STOCK, Thomas Osborne (1822-1875), of 16a Cavendish Square, London, Mdx.

The son of a London coal merchant, Stock became a city clerk around 1840, before becoming a general merchant, an insurance broker with the company of Burges and Stock, and an underwriter at Lloyd’s.1For Osborne’s family background and early life the author is indebted to the work of John and Rosemary Stock, ‘Ancestors of the Kay, Star, Steel(e), and Stock Families’: www.stockfamily.me.uk. As head of the firm of T.O. Stock & Company of Austin Friars, London, he became a director of the Atlantic Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company (the Galway Line) in 1858, and accompanied its chairman, John Orrell Lever, on his election campaign at Galway in 1859. He was also amongst a deputation from the company that was interviewed by the chancellor of the exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, that July.2The Leader, 27 Nov. 1858; Freeman’s Journal, 11 Feb. 1859; Standard, 6 July 1859.

A ‘Liberal of very advanced views’, Stock came forward at the Coventry by-election in May 1865 to advocate ‘a considerable extension of the suffrage’. Despite being a ‘conscientious member of the Church of England’, he advocated the abolition of church rates, and was strongly in favour of the establishment of ‘courts of conciliation’ to arbitrate in disputes between the representatives of capital and labour. He was not, however, adopted as a candidate by the Liberal committee.3Standard, 6 June 1865; Birmingham Daily Post, 6 May 1865, 10 June 1865. At the 1865 general election he directed his attention to Carlow, where he declared himself ‘implacably hostile’ to the established church in Ireland and ‘devotedly pledged’ himself to its ‘total abolition’. Adroitly aligning himself with the objectives of Cardinal Cullen’s recently-formed National Association, he declared his support for denominational education, equality of status for the Catholic University, the development of Irish manufacturing, and legislation that would ‘protect the Tenant against the arbitrary misconduct of the Landlord’. Claiming that his independent means afforded him the freedom to oppose any ministry that would ‘not do justice to Ireland’, he was received ‘with most unbounded enthusiasm.4The Times, 4 July 1865; Freeman’s Journal, 5 July 1865; R. Malcomson, The Carlow Parliamentary Roll (1872), 93. His ‘able and energetic speech’ having attracted the support of the Catholic clergy, he defeated his Conservative opponent by a clear margin.5Freeman’s Journal, 5 July 1865.

The contest had been a violent one and Stock was subsequently accused of having hired a mob to support him, but his return was opposed on petition without success. He was also accused of inconsistency regarding the fate of the established church, and his suitability as an Irish representative was called into question.6Standard, 21 July 1865. Dublin Conservatives asked, ‘Who is Mr. Osborne Stock?’, arguing that he ‘was never heard of by a single person in Ireland until at the last election he was forced on the borough of Carlow’: Morning Post, 27 Oct. 1865, quoting Evening Mail. Although regarded in England as ‘a little ultra in some things’, Stock was nevertheless considered by his Irish supporters to be an Englishman of ‘integrity and independence’ and was generally regarded as ‘an accession to the Liberal cause’.7The Times, 14 July 1865; Freeman’s Journal, 30 Oct. 1865. He concurred in Sir John Gray’s proposal to hold a conference of Irish members in August 1865 and that October responded to the outbreak of cattle plague in Ireland by promising to support a bill of indemnity in the event that the government closed Irish ports to imported cattle.8The Times, 25 Aug. 1865; Freeman’s Journal, 25 Oct. 1865.

