MELLY, George (1831-1894), of 90 Chatham Street, Liverpool , Lancashire

‘A man of action’, Melly, a Liverpool merchant prince from a Unitarian family, was an advanced Liberal, who took a keen interest in all measures to promote education and social improvement.1Liverpool Mercury, 28 Sept. 1894. According to Margot Finn, Melly began to take up radical social reforms at the same time as moderating his antipathy to trade unionism and his adherence to classical political economy, in order to secure working class support for the Liberal reform bill of 1866.2M. Finn, After Chartism: class and nation in English radical politics, 1848-1874 (1993), 251-3. An ‘energetic businessman’, Melly was a ‘man of strong individuality and very decided opinions, which he enunciated with outspoken bluntness’.3‘Death of Mr. George Melly’, Liverpool Courier (n.d.), newspaper cutting, in envelope inside G. Melly, Recollections of sixty years (1893), British Library copy, shelfmark RB.23.a.32577. Melly was described as possessing an ‘ordinary stature, with fresh face, dark eyes, and dark hair’.4J.E. Ritchie, British senators (1869), 145-51 (at 145).

Perhaps of Swiss origin, Melly’s family had come to prominence after his father, Andrew, founded a merchant house in Liverpool in the early nineteenth century. Andrew Melly married into the Unitarian Greg family, cotton manufacturers, of Quarry Bank House, Cheshire, and Robert Hyde Greg, MP for Manchester 1839-41, was George Melly’s uncle.5Ibid., 150; M.B. Rose, The Gregs of Quarry Bank Mill: the rise and decline of a family firm, 1750-1914 (1986), 46. Melly was crippled for much of his youth, after an infection in a broken arm spread to his leg, which was only rectified after a dozen operations.6Melly, Recollections, 2-3. After completing his schooling, Melly toured Egypt with his family, which formed the basis of his book Khartoum and the Blue and White Niles (1851), and he later authored the school memoir School experiences of a fag at a private and public school (1854).7F. Boase, Modern English biography (1912), supplement, iii. 194; Melly, Recollections, 11-18.

Melly’s first experience of business was in a London firm ‘of the highest standing’, but after the death of his father in 1853 he became a partner in the family concern of Melly, Romilly and Company.8Ritchie, British senators, 150. The previous year, Melly had married the daughter of Samuel Bright, the chief of a ‘great firm of Anglo-Australian shipbuilders and merchants’.9Liverpool Mercury, 28 Sept. 1894; ‘Death of Mr. George Melly’, newspaper cutting. Active in the Liverpool Liberal party, Melly unsuccessfully stood for the town council in 1857, but was elected to the select vestry the following year.10Ibid. Derek Fraser has characterised Melly as one of the wealthy Liberal merchants, whose aloofness contributed to their party’s chronic inability to capture control of the town council.11D. Fraser, Urban politics in Victorian Britain (1976), 141-2. However, Melly’s ‘cheery manner, great energy, and … singular gift of speech’ made him a popular speaker at public meetings.12Liverpool Mercury, 28 Sept. 1894. He also mobilised his pen in support of reforming causes, authoring many pamphlets on education and Italian unification, amongst other issues.13Boase, Modern English biography, supplement, iii. 194; G. Melly, “Can education be made compulsory?” (1858); The working classes: their duty to themselves (1858); Italy: past, present and future (1859); On the treatment of adult criminals (1860); Italy in 1860 (1860); Self-help: the future of the working classes (1864). He was a member of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board 1866-74, a notable philanthropist and active in the local volunteer movement.14Melly, Recollections, 102-33; Ritchie, British senators, 151.

In his entertaining memoirs, Melly recalled that in 1859 he was offered an Irish borough by the Liberal whip Sir William Hayter, ‘who suddenly ordered me to give him a cheque for £2,000, leave London that night, cross to Ireland, and … [go] to an obscure little fishing town in the South-West’.15Melly, Recollections, 22. Melly declined the opportunity, but contested a by-election in 1862 at Preston, where he was soundly defeated.16Ibid., 22-3; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 242. He narrowly missed out on second place for Stoke-on-Trent at the general election three years later after being comprehensively outspent by a Conservative rival.17Melly, Recollections, 24. Melly’s ‘shame and disgust’ at his electoral experiences meant that when a vacancy occurred at Stoke in February 1868, he insisted on a bipartisan agreement to curb spending and avoid bribery and treating.18Ibid., 25. He was returned after a close contest.

Although Melly was a staunch supporter of William Gladstone, he later admitted that when he entered the Commons Benjamin Disraeli was ‘certainly the most interesting and impressive figure’.19Ibid., 40. Melly was a ‘frequent and authoritative speaker on mercantile subjects’, and comparing his parliamentary experience with the lengthy orations of the late Victorian period, he noted in 1893:

In the House of Commons I only made three or four speeches of importance, i.e. lasting over an hour. What the House … liked in my day was a sharp ten or twenty minutes, with a good story and some facts or figures which it had not heard before.20The Times, 29 Sept. 1894; Melly, Recollections, 63.

His maiden speech, 18 Mar. 1868, in favour of a bill restricting the sale of alcohol on Sundays, included a jab at the renegade Liberal John Arthur Roebuck.21Hansard, 18 Mar. 1868, vol. 190, cc. 1860-3. Melly’s support for progressive causes was shown in his other speeches in his first session. He welcomed the artisans’ and labourers’ dwellings bill, 8 May 1868, seconded George Trevelyan’s motion for the abolition of army commissions by purchase, 19 May 1868, and strongly backed legislation to establish courts to try election petitions, 21 May 1868.22Hansard, 8 May 1868, vol. 191, c. 2061; ibid., 19, 21 May 1868, vol. 192, cc. 533, 667. He also lent his support to the married women’s property bill, 10 June 1868.23Hansard, 10 June 1868, vol. 192, c. 1360.

Melly was re-elected for Stoke in 1868 and 1874.24McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 278-9. He was apparently considered for the position of private secretary to Gladstone, but Lord Frederick Cavendish was appointed instead.25Melly, Recollections, 53. When Melly was compelled to resign in February 1875 to manage the family merchant house after the illness of his elder brother and cousin, the Liberal leader wrote to him:

I hope it will be only temporary, but even for a time your high spirit and intelligence, your activity and liberal patriotism will be much missed from the benches of the House.26Ibid., 31.

Melly supported Gladstone over Home Rule in 1886, and remained active in Liberal causes.27‘Death of Mr. George Melly’, newspaper cutting. He declined invitations to stand as a parliamentary candidate until 1892 when he offered for Newcastle-under-Lyme, before withdrawing in favour of another Liberal.28The Standard, 29 Sept. 1894. However, Melly assisted Liberal candidates in five constituencies during the general election campaign by making 19 speeches, totalling 70 hours.29Melly, Recollections, 72. The constituencies were Newcastle-under-Lyme, Barnstaple, Clitheroe, North Lonsdale and Leek. The Liberals won all but the last.

Melly died in 1894, a year after his Recollections of sixty years was published. His sons followed him into business, with his eldest George Henry Melly (1860-1927), possessing shipping and insurance interests.30Who was who, 1916-1928 (1929), 722. Melly’s voluminous papers are held by Liverpool Record Office, and his correspondence with Gladstone by the British Library.