BASS, Michael Thomas (1799-1884), of Rangemore House, Staffs.

Born into a family of Burton-on-Trent brewers, Bass took over the management of the firm established by his grandfather William Bass (1717-87) in 1827. With his partners from the Gretton and Ratcliff families, Bass developed the firm into a huge enterprise, challenging the traditional supremacy of the London brewers, and turning the company into the ‘largest brewery in the world’.1R. Wilson, ‘Bass, Michael Thomas (1799–1884)’, Oxford DNB (2004) [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/view/article/1631, accessed 5 May 2009]. From 1848, when he was first returned for Derby, Bass combined a long and dutiful parliamentary career with being one of Britain’s most successful businessmen. In the thirty-five years that he sat for Derby he finished top of the poll at every election other than 1865. An extremely wealthy man, Bass generously patronised Derby in the 1860s and 1870s, providing a library, two churches, a public baths and a recreation ground. However, it would be wrong to attribute Bass’s popularity solely to his munificence.2Wilson, ‘Bass’; The Times, 30 Apr. 1884; Derby Mercury, 25 Apr. 1883. Although he was ‘no orator’, Bass’s humble, self-deprecating and straightforward style of speaking proved popular with electors.3The Times, 30 Apr. 1884; Derby Mercury, 1 Apr. 1857. A moderate Liberal in favour of parliamentary reform and free trade, Bass appealed to a wide constituency, including Conservatives and Radicals, while his skill, diplomacy and popularity proved crucial in holding together a fractious local Liberal party.4Derby Mercury, 6 June 1883; Derby poll book, 1865 (1865), 2; C. Hogarth, ‘Derby and Derbyshire elections, 1852-1865’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 101 (1981), 151-72 (at 157-62).

In the Commons, Bass limited himself to succinct speeches on subjects with which he was familiar. He ‘considered that unless a man had something to say which the House had not heard before, he should hold his tongue’, and sympathised with critics who complained that the House was ‘unbusiness-like’.5Hansard, 21 June 1854, vol. 134, c.458, 2 Aug. 1861, vol. 164, c.1873. A diligent constituency MP, Bass considered that much important work was done outside the chamber, stating in one debate that he often stayed at the House from midday until two o’clock in the morning working on ‘public business’.6Ibid., 9 Apr. 1861, vol. 162, c.348; The Times, 30 Apr. 1884. During budget debates, he regularly pressed for the reduction of malt duty and proposed a motion for its abolition in two stages in 1851.7Hansard, 17 June 1851, vol. 117, cc. 898-904; 7 Apr. 1862, vol. 166, cc. 655-57; 14 Apr. 1864, vol. 174, cc. 1033-35; 27 Apr. 1865, vol. 178, cc. 1153-55; 15 June 1865, vol. 180, cc. 275-76. Bass also complained about the number of duties and amount of overall taxation which he paid, but his attacks on malt duty were not simply an example of special pleading.8Ibid., 20 Apr. 1850, vol. 157, cc. 2092-93; 10 Apr. 1862, vol. 166, cc. 775-77. Rather, Bass argued that if duties were removed from foreign items, the same should apply to domestic items. To objections that such a move would drastically affect public finances, he replied that a halving of malt duty would actually increase revenue as consumption would rise significantly.9Ibid., 17 June 1851, vol. 117, cc. 900-07, 914. Bass’s trade knowledge and mastery of relevant statistics meant that he spoke with authority on this issue. He also showed flashes of dry wit, such as when he gently mocked Robert Lowe’s ignorance of the brewing process after Lowe had described brewers as monopolists.10Ibid., 13 Dec. 1852, vol. 123, cc. 1862-63. As a well-informed and active member of the 1857 select committee on hop duties, Bass frequently intervened to probe and correct witnesses.11PP 1857 (252), xiv. 373-76, 380-82, 394-95, 400-02, 404-05, 417-19, 539-40, 542-48, Report from the Select Committee on Hop Duties. Although he voted against the conspiracy to murder bill in 1858, which led to the fall of Palmerston’s government, he was a party loyalist who generally supported the Liberal leadership.12Hansard, 17 June 1851, c.899; The Times, 5 Mar. 1857, 20 Feb. 1858, 30 Apr. 1884. (Given the prevailing climate of the time, it was relatively easy for Bass to reconcile his commercial interests with his political allegiance, since the drink question had not yet become a partisan, and polarising, issue, and prohibitionists were not as strong a presence within local Liberalism as they were to become by the end of the century.)13D. Hamer, The politics of electoral pressure: a study in the history of Victorian reform agitations (1977), 260-64, 278-82; B. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: the temperance question in England, 1815-1872 (1994), 63-79, 279-80. His main legislative achievement was to introduce an Act in 1864 to combat the scourge of street musicians in London by introducing fines, about which he also published a pamphlet. This briefly earned him a reputation for eccentricity as well as the support of the metropolitan literati, who regarded street musicians as a disruptive nuisance.1427 & 28 Vict. c. 55; PP 1864 (90), iv. 195-98; Hansard, 17 July 1863, vol. 172, cc. 972-73; 3 May 1864, vol. 174, c.2118; 9 June 1864, vol. 175, cc. 1532-33; 29 June 1864, vol. 176, cc. 471-72; M. Bass, Street Music in the Metropolis: Correspondence and Observations on Existing Law, and proposed amendments (1864); J. Picker, ‘The soundproof study: Victorian professionals, work space and urban noise’, Victorian Studies, 42:3 (1999), 427-53 (at 438-39, 444-46). He is not known to have spoken in debate after 1865, but remained a frequent attender and served on the 1873 select committee on imprisonment for debt, which he felt strongly should be abolished.15PP 1873 (348),xv. 2, 8-9, 16-18, Report from the Select Committee on Imprisonment for Debt.

After a succession of illnesses Bass resigned his seat in June 1883. He died less than a year later, leaving a personal estate of £1,830,291 10s. 5d.16Derby Mercury, 6 June 1883, 7 May 1884; Wilson, ‘Bass’. His sons, Sir Michael Arthur Bass, MP for Stafford, 1865-68 and East Staffordshire, 1868-86, and Hamar Bass, MP for Tamworth, 1878-85 and West Staffordshire, 1885-98, were to find the position of being a Liberal brewer more problematic, with political and commercial pressures pulling them in different directions. Ultimately, they resolved the tension by joining the Liberal Unionists, Hamar in 1886 and Michael in 1894, eight years after he had been created first Baron Burton.