CAYLEY, Edward Stillingfleet (1802-1862), of Wydale, Yorkshire and Low Hall, Yorkshire

A ‘tall and slender man’ with a ‘finely formed Grecian head’, whose baldness was partially compensated by a ‘couple of whiskers of very ample proportions’, Cayley was successively a Whig, Reformer, protectionist, Derbyite and Liberal Conservative.1‘Memoir of E.S. Cayley’, Farmers’ Magazine (1844), x. 81-4 (at 84); J. Grant, The British senate (1838), ii. 114. ‘Over-scrupulous and at times crotchety’, it was said that ‘there was no counting on his vote until the time to give it arrived’.2The Times, 27 Feb. 1862. Throughout his career, however, Cayley, a landowner and farmer, was a consistent champion of the agricultural interest, advocating currency reform, agricultural protection and repeal of the malt tax. His independence and popularity with farmers and smallholders allowed him to retain his North Riding seat for thirty years, on three occasions (1832, 1835 and 1859) in the teeth of opposition from local Tory or Whig magnates.3Ibid.; The Standard, 27 Feb. 1862.

Cayley hailed from a junior branch of the Cayleys, baronets of Brompton, and both of his parents were ‘deaf and dumb’.4Burke’s landed gentry (1908), 294-5; ‘Memoir of E.S. Cayley’, 82. After leaving university, Cayley spent a decade reading ‘a severe course … of historical, economical and philosophical studies’.5‘Memoir of E.S. Cayley’, 83. The fruits of his research included two pamphlets: Corn, trade, wages and rent (1826) and On commercial economy (1830). Shortly afterwards Cayley made himself ‘conspicuous as the principal advocate’ for dividing Yorkshire into three constituencies based on the historic Ridings.6The Times, 27 Feb. 1862.

Cayley offered for the new constituency of the North Riding at the 1832 general election. He stood as an independent, praising the Reform Act, and promising support for the abolition of slavery and church reform.7Morn. Chro., 20 Dec. 1832. Although he had ‘no commanding family influence’, Cayley saw off the opposition of local Tory and Whig nobles to secure election in second place, a feat he repeated at the 1835 general election.8York Herald, 1 Mar. 1862; Leeds Mercury, 22 Dec. 1832. Cayley was one of a number of Whig and independent country gentlemen elected in 1832, who promised to support the Grey ministry and obtain agricultural relief. He was unusual in his political longevity, as most of this cohort had retired, crossed the floor or been ousted by the Conservative recovery in the counties by the late 1830s.

Cayley joined his father-in-law and kinsman Sir George Cayley (1773-1857), 6th baronet, Whig MP for Scarborough 1832-5, in the Commons. In his first decade in Parliament, Cayley supported the Whigs’ policy on church rates and reform of the Irish church, and welcomed the 1834 new poor law, having previously called for an end to poor relief for the able-bodied.9Morn. Chro., 7 Aug. 1837; Hansard, 23 May 1834, vol. 23, cc. 1284-5; E.S. Cayley, On commercial economy (1830), 257-60. He described himself as a ‘Reformer’, but one who would not ‘be slavishly wedded’ to any party.10York Herald, 27 Dec. 1834. He supported the commutation of tithes, but objected to the detail of the government’s 1836 bill.11Hansard, 25 Mar. 1836, vol. 32, cc. 632-7, 640.

