HEYWORTH, Lawrence (1786-1872), of Yew Tree Hall , near Liverpool , Lancashire

A Liverpool merchant and one of its leading Liberals, by the time Heyworth was elected to Parliament as MP for Derby in 1848 he was already a veteran campaigner for numerous reforming causes, notably free trade and temperance.1Liverpool Mercury, 22 Apr. 1872. But although Heyworth is mentioned in studies of these movements, relatively little is known about him and there is no account of his political career or life.2M. Taylor, The decline of British radicalism, 1847-1860 (1995), 35-6; P. Pickering and A. Tyrrell, The people’s bread: a history of the Anti-Corn Law League (2000), 131-2; A. Howe, ‘Anti-Corn Law League (act. 1839–1846)’, www.oxforddnb.com. For this reason, he requires more attention than perhaps his length of service appears to warrant.

Heyworth was born in Greensnook, near Rochdale. His father and maternal grandfather were woollen manufacturers and he entered the family business, in partnership with his brothers, at sixteen. Acting as the company’s merchant, he established trade links in 1805 with Portugal and Spain, in 1808 with South America, where he lived from 1809-16 and founded a separate firm in 1809. He gave up business in 1836.3Illustrated London News, xvi (1850), 443-44; F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1892), i. 1458-59. Settling near Liverpool after purchasing Yew Tree estate in 1819, Heyworth was elected to the first town council in 1835, when the Reformers, as elsewhere, won a crushing victory, but he was defeated in 1837 and 1839.4Boase, Modern English Biography, i. 1458-59. The city’s Liberals were reduced to a ‘permanent opposition party’ after the Conservatives secured a majority of council seats in 1841, and Heyworth channelled his energies into a variety of radical causes, believing that as ‘an Act of Parliament is public opinion armed with executive power’, prolonged agitation was necessary to create popular momentum for specific reforms.5N. Collins, Politics and elections in nineteenth-century Liverpool (1994), 26-41 (qu. at 40-41); Liverpool Mercury, 20 Apr. 1895; The Times, 18 Oct. 1856. He was a member of Liverpool’s Anti-Monopoly Association and spoke and authored pamphlets on behalf of the anti-Corn Law campaign.6Collins, Politics, 46-53; Liverpool Mercury, 2 July 1841, 18 Mar. 1842, 2 Dec. 1842, 27 Jan. 1843, 8 Dec. 1843, 24 Jan. 1845; A. Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), ii. 133; L. Heyworth, To the British public: how does cheap bread produce high wages and promote general prosperity? [1842]; idem., On the corn laws and other legislative restrictions, 6th edn., (1843); idem., On economic fiscal legislation: to the Honourable Members of both Houses of Parliament (1845); idem., Speech of Mr. Lawrence Heyworth, at the annual meeting of the League, held at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on Wednesday evening, January 22, 1845 (1845). He was one of the founders of the Complete Suffrage Union in 1842, an abortive attempt to unite Chartists and middle-class radicals behind a common programme.7A. Wilson, ‘The suffrage movement’, in P. Hollis (ed.) Pressure from without in early Victorian England (1974), 80-104 (at 84). An advocate of teetotalism, Heyworth was involved in a number of temperance organisations including the prohibitionist United Kingdom Alliance, and he also supported the Liberation and Peace Societies.8B. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: the temperance question in England, 1815-1872 (1994), 239; The Times, 6 Mar. 1852; Liverpool Mercury, 7 May 1852, 28 Jan. 1853, 28 Oct. 1853.

Heyworth had no connection with Derby prior to June 1847, when he was invited by local nonconformists, unhappy with the official Liberal candidate, to contest a vacancy.9Derby Mercury, 9 June 1847. He declined, but after both the sitting members were unseated for bribery, 22 Mar. 1848, Heyworth came forward for the ensuing by-election that September and was returned in second place. His lack of local connections, however, made him vulnerable and his radical opinions earned him a reputation as an eccentric.10Derby Mercury, 9 June 1852. His public image was not helped by reports that he refused to donate money to Derby charities, preferring to send copies of his publications on political economy instead.11Derby Mercury, 24 Jan. 1849. At the 1852 general election Heyworth accordingly lost his fragile tenure of his seat, being defeated by seven votes, only to be returned on petition, 9 Mar. 1853, on the grounds of bribery by a Conservative rival’s supporters.12C. Hogarth, ‘Derby and Derbyshire Elections, 1852-1865’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 101 (1981), 151-72 (at 153-55); Hansard, 9 Mar. 1853, vol. 124, cc. 1348-9.

