ATTWOOD, Matthias Wolverley (1808-1865), of 27 Gracechurch Street, Mdx.

In his brief parliamentary career, Attwood, a City businessman with banking and shipping interests, offered vigorous opposition to the new poor law. Like his father Matthias and his uncle Thomas, both of whom he joined in Parliament, he was a critic of the monetary orthodoxy, but on other issues he inclined towards the Toryism of the former rather than the Radicalism of the latter.

Attwood’s grandfather had established a bank in Birmingham in 1791 and his father Matthias (1779-1851) managed the London branch which by 1805 ‘was rapidly becoming completely independent of the Birmingham connection’.1D.J. Moss, Thomas Attwood: the biography of a radical (1990), 30-1. For this reason, although his son, generally known as Wolverley, ‘was a prominent member of the Attwood family he was comparatively unknown in Birmingham’.2Birmingham Daily Post, 19 Sept. 1865. Attwood worked for the family bank and succeeded his father as chairman of the General Steam Navigation Company in the early 1830s.3The Standard, 13 Nov. 1851. At the 1835 general election, Attwood attempted to take advantage of his shipping connections by standing, at late notice, as a candidate for Greenwich. His party attachment was unclear as he declared himself to be ‘a firm and decided friend’ of the institutions of the country, but ‘a determined reformer’ in the case of any abuses.4The Times, 6, 7 Jan. 1835. Narrowly beaten into third place by a Reformer, the Times commented that Attwood had received ‘very flattering support’ and displayed ‘ability and manly frankness’.5The Times, 12 Jan. 1835. Encouraged by this performance, Attwood stood again at the 1837 general election, this time as a ‘thorough Conservative’.6The Times, 4 July 1837. His vigorous campaign quickly forced the retirement of one of the Reform MPs and he topped the poll.7The Times, 26 July 1837; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 125. Forthright in his criticism of the new poor law, the Times noted that Attwood had displayed ‘skill and assiduity’ in capturing a metropolitan borough for his party.8The Times, 1 Aug. 1837.

In Parliament, Attwood divided with his father against the appropriation of Irish church revenues and the repeal of the corn laws, and his opposition to political reform was shown by his vote against his uncle’s motion that the Commons consider the first Chartist petition, 12 July 1839. Attwood’s commercial interests were reflected in his hostility to a proposal to give an advantage to ‘land-borne coal at the expense of sea-borne coal’, 12 July 1838, and he was critical of Sir Matthew Wood’s attempt to fund City improvements by a tax upon coals, which ‘was the most objectionable and oppressive tax which could be levied’, 16 July 1838.9Hansard, 12, 16 July 1838, vol. 44, cc. 179, 223-4. A critic of Whig financial policy, Attwood thought that repeal of postage duties would unwisely deprive the government of revenue, 5 July 1839.10Hansard, 5 July 1839, vol. 48, cc. 1403-4. Like his father and uncle, Attwood disapproved of contemporary monetary policy, but unlike them he offered no concrete plan for currency reform, contenting himself with calling for an inquiry.11Hansard, 8 July 1839, vol. 49, cc. 58-63; 10 Mar. 1840, vol. 52, cc. 1125-6. As his constituency was one of the ‘naval boroughs’, Attwood repeatedly called for pay increases for shipwrights employed in government dockyards, as the best men were leaving for better remuneration in the private sector.12Hansard, 11, 25 Mar. 1839, vol. 46, cc. 306-7, 1203-5, 1209-10.

However, the major theme of Attwood’s speeches was his hostility towards the poor law commissioners, who, he protested, ‘had placed themselves in direct opposition to the House of Commons’ by not implementing any of the recommendations made by an 1838 select committee report.13Hansard, 21 July 1840, vol. 55, c. 865. In fact in some cases the commissioners ‘appeared to have considered this approval of their liberality a tacit censure’ and promptly sought to impose an even more restrictive system of relief.14Hansard, 9 July 1840, vol. 55, cc. 584-5. In 1841 he supported unsuccessful amendments to diminish the powers of the commission before endorsing Peel’s vote of no confidence in the government, 4 June 1841.

At the subsequent general election Attwood was one of the slate of Conservative candidates who contested the four City of London seats. In his public speeches, he targeted Lord John Russell, one of the Whig candidates, and the government’s proposed alterations in commercial policy. Describing free trade as a ‘most pernicious and delusive doctrine’, Attwood was not opposed to an alteration in sugar duties, but thought it was a ‘complete fallacy’ to assume that an alteration of the corn laws would benefit the labouring classes, when in fact it would be swiftly followed by a reduction in wages.15The Times, 21, 23 June 1841. The new poor law was ‘only one of many proofs of the incompetency to make laws and of the inconsistency of an incapable Ministry’, argued Attwood.16The Times, 23 June 1841. Despite his vigorous campaign and rumours of his return, Attwood was beaten into fourth place by Russell by just nine votes.17The Times, 30 June 1841, 1 July 1841. During the election Attwood was also nominated without his knowledge for Kinsale, where he was beaten by twenty votes.18McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 157; Freeman’s Journal, 9 July 1841; The Times, 10, 12, 14, 15 July 1841. He suffered a more convincing defeat at the hands of Henry Grey, viscount Howick, at the Sunderland by-election in September that year.19A.J. Heesom, ‘The Sunderland by-election, 1841’, Northern History, 9 (1974), 62-78.

It appears that Attwood made no further attempts to return to Parliament, but focussed on his commercial interests. On his father’s death in 1851, he inherited Dulwich Hill House, and a share in the family bank.20‘Attwood, Matthias’, HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 120-7 (at 127); Morning Post, 19 Nov. 1851. In 1865 Attwood declined to aid the Birmingham branch of Attwoods, Spooner and company, which was in grave financial difficulty and subsequently collapsed.21Birmingham Daily Post, 19 Sept. 1865. He died ‘rather suddenly’ later that year and as a bachelor and only child, his estate passed to his uncle Benjamin Attwood (d. 1874), the youngest of the Attwood brothers.22Leeds Mercury, 19 Sept. 1865; Burke’s landed gentry (1937), i. 65-6.