PROTHEROE, Edward (1798-1852), of Newnham, Glos. and 8 Eccleston Square, London, Mdx.

A man of ‘extremely liberal’ political sentiments, Protheroe’s enthusiasm for genealogy led him to take a keen interest in the preservation of public records.1The Assembled Commons (1838), 189. It had been hoped that his return for Halifax in 1837 would ease tensions between Whigs and Radicals, but his views on religious issues proved insufficiently advanced for many of his Dissenting supporters, prompting his retirement a decade later.

From an old Carmarthenshire family, Protheroe’s grandfather, Philip (d. 1803), was a West India merchant and partner in a bank at Bristol, and owned plantations in Nevis and estates in Gloucestershire and Wales.2K. Morgan, ‘Bristol West India merchants in the eighteenth century’, Trans. RHS (1993), 193, 196, 200; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 898. He left £20,000 of his considerable fortune to Protheroe’s father, Edward (1774-1856), who was Whig MP for Bristol, 1812-20. He too had been involved in the West India trade, but in 1812 purchased collieries in the Forest of Dean, where he built up ‘an extensive industrial empire’, based around coal, iron-mining and smelting.3HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 898. Protheroe followed him into Parliament, representing Evesham, 1826-30. In contrast with his father, who was ‘much of the Bristol tradesman’, Protheroe was described by his fellow antiquarian Joseph Hunter as ‘remarkably gentlemanly’, ‘a fine-spirited young man; of excellent address: [who] mixes with his dry genealogies, occasionally lively remarks in English, French and Italian’.4Joseph Hunter, ‘Biographical notices of some of my contemporaries who have gained some celebrity’ [n.d.], Add. MS. 36527, f. 220. His support for Brougham’s motion for the abolition of slavery scuppered his attempt to win a seat at Bristol in 1830, but he was returned unopposed in 1831 as a supporter of reform.5HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 901-3; N. Draper, The price of emancipation. Slave-ownership, compensation and British society at the end of slavery (2010), 21. Brougham later praised Protheroe for his stand in 1830: Morning Chronicle, 26 May 1838. Local tensions on the slavery issue were vividly demonstrated that September when Protheroe was challenged to a duel after describing Christopher Claxton as a ‘hired agent of the West India aristocracy’, but the matter was resolved with an apology.6P. Marshall, Bristol and the abolition of slavery. The politics of emancipation (1975), 22.

Declaring himself ‘a strong Whig, inclined to something more than Whiggery’, Protheroe sought re-election at Bristol in 1832.7Bristol Mercury, 1 Dec. 1832. He wished to see the Reform Act perfected by ‘the Removal of the Petty Expenses and Regulations that are harassing to the Electors’, shorter parliaments, and, above all, the ballot. Although an Anglican, he advocated extensive Church reform, including abolition of pluralities, non-residence, tithes, close vestries and compulsory church rates, and called for reductions in taxation, the military establishment, sinecures and pensions. He favoured opening up the East India and China trade and repeal of the ‘oppressive and impolitic’ corn laws. While ‘cheerfully giving’ these pledges, he considered himself ‘still perfectly independent, and free to exercise my own judgment, after examination and discussion, upon every Parliamentary Question’.8Bristol Mercury, 27 Oct. 1832. His support for corporation reform ‘incurred the deadly hatred’ of Bristol’s corporation and his ‘unflinching’ advocacy of the abolition of slavery put him at odds with another powerful local interest.9Bristol Mercury, 24 Jan. 1835. The contest saw serious divisions between the Reformers and the ‘West India Whigs’,10The Times, 14 Dec. 1832. and having initially canvassed for his Whig colleague James Baillie, Protheroe complained that he had received ‘a slap in the face for my pains’. He declined to coalesce with the third Liberal candidate, a Radical, although he hoped they would both be elected.11Bristol Mercury, 1 Dec. 1832. Baillie’s return alongside a Conservative led Protheroe to bemoan that ‘the cause of Reform has been betrayed... by the Old Whigs of Bristol’.12Bristol Mercury, 15 Dec. 1832.

