol. 17, cc. 908-09; ibid., 6 Aug. 1833, vol. 20, cc. 390-91 for other speeches on the corporation.

A supporter of freer trade, which he said ‘produced harmony of nations’, he divided in favour of the motions of Whitmore and Hume for a low fixed duty on corn in the 1833 and 1834 sessions.7Derby Mercury, 9 Jan. 1833; Hansard, 17 May 1833, vol. 17, c.1378; Morn. Chro., 22 May 1833, 10 Mar. 1834. He strongly approved of the government’s Irish policy, endorsing Irish coercion and the reform of the Irish church, and in 1836 said that it was the Whigs’ ‘conduct with regard to Ireland that attaches them most to me’.8The Times, 13 Mar. 1833; Hansard, 4 July 1833, vol. 19, cc. 118-19; Derby Mercury, 2 Nov. 1836. An Anglican and patron of many local evangelical causes, Evans was a committed opponent of slavery, and voted for the shortening of slave apprenticeships and the deferment of half of the compensation money to slave owners until after emancipation.9Hansard, 24, 25 July 1833, vol. 19, cc. 1219, 1270; Derby Mercury, 7 Aug. 1833, 8 Jan. 1834, 29 Oct. 1834, 23 Nov. 1836. He served on the 1833 inquiry on public walks, and on Lord John Russell’s committee on the state of education, appointed 4 June 1834, which took evidence but produced no report.10PP 1833 (448), xv. 338; 1834 (572), ix. 2; CJ lxxxviii. 101, 148; CJ lxxxix. 356.

In 1835, the Conservatives took both Leicester seats, relegating Evans to third place, but he was returned in second place in the 1837 general election for North Derbyshire, replacing his brother-in-law Thomas Gisborne, which proved to be the only contest he would face in the constituency. On his return to Parliament, Evans served on the committee on pensions, on which he generally sided with the chancellor of the exchequer, Spring Rice, rather than radicals such as Hume and Grote.11PP 1837-38 (621), xxiii. 60, 80-81, 85. He was a more active participant in the inquiry into church leases which reported in 1839, recommending the conversion of leases into freeholds or enfranchisement.12The committee had taken evidence in the 1837-38 session. Church leases were then granted according to a number of ‘lives’ or for 21 years. The committee recommended the abolition of both systems, arguing that enfranchisement would be the best way to increase income. However, as it argued that local investigations would be necessary prior to undertaking such a major change, the report avoided suggesting how the change would be effected. PP 1837-38 (692), ix. 2, 103, 106, 145, 151; 1839 (247), viii. 238, 248, 250-55. He approved of legislation to enforce strict observance of the Sabbath in 1838, and voted for the immediate abolition of slave apprenticeships in the same session.13House of Commons Division Lists, 1837-38 session, 21, 30 Mar. 1838, 22, 28 May 1838, 20 June 1838. The following year he resisted amendments to strengthen the factory bill, and he remained a committed supporter of the poor law.14Ibid., 1839 session, 1 July 1839; ibid., 1841 session, 19, 22, 26 Mar. 1841.

Returned unopposed at the 1841 election, Evans opposed Peel’s 1842 budget.15Ibid., 1842 session, 9 Mar. 1842, 29 Apr. 1842, 6, 31 May 1842. At this time he was ‘not a full length corn law repealer’, remaining in favour of a low fixed duty, and for this reason on more than one occasion he voted against Villiers’s free trade motions.16The Times, 11 Dec. 1841; House of Commons Division Lists, 1839 session, 15 Mar. 1839; ibid., 1842 session, 9 Mar. 1842. His antipathy to slavery led him to serve on the 1842 investigation into West Africa, which was especially concerned with using the British colonies in the area as a base to monitor and suppress the slave trade.17PP 1842 (551), xi. 2, 4-5, 9, 15. He opposed Roebuck’s motion for non-denominational education in 1843, but approved of his motion the following year against legislative interference in contracts between adult factory workers and their employers.18House of Commons Division Lists, 1843 session, 18 May 1843; ibid., 1844 session, 3 May 1844. He resisted further factory regulation in 1844, 1846 and 1847.19Ibid., 18, 22 Mar. 1844; ibid., 1846 session, 20, 22 May 1846; ibid., 1847 session, 17 Mar. 1847, 21 Apr. 1847, 3 May 1847. Having voted for the abolition of the corn laws in 1846, Evans’s election address the following year was a paean to free trade, which he said he had ‘always supported’, and expressed support for an extension of the franchise and the abolition of church rates.20Derby Mercury, 11 Aug. 1847.

