BAXTER, William Edward (1825-1890), of Ashcliff, nr. Dundee, Forfarshire

Baxter’s parliamentary career has been termed ‘inept’, but that more aptly describes his spell in office (1869-73).1E. Gauldie, ‘Introduction’, in idem (ed.), The Dundee textile industry, 1790-1885, from the papers of Peter Carmichael of Arthurstone, Scottish Historical Society, 4th ser., VI (1869), p. xxxviii. Before then, through committee work, questions, speeches, motions and legislation, Baxter, a Dundee merchant, had proved himself an energetic and often effective MP, whose central concerns were foreign policy, retrenchment, religious liberty, and the government and representation of Scotland. Although he gave general support to successive Liberal governments, Baxter was more comfortable after Gladstone assumed control of the party, telling him in 1866 that he had the ‘highest opinion of your leadership’.2W.E. Baxter to W.E. Gladstone, 6 July 1866, Add. 44411, f. 87.

The Baxter family had been involved in the Dundee flax trade since the early eighteenth century.3Gauldie, ‘Introduction’, p. xiii. Baxter’s father, Edward (1791-1870), set up on his own account in 1826, becoming ‘one of the merchant princes of Dundee’, and leaving his brothers to preside over the family’s increasingly successful manufacturing business.4Ibid., pp. xv-xxx; F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1892), i. 197; W. Norrie, Dundee celebrities of the nineteenth century (1873), 368-9. Edward Baxter was a staunch free trader and a benefactor of Dundee, on whose council he served.5Ibid., 369-72. His heir, William Edward, who inherited his father’s Congregationalism, attended Edinburgh University, where he ‘gained considerable distinction as a scholar’, and joined the family firm soon after.6The Scotsman, 11 Aug. 1890.

Baxter’s tour of Europe in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions was a formative experience, which, he wrote in his first travel book, confirmed the wisdom of Britain’s policy of ‘gradual reform’.7W.E. Baxter, Impressions of central and southern Europe (1850), 381-6 (at 382). Similarly, witnessing the influence of the Catholic Church in Italy reinforced his belief in the separation of church and state, and he generally saw little to his liking apart from Swiss federalism.8Ibid., 46-7, 128, 144-7, 255-57, 313-18; idem, The Tagus and the Tiber (1852), i. 135-40; Norrie, Dundee celebrities, 372. In contrast, his visits to the United States of America, during 1846 and 1853-4, left him with an enduring admiration for the ‘Great Republic’ and its political system, which he described as ‘complicated … yet ingenious and practically perfect’.9W.E. Baxter, America and the Americans (1855), 48; Caledonian Mercury, 7 July 1865. He was not an uncritical admirer, however, comparing the House of Representatives unfavourably with the Commons, and deprecating the dominance of party and the powerful influence of lobby groups at Washington.10Baxter, America and the Americans, 51-2, 56-64; Hansard, 1 July 1856, vol. 143, cc. 133-7; ibid., 19 Mar. 1860, vol. 157, cc. 869-80.

A year after his return from America, Baxter was returned for Montrose Burghs at a by-election, 9 Mar. 1855. Exploiting general criticism of the management of the Crimean War, Baxter cited the Times’s call for ‘more commercial and business men’ to enter Parliament, thereby differentiating himself from his opponent, a Whig landowner.11The Times, 7 Mar. 1855. Despite occasional grumblings from his constituents, he faced no further contests in this period.12Arbroath Guide, qu. in Caledonian Mercury, 11 Mar. 1857; Montrose Standard, qu. in Caledonian Mercury, 16 Mar. 1857; Glasgow Herald, 13 Mar. 1857; Aberdeen Journal, 18 Mar. 1857; The Times, 31 Mar. 1857.