At the 1835 election he offered for Halifax, where he had family connections through his mother.13Bradford Observer, 27 Nov. 1834. After Liberal divisions at the previous contest, Protheroe was brought out ‘by the united Radicals and Whigs’ in an attempt to restore unity, running alongside Charles Wood.14The Times, 12 Jan. 1835. While he ‘could boast of northern blood in his veins’, he realised that ‘there would be no use of trying to “come Yorkshire” over them’. He again endorsed corn law repeal, the ballot and shorter parliaments, but would not back an extended franchise. He tempered his support for Church reform with the warning that ‘in interfering with the Church, they should feel a just degree of reverence’. He was scathing about the pension list, however, arguing that ‘if the Lady Mary’s and Lady Sarah’s were not able to support themselves, let them apply to their rich relatives’.15Morning Chronicle, 27 Nov. 1834. He reiterated these views on the hustings, where he denied that he was ‘a leveller, a revolutionist’, praised the late Whig ministry’s pursuit of ‘Peace, Economy, and Reform’, and condemned Peel’s ministry as ‘pretended Reformers’.16Leeds Mercury, 10 Jan. 1835. He polled third, only one vote short of the Conservative who secured the second seat behind Wood.17Leeds Mercury, 28 Feb. 1835. He was absent from the declaration, but the following month his father appeared on his behalf to accept a medal and chain from Halifax’s ladies, who praised him as ‘the advocate of liberal principles, the opponent of ecclesiastical abuses, the friend of the oppressed negro’.18Morning Chronicle, 10 Jan. 1835; Manchester Times and Gazette, 7 Feb. 1835.

Protheroe’s difficult balancing act in appealing to Halifax’s Whigs and Radicals was evident in October 1836, when a joint committee agreed to invite Feargus O’Connor to a dinner for Protheroe and Wood. After pressure from the Whigs, this decision was reversed, and two separate dinners took place, with Protheroe attending both ‘to plead the dangers of disunity in the reform ranks’.19J. Epstein, The lion of freedom: Feargus O’Connor and the Chartist movement, 1832-1842 (1982), 36-7. At the dinner with Wood, Protheroe reportedly gave ‘a hazy, unmeaning address’,20The Standard, 3 Oct. 1836. couching his support for reform of the Lords in very moderate terms.21The Examiner, 9 Oct. 1836. At the dinner with O’Connor, he extolled the achievements of Whig ministries, and although he abandoned his opposition to franchise extension, he would not endorse universal suffrage. He equivocated on factory reform, promising only to give it ‘a fair and full hearing’ and vote as he thought fit, and was similarly non-committal on the poor law, which he had considered beneficial.22London Dispatch, 8 Oct. 1836. Despite his willingness to share a platform with O’Connor, the Sheffield Independent concluded approvingly that ‘between Mr. Protheroe’s Radicalism and real Whiggism, we have not been able to find any difference’.23Sheffield Independent, 8 Oct. 1836. Although some Radicals considered Protheroe ‘too Whiggish’, they endorsed him and Wood at the 1837 election, when he topped the poll.24Bristol Mercury, 28 Jan. 1837; Leeds Mercury, 1 July 1837. His return was celebrated by the inhabitants of Newnham, Gloucestershire, where he resided.25Bristol Mercury, 26 Aug. 1837. He took an interest in Gloucestershire politics, attending a dinner for West Gloucestershire’s Liberal MP that November and chairing the Gloucestershire Liberal and Constitutional Reform Club’s 1838 annual meeting.26Bristol Mercury, 18 Nov. 1837, 1 Sept. 1838. He was also involved with Gloucester’s diocesan board of education, served as a steward at the Gloucestershire Society’s fundraising dinner in London and was on the committee of the Forest of Dean railway: The Standard, 16 Jan. 1839; Bristol Mercury, 13 June 1840; Morning Post, 6 Feb. 1843.

Protheroe generally divided with Whig ministers, backing them on Canadian policy, 7 Mar. 1838, and Irish poor law and municipal reform. He was not particularly attentive in the division lobbies, voting on 28 out of 104 occasions in the 1841 session, although he rallied to ministers on Peel’s confidence motion, 4 June 1841.27Leeds Mercury, 10 July 1841. He voted for the ballot, 15 Feb. 1838, Hume’s household suffrage motion, 21 Mar. 1839, and equalisation of the county and borough franchise, 4 June 1839, and consistently backed revision of the corn laws. He defied ministers to support the immediate abolition of slave apprenticeships, 30 Mar., 28 May 1838, an issue on which he presented several petitions. He also presented petitions on postage costs, 20 June 1838; church extension, 3 Mar., 14 May 1840; the harsh treatment of O’Connor, 29 May 1840; and corn law repeal, 27 Apr., 14 June 1841. He scrutinised legislation affecting Gloucestershire and Halifax, and successfully moved the third reading of the Halifax small debts bill (2 & 3 Vict., c. cvi), 5 June 1839.28The Standard, 6 June 1839. He served on several select committees, including an inquiry into the relief of economic distress in the Scottish islands and highlands through emigration.29PP 1841 sess. 1 (182), vi. 2; (333), vi. 231. He was discharged from the Carlow election petition committee after suffering a serious accident, but served on the Cambridge election petition inquiry: PP 1839 (414), vi. 3; Mirror of Parliament (1839), iv. 2845 (11 June 1839); PP 1839 (258), ix. 246. An assiduous questioner of witnesses on the development of Trafalgar Square, he failed in his attempts to omit approval of Charles Barry’s terrace in front of the National Gallery from the committee’s report, or to add criticism of the government for prematurely surrendering land for Nelson’s Column.30PP 1840 (548), xii. 388, 393.