Cayley’s main concern was agricultural distress and he maintained a consistent position during economic debates. He believed that the 1819 Bank Act was ‘the worst enemy to British agriculture’, as it established a deflationary and restrictive monetary regime.12York Herald, 27 Dec. 1834. This increased the burden of debts and taxation on agriculturalists, made it impossible to sustain high or remunerating agricultural prices, and caused frequent economic fluctuations.13Hansard, 23 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, cc. 486-94; ibid., 21 Feb. 1834, vol. 21, cc. 673-9 (at 679); ibid., 19 Mar. 1834, vol. 22, cc. 436-9 (at 439); ibid., 1 June 1835, vol. 28, cc. 244-65, 288-96; ibid., 12 May 1836, vol. 33, cc. 873-5; PP 1837 (464), v. 204-9, 214-16. The solution, in Cayley’s view, was currency reform, preferably a silver or bimetallic standard, perhaps coupled with the reintroduction of £1 notes, although he disowned ‘an unlimited paper currency’.14Cayley, On commercial economy, 257-60; Hansard, 23 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, cc. 488 (qu. at 493); ibid., 1 July 1833, vol. 18, cc. 1383-4; ibid., 7 July 1834, vol. 24, cc. 1265-6; ibid., 1 June 1835, vol. 28, cc. 277-87, 289-91; PP 1837 (464), v. 199, 210-11, 216-19. After a speech of inordinate length, his motion for a silver standard, 1 June 1835, was defeated 126-216.15Hansard, 1 June 1835, vol. 28, cc. 244-87, 288-96, 337. Although he emphasised the monetary origins of agricultural distress, Cayley did not regard the corn laws as useless. The corn laws could not permanently raise the price of cereals under the existing monetary regime, Cayley argued, but they did help to underpin domestic corn prices by regulating the importation of cheap foreign corn.16Hansard, 17 May 1833, vol. 17, cc. 1373-5; ibid., 1 June 1835, vol. 28, cc. 265-7; Farmers’ Mag. (1835), ii. 6.

In countless debates, speeches at local meetings and through his Agricultural and Industrial Magazine (1834-5), Cayley was an indefatigable champion of the agricultural interest. It was said that:

As a speaker, he never made much figure, for although effective at times, he was very unequal, and required to feel strongly before he spoke forcibly.17The Times, 27 Feb. 1862.

Cayley was also ‘engaged in much of the less prominent, though more fatiguing, business of Parliament’.18‘Memoir of E.S. Cayley’, 83. He served on the 1833 and 1836 committees on agriculture, gave evidence to the 1837 Lords committee on agriculture, and also chaired the 1835 inquiry on handloom weavers’ distress.19PP 1833 (612), v. 2; 1835 (341), xiii. 2-4; 1836 (79) (189) (465), viii, pt. I, pp. 2, 226, ibid., pt. II, p. 2; 1837 (464), v. 4, 185-219, 240-52. The agricultural interest’s inability to obtain redress prompted Cayley to write to the marquis of Chandos, MP for Buckinghamshire, 10 Oct. 1836, to suggest a change in tactics. Alluding to various motions proposed by himself and Chandos, he wrote that the result was that the agricultural party’s ‘forces are divided, and party politics win[s] the day’.20Farmers’ Mag. (1836), iv. 17. Instead, Cayley recommended that the agricultural party should focus on gathering support behind one broad (and vaguely worded) motion for a select committee on agricultural distress.21Ibid. Nothing seems to have come of Cayley’s suggestion, and after his unopposed return in 1837, his energies became focused on defending the corn laws. In a lengthy speech, 12 Mar. 1839, he argued that cheap bread was a manufacturers’ cry to lower wages and shrewdly noted that most of the alleged benefits of free trade were based on hypotheses or depended on the actions of foreign governments.22Hansard, 12 Mar. 1839, vol. 46, cc. 367-87, 387-91, 391-405 (at 368, 392-8). In any case, agriculture remained the predominant interest, employing far more of the population than manufacturing.23Ibid., 379-80.

Although Cayley’s opinions were apparently ‘respected by the landed gentlemen in the House’, the writer James Grant thought that ‘his more lengthy orations are only tolerated, not listened to’.24Grant, British senate, ii. 111-12. This was because Cayley suffered from a host of defects as an orator:

His articulation is very imperfect, and … seldom sufficiently audible. He opens his mouth wide enough, and yet the words come out of it as if some extraordinary violence were offered to them in the process of their birth. His utterance is, besides, much too rapid for his articulation to be distinct. His voice is … feeble. His voice has no variety; anything more monotonous it were impossible to conceive. He has now become so habituated to the same tone, that I do not think he could, by any effort, succeed in varying it.25Ibid., 112-13.

Furthermore, his gestures and manner were ‘quite as monotonous as his voice’: ‘he either placed his arms a-kimbo … or he gives a gentle incessant motion to his right arm’.26Ibid., 113. Although his speeches were ‘never brilliant’, they always possessed the ‘quality of good sense’, and Grant considered Cayley to be ‘a very intelligent man’.27Ibid.

