HIBBERT, John Tomlinson (1824-1908), of Urmston Grange, Urmston, Lancs.

A native of Oldham, Hibbert was the eldest son of Elijah Hibbert, co-founder of the town’s largest engineering establishment, Hibbert and Platt, which produced machinery for the cotton industry.1T.C. Hughes, rev. H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Hibbert, Sir John Tomlinson’, Oxford DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. After Elijah’s death, the Hibbert interest was bought out by John (MP Oldham 1865-72) and James Platt (MP Oldham 1857), a process completed in 1854.2D.A. Farnie, ‘Platt family’, Oxford DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. Hibbert retained a close personal connection with the Platts, his first wife being sister to James Platt’s wife. Called to the bar in 1849, Hibbert had little connection with the profession thereafter.3C. Hibbert, Memories of the Right Honourable Sir J.T. Hibbert, K.C.B., by his wife (1911), 11. In 1851, he purchased property at Urmston, near Manchester, where he and his wife were prominent supporters of the local Anglican church. He served as superintendent of the Flixton Sunday school and also taught evening classes.4Hibbert, Memories, 7-9. In 1867, he was treasurer of the building committee for St. Clement’s Church, Urmston.5Manchester Times, 23 Mar. 1867. Appointed as a magistrate in 1855, Hibbert became chairman of the visiting justices of the Salford House of Correction, and was involved with the formation in 1866 of a Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society for the Manchester district.6W.W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 393; Leeds Mercury, 16 Jan. 1866. He served from 1853 for thirty years as Urmston’s representative on the Barton Board of Guardians.7Hibbert, Memories, 9; The Times, 9 Nov. 1908. He also held official positions with various charitable and commercial institutions in the Manchester area. He was elected to the management committee of the Manchester and Liverpool Agricultural Society in 1857, and as a governor of Cheetham Hospital and Library in 1858.8Liverpool Mercury, 27 Nov. 1857; Bean, Parliamentary representation, 393. He served as auditor of the Manchester Savings Bank and on the council of the Manchester Botanical Gardens.9Daily News, 9 Jan. 1858; Manchester Times, 14 Jan. 1860. He was a director of the Manchester and London Life Assurance and Loan Association, which subsequently became part of the Western Insurance Company, of which Hibbert served as chairman.10The Times, 25 Apr. 1853, 12 May 1866. Hibbert also had railway interests, serving as a director of the Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne and Guide Bridge railway, and the Lancaster and Carlisle railway.11Reynolds’s Newspaper, 30 July 1865; Bradshaw’s Railway Manual (1869), 160, 267.

Incorrectly identified by Stenton and McCalmont as a candidate for Cambridge in 1857, Hibbert’s first attempt to enter Parliament was in fact for his native borough in 1859.12M. Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs (1978), ii. 171; J. Vincent & M. Stenton (eds.), McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book (1971), 42. The candidate at Cambridge in 1857 was John Hibbert, of Braywick Lodge, Maidenhead, Berks (Daily News, 12 Mar. 1857). W.J. Fox’s election committee approached several reform-minded businessmen as potential Liberal running-mates for Fox against the rival Liberal John Morgan Cobbett, before Hibbert agreed to stand.13Daily News, 11 Apr. 1859. Hibbert, who declared his support for public health, factory and penal reform, religious freedom, redistribution of seats, the ballot, triennial parliaments, and the rating franchise proposed by John Bright (although favouring manhood suffrage ‘in the abstract’), finished in third place, only eleven votes behind Cobbett.14Daily News, 14 Apr. 1859; Birmingham Daily Post, 21 Apr. 1859. Following his defeat, he nursed his local connections, attending events such as the annual meeting of the Oldham Analytic Literary Institution.15Manchester Times, 10 Nov. 1860. When Fox retired on health grounds, Hibbert was returned unopposed at the May 1862 by-election. He was re-elected (alongside John Platt) in 1865, and again in 1868, when there was an unsuccessful election petition against the pair. Defeated in 1874, Hibbert endeavoured to re-enter Parliament at a by-election at Blackburn in October 1875, but did not return to the House until March 1877, at a by-election occasioned by Cobbett’s death. He was re-elected in 1880 and 1885, lost the seat in 1886, but regained it in 1892, before his final defeat in 1895.