In Parliament, Baxter supported a vigorous prosecution of the war, 4 June 1855, and when seconding the address, 31 Jan. 1856, he argued that fighting a ‘vast military despotism’ was a just and popular cause.13Hansard, 4 June 1855, vol. 138, cc. 1355-7; ibid., 31 Jan. 1867, vol. 140, cc. 61-7. After the Crimean War, Baxter generally favoured a policy of non-intervention. He expressed sympathy with Italian nationalism at the 1859 general election, but did not believe that Britain should join Austria and France in meddling in Italy: ‘Let them fight it out – it is no concern of ours’. He added gloomily that ‘the state of Europe cannot be worse physically, mentally and religiously than it is now, and good may come out of the turmoil’.14Caledonian Mercury, 30 Apr. 1859; see also Aberdeen Journal, 4 May 1859; The Times, 2 May 1859. Although Baxter was careful to distance himself from the Peace Society, like Cobden he believed that improved commerce between nations reduced the prospect of war, and welcomed trade agreements such as the Anglo-French treaty of 1861.15Hansard, 22 Apr. 1861, vol. 162, c. 923. A strong opponent of slavery, he believed that whatever the tensions between the British and Federal governments, commercial ties between the two countries made war impossible.16Hansard, 21 Feb. 1860, vol. 156, cc. 1507-9; ibid., 17 Feb. 1862, vol. 165, cc. 387-9; ibid., 4 Mar. 1864, vol. 173, cc. 1487-8; ibid., 2 Mar. 1866, vol. 181, c. 1428. Baxter was strongly opposed to slavery, but believed that the issue was poorly understood in Britain: America and the Americans, 170-98; idem, The social condition of the southern states of America (1862), 3-28. When Baxter condemned British intervention in China, where he had business interests, 20 June 1864, an exasperated Palmerston bemoaned the ‘inconsistency of these commercial gentlemen’, who lobbied for trade treaties but criticised any attempt to uphold them.17Hansard, 20 May 1864, vol. 175, cc. 527-31, 533.

By this time, Baxter was well-known to the premier as a persistent critic of naval and military expenditure. Although Baxter acknowledged that the navy was the guarantor of Britain’s independence, he argued that ‘we have too many ships’, 23 May 1861.18Hansard, 11 Mar. 1861, vol. 161, cc. 1759-60; ibid., 23 May 1861, vol. 163, cc. 30-3 (qu. at 32); ibid., 24 Feb. 1862, c. 642. Dismissing invasion scares as ‘foolish panic’, Baxter was confident that French naval power was overrated and waning.19Hansard, 11 Mar. 1861, vol. 161, cc. 1762-3; ibid., 24 Feb. 1862, cc. 643-5; ibid., 23 Feb. 1863, vol. 169, cc. 685-6 (qu. at 685); ibid., 29 Feb. 1864, vol. 173, cc. 1288-90. Between 1858 and 1866 Baxter regularly opposed supply votes for ‘harbours of refuge’, a planned series of fortified naval bases, which he correctly predicted would be a colossal waste of money.20Hansard, 19 June 1860, vol. 159, cc. 679-81; ibid., 4 July 1861, vol. 164, cc. 320-2; ibid., 6, 16, 22 May 1862, vol. 166, cc. 1309-12, 1849-51, 2086; ibid., 5 June 1863, vol. 171, cc. 455-6; ibid., 26 Apr. 1864, vol. 174, cc. 1678-9; ibid., 30 May 1864, vol. 175, c. 854; ibid., 19 May 1865, vol. 179, cc. 560-1; ibid., 1 Mar. 1866, vol. 181, cc. 1282-3. On harbours of refuge, see M. Partridge, Military planning for the defence of the United Kingdom, 1814-1870 (1989), 35-8, 96-100. A member of an 1861 committee on colonial defences, Baxter argued that the shift towards direct strikes on the enemy in modern warfare made military spending on the periphery obsolete, 4 Mar. 1862.21PP 1861 (423), xiii. 70-5; Hansard, 4 Mar. 1862, vol. 165, cc. 1044-48; see also ibid., 6, 21 Mar. 1862, vol. 165, cc. 1068, 1894-1901.

