CARGILL, William Walter (1813-1894), of 4 Connaught Place, London, Mdx.

Born in Bilbao, Spain, Cargill was the eldest of seventeen children. His father, William Cargill, was a descendant of Donald Cargill, a Scottish Worthy who was martyred in 1680. An army captain, Cargill’s father had served with distinction in India, Spain and France, before emigrating to New Zealand, where he founded the Otago settlement in 1848 and became a member of the colony’s House of Representatives.1T.M. Hocken, Contributions to the early history of New Zealand (settlement of Otago) (1898), 13; Berwick in Parliament: a history of the representation of Berwick in the House of Commons, 1529-2001 (2001), 109-10. Prior to entering Parliament, Cargill was chief manager of the Oriental bank, where his father was on the board, and in June 1854 he was appointed a member of the corps of gentlemen-at-arms (one of the queen’s bodyguards).2Investors review (1902), iii. 44; London Gazette, 2 June 1854. That same year he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn and was called to the bar in 1859, though he never practised.3Who’s who of British Members of Parliament, 1832-1885, ed. M. Stenton (1976), 67.

In June 1863 Cargill offered for the vacant seat at Berwick-upon-Tweed, following the death of one of the sitting members. Brought forward by the borough’s Conservatives, Cargill’s rivals criticised his lack of local connections, but his support for the abolition of church rates appealed to moderates, and he defeated his Liberal opponent.4M.J. Wickham, ‘Electoral politics in Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1832-1885’, unpublished MPhil thesis, Univ. of Durham (2002), 206. A petition against his return on the grounds of bribery and corruption was launched, 13 July 1863, but it was subsequently rejected by the election committee, 4 Mar. 1864.

An occasional attender who made no known speeches in the Commons, Cargill voted steadfastly with the Conservative opposition on most major issues, including against the county franchise bill, 13 Apr. 1864, the borough franchise bill, 11 May 1864, and the Oxford tests abolition bill, 14 June 1865. A staunch opponent of Palmerston’s foreign policy, he voted for Disraeli’s censure of the ministry’s handling of the Danish war, 8 July 1864.

At the 1865 general election Cargill was again attacked for having ‘thrust himself upon the community of Berwick’, and cut an unpopular figure on the hustings.5Berwick Warder, 14 July 1865. After a bitter campaign, he was defeated by two Liberal opponents.6The Caledonian Mercury, 12 July 1865. His undistinguished parliamentary career over, he became a director of the Oriental bank, and between 1872 and 1877 was employed by the Japanese government as a railway adviser.7O. Checkland, Britain’s encounter with Meiji Japan, 1868-1912 (1989), 26. Following an unsuccessful attempt to return to Parliament as Conservative member for Taunton at the 1880 general election, he retired to Paris, where he died in May 1894. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Walter.8Morning Post, 28 May 1894.