BLAMIRE, William (1790-1862), of Thackwood Nook and The Oaks, near Dalston, Cumberland

align="left">Described by Robert Peel as an ‘indefatigable public servant’, Blamire represented his native county of Cumberland for five years before his appointment as chief tithe commissioner, the role for which he is best known.1Quoted in H. Lonsdale, Worthies of Cumberland (1867), i. 297. A member of a long-established Cumberland farming family, he spent the 1810s and 1820s conducting practical agricultural experiments, and by assiduously fostering close relations with local farmers became ‘the very idol of the yeomanry’.2Carlisle Journal, 14 Jan. 1862. These contacts undoubtedly proved useful in his later political career.3E.J. Evans, ‘Blamire, William (1790-1862)’, Oxf. DNB., www.oxforddnb.com. He played a crucial role in securing the election for Cumberland of his uncle John Christian Curwen (1816, 1818, 1820) and of the Whig Sir James Robert George Graham in 1829, and was a popular choice as sheriff in 1828.4HP Commons 1820-1832, iv. 292-4. Blamire’s return for Cumberland at the 1831 general election, when he defeated the powerful interest of the Tory Lowther family, was widely acclaimed, and in the pre-Reform Parliament he generally supported the government, although he opposed the electoral division of the county of Cumberland, arguing that the county voters would be freer from influence in one constituency.5Ibid.; Evans, ‘Blamire, William’.

At the 1832 general election Blamire offered as a Reformer for the newly-created constituency of Cumberland East. He called for ‘as cheap a government as is consistent with national strategy’, reform of ‘every department of church and state’, a fixed duty on corn, and attacked the ‘present odious system of tithes’. 6Carlisle public library, 3A 342.2. Returned to Parliament unopposed, he remained loyal to Grey’s ministry, though he appears to have been absent from many major divisions. He voted for the removal of Jewish disabilities, 22 May 1833, and paired against Althorp’s motion to replace church rates with a land tax, 21 Apr. 1834.7Parliamentary test book (1835), 21. As an expert on agricultural matters, he sat on select committees on the sale of corn and county rates.8PP 1834 (517), vii. 2; PP 1834 (542), 2. Blamire also sat on select committees on steam carriages and handloom weavers’ petitions: PP 1834 (483), xi. 224; PP 1835 (341), xiii. 2. He also appeared as a witness before the select committee on the state of agriculture.9PP 1833 (612), v. 317.

An occasional speaker, Blamire’s contributions reflected his unwavering defence of Cumbrian concerns and his belief in the primacy of local knowledge. He objected to the Grey ministry’s bank of England charter bill, criticising the plan to diminish the circulation of county notes which were preferred by the northern counties, 1 July, 10 Aug. 1833, and pressed the government to introduce measures to mitigate the effects of the 1832 Tenterden Act which, by introducing a one-year period in which dormant tithe claims could be pursued, had led to a rash of tithe suits, particularly in Cumberland, 14 Aug. 1833. He subsequently introduced his stay of tithe suits bill, 15 Aug. 1833, which proposed to ‘stay all proceedings begun since the commencement of Lord Tenterden’s Act to the end of next session’. It was roundly supported in the Commons, 20 Aug., 24 Aug. 1833, and following a delay in the Lords, the bill became law in 1834 (4 & 5 Wm., c. 83).

At the 1835 general election Blamire restated his support for church reform, full relief for dissenters and the removal of the malt tax.10Parliamentary test book (1835), 21. Again returned unopposed, he divided with the opposition majority on the speakership, 19 Feb. 1835, and for the amendment to the address, 24 Feb. 1835. He voted for Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr. 1835, and thereafter consistently supported the Melbourne ministry’s legislative proposals for Ireland, voting for Irish municipal reform, 28 Mar. 1836, and for the Irish tithes and church bill, 3 June 1836. He divided against the ballot, 23 June 1836.