Arriving in the Commons during the cotton famine, Hibbert made his maiden speech the day after taking his seat, appealing for the suspension of the labour test in the Lancashire cotton districts.16Hansard, 9 May 1862, vol. 166, c.1514. He was keen to provide Lancashire with the means of self-help, and successfully pressed for a clause in the 1862 union relief aid bill which would allow poor law Unions to borrow money against the rates, rather than calling upon the national purse.17Hansard, 22 July 1862, vol. 168, cc.695-7. When the clause was introduced, Hibbert successfully persuaded C.P. Villiers, president of the Poor Law Board, to lower the threshold at which borrowing powers could be enacted (Hansard, 31 July 1862, vol. 168, c.1040). He pursued the issue of relief in the 1863 session.18Hansard, 12 Feb. 1863, vol. 169, cc.281-3; 19 Feb. 1863, vol. 169, cc.537-8; 2 Mar. 1863, vol. 169, cc.971-2. Hibbert himself made donations to local relief funds (Daily News, 15 Aug. 1862). His preference for local rather than centralised administration informed his later criticism of the workings of the poor law, whereby boards of guardians ‘could not appoint a cook, a nurse, or a porter’ without referring the matter to London.19Hansard, 12 June 1865, vol. 180, c.99. He objected to the proposed amalgamation of the Metropolitan and City of London police in 1863 as ‘as another step towards carrying out the principle of centralization’.20Hansard, 21 Apr. 1863, vol. 170, c.518. Questions of law and order were another particular interest: while Hibbert supported flogging as a punishment for garrotters, he wished this to be carried out within the first six months of a prison sentence.21Hansard, 11 Mar. 1863, vol. 169, c.1307; 6 May 1863, vol. 170, c.1281. Having attended a meeting at Manchester in 1863 which pressed for private rather than public executions at the new county gaol at Strangeways, he advised the Commons in 1864 of the ‘demoralizing effect of public executions’, to which spectators travelled on excursion trains ‘to gratify their depraved appetite’.22The Times, 30 Jan. 1863; Hansard, 23 Feb. 1864, vol. 173, cc.941-5. In 1865, he introduced a bill providing for private executions within gaols, but the second reading was discharged, 28 June, as a Royal Commission report on capital punishment was not yet before the House. Following another failed attempt by Hibbert in 1866, the Conservative government took up the issue, passing the Capital Punishment within Prisons Act in 1868.23Hansard, 6 Mar. 1866, vol. 181, cc.1621-5. Hibbert dutifully witnessed the first execution under the Act, ‘though his kindly, gentle nature and tender heart shrank from the ordeal’.24Hibbert, Memories, 13.

A committed supporter of electoral reform, who was singled out for praise by Sir John Trelawny for his speech on Locke King’s county franchise bill, 13 Apr. 1864, Hibbert played a prominent part in the debates on the Second Reform Act.25T.A. Jenkins (ed.), The parliamentary diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865 (1990), 270. Speaking at a National Reform Union meeting at Manchester in January 1866, he warned against the £6 rating franchise as ‘illusive’, and told Russell the following month that it would be ‘almost an insult’ to the working classes, adding only 300 voters to the Oldham register.26Leeds Mercury, 31 Jan. 1866; Manchester Times, 10 Feb. 1866. Yet although the 1866 reform bill did not go as far as he wanted, Hibbert supported it in a characteristically statistic-laden speech.27Hansard, 27 Apr. 1866, vol. 183, cc.48-53. In 1867, having attended the tea room meeting, and being opposed to Gladstone’s proposed £5 rating franchise, he was among 19 Liberals absent from the key vote, 12 Apr., by which the Conservatives established the principle of personal rating.28Daily News, 10 Apr. 1867; Pall Mall Gazette, 15 Apr. 1867, 23 Apr. 1867; M. Cowling, 1867. Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution (1967), 236. Hibbert took a keen interest in the thorny issue of compounding, concerned that householders who opted out of compounding in order to be registered should still only pay a reduced rate, and offered to support personal payment and a two years’ residence requirement in order to secure this.29Cowling, 1867, 237; N. Johnson (ed.), The diary of Gathorne Hardy, later Lord Cranbrook, 1866-1892: political selections (1981), 36. Unable to persuade the Cabinet to yield on this point, Disraeli framed an alternative proposal, allowing compounders to pass on this ‘fine’ to their landlords.30Cowling, 1867, 236-8, 269-70. This Cabinet meeting is described in J.R. Vincent (ed.), Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party. The political journals of Lord Stanley 1849-69 (1978), 301. Although Hibbert’s amendment received strong support from Gladstone – who supplied the ‘passionate energy’ which Hibbert lacked in debate – it was defeated in a crucial vote, 9 May 1867.31The Times, 10 May 1867.