An infrequent speaker in this Parliament, Protheroe did raise an issue which had long been important to him, moving for a return of expenditure on the preservation of public records, 24 Mar. 1840. He had served as a commissioner of public records from March 1831 until William IV’s death.31PP 1834 (291), xli. 356. As his evidence to the 1836 select committee on the record commission revealed, Protheroe had frequently been at odds with other commissioners, believing that greater priority should be given to organising and preserving records than to their publication.32PP 1836 (429), xvi. 141-2, 230. He also testified about his role in rescuing records from the Augmentation Office during the 1834 fire at the Palace of Westminster, with documents removed in baskets, drawers and sacks or thrown from windows.33Ibid., 151. His criticisms were subsequently the focus of a rebuttal by the record commissioners in February 1837, although several commissioners did not sign this report.34PP 1837 (177), xxxix. 406-7; PP 1837 [71], xxxiv Pt. I. 240; The Examiner, 19 Feb. 1837. It seems likely that it was this dispute which prompted Joseph Hunter, who as one of the sub-commissioners had given evidence in the commission’s defence,35D. Crook, ‘Hunter, Joseph’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. to revise his view of Protheroe, writing in June 1836 that ‘my opinion of any man never changed as it has done of this man… I have found him invidious, perfidious, treacherous’.36Hunter, ‘Biographical notices’, f. 221.

Re-elected for Halifax in 1841, Protheroe reiterated his support for the ballot, an extended franchise and revision of the corn laws.37Leeds Mercury, 3 July 1841. Prior to his own contest he chaired a meeting at which Marylebone’s Reformers balloted to decide between Sir Charles Napier and G.A. Young as candidate.38Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 19 June 1841. He also supported the Liberal candidates for the West Riding on the hustings.39Bradford Observer, 8 July 1841. He was more active in the Commons than before, speaking on an eclectic mix of issues, from the administration of the post office to Sabbath observance at Smithfield market.40For his speeches on the post office, see 21 Apr. 1846, 22 Aug. 1846, 20 July 1847, and on Smithfield market, 18 Mar. 1847. He served on select committees on the Ipswich election petition, the Belfast election compromise and smoke prevention, as well as various railway bills.41PP 1842 (207), vii. 282; PP 1842 (431), v. 264; PP 1843 (583), vii. 380; PP 1845 (289), xiii. 540; (489), xiii. 622; Bradford Observer, 28 Mar. 1844; PP 1846 (459), xii. 537. He chaired some sittings of the 1844-5 inquiry into the Gilbert Unions which had escaped the 1834 reform of the poor law.42PP 1844 (543), x. 4; PP 1845 (409), xiii. 2. The committee recommended that Gilbert Unions should not be continued. Protheroe intervened on several occasions on his pet subject of public records, pressing for the provision of a proper repository. He considered the Victoria Tower unsuitable, 15 July 1842, and also objected to the use of the riding-house at Old Carlton House, 31 Mar. 1843, 23 June 1846, contending on the latter occasion that ‘it was little less than a reproach to the state of civilization in this country that so little attention should be paid to this matter’.43For other interventions on the subject of public records, see Protheroe’s speeches of 9 Feb. 1843, 27 Mar. 1843, 27 July 1845, 28 May 1847. He also took an interest in other London buildings, backing a grant for the repair of St. Margaret’s church, Westminster, where he had been a regular attender, 30 July 1845, and opposing proposed enlargements of Buckingham Palace, where he was a nearby resident, 14 Aug. 1846.

Few of his speeches, however, pertained to Halifax, and there were complaints in 1842 that Protheroe ‘seldom or ever gives his constituents a visit except on electioneering purposes’, with many supporters ‘highly displeased’ about his absence from a local Anti-Corn Law League meeting.44Bradford Observer, 1 Dec. 1842. He did attend League gatherings at Wakefield in 1845 and Halifax in 1846, donating £50 to League funds on the latter occasion.45Bradford Observer, 18 Dec. 1845, 15 Jan. 1846. Among the local events at which Protheroe was present were the 1843 annual meeting of the Halifax Mechanics’ Institute and the cutting of the first sod of the West Riding Union railway: Bradford Observer, 9 Nov. 1843, 22 Oct. 1846. He gave steady support to corn law repeal in the House, and in 1843 saw Peel as part of a Yorkshire deputation pressing for repeal of the import duty on wool.46Leicester Chronicle, 25 Mar. 1843. He was in the minority which backed Sharman Crawford’s motion encompassing the six points of the Charter, 21 Apr. 1842. Protheroe explained, however, that he only actually supported the ballot, ‘decidedly opposed’ annual parliaments, and rejected universal suffrage. His vote was thus merely ‘an indication of an opinion in favour of a further reform’. He praised Lord Ashley’s efforts regarding the employment of women and children in mines, 7 June 1842, but consistently opposed him on the ten hour day, and was in the minority against the third reading of what became the Ten Hours Act, 3 May 1847.

