DUCKWORTH, Samuel (1786-1848), of Woburn Place, Old Square , Lincoln’s Inn, London

A ‘Radical Reformer’ and barrister, Duckworth made little impact during his brief stint in Parliament, but ‘although he did not take any conspicuous part in public life, he was always a consistent and steady adherent of the liberal party’.1Dod’s parliamentary companion (1838), 101; Gent. Mag. (1848), clxxxiii. 442. His father, George Duckworth (1758-1815), was a conveyancer who bought up land around Manchester cheaply when prices were depressed during the French wars, becoming lord of the manor of Over Darwen in the process, but was considered to be a ‘Jacobin’ or ‘liberal’ in politics.2Burke’s landed gentry (1855), 322; J. Harland, Collectanea relating to Manchester and its neighbourhood, Records of the Cheetham Society (1867), lxxii. 127; M. McGarvie, Orchardleigh Park and the Duckworths (2005, 3rd edn.), 5, 7; VCH Lancs. vi. 269-75. His wife apparently ran off with a dentist, leaving Samuel and his siblings to be brought up by their aunt.3McGarvie, Orchardleigh Park, 7.

After leaving Cambridge, Duckworth embarked on a legal career, aided by his brother-in-law Sir Thomas Coltman, who became one of the judges of the court of common pleas, and he was one of the commissioners of inquiry into the law respecting real property appointed by the Lord Chancellor, 3rd earl Bathurst, in 1830.4Burke’s landed gentry (1858), i. 322; E. Foss, The judges of England (1864), ix. 105; Law Magazine (1830), i. 177-78. Duckworth was a member of the committee of the Society for the Diffusion for Useful Knowledge, a treasurer of the Ethnological Society, and a fellow of the Geological and Royal Statistical Societies.5Penny Magazine (1841), x. (front matter, no pagination); Gent. Mag. (1844), xxi. 71; Proceedings of the Geological Society (1826-31), i. 320; Royal Statistical Society, List of fellows of the Royal Statistical Society (1834), 8. This interest in science and popular education, causes strongly championed by leading Whigs such as Lord Brougham, along with his legal career, probably afforded him connections in London liberal politics.6M. Lobban, ‘Brougham, Henry Peter, first Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868)’, www.oxforddnb.com.

Looking for two new candidates to recapture the two seats lost in 1835, Leicester’s Reformers solicited Duckworth after he was recommended by Edward Dawson, MP for South Leicestershire, 1832-35.7A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester: a history of Leicester, 1780-1850 (1954), 233; VCH Leics. iv. 204. Standing on a locally-concocted platform of radical measures, including household suffrage, the ballot, and repeal of the corn laws, Duckworth and another Reformer were returned with exactly the same tally of votes.8McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (1972, 8th edn.), 168; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 233.

At Parliament he cast votes in favour of the ballot, the new poor law, and also supported the appropriation of surplus revenues from the Irish church to be applied for the ‘moral and religious education’ of all Irish people.9House of Commons Division Lists, 1837-38 session, 15, 20 Feb. 1838, 15 May 1838. He divided against the immediate cessation of slave apprenticeships and also opposed a bill to enforce a strict observance of the Sabbath.10Ibid., 28 May 1838, 20 June 1838. Duckworth, who is not known to have spoken in debate, served on the 1838 committee which recommended the compulsory enfranchisement of copyholds, that is their conversion into freeholds, after a ten year period in which tenants and landowners would be encouraged to make the change voluntarily by the tithe commissioners.11PP 1837-38 (707), xxiii. 190-92. The committee argued that enfranchisement would encourage agricultural improvement and economic activity. They did not advocate it as part of a wider package of measures (including the abolition of the laws of primogeniture and entail) to create a ‘free trade in land’, which were favoured by many radicals in this period. See F.M.L. Thompson, ‘Land and politics in England in the nineteenth century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. (1965), xv. 25-44 (esp. 38). A bill on these lines was passed by the Commons the next year, but was defeated in the Lords.12The bill was introduced by a member of the committee, James Stewart, 21 Feb. 1839, and passed the Commons, 3 July, but the motion for going into committee was narrowly defeated in the Lords, 29 July, as many felt it was too late in the session to be passing such a significant measure: CJ xciv. 49, 133, 405; Hansard, 29 July 1839, vol. 49, cc. 924-27; PP 1839 (81), i. 371-416; 1839 (122), i. 417-64; 1839 (286), i. 465-98. After supporting the Irish municipal corporations bill, Duckworth’s political career was cut short by his appointment as a master in ordinary at the court of chancery, 13 Mar. 1839, although there was initially some confusion as to whether this position was legally incompatible with sitting in parliament.13E. Heward, Masters in ordinary (1991), 125; The Times, 16 Mar. 1839.

Duckworth died unmarried while in Paris in December 1848, and was succeeded by his brother William Duckworth (1795-1876), who established the family in Somerset after purchasing the Orchardleigh Park estate in 1855.14Burke’s landed gentry (1937), i. 652; McGarvie, Orchardleigh Park, 8-9.