Hibbert did, however, secure other significant alterations to the Second Reform Act, notably a clause whereby payment for the conveyance of voters to the poll – which ‘afforded a great opening to bribery and corruption’ – became illegal in boroughs.32Hansard, 2 July 1867, vol. 188, cc.892-4, 897. Hibbert’s clause was carried by 166 votes to 101, 4 July 1867. He denounced attempts to permit such payments in certain Irish boroughs: ‘until he was persuaded that an Irishman could not walk so far as an Englishman he must oppose the Amendment’ (Hansard, 15 June 1868, vol. 192, c.1594). His concern for cheaper elections also informed his support for Fawcett’s amendment to pay returning officers’ expenses from the rates, noting that those who had elected him at Oldham ‘would not allow him to pay a single farthing’.33Hansard, 27 June 1867, vol. 188, cc.628-9. Hibbert was keen that the boundaries of existing constituencies be retained until the question could be thoroughly considered, and having given evidence to a select committee on this issue, moved successfully that the boundaries of 15 large boroughs remain unaltered, 11 June 1868. Around this time he was praised by John Stuart Mill as ‘rather clever as well as careful in framing amendments’.34J.S. Mill to W.D. Christie, 3 Apr. 1868, F. Mineka & D. Lindley (eds.), Collected works of John Stuart Mill, vol. xvi. The later letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 (1972), 1384. Described by Disraeli as ‘a man of extreme and advanced opinions’, Hibbert demonstrated these credentials by voting for Mill’s women’s suffrage amendment, 20 May 1867.35The Times, 30 Oct. 1867. Addressing his constituents that year, Hibbert hoped that the next Parliament ‘would have in it men belonging to the operative classes’.36Leeds Mercury, 26 Oct. 1867.

Hibbert’s advanced Liberalism was also shown by his support for Stansfield’s motion to reduce government expenditure, 3 June 1862, voting in the minority of 63. Having told Oldham’s electors in 1859 that ‘it was not right that our national defences should be made an excuse for national extravagance’, he voted against the second reading of the fortifications (provision for expenses) bill, 30 June 1862.37Manchester Times, 23 July 1859. He supported the abatement of income tax on industrial earnings, 24 Mar. 1863, but divided against the repeal of the malt tax, 17 Apr. 1866. Although a committed Anglican, involved with causes such as the Manchester Diocesan Church Building Society, Hibbert consistently voted for the abolition of church rates, believing that the church possessed sufficient energy to maintain itself.38Preston Guardian, 11 Apr. 1863; Hansard, 20 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, c.233. In 1864, Hibbert was part of a deputation to Palmerston which urged that church rates should not be levied in new parishes: Leeds Mercury, 2 June 1864. He supported reforms to remove disabilities for Dissenters, such as the Oxford tests abolition bill, and voted for the second reading of the Irish church bill, 22 May 1868, although he objected to total disendowment of the Irish church.39Daily News, 8 Feb. 1868.