Baxter’s support for retrenchment extended beyond defence, a good example being his decade long campaign against government postal subsidies.22His questions, speeches and motions on this subject are too numerous to mention. After serving on numerous committees on the issue and authoring a critical 1860 report, Baxter opposed awarding transatlantic postal contracts to single operators, and proposed that the public interest would be better served by commercial competition, 20 Mar. 1863.23PP 1859 session 2 (180), vi. 2, 4; 1860 (328), xiv. 2-43; 1860 (407), xiv. 527-9; 1860 (431), xiv. 638-42. The second report listed above, into the Galway and Cunard contracts, was largely authored by Baxter and was the most important. The definitive account of the Galway Line is T. Collins, ‘The Galway Line in context: a contribution to Galway maritime history’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 46 (1994), 1-42; ibid., 47 (1995), 36-86. In his speech, described by Trelawny as ‘very amusing’, Baxter attributed the disastrous Galway Line contract, awarded in 1858, to ‘a bubble company and a political job’ by Derby’s government to win the support of Irish MPs.24Hansard, 20 Mar. 1863, vol. 169, cc. 1661-1672 (at 1664); Sir J. Trelawny, The parliamentary diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865, ed. T. Jenkins, Camden Society, 4th ser., XL, (1990), 235 (20 Mar. 1863). The motion was defeated, but Baxter’s harangue left Disraeli looking ‘gloomy & ill at ease’.25Trelawny diaries, 235 (20 Mar. 1863); Hansard, 20 Mar. 1863, vol. 169, c. 1691. Baxter later acknowledged that the detailed scrutiny and challenge of estimates had failed to reduce expenditure, 26 Feb. 1866, and increasingly looked towards Gladstone, rather than the Commons, to control public finances.26Hansard, 26 Feb. 1866, vol. 181, cc. 1110-12.

Baxter advocated a non-denominational educational system for Scotland, 23 Mar., 27 Apr. 1855, and remained hostile to all religious endowment.27Hansard, 23 Mar. 1855, 27 Apr. 1855, vol. 137, cc. 998-9, 1916-18. Between 1857 and 1861, he regularly moved the abolition of the regium donum, the annual grant to Ulster Presbyterian ministers, and resisted subsidies to theological professors in that province.28Hansard, 13 July 1857, vol. 146, cc. 1399-1401, 1404; ibid., 12 July 1858, vol. 151, cc. 1277-8; ibid., 25, 29 July 1859, vol. 155, cc. 428-9, 647-8; ibid., 22 May 1860, vol. 158, cc. 1618-26; ibid., 5 June 1862, vol. 167, c. 455. During the same period he opposed church rates in England, ministers’ money in Ireland, and was among the leaders of the campaign to abolish the annuity tax in Scotland.29Hansard, 19 Mar. 1858, vol. 149, cc. 444-5; ibid., 16 June 1858, vol. 150, cc. 2173-4; Trelawny diaries, 50 (16 June 1858). The annuity tax was similar to church rates or ministers’ money, in that it was a local levy on property to support ministers in the established church, but it was only levied in Edinburgh, the parish of Canongate in that city, and Montrose. However, in 1859 he was pragmatic enough to advise his colleague, Adam Black, to drop his bill on the last in exchange for a promise of a government measure, which was passed the following year.30Hansard, 23 Mar. 1859, vol. 153, cc. 632-5; ibid., 20 July 1859, vol. 155, c. 120. He expressed the view that ‘State Churches had had their day’ in the debate on Gladstone’s motion on the Irish church, 30 Apr. 1868, but conceded that the Church of England was defensible on practical grounds.31Hansard, 30 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, cc. 1608-11 (at 1608-9).

Scottish affairs were always a central concern of Baxter’s political career. He unsuccessfully proposed the establishment of an under secretary of state for Scotland, 10 June 1858, to relieve the burden on the Lord Advocate, who had responsibility for Scottish parliamentary business as well as judicial duties.32Hansard, 3 May 1858, vol. 150, cc. 2118-25. Almost nine years later, when the Lord Advocate in Derby’s government was without a seat, Baxter repeated his complaint, and added that there was an ‘increasing feeling of dissatisfaction’ in Scotland with this arrangement: ibid., 22 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, c. 397. He also complained regularly about Scotland’s parliamentary underrepresentation, arguing in 1859 and 1860 that she was entitled to nineteen more MPs on the basis of taxation and population.33Hansard, 28 Feb. 1859, vol. 152, cc. 1005-7; ibid., 1 Mar. 1860, vol. 156, cc. 2086-7. Throughout the reform debates of the 1860s, Baxter’s preference was for an integrated settlement encompassing the three kingdoms.34Ibid.; Hansard, 25 Feb. 1861, vol. 161, cc. 908-9; ibid., 17 Feb. 1868, vol. 190, c. 821-2. He supported the Liberal redistribution scheme, although he complained that it was a ‘Tory bill’, 31 May 1866.35Hansard, 31 May 1866, vol. 183, c. 1600. During the debates on the Conservatives’ measure, Baxter proposed the disenfranchisement of English boroughs with populations below 5,000 and the granting of eight extra seats for Scotland, 18, 25 May 1868.36The first motion was passed, but as Disraeli pointed out, it did not actually secure any extra seats for Scotland. The second, unsuccessful, amendment proposed giving an extra seat to Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Lanarkshire, Ayshire, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire, and dividing Glasgow (which was given an extra member by the bill), into two double-member constituencies: Hansard, 18, 25 May 1868, vol. 192, cc. 435-40, 461-4, 879-82, 886-9. These more modest demands reflected Baxter’s increasing worry that the House was ‘too numerous already’.37Especially when compared to other legislative assemblies: Hansard, 17 Feb. 1868, vol. 190, c. 821; ibid., 18 May 1868, vol. 192, cc. 437-8.

