HARRIS, Richard (1777-1854), of The Crescent , Leicester, Leicestershire; 36 Woburn Square , London

A self-made man and leading Leicester hosier, Harris crowned a long career of service in the cause of reform by representing his native town in Parliament.1As the title suggests, the only life of Harris, T. Lomas, Character and its conquests: A memoir of the late R. Harris, esq., formerly MP for Leicester (1855), belongs in the genre of mid-Victorian biography, often aimed at working men, which used the rags to riches stories of industrialists and inventors to vindicate the virtues of thrift, industry, self-reliance, and godliness. The biography is useful nonetheless. See also the obituary by Lomas in the Baptist Magazine (1854), xlvi. 265-69. Although his father was a ‘master stocking-maker, possessing a shop of frames and employing a considerable number of men’, Harris was apprenticed as a printer, working for a time on Richard Phillips’ radical Leicester Herald (1792-95).2Gent. Mag. (1854), ccix. 541; Lomas, Character and its conquests, 1-2, 6-11 (qu. at 2); A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester: a history of Leicester, 1780-1850 (1954), 67-77. After a brief spell working for his father he went to Nottingham, where he developed his knowledge of the hosiery business, whilst his radicalism brought him in contact with freethinkers, before joining the militia in 1797 and becoming a devout Baptist in 1800.3Lomas, Character and its conquests, 12, 15-42, 53. Shortly thereafter he resumed working for his father before establishing his own business, acting as a designer and mechanic and using new machinery to produce a range of ‘fancy hosiery’, including cravats and braces.4Ibid., 65, 68-69. This diversification protected Harris from the vicissitudes that troubled other parts of the sector, making his firm better able to adapt to changes in taste, and in 1832, the firm built a large factory on the banks of the river Soar.5Ibid., 77, 81. Like John Biggs, another Leicester hosier and MP who rose from humble origins, Harris was considered to be one of the local employers most sympathetic to the plight of the framework knitters in particular and hosiery workers in general.6S. Chapman, Hosiery and knitwear: four centuries of small-scale industry in Britain, c.1589-2000 (2002), 114; Lomas, Character and its conquests, 78-80; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 279-80, 286, 299-300. A veteran activist at parliamentary elections on behalf of the independent party, Harris was among the Reformers elected to the new town council in 1835, became an alderman three years later, and served as mayor in 1843.7H. Hartopp, Roll of the mayors and lord mayors of Leicester, 1209 to 1935 ([1936]), 198; Lomas, Character and its conquests, 90, 100-101; G. Searson, The Leicester municipal, borough, and county poll book (1883), 19-20, 22, 118-19; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 188.

After Leicester’s two sitting Reformers were unseated on petition for bribery in June 1848, Harris and his friend and fellow businessman John Ellis were brought forward and returned without opposition, 2 Sept. 1848. Claiming that ‘he had no ambition to go to Parliament and stood before them solely at the earnest request of a large number of fellow-townsmen’, Harris stressed his long support for reforming and dissenting causes and promised to provide a ‘check on extravagant government’.8Morn. Chro., 2 Sept. 1848; Daily News, 4 Sept. 1848; Leicester Mercury, 8 Sept. 1848, qu. by Lomas, Character and its conquests, 115. Making his maiden speech with a brief contribution to the 1849 budget debate, Harris reported that Leicester was prospering and consequently had a ‘contented and thriving population’, 22 June 1849.9Hansard, 22 June 1849, vol. 106, c.783. In the same session he supported Cobden’s motion to reduce government expenditure to 1835 levels and repeal of the navigation laws.10House of Commons Division Lists, 1849 session, 26 Feb. 1849, 23 Apr. 1849. He consistently backed further political reforms, including the ballot, Hume’s ‘little Charter’ (which included triennial parliaments, household suffrage, and more equal electoral districts), and the equalisation of the borough and county franchises, although he opposed the 1851 county franchise bill.11Ibid., 24 May 1849, 5 June 1849; ibid., 1850 session, 28 Feb. 1850, 7 Mar. 1850, 9 July 1850; ibid., 1851 session, 20 Feb. 1851, 2 Apr. 1851; ibid., 1852 session, 30 Mar. 1852. He also favoured the abolition of the ‘taxes on knowledge’, the newspaper stamp and the duties on paper and advertisements.12Ibid., 1850 session, 16 Apr. 1850, 7 May 1850; ibid., 1852 session, 12 May 1852. On other matters, such as foreign policy, Harris supported Russell’s government and was described as a ‘liberal Whig’ by Dod.13Ibid., 1850 session, 28 June 1850; Dod’s parliamentary companion (1849), 183. Although he appears not to have served on any committees, Harris evidently took his parliamentary duties seriously, for his colleague Ellis later wrote that:

no constituency ever had a more honest or more faithful representative … His duty to those whom he represented was his first object. Though far advanced in years, I believe he never failed to remain in post when his vote was required for the public good.14Lomas, Character and its conquests, 183.

At the 1852 election Harris and Ellis retired in favour of the former incumbents.15VCH Leics. iv. 218-19. Harris died two years later, and was succeeded by his first surviving son John Dove Harris (1809-78), who took over the management of Richard Harris & Sons, which by this time employed 4,000 workers, and was Liberal MP for Leicester, 1857-59, 1865-74.16F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1892), i. 1349; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 53.