Cayley’s efforts took a very heavy toll on him. His frame, formerly of ‘great muscular power’, was much diminished and his face became thin, pale and ‘much worn, compared to what it once was’.28Ibid., 114; ‘Memoir of E.S. Cayley’, 81, 84. He was diagnosed with heart disease in 1839 and ordered to cease ‘all exertion under the penalty of death’.29Ibid., 84. Consequently, he played no part in any debates during the first half of the 1840s. He did, however, vote against the Whigs’ 1841 budget, although he supported Melbourne’s government in the subsequent vote of confidence, and later divided in favour of factory regulation. Had the Conservatives challenged Cayley at the 1841 general election there seems to be little doubt that he would have been ousted.30Morning Post, 12 June 1841; The Standard, 7, 9 July 1841.

During his enforced absence from the chamber, Cayley took up his pen, writing the address of the newly-founded Agricultural Protection Society in 1844.31E.S. Cayley, Reasons for the formation of the Agricultural Protection Society (1844). The following year, after Lord John Russell’s conversion to repeal of the corn laws, Cayley wrote two public letters to the nobleman.32The letters dated 23 Nov. 1845 and 3 Dec. 1845 were published in the Farmers’ Mag. (1846), xiii. 23-6, 46-53. He made his first speech for six years in defence of the corn laws, 11 May 1846, likening Peel’s proposal to ‘a great bubble speculation’.33Hansard, 11 May 1846, vol. 86, cc. 394-414 (at 408). During his wide-ranging speech, which lasted for an hour and a half, Cayley mounted a forceful critique of the underlying philosophy behind free trade: ‘Your cheapest market principle dreams of profit and profit alone. Your theory is to consider man a machine by which you are to make a profit’.34Ibid., 412; Bankers’ Circular, 22 May 1846. He closed by quoting a popular verse:

Woodman, spare that tree;

Touch not a single bough;

In youth it shelter’d thee,

Do thou protect it now!35Hansard, 11 May 1846, vol. 86, c. 414.

Even though doctors had warned him ‘that if he ventured to run from one end of the drawing-room to the other, he would fall dead’, Cayley’s parliamentary activity now recovered to something like its former level.36‘Obituary of E.S. Cayley’, Farmers’ Mag. (1862), xxi. 354-6 (at 355). He was returned unopposed as a protectionist at the 1847 general election and declared that he ‘never had and never could place any confidence’ in Peel.37Daily News, 7 Aug. 1847. His admiration for Russell and his support for religious liberty, reflected in his votes for further Catholic relief and Jewish emancipation, meant that he continued to sit on the Liberal benches.38York Herald, 7 Aug. 1847.

Cayley reprised his criticism of Peel in the debates on commercial distress in 1847-8, which he attributed to the 1844 Bank Charter Act, and also blamed the former premier for presiding over the railway boom.39Hansard, 30 Nov. 1847, vol. 95, cc. 466-77. He sat on the 1848 secret committee on commercial distress, but later complained that it was ‘packed’ with supporters of the monetary system.40Hansard, 7 July 1848, vol. 100, cc. 266-77 (at 268); PP 1847-48 (395), viii, pt. I, pp. 2, 12. As neither the restoration of protection or currency reform were forthcoming, Cayley modified his strategy. He endorsed Disraeli’s call for the burdens on land to be readjusted in line with an era of low prices, 15 Mar. 1849, and himself unsuccessfully proposed the repeal of the malt duty, in two stages, 5 July 1850, 8 May 1851.41Hansard, 15 Mar. 1849, vol. 103, cc. 809-16; ibid., 5 July 1850, vol. 112, cc. 982-1007; ibid., 8 May 1851, vol. 116, cc. 679-90. Cayley argued that repealing the malt tax would greatly increase the consumption of and demand for barley, which would raise the price. Furthermore, this would encourage domestic cereal growers to switch to barley, which would reduce the production of oats and wheat, and help keep up the prices of those grains.42Hansard, 5 July 1850, vol. 112, cc. 988, 999-1000; ibid., 8 May 1851, vol. 116, cc. 686-8.

