HEADLAM, Thomas Emerson (1813-1874), of 27 Ashley Place, London, Mdx.; 35 Great George Street, London, Mdx. and Gilmouby Hall, Barnard Castle, co. Durham.

A distinguished barrister, Thomas Headlam entered parliament as an ‘independent Liberal’ in 1847 and became a ‘persistent’ reformer of ‘land and company law’.1M. Taylor, The decline of British radicalism, 1847-1860 (1995), 42-3. The son of John Headlam, archdeacon of Richmond, he was born at Wycliffe rectory, and went on to excel academically, becoming sixteenth wrangler at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1836. Called to the bar in 1839, Headlam subsequently joined the northern circuit, practising as an equity draughtsman and conveyancer. Beginning in 1845, he edited and updated E. R. Daniell’s serial Treatise of the practise of the court of chancery. He was appointed bencher of his inn in 1851, reader in 1866 and treasurer in 1867.2G. C. Boase, ‘Headlam, Thomas Emerson (1813-1875)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com.

Connected to Newcastle by his uncle, Dr Thomas Headlam, a Liberal alderman of the city who had served twice as mayor, Headlam was returned in 1847 following a requisition from local advanced Liberals. A frequent speaker in his early parliamentary career, Headlam displayed a willingness for reform by intervening on a number of legal matters, 3Hansard, 10 July 1849, vol. 107, c. 107; 15 Feb. 1850, vol. 108, cc. 870-2. and carried through the Trustee Act, 5 Aug. 1850, which ensured that no one could be prosecuted for breach of trust unless the deed was in writing. His efforts, however, were often frustrated. On 8 May 1849 he proposed a joint-stock banks bill, which introduced the principle of limited liability of shareholders, which was withdrawn.4Hansard, 8 May 1849, vol. 105, cc. 121-135; T.E. Headlam, A Speech on Limited Liability (1849). Believing that men had to be encouraged to give to charitable causes in their own lifetime rather than on their deathbed, Headlam twice moved successfully for a select committee to inquire into repealing certain provisions of the law of mortmain, and chaired both committees, but their subsequent reports were not enacted into law.5Hansard, 16 May 1851, vol. 116, c. 162; 12 Feb. 1852, vol. 119, cc. 460-1; PP 1851 (483), xvi. 2; PP 1852 (493), xiii. 2.

After being consistently supportive of Lord John Russell’s ministry, Headlam, who comfortably defended his seat in 1852, voted for censure of Aberdeen’s ministry, 29 Jan. 1855, and was often critical of Palmerston during his first administration. In February 1856 he opposed the premier over the local dues and shipping bill, and later openly attacked him for not honouring his promise concerning the commissions of deceased army officers. 6Hansard, 4 Feb. 1856, vol. 140, cc. 173-4; 16 June 1856, vol. 142, cc. 1527-8; 9 Mar. 1857, vol. 144, c. 2060. In the 1857 session he remained a dissident, expressing his dissatisfaction over the income tax and the operation of the Bank Charter Act.7Hansard, 9 Mar. 1857, vol. 144, c. 2060. Despite this opposition, however, Headlam was criticised by the Northern Daily Express for being a dupe of Palmerston, after he backed the government over events at Canton.8Taylor, Decline of British Radicalism, 283. Moreover, at the 1857 general election, he was attacked by local Radicals, who questioned his effectiveness in the Commons, leading Headlam to state that he ‘did not pretend he spoke as much as other members, and if they judged him by his frequency of speech it would be a very erroneous impression’.9Newcastle Courant, 27 Mar. 1857. There was some degree of truth to this as Headlam sat on a range of select committees, but he had struggled to make a great impact since his re-election, with his fresh attempt to alter the law of mortmain in 1854 not reaching the statute book, and his proposals in 1857 to amend the laws regulating the medical profession in order to enforce the legal registration of qualified practitioners coming to nothing.10Hansard, 16 Mar. 1854, vol. 131, cc. 859-70; 8 Feb. 1856, vol. 140, cc. 497-503; 13 May 1857, vol. 145, c. 243. Nevertheless, after a fractious campaign, Headlam managed to hold off a challenge from a Radical candidate, and was returned in second place.

Headlam’s opposition to Palmerston reached its peak on 5 May 1858 when, after voting against his conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, he presided over a meeting of 120 MPs who, styling themselves the ‘independent Liberal party’, expressed their dissatisfaction ‘with the manner in which their opinions had been represented by the last Government’. Headlam went on to stress that, given their apprehensions, they would not support any government unless ‘they were prepared to energetically reform our administrative departments (as, for instance the War-office and the Foreign-office), and in other respects carry out the views of the Liberal party’. Headlam also called for some ‘independent organization’, and the meeting concluded with a number of resolutions endorsing the points he had raised.11The Times, 8 May 1858. His dissidence did not last long though. On 31 Mar. 1859, Headlam divided with Palmerston in support of Russell’s amendment to the Derby ministry’s franchise bill, and although he expressed no preference for an individual leader at the 1859 general election, where he again successfully repelled a Radical candidature and was returned at the top of the poll, two months later he accepted Palmerston’s invitation to be judge advocate-general.