Blamire’s speech on the Melbourne ministry’s commutation of tithes bill marked a high point of his parliamentary career. Speaking as ‘a practical man’ who had ‘ample opportunity of observing the working of the tithing system in its various ramifications’, he stated that he had no objection ‘to the general principles contained in the bill’, but ‘their application to particular and individual cases’ caused him to offer his ‘most strenuous and decided resistance’, 25 Mar. 1836. Displaying a mastery of the tithe question, he insisted that parties needed time to come to voluntary agreements, arguing that the imposition of compulsory tithe awards would ignore relevant local circumstances.11Evans, ‘Blamire, William’. Peel subsequently praised him for his ‘very able and powerful speech’, and declared that Blamire’s ‘opinion on this question was entitled to so much weight’ as he had showed ‘such consummate knowledge of the subject’.12Hansard, 25 Mar. 1836, vol. 32, cc. 619-20. Blamire made further interventions on the issue, 2 May, 10 May 1836, and, reflecting his belief that ‘no rule could be laid down which would entirely meet all cases’, he pressed the government to give the tithe commissioners ‘all the discretionary power proposed’, 2 May 1836.

The unanimous choice of the cabinet, in August 1836 Blamire was appointed chief tithe commissioner under the new Commutation Act, which necessitated his resignation from Parliament.13Lonsdale, Worthies of Cumberland, i. 266. Blamire, ‘who was generally at the office at eight in the morning and continued at seven, when he went home to read more official papers’, quickly earned a reputation as a skilled and tireless administrator.14Saturday Review (1862), xiv. 253. His task of grappling with the complexities of property rights was a daunting one, and he frequently met with resistance from surveyors who took offence when the accuracy of their maps was called into question.15R. Kain, The tithe surveys of England and Wales (1985), 33, 65. However, his insistence on deferring to local knowledge and experience ensured that in the majority of cases the much cheaper voluntary tithe commutation agreements were effected, and three-quarters of all tithe awards were completed within the first ten years.16Evans, ‘Blamire, William’. In June 1841 Blamire became commissioner for copyholds as well as tithes, and following an impressive performance as a witness before the 1844 select committee on commons enclosure, in August 1845 he was appointed commissioner in charge of the enclosure of commons and wastes.17PP 1844 (583), v. 93. For Blamire’s appearance as a witness before the 1851 select committee on the enfranchisement of copyholds bill see PP 1851 (550), xiii. 211. His work led to the Enclosure Act of 1845 and the 1846 Land Act. According to one historian, his efforts as a commissioner for tithes, copyholds and enclosure ‘helped to re-make the face of rural England’.18D. Spring, The English landed estate in the nineteenth century: its administration (1963), 167.

Blamire’s success as an administrator reflected the new era of bureaucracy inaugurated by the rise of government commissions and regulation in the 1830s and 1840s.19Ibid. As his nineteenth century biographer, Henry Lonsdale, noted, Blamire’s labours were ‘embodied in statutes and official reports’.20Quoted in Kain, The tithe surveys, 33. To his obituarist in The Times, ‘his diligence and business habits rendered him a conspicuous example for public men’.21The Times, 14 Jan. 1862. His assiduous service, however, took its toll, and he endured paralysis of his right arm from 1847. He retired on account of ill health in September 1860, and died intestate at his Cumberland property, Thackwood Nook, in January 1862. His marriage in 1834 to his widowed cousin Dora Wilks (d. 8 Jan. 1857) was childless, and administration of his effects was granted on 17 and 22 Feb. 1862 to his only surviving sister Sarah Susannah Young, on whose issue Thackwood Nook devolved under the will of their unmarried sister Jane Christian Blamire (d. 20 Sept. 1857), which Blamire had neglected to administer.22HP Commons 1820-1832, iv. 294. He was commemorated by a plaque in Raughtonhead church, close to his grave, and by an annual prize at the East Cumberland agricultural show, financed by public subscription.23Gent. Mag. (1862), i. 242, 470; ii. 48. A small selection of his correspondence is held at the British Library, the National Archives, and University College, London.24BL Add Mss 79714, f. 61; 79715, ff. 25-31v, 89-94v, ff. 22. 24; 79718, f. 12, f. 24; 79738, f. 18, f. 19; PRO 30/22/2C, fs. 3-13; Brougham BL, HB. UCL, special collections.