Cayley gave a fair trial to Derby’s minority government in March 1852, and although he was described as a ‘Whig of the old school’ at the general election in June, his political allegiance was shifting.43Hansard, 19 Mar. 1852, vol. 119, cc. 1355-9; Morning Post, 6 July 1852. His switch to the Derbyites was completed by his support for Disraeli’s budget, which he described as ‘the best budget that he had ever heard’, 3 Dec. 1852, and he now took his place amongst the ‘broad-acred squires’ on the protectionist benches.44Hansard, 3 Dec. 1852, vol. 123, cc. 915-16 (at 916); J.N. Spellen, The inner life of the House of Commons (1854), 42. Cayley still viewed himself as an independent member and thought that apart from financial policy there was little difference between the two parties.45Hansard, 13 May 1853, vol. 127, cc. 356-9 (at 359). In truth, he ‘never considered himself bound to support any government’.46York Herald, 1 Mar. 1862. He retained an admiration for Russell, and his abortive motion to grant a salary to the leader of the Commons, 9 Feb. 1854, was proposed with the nobleman in mind.47Hansard, 9 Feb. 1854, vol. 130, cc. 371-8. At this time Russell was leader of the House but not prime minister and first lord of the treasury. He therefore received no salary despite being in the Cabinet and his onerous duties in the Commons. Although Cayley sat on fewer committees than before, he served on the numerous inquiries on mining accidents between 1852 and 1854.48PP 1852 (509), v. 7-9, 14; 1852-53 (691) (740) (820), xx. 5, 179, 279; 1854 (169) (258) (325), ix. 15, 63, 219.

The Crimean War revived Cayley’s interest in currency reform, as he wondered whether the cost of military action could be sustained under the present monetary system, 21 Mar. 1854.49Hansard, 21 Mar. 1854, vol. 131, cc. 1104-6. The outbreak of war also provided him with an opportunity to launch a scathing attack on the Peelites, whom he had long loathed, for having ‘bungled us into this war’ through their ‘obsequious and vacillating negotiations’ with Russia.50Hansard, 15 May 1854, vol. 133, cc. 326-34 (at 326-7). See also 23 Mar. 1855, vol. 137, c. 1036; York Herald, 4 Apr. 1857. Cayley opposed Disraeli’s censure motion on the prosecution of the war, 25 May 1855, supporting Palmerston’s handling of the conflict.51Hansard, 25 May 1854, vol. 138, cc. 1224-30. Although he suspected that the influx of Californian and Australian gold had settled the currency question, Cayley remained critical of the monetary system, especially its effect on commerce, and served on the 1858 committee on the Bank Acts, but his report found no favour with the majority, who favoured the status quo.52York Herald, 11 Apr. 1857; Hansard, 28 Feb. 1856, vol. 140, cc. 1518-27; ibid., 7 Dec. 1857, vol. 148, cc. 279-90; PP 1857 session 2 (220), x, pt. I, p. 2; 1857-58 (381), v. 2, 55-73.

Despite denying that he had ever been a Whig at the 1857 general election, when he saw off the challenge of a scion of the local Liberal nobility, Cayley’s politics assumed on a Palmerstonian hue in the later 1850s, and he supported the premier over the Canton motion and conspiracy to murder bill, 3 Mar. 1857, 19 Feb. 1858.53Daily News, 2 Apr. 1857; Leeds Mercury, 2 Apr. 1857. He endorsed Derby’s reform bill in 1859, but at the subsequent general election described himself as ‘both a Liberal and a Conservative’.54York Herald, 7 May 1859. Cayley’s activity declined thereafter, and he finally succumbed to heart disease whilst travelling to London for the start of the parliamentary session in 1862.55The Times, 27 Feb. 1862.

Cayley was succeeded by his elder son and namesake, the author of a number of travel books, after whose death in 1884 the estates passed to the heir of his younger son George John Cayley, who had unsuccessfully contested Scarborough as a Conservative Dec. 1857, 1859, 1865, and 1868.56Burke’s landed gentry (1908), 294-5; Al. Cant., pt. II, i. 35; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 259. His will was sworn under £20,000.57Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration (1862), 59.