THOMPSON, William (1792-1854), of Dyers’ Hall Wharf, Upper Thames Street, London; 12 Gloucester Place, London; Park Street, London and Underley, Kirby Lonsdale, Westmorland

A wealthy ironmaster and leading City financier, Thompson began his political career as a Whig before steadily drifting towards the Conservative party.1M. Daunton, ‘Thompson, William (1793-1854)’, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. By the 1840s he was the leader of City Conservatism in the Commons and a staunch protectionist who zealously defended the navigation laws.2A.C. Howe, ‘Free Trade and the City of London, c. 1820-1870’, History, 77 (1992), 403. He was born at Grayrigg Head, near Kendal, Westmorland, the second son of James Thompson. His uncle, William Thompson, a leading iron merchant in the City of London, had, in partnership with the merchant Samuel Homfray, MP for Stafford 1818-1820, steadily built up a major interest in south Wales iron furnaces, including the Penydarren company at Merthyr Tydfil. Following his death in 1815, the younger William inherited his uncle’s fortune. In 1817 he married Amelia, the second daughter of Homfray, and by the 1820s was the sole owner of the Penydarren iron works, which formed the basis of his wealth.3HP Commons, 1820-1832, vii. 423-31. His interests, though, were diverse. Based in London, he played an active role in marine insurance, becoming intimately involved in the shipping industry, and served as chairman of Lloyd’s. In 1827 he became a director of the Bank of England, and remained on the court until his death. He was also a substantial investor in railways, lead mining, property and South American mining ventures. A prominent figure in the City, he became an alderman in 1821, retaining the position for life, and was lord mayor in 1828-9.4Daunton, ‘Thompson, William’. According to Lady Charlotte Guest of Dowlais, he was ‘the Alderman in every sense, and has not the uprightness which I should have been inclined to give most City merchants credit for’.5Lady Charlotte Guest: extracts from her journal, 1833-1852, ed. earl of Bessborough (1950), 41.

Thompson first entered parliament in 1820 as member for Callington in Cornwall, and staunchly defended Lloyd’s against its many critics. Elected for London in 1826, he had generally supported the Whigs, though his opposition to Catholic emancipation endeared him to the Tories.6 HP Commons, 1820-1832, vii. 423-31. He was in favour of moderate parliamentary reform, but his support for Grey’s ministry over the disenfranchisement of Appleby, after having initially backed the borough’s claims, was perceived to be an act of submission to the London livery, and prompted Lord Lowther to claim that Thompson had ‘finished his political career in avowing himself a cowardly ninny’.7Lonsdale mss, Lowther to Lonsdale, 22 July 1831.

At the 1832 general election Thompson was brought forward by the Conservative marquis of Londonderry for the newly created borough of Sunderland, a constituency where shipping matters dominated parliamentary campaigns. Although standing nominally as a Conservative, he spoke in favour of the secret ballot and called for repeal of the corn laws.8Newcastle Courant, 15 Dec. 1832. This apparent contradiction mattered less in Sunderland where, in the 1830s, a candidate’s position on the construction of the new docks mattered more than party politics.9A. Heesom, ‘Parliamentary politics: 1830 to the 1860s’ in G.E. Milburn and S.T. Miller (eds.), Sunderland: river, town and people: a history from the 1780s (1988), 92; T. Nossiter, ‘Dock politics and unholy alliances, 1832-1852’, in H.G. Bowling (ed.), Some chapters on the history of Sunderland (1969), 80-4. He duly backed Londonderry’s support for the south docks proposal, but, attacked over his lack of local connections, he finished bottom of the poll.10Newcastle Courant, 15 Dec. 1832. However, at a by-election the next year necessitated by the death of one of the sitting members, Thompson was narrowly elected for the borough following a campaign in which he attacked the influence of the radical Lord Durham and, in opposition to his Liberal opponent, championed the south docks.11Ibid., 6 Apr. 1833.

A steady attender, Thompson’s votes in his first Parliament reflected the ambiguity of his politics. He voted against the abolition of military sinecures, 14 Feb. 1833, and shorter parliaments, 15 May 1834, but for the ballot, 25 Apr. 1833, and for a fixed duty on corn, 7 Mar. 1834. He was against Attwood’s motion for currency reform, but subsequently voted in the minority for a select committee on distress among the industrious classes, 24 Apr. 1833. He opposed the Whig government over Althorp’s motion to replace church rates with a land tax, 21 Apr. 1834. In February 1835 he was described by the Examiner as one of the ‘doubtful men’ in the Commons, as ‘the Tories stick to Alderman Thompson, but the Alderman by no means consents to cleave to them’.12Examiner, 8 Feb. 1835.

