GRANGER, Thomas Colpitts (?1801-1852), of 12 King’s Bench Walk, Temple, London, Mdx.

Granger’s family background is unclear, but he was a native of county Durham. Called to the bar in 1830, he practised on the northern circuit at the Durham assizes, and, prior to entering Parliament, authored a range of legal publications on the administration of British justice.1Sir T.E. Tomlins and T.C. Granger, The law-dictionary, explaining the rise, progress, and present state of the British law: defining and interpreting the terms or words of art, and comprising also copious information on the subjects of trade and government (1835), i.; T.C. Granger, Supplement to the collection of statutes, by Sir William David Evans: connected with the general administration of the law, arranged according to the order of the original work (1836); R.P. Tyrwhitt and T.C. Granger, Reports of cases argued and determined in the courts of Exchequer and Exchequer Chamber (1837); J. Manning and T.C. Granger, Cases argued and determined in the Court of common pleas: with tables of the names of the cases argued and cited, and of the principal matters (1840-1844), i-vii.; J. Manning and T.C. Granger, Common Bench reports: cases argued and determined in the Court of Common Pleas, (1846-57), i-xviii. At the 1835 general election Granger stood as a Liberal on the Lambton interest of the increasingly Radical Lord Durham for Durham City, but his candidature was not welcomed by local Whigs who felt that it threatened the return of their own man, and he finished bottom of the poll.2A. Heesom, Durham City and its Members of Parliament, 1678-1992 (1992), 24; Morning Chronicle, 15 Jan. 1835. He offered again in 1837, but after a bitter struggle, lost by just two votes, whereupon he petitioned against the return of the Whig candidate, claiming that he had the legal majority, 23 Nov. 1837. The election committee, however, ruled in his opponent’s favour, 2 Mar. 1838.3W.W. Bean, The Parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 139. He was finally returned for the borough in 1841, when he faced no opposition, and, aided by a disunited local Conservative party, he comfortably defended his seat at the 1847 general election.4Morning Post, 26 June 1841.

Granger, who was initially silent in the House, voted with Lord John Russell on most major issues, including the abolition of Anglican oaths at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 25 May 1843, and for the Maynooth grant, 3 Apr. 1845. Although an infrequent attender, his votes on two issues underlined his radicalism: he supported Sharman Crawford’s motion for suffrage extension, the ballot, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, the payment of members, and the abolition of parliamentary qualifications, 21 Apr. 1842, and he consistently backed Villiers’s annual anti-corn law motion before dividing for repeal, 15 May 1846. In 1842, he sat on the Cork county election committee and voted in the majority to confirm the return of Daniel O’Connell and Edmund Burke Roache, but he is not known to have served on any select committees thereafter.5PP 1842 (271), vi. 4-8.

The majority of Granger’s periodic interventions in debate were on legal matters and revealed an unwavering desire to uphold the judicial integrity of the Commons. During a hearing on a breach of parliamentary privilege, he robustly supported a motion for the immediate summons to the bar of a key attorney, and when the motion was withdrawn, he lamented that ‘their course tonight would teach the public that if a man were bold enough to stand at their bar and defy them, the House would shrink from proceeding against him’, 7 July 1845. In a debate on the administration of criminal justice improvement bill, he dismissed the need for a clause to prevent the necessity of a person pleading ‘not guilty’ upon arraignment, arguing that ‘if prisoners really had tender consciences, they would plead guilty; and if they did not, he thought their consciences could not be so tender that the Committee need take particular care of them’, 23 July 1851.

Although Granger supported Russell’s ministry on most major issues, he criticised what he felt to be anti-Irish sentiments behind the poor removal bill, arguing that it would ‘render a man who might be walking in the street and eating a crust of bread liable to be taken up, merely because he had an Irish accent’, 7 May 1847. He also maintained his advanced instincts, consistently voting for Joseph Hume’s ‘Little Charter’, 6 July 1848, 5 June 1849, 25 Mar. 1852, for Locke King’s county franchise bill, 2 Apr. 1851, and for the repeal of paper duty, 12 May 1852. His attendance, though, remained lax, probably as a result of the continuing importance of his legal practice.6For example, in the 1849 session he was present for only 34 out of 229 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 20 Oct. 1849. He remained active on the northern circuit, and in 1847 was appointed recorder of Kingston-upon-Hull. In 1850 he became a bencher of the Inner Temple and a Queen’s Counsel.

At the 1852 general election Granger topped the poll after a keenly fought contest, but while returning from the Durham assizes on 31 July, he arrived in York feeling unwell. His condition rapidly deteriorated and he died six days later, at the age of either ‘fifty’ or ‘fifty-one’.7Caledonian Mercury, 9 Aug. 1852; The Times, 11 Aug. 1852; Gent. Mag. (1852), ii. 316. His remains were interred at Temple Church, London.8Wills index, 16 Aug. 1872; The Times, 11 Aug. 1852. He left an estate valued at under £4,000 and shortly after his death his widow, Amelia Margaret, gave birth to his youngest son, baptised in 1853 as Thomas Colpitts Granger, who followed in his father’s footsteps by practising law on the north-eastern circuit.9Gent. Mag. (1852), ii. 316; J. Foster, Men-at-the-Bar (1885), 185. Another son, Henry Thomas Granger, was a lieutenant in the 8^th foot.10Wills index, 16 Aug. 1872.