There had been hints at the 1841 election that some Halifax Dissenters were dissatisfied with their MPs’ conduct on religious issues, but, unlike Wood, Protheroe was considered ‘squeezable’.47Morning Post, 22 June 1841. His parliamentary conduct displayed some awareness of Nonconformist sensitivities. He backed the parliamentary grant on education, arguing that Dissenters would not object to scripture reading and that teaching of the catechism could be confined to Anglicans, 15 July 1842. Having previously abstained on the Maynooth grant, he divided against it, 18 Apr. 1845, reflecting the views of a deputation to him from Halifax on the issue.48The Times, 2 May 1845. His response to another Yorkshire deputation in support of the voluntary principle in education was reportedly ‘enlightened and in the right direction’.49Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 27 Feb. 1847. However, his arguments in support of the Russell ministry’s education scheme, 26 Apr. 1847, when he contended that state aid could be viewed as ‘an encouragement of... the voluntary system’, proved unacceptable to Halifax’s Dissenters, who brought out Edward Miall at the 1847 election as an opponent of state-controlled education.50Daily News, 2 July 1847. Protheroe issued an address defending his ‘conscientious and benevolent’ votes for the education grant, and denying that he sought any advantage for the Anglican church. He declared his opposition to the separation of church and state, and regretted that his ‘moderate and temperate opinions’ no longer satisfied many supporters.51Leeds Mercury, 3 July 1847. After discussion between his father and Miall’s supporters, Protheroe retired, not wishing ‘to be dependent upon the side wind votes of other parties’,52Manchester Times and Gazette, 16 July 1847. or to endanger Wood’s return.53Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 24 July 1847. He bemoaned that the Liberals had been ‘torn asunder by religious dissension’, and criticised Miall’s supporters for uniting with the Chartist candidate, Ernest Jones.54Ibid. He did not seek a return to Parliament thereafter.

In 1845 Protheroe had inherited estates at Turnwood, Dorset from Lady Mary Hill, which he sold the following year.55www.oldbaileyonline.org, ref: t18461026-2014. In keeping with her will, he adopted her late husband’s surname, becoming known as Edward Davis Protheroe.56Bristol Mercury, 25 Jan. 1845. Shortly before retiring from Parliament he was involved in a case at the Old Bailey against James Newbery, whom he had employed as a temporary valet in November 1845, and who subsequently tried to blackmail Protheroe by accusing him of ‘an unnatural offence’. He threatened to expose Protheroe to his parents and at his clubs, and wrote a letter to the Travellers’ Club charging him with ‘that crime which is forbidden by God and man’. The steward at another club had apparently been dismissed for making similar assertions regarding Protheroe. Having chosen to prosecute Newbery, Protheroe strongly denied these allegations in October 1846, when Newbery was sentenced to twenty years’ transportation.57The Times, 29 Oct. 1846. For discussion of this case, see H.G. Cocks, Nameless offences: homosexual desire in the nineteenth century (2003), 137, and C. Upchurch, Before Wilde. Sex between men in Britain’s age of reform (2009), 77-9. This was not the only occasion on which Protheroe’s alleged homosexuality embroiled him in legal proceedings. In 1847 he was charged with assaulting a man who had ‘accused him of “decoying lads” to his residence’, but the charges were dismissed, and the magistrate assured Protheroe that he was ‘quite free of any imputation’.58Cocks, Nameless offences, 137. A claim that ‘lads, youths, which Mr. Protheroe likes’ were taken to his house was also made by a defendant in an otherwise unrelated extortion case in 1850.59www.oldbaileyonline.org, ref: t18500408-803.

Protheroe died unmarried and childless at Eccleston Square, London, in 1852, his health having been ‘severely shattered, and his limbs paralysed’ for the previous three years.60Gent. Mag. (1852), ii. 638. He was buried at Kensal Green cemetery.61London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980. The bulk of his estate passed to his father, who died in 1856.62PROB 11/2159/721; IR26/1943/807. Protheroe’s collection of Welsh genealogies is held by the College of Arms; other genealogical collections and correspondence are located at the British Library.