HARTLEY, James (1811-1886), of Ashbrook Hall, Bishopwearmouth, co. Durham

James Hartley was born at Dumbarton, on the Clyde, the first son of John Hartley, a gifted glassmaker, who later moved to Oldbury, Shropshire, to work for William Chance’s glass manufactory. Upon his father’s death, Hartley and his younger brother John were briefly taken into partnership by Chance before they moved to Sunderland in 1836, where they established the Wear Glass Works, trading as James Hartley and Co. In 1838, he was granted a patent for ‘Hartley’s Patent Rolled Plate’, a new kind of roofing glass, which was used for the Crystal Palace in 1851. His firm concentrated on this ‘glass plate’ for the next fifty years, producing nearly one million feet per annum, and he became an extremely wealthy man. A prominent member of the River Wear Commission and a director of the North Eastern railway company, he was also active in local Conservative politics, and helped secure the return of George Hudson, the railway magnate, for the borough at the 1845 by-election. He also held at various times the positions of councillor, alderman and mayor of the Sunderland town council.1W. Brockie, Sunderland notables: natives, residents and visitors (1894), 450-6; The Times, 25 May 1886.

Following Hudson’s retirement at the 1865 general election, Hartley offered in his place as a Liberal-Conservative for Sunderland. A supporter of the abolition of church rates, he insisted that his ‘principles are those of Conservative progress’, and narrowly secured second place.2The Times, 12, 29 June 1865. Although a declared adherent of franchise extension, he voted against the Liberal government’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and 18 June 1866. He attended a meeting of the political friends of the new premier Derby at Downing Street, 25 Feb. 1867, and thereafter supported the ministry, following Disraeli into the division lobby on the major clauses of the government’s representation of the people bill.3Ibid., 26 Feb. 1867. He was in the minority against Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868.

Although Hartley attended frequently, he made little impact in the House, and his only known contribution to debate was a question on the expediency of extending the Factory Acts to glass manufactories, 2 Apr. 1867. He was a member of the select committee on the extension of the Factory Acts, where he generally divided in the majority.4PP 1867 (429), ix. 575-93.

Hartley declined to defend his seat at the 1868 general election, choosing instead to contest East Staffordshire, home to his father’s side of the family, where he was comprehensively defeated. He retired from the Wear Glass Works the following year, but remained a prominent figure in local public life. He was elected the first chairman of Sunderland school board in 1871 and served until six years later, when his staunch support for the established church cost him his seat.5Brockie, Sunderland notables, 456. While on business in London for the North Eastern railway company in May 1886, he died suddenly from congestion of the lungs.6The Times, 25 May 1886. His share of the glassworks was divided between his two sons, James and John, who bought his brother out a month later. Hartley’s correspondence, which mainly relates to his business interests, is located at the Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.7TWAS, ref. DS.HW