A diligent parliamentarian, Hibbert served on a plethora of select committees, beginning with that on the tramways bill soon after his arrival in the House.40PP 1862 (0.100) xliv. 215. Having heard the evidence of the 1864 inquiry on sewage, his name was among those on the 1865 river waters protection bill, although he admitted that this was too sweeping a measure and recommended its withdrawal in favour of government legislation.41PP 1864 (487) xiv. 5; PP 1865 (3) iv. 206; Hansard, 8 Mar. 1865, vol. 177, cc.1340-1. The measure was withdrawn in favour of the sewage utilisation bill. In 1865, he sat on the committees on the Salmon Fishery Act (1861) amendment bill, the waterworks bill, and, reflecting his interest in penal reform, the prisons bill.42PP 1865 (280) xii. 425; PP 1865 (358) xii. 437; PP 1865 (401) xii. 445. In 1866, he served on the committee on the vaccination bill, and chaired that on the Windsor election petition.43PP 1866 (0.109) lvii. 628; The Times, 18 Apr. 1866. When he was unable to chair the committee on the Helston election petition, his doctor was called to testify before the House – amidst much laughter – that Hibbert ‘was taken exceedingly ill on his return from the Duke of Devonshire’s party’.44Pall Mall Gazette, 27 June 1866. He served on several committees dealing with local taxation in 1867-8, as well as that on the registration bill.45PP 1867 (322) xiii. 575; PP 1867-8 (342) xiii. 107; PP 1867-8 (421) ix. 1; PP 1867-8 (0.107) lvi. 51. The committees on local taxation on which Hibbert served were those on the valuation of property bill, poor rates assessment, and county financial arrangements. In 1867, he and two other Lancashire MPs pledged to bring in a bill to exempt Sunday schools from liability to rates.46Daily News, 4 May 1867. Having voted for the closing of public houses on Sundays, 17 Mar. 1863, 6 May 1864, Hibbert (unsuccessfully) pressed for greater restrictions when he sat on the 1868 committee on this issue.47PP 1867-8 (402) xiv. 11; Daily News, 12 Sept. 1868. He was, however, more cautious regarding other temperance legislation. He stated at Oldham in 1859 that he would not support the Maine law permissive bill (a form of local option), and although he voted for its introduction, 10 Mar. 1864, he divided against its second reading, 8 June 1864.48Birmingham Daily Post, 21 Apr. 1859. The bill as introduced in 1864 providing that if two-thirds of ratepayers in a parish voted for prohibition, licences would not be granted in that area. Hibbert supported alternative remedies to the drink problem, praising the value of the Stretford Working Men’s Club as a counter-attraction to the public house when he chaired its inaugural meeting in 1864.49Manchester Times, 26 Nov. 1864.

Disraeli was exaggerating for effect when he asserted that Hibbert was ‘looked on with feelings of adoration in the densely-populated manufacturing districts’, but he was nonetheless a well-regarded constituency MP.50The Times, 30 Oct. 1867. He was assiduous in accompanying deputations from Lancashire on subjects ranging from the transport of live cattle from Salford market to the expansion of Owen’s College, Manchester.51Manchester Times, 2 June 1866; The Times, 6 Mar. 1868. He was involved with the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the Social Science Association and the Society of Arts.52The Times, 26 Jan. 1866; Daily News, 5 Apr. 1866, 4 Jan. 1867. Hibbert gave regular accounts of his parliamentary conduct to his Oldham constituents. The measures which he singled out for praise from the 1863 session reflected his dual interests in his locality, highlighting the relief provided in Lancashire and Cheshire by the Public Works Act, and in the nuts and bolts of legislation: he commended the Statute Law Revision Act, which removed 1,300 obsolete laws from the statute books.53Manchester Times, 6 Feb. 1864.

Hibbert’s obituary in The Times described him as having ‘that business capacity without which the subordinate, but not unimportant, offices in a Ministry cannot be creditably filled’ and he held a succession of such posts after 1868, being rewarded with a knighthood in 1893. Although he was not eminent, ‘for he lacked the gifts of oratory and audacity that bring men to the front’, he was ‘one of the most loyal and useful members of the Liberal party’ during his lengthy parliamentary career.54The Times, 9 Nov. 1908. He remained active in county government following his retirement from Westminster politics, being Lancashire county council’s chairman from its inauguration in 1889 until shortly before his death, and was the long-serving president of the north-western poor law conference.55Hughes, ‘Hibbert’, Oxford DNB. Having been a keen footballer at Shrewsbury (where he later served as chairman of the governing body), he enjoyed playing tennis and bowls well into old age.56Hibbert, Memories, 4-5. He died in 1908 at his home at Hampsfield, near Grange-over-Sands (which he had built in 1878-9, after his second marriage), and was buried in the nearby church at Lindale.57VCH Lancaster, viii. 254-65 [n.46]; Hibbert, Memories, 47. He left £58,024 1s. 10d.58Hughes, ‘Hibbert’, Oxford DNB. He was succeeded by his only son, Percy, who did not pursue a political career.59Percy Hibbert was employed as a district auditor for the Local Government Board, and served as Sheriff of Lancashire in 1916-17: London Gazette, 24 Mar. 1882, 29 Feb. 1916.