HARLAND, William Charles (1803-1863), of Sutton Hall, Yorks. and Bailey, Durham

Harland was the eldest son of William Hoar, recorder of Durham and a bencher of Lincoln’s Inn.1F. Boase, Modern English biography (1912), v. 578. His uncle, Charles Hoar, who had assumed the surname Harland in 1802 upon his marriage to Anne, daughter and heir of Philip Harland of Sutton Hall, Yorkshire, and had been created a baronet in 1808, died without issue in 1810, leaving Anne to be succeeded in 1826 by Harland, her eldest nephew, who had taken the family name in 1824.2J. Burke, A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (1836), iii. 195. He inherited the family seat at Sutton Hall, where he became lord of the manor, along with the Middleton estate, near Darlington in county Durham, which contained a colliery, thus securing his financial future.3T. Whellan, History and topography of the city of York; and the North Riding (1859), 641.

At the 1832 general election Harland came forward as a Reformer for Durham City and declared himself friendly to ‘a reduction of taxation … the extinction of negro slavery, and an effective reform of all abuses in church and state’. Although he praised Grey’s ministry, he insisted that he ‘would act not as a follower of any minister, but as an independent representative of the people’. 4Newcastle Courant, 15 Dec. 1832. After a severe contest, he topped the poll. Initially a steady attender, his early votes in Parliament suggested that his cry of independence was more than just rhetorical: he was in the minorities for Joseph Hume’s motion for economy in public service, 14 Feb. 1833, for Thomas Attwood’s motions for a committee on distress, 21 Mar. 1833, for currency reform, 24 Apr. 1833, and for Fowell Buxton’s amendment against the ministerial plan for the shortening of slave apprenticeships, 25 July 1833.

At the 1835 and 1837 general elections, Harland successfully saw off a Radical challenge got up by the Lambton interest. Although one historian has suggested that the Radical opposition was prompted by Harland’s ‘conservatism’, his votes indicate little evidence for this.5A. Heesom, Durham City and its MPs, 1678-1992 (1992), 58-9. Moreover, although he voted against the ballot, 25 Apr. 1833, and shorter parliaments, 23 July 1833, his public statements in favour of ‘a thorough reform of the church, and an extension of civil and religious liberties’ were matched by his votes for dissenters to graduate at universities, and his support of Irish church appropriation.6Dod Mss. ii. 559-60; Parliamentary test book (1835), 76. He also voted for Abercromby as speaker, 19 Feb. 1835, and the opposition’s amendment to the address, 26 Feb. 1835. These contests, therefore, reflected a personal struggle for control of the Reform interest in Durham. The defeated Radical petitioned against Harland’s return, 23 Nov. 1837, but the election committee confirmed the result, 2 Mar. 1838.

Although Harland’s attendance in the House progressively waned after 1835, he maintained his support for religious liberties, and the majority of his periodic contributions to debate concerned ecclesiastical matters. He described the appropriation of Irish church revenues as ‘a measure which, so far from injuring the Protestant religion, would put it on a firm footing, not only in the affections and love of the people, but in their reason and judgement’, 17 June 1835, and he spoke against the ministry’s established church bill, arguing that no surplus revenue should be taken ‘from the diocese of Durham until the spiritual wants of the people of that diocese were fully provided for’, 8 July 1836 and 12 July 1836. His longest known speech, however, was on his motion to make railway companies liable for the expenses incurred in landowners proving the validity of title deeds, which came to nothing, 3 May 1836.

Harland voted steadily with ministers on most major issues during Melbourne’s second administration, but made an outspoken attack on the government’s plan to reduce sugar duties in 1841. Describing the proposal as ‘an attempt to make a permanent change in the protective system of the country in order to meet a temporary financial difficulty’, he argued that the measure ‘would injure the interests of the colonies, and seriously hurt the agricultural interest, without being of any benefit to the working classes’, 13 May 1841. His displeasure at the ministry was further evident when he abstained from the crucial vote on Peel’s motion of no confidence, 4 June 1841, by reportedly hiding in the Commons library.7Heesom, Durham city, 25. However, although his abstention has been interpreted as a sign that he was ‘increasingly alarmed with the government’s radicalism’, there is, again, little evidence for this in the division lists, besides his unsurprising vote against the reduction on sugar duties, 18 May 1841.8Ibid.

Harland’s abstention from this crucial division, however, weakened his standing among his supporters in Durham, and he withdrew from the field on the eve of the 1841 general election. Thereafter he retired from public life to focus on the management of his estates.9Morning Post, 21 June 1841. He died in March 1863 at Sutton Hall, without issue, whereupon his kinsman Admiral Arthur Duncombe succeeded to the estate under the will of Lady Anne Harland.10Morning Post, 14 Mar. 1863; Gent. Mag. (1863), i. 532; T. Bulmer, Bulmer’s History and Directory of North Yorkshire (1890).