Headlam’s role as judge advocate-general was thrust into the public eye in November 1863, when the government ordered the court martial, in England, of Colonel Crawley, who had commanded the 6th Dragoons in India. In 1862, at Mhow, Crawley had controversially acted as prosecutor in the court martial of one of his soldiers who had criticised his style of leadership, a process Headlam felt was ‘objectionable’ but not ‘illegal’. 12A.H. Haley, The Crawley Affair (1972), 89-90. When it later emerged that Crawley had arrested one of the witnesses for the defence, who then subsequently died in captivity, there was public outcry, although Crawley was eventually acquitted.13The Times, 16 Nov. 1863. Headlam defended the advice he had given throughout the affair, while accepting that there was uncertainty surrounding how his office balanced its judicial duties with the functions of the prosecution. Reflecting on the case, Headlam urged the government to separate ‘the duties of prosecutor from the judicial duties of the judge advocate’ and model court martial cases along the lines of ordinary criminal courts.14Hansard, 15 Mar. 1864, vol. 186, cc. 69-75.

Lauding the leadership of Palmerston, Headlam retained his seat at the 1865 general election, although he had been forced to defend himself against the accusation that, as judge-advocate general, he seldom visited Newcastle, and had lost touch with his constituents.15Newcastle Courant, 7 July 1865. Relieved from his post following the resignation of Russell’s successor ministry in June 1866, Headlam returned to being a more active parliamentarian, making a number of contributions to debate on the mutiny bill, where he argued that corporal punishment was necessary in the army,16Hansard, 28 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 778-81. and chairing a select committee on alterations in the internal arrangements of the Commons.17PP 1867 (451), viii. 458. See also Headlam to W.E. Gladstone, 2 Apr. 1868, BL Add. Mss. 44414, ff. 235-6, where Headlam argues that the ‘cubical contents’ of the House of Commons are less than other existing legislative assemblies. However, it was his behaviour during the reform crisis of 1867 that brought most attention. On 8 Apr. Headlam was one of the 52 MPs present at the tea-room meeting that decided to send a delegation to Gladstone, informing him of their refusal to back his attempt to reinsert a property qualification in the borough franchise. Although Headlam, along with John Arthur Roebuck, James Clay, Arthur Kinnaird, Sir Francis Crossley and John Locke, has been identified as ‘among the leaders of the tea-room movement’,18F.B. Smith, The making of the Second Reform Bill (1966), 45. on 12 Apr., he supported Gladstone’s proposal for a £5 borough franchise, and also divided with him over cumulative voting in three-member seats, 5 July, and over the Lords’ amendment to the franchise bill, 8 Aug. However, on 9 May he was one of 16 tea-room rebels who divided with Disraeli on the borough occupation franchise,19M. Cowling, 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution. The passing of the second Reform Bill (1967), 271. having explained that he ‘would give a vote to every man who made himself truly, really, and substantially a citizen of the place in which he resided’, and that although it was ‘necessarily painful to me to adopt the course I am about to take … there are occasions in the life of every man when he has to choose between his clear duty and the ties of party’.20Hansard, 9 May 1867, vol. 187, cc. 345-6.

After promising to faithfully follow Gladstone, Headlam was once again returned for Newcastle in 1868. He was not, however, offered his former post, prompting Headlam to complain to Gladstone that the decision ‘had taken place without a word written or spoken to me,’ which ‘was not the treatment to which one like myself should be subjected, who had fought many contested elections in Newcastle on Tyne, and who had worked for the Liberal party as I did at the last election both in my own and neighbouring constituencies’.21Headlam to Gladstone, 18 Dec. 1868, BL Add. Mss. 44417, f. 182. Despite such feelings, Headlam promised Gladstone his ‘independent support, and certainly nothing which has occurred will influence my future conduct’.22Ibid. Now taking a seat upon the Liberal back bench, he ‘voted steadily with his party, but his days of active service had gone by’ and his attendance was deemed, by one of his constituents, to be ‘most unsatisfactory’.23Birmingham Daily Post, 13 Dec. 1875; Liverpool Mercury, 14 Dec. 1875. Perceived to be out of step with the advanced Liberalism of his constituents, Headlam lost his seat at the 1874 general election, after a bitter contest. Following his retirement from public life, Headlam’s health gradually deteriorated, and on his way to winter in a southerly climate, he died at Calais in December 1875.24Boase, ‘Headlam, Thomas Emerson’. A memorial tablet in St Giles’s church in Bowes, County Durham, was later erected in his honour.