Heyworth was a prolific contributor to debate, often reflecting the views of the Liverpool Financial Reform Association (LFRA), founded in 1848, of which he was a member.13W. Calkins, ‘A Victorian free trade lobby’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 13 (1960-1), 90-104 (at 92, n.1); Liverpool Mercury, 2 May 1848, 20 Apr. 1849; G. Searle, Entrepreneurial politics in mid-Victorian England (1993), 59. In the ongoing debate about the competing merits of direct and indirect taxation, the LFRA were strongly in favour of the former. As well as being a burden on trade and commerce, Heyworth contended that taxes on consumption were unjust and ‘injurious to the working man’, since they contributed a far greater proportion of their income to the state than middle-class income tax payers. Indirect taxes also increased the price of commodities.14Hansard, 15 Mar. 1850, vol. 109, c. 1031; 4 Apr. 1851, vol. 115, c. 1113; 14 Apr. 1851, vol. 116, c. 177; 30 Apr. 1852, vol. 121,c. 86; 9 May 1853, vol. 126, cc. 1342-44; 20, 23, 26, 27 Apr. 1855, vol. 137,cc. 1606, 1658, 1794, 1902-03; 6, 12 Mar. 1857, vol. 144, cc. 2010-11, 2273-4. The solution was to repeal all indirect duties, stimulating industry and employment, with a permanent income or property tax to raise revenue.

Other speeches reflected long-established beliefs. As with many other nonconformist politicians of the period, Heyworth championed a voluntary system of education, strongly disagreeing with Richard Cobden’s advocacy of state funded schooling, which would only increase taxes on the working man.15Hansard, 30 June 1854, vol. 134, c. 1000; 22 May 1851, vol. 116, cc. 1296-7; T. Larsen, Friends of religious equality: nonconformist politics in mid-Victorian England (1999), 137-67; Searle, Entrepreneurial politics, 240-49. He presented petitions and voiced support for the Sunday closing of public houses.16PP 1852-53 (992), lxxxiii. 1-2; Hansard, 22 July 1854, vol. 135,c.527. On most issues, Heyworth generally voted with the radical section of the Liberal party, supporting Cobden’s Canton motion in March 1857 which censured the foreign policy of Palmerston’s government.17The Times, 5 Mar. 1857. He was less active outside the chamber, although he served on the select committees on Church rates in 1851 and another on London bridges in 1854; the report of the former was strongly shaped by the Dissenting deputies and contributed ‘significantly to defining the problem’ for later legislation.18PP 1851 (541), x. 8-12; J. Ellens, Religious routes to Gladstonian liberalism: the Church rates conflict in England and Wales, 1832-1868 (1994), 104.

At the 1857 general election Heyworth initially retired without explanation, prompting a number of Liberal candidates to offer for his seat, but he was then persuaded to return to Derby by his supporters, apparently in order to stand his ground.19Hogarth, ‘Derby and Derbyshire elections, 1852-1865’, 157-59; Liverpool Mercury, 13 Mar. 1857; Derby Mercury, 18 Mar. 1857, 25 Mar. 1857. However, for reasons that remain unclear, he was absent from the nomination and did not go to the poll.20Derby Mercury, 1 Apr. 1857. After 1857, he continued his involvement in temperance and the LFRA and lived long enough to see his eldest son elected as a town councillor in Liverpool.21Liverpool Mercury, 2 Nov. 1861. The social reformer Beatrice Webb was his granddaughter by his only daughter, Lawrencina, a female political activist, who had married Richard Potter, a railway tycoon and the son of the Member for Wigan of the same name.22B. Webb, My apprenticeship (1945), 2.