A supporter of the Irish land tenure and improvement bill, he backed the abolition of church rates, 7 Mar. 1866, but was absent and failed to pair on the ballot motion, 17 July.9Belfast News-letter, 15 Feb. 1866; Freeman’s Journal, 10 Mar. 1866; Daily News, 19 July 1866. He was one of 33 Liberals who voted against the second reading of the Liberal reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and he failed to divide on the committee stage of the bill.10Birmingham Daily Post, 30 Apr. 1866. He supported Catholic relief measures concerning oaths and offices in April 1867 and attended meetings of the Liberal party to consider the Conservative proposals for reform.11Freeman’s Journal, 12 Apr. 1867; The Times, 27 Feb., 22 Mar. 1867. He was one of 44 Liberals who voted against Gladstone’s attempt to enfranchise compound rate-payers, 12 Apr. 1867, and he opposed McCullagh Torrens’s amendment to enfranchise lodgers, 13 May. He did, however, divide in favour of Colvile’s amendment to reduce the copyhold franchise from £10 to £5 and Mill’s amendment to enfranchise women, 20 May.12Hull Packet, 19 Apr. 1867; Newcastle Courant, 24 May 1867.

He does not appear to have introduced any bills or served on any select committees, but he did speak in the House on several occasions. In May 1867 he denounced the continued suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland ‘as a scandal’, and, observing ‘with pain the apathy which existed on the part of English members when Irish questions were under consideration in the House’, recommended instead the passing of ‘remedial measures for the benefit of the Irish people’.13Hansard, 23 May 1867, vol. 187, cc. 981-2. In March 1868 he raised questions with the Irish chief secretary about the treatment of the Irish newspaper editors T.D. Sullivan and Richard Pigot, who had been imprisoned for seditious libel, and that month joined a deputation to the treasury concerning the establishment of a Royal Institute in Dublin for the promotion of science and art.14Hansard, 17, 26 Mar. 1867, vol. 190, c. 1814, vol. 191, c. 259; The Times, 27 Mar. 1868.

Stock supported Gladstone’s resolution on the Irish Church, 3 Apr. 1868, and voted for the second reading of his established church (Ireland) bill, which was intended to suspend appointments to the Irish Church, 22 May.15Belfast News-letter, 25 May 1868. On the Irish reform bill, he voted in the minorities for the ballot, the abolition of the freemen’s franchise, the disenfranchisement of Portarlington, and a proposal that Dublin University and the Queen’s University should jointly return two members of parliament. He also backed a reduction of the Irish county franchise from £12 to £8, 18 June 1868. However, seeing an influential section of the Carlow clergy switch its support to a Conservative candidate at the 1868 election, he declared in his address that it afforded him ‘no little pride to reflect’ that it was mainly by English Protestants ‘that the disestablishment of the Irish Church was likely to be effected’.16Morning Post, 3 Aug. 1868; Standard, 20 Aug. 1868. In spite of his personal popularity in Carlow, and the support of working-class electors of the borough, he retired in the face of insurmountable clerical opposition.17Freeman’s Journal, 13 Aug., 3 Sept. 1868; Morning Post, 16 Nov. 1868.

Stock had pursued various business interests during his time in parliament and continued to work as a ship insurance broker and member of Lloyd’s for the remainder of his life.18Bankers’ Magazine, xxxv (1875), 30. In February 1866 he became a director of the Dublin Trunk Connecting Railway Company and was a major shareholder in the Provincial Banking Corporation and the National Bank: Daily News, 23 Feb. 1866; Bury and Norwich Post, 14 Feb. 1865; Freeman’s Journal, 1 Feb. 1866. He was implicated in an alleged ‘fraudulent conspiracy’ to profit from share dealing in the National Bank, of which he had been a director, but the charges were disproved.19Freeman’s Journal, 5 Aug. 1874; Examiner, 19 Dec. 1874; Bradford Observer, 19 Nov. 1875. Stock soon afterwards suffered a ‘sudden attack’ of acute bronchitis and died from congestion of the lungs at his residence in Bloomsbury Street, London in November 1875.20Standard, 27 Nov. 1875. The date of his death was here recorded as 15 November, however, an earlier report states that it was 17 November, a date confirmed in the reporting of his will: Morning Post, 19 Nov. 1875; Standard, 31 Dec. 1875. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas Osborne Stock (1852-1911), a shipbroker, his insolvent estate being subsequently administered by the chancery division of the High Court of Justice.21LJ, cx (1878), 82.