A practical legislator, particularly on Scottish matters, Baxter introduced six bills in this period, most of which amended or consolidated existing statutes, ranging from employment in bleachfields to burials, of which five were enacted.38The unsuccessful bill was the 1863 education of factory children bill: CJ, cxviii. 71, 128. Most important, perhaps, was the 1861 Act which simplified Scottish poor law assessments.3924 & 25 Vict., c.37. Baxter’s Act meant that poor law assessments could only be levied on rental, rather than as before, on rental, ‘means and substance’, or a combination thereof: Dundee Courier, 11 Aug. 1890. The other measures were: The Railway Mortgage Transfer (Scotland) Act (24 & 25 Vict., c.50); Bleachfields (Women and Children’s Employment) Act (25 & 26 Vict., c.8); Bleaching and Dyeing Works Act Amendment (26 & 27 Vict., c.38); Burials in Burghs (Scotland) Act (29 & 30 Vict., c.50). He was associated with another fourteen bills, of which three became law.40Lunatics (Scotland) Act (20 & 21 Vict., c.71); Public Houses (Scotland) Acts Amendment Act (25 & 26 Vict., c.35); Oaths Relief in Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act (26 & 27 Vict., c.85).

After winning an easy victory over a Conservative at the 1868 general election, Baxter was appointed as a secretary to the Admiralty in Gladstone’s first government.41W.E. Baxter to W.E. Gladstone, 23 Nov. 1868, Add. 44416, ff. 220-1; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 208; F. Boase, Modern English Biography, supplement (1912), i. 310-11. Promoted to the treasury, Mar. 1871, he was soon marginalised by the Chancellor, Robert Lowe, who had been horrified by reports of Baxter’s laziness in his previous post.42C. Rivers Wilson, ‘Memorandum on Mr. Baxter’, 31 July 1873, Add. 44439, ff. 242-3; A. Patchett Martin, Life and letters of Robert Lowe (1893), i. 387. When a new postal contract was awarded without Baxter’s knowledge he resigned, 2 Aug. 1873.43Baxter to Gladstone, 2 Aug. 1873, Add. 44439, ff. 250-1. An apocryphal story attributed Baxter’s resignation to Lowe refusing his request for a new writing desk on grounds of economy.44Birmingham Daily Post, 12 Aug. 1890. After succeeding his father in 1870, Baxter became senior partner in the family business, renamed W.E. Baxter and company, and largely withdrew from Dundee public life to spend more time at his Kincaldrum estate.45Dundee Courier, 11 Aug. 1890; DNB, supplement (1901), i. 146. He continued to sit for Montrose until retiring at the 1885 general election, and the following year broke with Gladstone over Home Rule.46The Scotsman, 11 Aug. 1890. In 1887, whilst in Norway, he suffered a serious fall which left him an invalid until his death in 1890, when he was succeeded by his eldest son Edward Armitstead (1848-1933).47Dundee Courier, 11 Aug. 1890; J. Foster, Members of Parliament, Scotland, 1357-1882 (1882), 25; Burke’s landed gentry (1937), 123-4. His other son, George Washington (1853-1926), a prominent figure in Scottish Unionism, unsuccessfully contested Montrose in 1895 and Dundee in 1908 and 1910, and was granted a baronetcy in 1918, which became extinct on his death.48He was chairman of Dundee and District Liberal Unionist Association, 1886-1910; Dundee Unionist Association, 1910-19; president of Scottish Unionist Association, 1919. Ibid.; Who was who, 1916-28 (1929), 67; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, 74, 177; ibid., pt. III, 46.