He voted for the repeal of the navigation laws in 1849, but the following year supported Buxton’s unsuccessful motion against free trade for slave-grown sugar.21House of Commons Division Lists, 1849 session, 23 Apr. 1849; Hansard, 31 May 1850, vol. 111, c. 537: He had voted against Lord George Bentinck’s identical motion of 1846: The Times, 30 July 1846. He had previously opposed additional duties on foreign sugar (designed to discriminate against slave-grown produce) as a tax on the labouring classes and also superfluous, as according to his analysis of past prices, foreign sugar had been rarely cheaper than its colonial equivalent.22Hansard, 12 May 1841, vol. 58, cc. 283-85. Admitting that he had changed his mind, Evans justified the deviation from free trade on the grounds that slavery was an exceptional case, and therefore such a change in policy could not be used to argue for a general return to protection.23Hansard, 31 May 1850, vol. cc. 537-38. In the same session he spoke in favour of retaining the anti-slavery naval squadron.24Ibid., 19 Mar. 1850, vol. 109, cc. 1116, 1118. He was in favour of the removal of Jewish disabilities, but voted for Russell’s ecclesiastical titles assumption bill of 1851.25House of Commons Division Lists, 1847-48 session, 17 Dec. 1847, 11 Feb. 1848, 4 May 1848; ibid., 1851 session, 14 Feb. 1851, 25 Mar. 1851. He supported Locke King’s motions of the early 1850s in favour of equalising the borough and county franchise, a proposal of which he had long approved.26He voted for Fleetwood’s 1839 motion: ibid., 1839 session, 4 June 1839; ibid., 1850 session, 9 July 1850; ibid., 1851 session, 20 Feb. 1851; ibid., 1852 session, 27 Apr. 1852. Evans served on the 1850 committee which cast a stringent eye over official salaries, and on the 1851 inquiry on the law of partnership which offered a cautious endorsement of limited liability.27PP 1850 (611), xv. 180, 183-87; 1851 (509), xviii. 2, 6-9; J. Savile, ‘Sleeping partnership and limited liability, 1850-1856’, Economic History Review (1956), 2nd ser., viii. 418-33 (at 421); J. Taylor, Creating capitalism: joint-stock enterprise in British politics and culture, 1800-1870 (2006), 148.

In his final session in Parliament after again being returned unopposed in 1852, Evans opposed repeal of the ‘knowledge’ taxes and supported Gladstone’s financial policy.28House of Commons Division Lists, 1852-53 session, 14 Apr. 1853, 2 May 1853, 6 June 1853. He resigned abruptly in June 1853 in favour of his son, but Evans’s presumptuous behaviour enraged constituents who elected an independent Liberal instead.29Derby Mercury, 20, 27 July 1853.

Evans’s parliamentary career limited his involvement on Derby town council, to which he had first been elected in 1835, but he was made an alderman in February 1856.30Derby Mercury, 13 Feb. 1856. Two months later he died after suffering a series of ‘fainting fits’.31Derby Mercury, 9 Apr. 1856. The rancour of the 1853 by-election had long been forgotten by this time and a testimonial, originally planned to mark his retirement, was belatedly presented to his widow in March 1857, consisting of two bound volumes, one containing original signatures by electors, whose names were printed in old English type in the other.32Derby Mercury, 7 Sept. 1853, 19 Oct. 1853, 18 Mar. 1857. Described by Macaulay as ‘honest and amiable’, Evans spoke infrequently, but succinctly in the House, and was a regular attender and a good committee man.33Thomas Macaulay to his father, Zachary Macaulay, 4 Aug. 1824, The letters of Macaulay, ed. T. Pinney (1974), i. 198. His successor was his only son Thomas William (1821-92), a moderate Liberal, who represented South Derbyshire, 1857-68, 1874-85. In addition to sitting for North Derbyshire, 1832-37, his brother-in-law, the radical Thomas Gisborne, sat for Carlow, 1839-41 and Nottingham, 1843-47.