PADMORE, Richard (1789-1881), of Henwick Hall, Worcester, Worcs.

Born at Ketley, Shropshire, Padmore was the son of an iron founder. He entered the same trade, arriving in Worcester ‘as a working mechanic’ in 1818 to join the firm of Robert and John Hardy, of which he became a partner in 1829.1Daily News, 13 Mar. 1860. The company of Hardy and Padmore subsequently grew to become one of England’s major foundries, and Padmore ‘secured a large fortune by industry and perseverance’.2Birmingham Daily Post, 28 Feb. 1860. The company had been founded in 1814 and by 1851 employed 150 workers. The firm went into voluntary liquidation in 1967.

Padmore married in 1823 but his wife died the following year.3Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 3 July 1823, 4 Nov. 1824. He entered local politics and was returned as a councillor for St. Peter’s ward in the new city corporation in 1835, in which capacity he voted in favour of the repeal of the corn laws in 1839.4Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Jan. 1881. A Congregationalist, he was summonsed for non-payment of church rates in 1841, when he addressed the magistrates’ bench ‘on the wickedness’ of the system.5Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 26 Nov. 1835, 18 Feb. 1841. Padmore’s name is not among those listed in D.W. Bebbington, Congregationalist Members of Parliament in the Nineteenth Century (2007). He nevertheless became a poor law guardian, an alderman in 1838,6As a high alderman, he was appointed a justice of the corporation in 1849: Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 22 Nov., 6 Dec. 1849. and the first Nonconformist mayor of the city in 1848, in which role he declined a church procession and would not wear the mayoral robe.7Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 30 Mar. 1843, 16 Nov. 1848. He was the main donor for the rebuilding of the Angel Street Chapel in 1858: Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Jan. 1881. Padmore also expanded his commercial interests, joining the provisional committee of the Worcester and Oxford Railway in 1836. He later became chairman of the (prospective) Worcester Soap Company and was appointed chairman of the Worcester City and County Bank in 1859.8The Times, 10 Aug. 1836, 7 Mar. 1857; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 30 Apr. 1859.

From its foundation in 1851, Padmore was an active member of Worcester’s Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association and was largely responsible for its adoption of a radical programme of electoral reform.9This consisted of a male occupier franchise, the ballot, triennial parliaments, more equal electoral districts, and the removal of MPs’ property qualifications: Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Jan. 1852. He became the political sponsor of William Laslett as Liberal member for Worcester in April 1852, and was elected mayor for a second time that November.10Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Jan., 8 July, 11 Nov. 1852.

As chairman of the Reform Association, Padmore campaigned for improvements to workers’ wages, so as to obviate the need for poor relief, and denounced Lord Derby’s 1859 reform bill as ‘a sham’, because it ignored ‘the right of the working classes to the possession of the franchise’.11Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 21 Mar. 1857, 19 Mar., 30 Apr. 1859. When Laslett tired of the Association’s ‘dictation’ and retired in March 1860, Padmore, although over 70 years of age, was ‘still comparatively hale and hearty’, and was persuaded to stand in Laslett’s place. He was returned unopposed, and, while claiming to feel ‘himself quite incompetent’ for the position, promised general support to Lord Palmerston’s ministry, although he refused to be fettered ‘by party ties’, aiming instead to ‘pursue an independent course’. Being ‘heartily attached’ to the extension of ‘political privileges’, he promised to strenuously support the Liberal reform bill and the advancement of the cause of ‘the industrial classes’, which he regarded as the ‘foundation of national wealth, and the basis of the great social column’.12He considered that as ‘the pith and sinews of the country’, working men who rented £6 houses were ‘as worthy of a vote as the man who paid a rent of £20 a year’: Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 19 Mar. 1859; Morning Chronicle, 13 Mar. 1860. He also expressed support for economy in national public expenditure, and ‘a more equitable distribution of taxation, in order that property may bear its fair share of the burdens of the State’.13Birmingham Daily Post, 28 Feb. 1860; Daily News, 13 Mar. 1860.

Padmore was characterised by local Conservatives as the mere delegate of the Reform Association, whose only claim to the representation was ‘his industry and docility’.14Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 2 Feb. 1861, 8 July 1865. He did not serve on any committees, nor did he introduce any bills, and he is known to have spoken but once in the House, to second an amendment to the annuity tax (Edinburgh) abolition bill in May 1860.15Hansard, 16 May 1860, vol. 158, c. 1350. He did, however, join other Liberal MPs to call upon Palmertson to make economies in the arrangements for public services in February 1861,16Birmingham Daily Post, 5 Feb. 1861. and regularly give his vote in support of reform, dividing in favour of the ballot, 20 Mar. 1860, the abolition of church rates, 27 Feb. 1861, 14 May 1862, and university tests, 16 Mar. 1864, 14 June 1865, the extension of the borough franchise, 10 Apr. 1861, 11 May 1864, and for Edward Baines’s £6 borough franchise bill, 8 May 1865. He backed Palmerston over the Schleswig-Holstein question in July 1864, denouncing the ‘invidious attempts … to disturb relations with Germany’, and was a enthusiastic supporter of Charles Villiers’s successful effort to abolish parochial rateability, which he believed would greatly benefit the labouring classes. He was one of the minority to oppose Frederick Lygon’s 1865 bill to allow the celebration of church services in schools, and divided against an inquiry into the conduct of the lord chancellor, Lord Westbury, 3 July 1865.17Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 1, 8 July 1865.

In spite of speculation that he would stand aside for a younger man in 1865, Padmore was re-elected in a tight contest on a platform of reform, retrenchment, and non-interference abroad, pledging particular support for a reduction of taxation on ‘articles of common consumption’.18Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 3 June, 1 July 1865; Birmingham Daily Post, 12 July 1865. He continued to seek ‘the unconditional surrender of Church rates’, 7 Mar. 1866, and supported the Liberal reform bill, 27 Apr 1866. He also divided in favour of amendments to the Conservatives’ reform bill in 1867, supporting the enfranchisement of compound ratepayers, 12 Apr., and John Stuart Mill’s women’s suffrage amendment, 20 May, and a reduction of the copyhold franchise, 20 May. He opposed, however, a reduction of the residency qualification, 2 May, and the introduction of cumulative voting, 5 July.

When Padmore, by now one of the oldest members of the House, divided in favour of Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish Church, 3 Apr. 1868, he had already resigned as president of the Worcester Reform Association and declared his intention not to offer again at the next general election, when he duly retired.19Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Feb., 3 Oct. 1868. He continued to hold a place on the Worcester corporation until 1874, when he also retired from business, distributing a large sum of money amongst his employees. He was esteemed locally as ‘a thoroughly honest man’, who had begun ‘at the very lowest rung of the ladder’ and whose ‘whole life was an example to the British workman’. By 1868 he had donated £5,000 to fund the construction of the Royal Albert Orphan Asylum in Worcester.20Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 29 Jan. 1881. He died in January 1881 at Henwick Hall and was buried in Worcester cemetery.21Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 26 June 1875, 15 Jan. 1881; The Times, 14 Jan. 1881. In addition to local dignitaries, the funeral was attended by his workmen and the children of the orphan asylum: Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 22 Jan. 1881. His small local estates were sold shortly afterwards.22The Times, 11 May, 11 June 1881. In addition to Henwick Hall, Padmore owned Shoulton House and Kilabridge farm at Grimley, and the Moorcroft estate at Hallow.