Thompson spoke frequently on banking and shipping issues. In his later parliamentary career he was a vocal opponent of the Bank Charter Act, but in the 1833 session he backed the Grey ministry’s bank charter bill, 2 Aug. 1833, and spoke in support of Althorp’s proposal to make Bank of England notes legal tender, 9 Aug. 1833, though he warned that the bank’s circulation needed to be increased if the proposals were to work, 1 July 1833. He was more critical of the London and Westminster bank bill, which he argued would interfere with the privileges of the Bank of England, 7 and 26 May 1834. Reflecting his staunch defence of the shipping interest, he warned against any reform of the timber duties, 4 Mar. 1834, 24 Mar. 1835, and backed George Young’s motion to repeal the Reciprocity Act, which he claimed had been ‘most injurious to our commercial interests’, 5 June 1834. He was appointed to many select committees, including those on manufactures, commerce and shipping, the bankrupts estates bill, timber duties, and accidents in mines.13PP 1833 (690), vi. 2; PP 1834 (362), xviii. 200; PP 1835 (519), xix. 2; PP 1835 (603), v. 2.

Re-elected in first place at the 1835 general election, Thompson was listed in the Parliamentary test book (1835) as a ‘Reformer’, and in 1836 he told Dod he was of ‘Liberal political opinions’.14Parliamentary Test Book (1835), 157; Dod Mss. iii. 1043. However, his votes in the Commons reflected an inexorable drift towards Conservatism, although he continued to support the ballot. He backed Peel on the speakership, 19 Feb. 1835, and the address, 26 Feb. 1835, and voted against Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr. 1835, even though, during his election campaign, he had called for the ‘overgrown funds’ of the Irish church to be ‘better disposed’.15Examiner, 8 Feb. 1835. At the 1837 general election he attacked Melbourne’s ministry for being ‘swayed to and fro’ by O’Connell and comfortably topped the poll.16Newcastle Courant, 28 July 1837. He ‘begged it to be distinctly understood that he went a great way beyond’ many members in blaming the Whig government for the Canadian rebellion, 29 Jan. 1838, and opposed the ministry’s Irish tithes bill, 15 May 1838.

Thompson’s attitude towards the corn laws shifted during Melbourne’s second administration. He was in the minority for Clay’s motion on the corn laws, 16 Mar. 1837, and spoke in favour of a motion for foreign corn bonded in Britain to be ground and manufactured for export, explaining that ‘though he was no friend to the corn laws, he would not be a party to any indirect measure against them’, 20 Mar. 1838. However, he divided against Villiers’ motion on the corn laws, 18 Mar. 1839, and thereafter opposed repeal. He continued to speak out against any alteration in the timber duties, 26 Feb., 10 Mar. 1836, and warned that as the shipping interest was ‘second to none in this country’, any transfer of the timber trade from the colonies to the Baltic would ‘inflict serious injury on British manufactures’, 9 July 1839. By 1841 his staunch advocacy of protectionism was evident, and he intervened in the budget debate to ridicule ‘the position that by cheapness of food, pro tanto, the consumer was benefitted’, 30 Apr. 1841. He voted for Peel’s motion of no confidence in the Whig ministry, 4 June 1841. Reflecting his commercial expertise, he served on select committees on the state of the coal trade, the port of London, the shipwrecks of timber ships, and the Thames embankment.17PP 1836 (522), xi. 170; PP 1836 (557), xiv. 2; PP 1839 (33), ix. 224; PP 1840 (554), xii. 272.

At the 1841 general election Thompson was returned for Sunderland without opposition, but in September that year he resigned his seat to contest a vacancy in his native Westmorland.18Newcastle Courant, 2 July 1841. His address stated that ‘there is no branch of the national interests which has not been injured by the weak and vacillating career’ of the late Whig government, and at the nomination, he reiterated his defence of the corn laws, arguing that their repeal ‘would reduce the bold and manly race of agricultural labourers to a state of pauperism’.19Carlisle Journal, 11, 25 Sept. 1841. Elected unopposed, he generally followed Peel into the division lobby, backing the premier’s sliding scale on corn duties, 9 Mar. 1842, and voting against Lord John Russell’s motions not to reintroduce income tax, 13 Apr. 1842, and to consider the state of Ireland, 23 Feb. 1844. He did, though, oppose the ministry’s railway bill, 11 July 1844. He was now unequivocally opposed to the bank charter bill, believing that ‘the alterations and restrictions imposed upon the Bank of England ... were neither necessary nor equitable to the Bank itself’, and he rejected Peel’s assurances over the measure, 24 June 1844. For Thompson, the Bank Charter Act ‘deprives us of that which this country and the world were willing to give – credit’.20Westmorland Gazette, 7 Aug. 1837. He saved his most stern criticism of the premier, though, for the debate on the corn laws. In a very lengthy speech, he conceded that he had backed Peel’s sliding scale in 1842 but that the premier had ‘much overrated the advantages which had flowed from that measure’. He went on to state that ‘common justice, as well as national honour and national policy, required that protection should be extended to the agricultural interest’.21Hansard, 19 Feb. 1846, vol. 83, cc. 1198-1207. He subsequently declared that Peel had lost his ‘moral courage’ and ‘surrendered himself to the Anti-Corn Law League’.22Westmorland Gazette, 7 Aug. 1847.

At the 1847 general election, when he was returned unopposed, Thompson delivered an unwavering defence of the navigation laws, declaring that if they were repealed, the country ‘would be converting a brave and most valuable class of their fellow subjects into paupers, and our fine fleet of merchantmen into firewood’.23Ibid. In 1847 he sat on the series of select committees that exhaustively investigated the issue, the results of which he believed failed to show any reason for altering the law, 15 May 1848.24PP 1847 (232), x. 2; PP 1847 (246), x. 180; PP 1847 (392), x. 206. For Thompson, the continuance of the navigation laws was ‘essential’ to the country’s ‘security, its power, and its independence’, 9 Feb. 1847. He was not completely against the laws being modified, though, and suggested that ‘alterations’ could be found which would ‘work conveniently both for the commerce and for the navy of this country’, but he implored the Commons ‘not to abrogate the principles of a law which had essentially contributed to the safety and security of the British empire’, 29 May 1848. Realising that his battle was lost, he called for the ‘adoption of an efficient system of reciprocity’, 14 Feb. 1849, but there was little chance of this happening.25Howe, ‘Free trade and the City of London’, 403.

Thompson, who was now an infrequent attender, divided with Disraeli on most major issues.26In 1849 Thompson was present for 29 out of 219 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. In 1853 he attended 27 out of 257: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. He voted against the Roman Catholic relief bill, 8 Dec. 1847, and the Jewish disabilities bill, 17 Dec. 1847. Unsurprisingly, he was in the minority for a reconsideration of the corn laws, 14 May 1850, and, in contrast to when he first entered the post-Reform parliament, he now opposed the ballot, 7 Mar. 1850. President of Christ’s Hospital since 1829, he spoke out against the charitable trusts bill, criticising the notion of commissioners managing trusts rather than the governors of institutions, although following assurances from ministers, he withdrew his amendment to refer to the bill to a select committee, 26 Mar. 1852. His financial expertise still highly valued in Parliament, he was appointed to select committees on commercial distress, the bankrupt law consolidation bill, and customs.27PP 1847-48 (395), viii. 2; PP 1849 (551), viii. 160; PP 1851 (209), xi. 2. At the 1852 general election he loyally backed Derby’s leadership and offered a lengthy critique of free trade, arguing that the ‘great amount of foreign imports in this country does not indicate growing wealth’.28Carlisle Journal, 16 July 1852. Returned again unopposed, he gave his vocal support to Disraeli’s budget, calling it ‘a bold, statesmanlike, and wise measure’, and reiterated his staunch opposition to the repeal of the timber duties, 14 Dec. 1852. He was in the small minority that opposed Palmerston’s resolution supporting free trade over protection, 27 Nov. 1852.

Thompson died at Bedwellty House, Monmouthshire in March 1854, in consequence of a cold caught while visiting his iron works.29Gent. Mag. (1854), i. 650. Four days before his death, Disraeli, in a response to Gladstone’s budget, had described Thompson as a man ‘whom all sides respect for his commercial and financial knowledge’, 6 Mar. 1854. His estate was sworn at under £900,000 in Canterbury, £60,000 in York, and £16,000 in Ireland. By his will, dated 2 Mar. 1853, he left his wife his London House in Park Street, Westminster, an annuity of £1,500 and his Westmorland estates, with reversion to his only child Amelia, who had married the earl of Bective (later 3rd marquess of Headfort).30Daunton, ‘Thompson, William’; HP Commons, 1820-1832, vii. 430. Bective succeeded him as MP for Westmorland. Thompson’s correspondence with Peel is in the British Library, London.31BL Add. Mss. 40397, f. 144; 40399, ff. 19, 20; 40527, f. 63; 40558, f. 172.