ALLEN, William Shepherd (1831-1915), of Woodhead Hall, Cheadle, Staffordshire

A young Liberal MP who strongly supported parliamentary reform, Allen came from mercantile stock. He later wrote of his father, William Allen, a Wesleyan Methodist, that ‘he was the architect of his own fortune’, who through ‘great diligence, untiring industry, and strict economy … became one of the first merchants in Manchester’.1W.S. Allen, Memoir of Mrs. Allen of Woodhead Hall, Staffordshire, by her son (1871), p. vii. Of greater influence, however, was his mother, whose religious piety was amply expressed in the journal extracts and letters Allen published with a memoir in 1871. In 1840 his father had purchased Woodhead Hall, near Cheadle, Staffordshire and the family moved there permanently in 1850.2Ibid., 95-6. Allen did not follow his father into trade but lived as a landed gentleman.

Allen successfully contested Newcastle-under-Lyme as a Liberal at the 1865 general election. He was described by others as an ‘ultra-Liberal’, but few Liberal MPs would have taken exception to his support for peace, retrenchment and reform, as well as the abolition of church rates.3The Standard, 12 July 1865; Birmingham Daily Post, 12 July 1865. In his maiden speech in favour of the Liberal government’s reform bill, 23 Mar. 1866, Allen praised the ‘intelligence, political knowledge, and general good conduct’ of the working-class electors in his constituency.4Hansard, 23 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 182-3. He later boasted that he had a better claim to the ‘title of a working man’s representative’ than any other MP, as the majority of Newcastle’s electors came from that class.5Hansard, 26 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, c. 2134. He warned MPs that the lack of popular excitement should not be mistaken for indifference or apathy, as the people were determined to have reform and unless a measure was soon passed, demands for a ‘much more sweeping’ scheme would quickly become irresistible.6Hansard, 23 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, c. 183. However, although Allen was critical of the attempts of the Liberal opponents of the bill to block or radically alter the government’s proposal, he was no democrat. As he breezily declared, the point of reform ‘was to admit a few of the best of the working men, and thereby to place our representative system on a broader basis and surer foundation’.7Hansard, 26 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, c. 2135.

The following year Allen expressed regret that the Liberals had not voted down the Conservative government’s representation of the people bill, so objectionable had he found it, 8 Apr. 1867. In particular, he argued that making the franchise dependent upon the personal payment of rates was problematic for a number of reasons. There could be no uniformity in such a franchise, as different places were subject to different local ratings acts and where such legislation was in force it would enable local authorities to manipulate the electorate ‘at their pleasure’. He quoted statistics from the Staffordshire boroughs to show the highly variable and arbitrary increases in the electorate which would be likely to occur from such a franchise.8Hansard, 8 Apr. 1866, vol. 186, cc. 1306-9. Accordingly, Allen backed William Gladstone’s amendment to enfranchise compounders, 12 Apr. 1867, but he opposed reducing the residency qualification from two years to one year, 2 May 1867. He was one of the 73 MPs who supported John Stuart Mill’s proposal to enfranchise women, 20 May 1867. Allen also favoured increasing the representation of the largest towns at the expense of the small boroughs.

In 1867 Allen spoke in favour of a bill which aimed to stabilise joint-stock banks by preventing ‘that rotten and gambling system of buying and selling shares which are not in the market for disposal’, which amounted to ‘speculating for a fall’ in the share price and the company in question.9Hansard, 5 Mar. 1867, vol. 185, cc. 1406-8. The following year he spoke in favour of Gladstone’s plan to disestablish the Irish church, which he described as an ‘anomaly which ought to exist no longer, and indeed, an anomaly which never ought to have existed at all’.10Hansard, 27 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, c. 1376. Allen denied any parallel between the Irish church and the Church of England.11Ibid., 1378-9. He later criticised the petitions and corrupt practices at election bill for taking election petitions out of the hands of parliamentarians and into the hands of judges.12Hansard, 10 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 1008.

Although he described himself as a Churchman in the debate on the Irish church, Allen later wrote a number of pamphlets on Wesleyan Methodism.13Hansard, 27 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, c. 1376; W.S. Allen, The present position of Wesleyan Methodism (1872); idem, The itinerant system (1892). He continued to sit for Newcastle-under-Lyme as a Liberal until his retirement in 1886.14McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 211; ibid., pt. II, p. 178. By this point he had visited New Zealand for the first time and he settled in the colony soon after, although he retained Woodhead Hall in Staffordshire, which he had inherited on his father’s death in 1871.15[New Zealand] Evening Post, 20 Jan. 1915, accessed, as were all subsequently cited New Zealand newspapers, from http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz. In his absence and without his knowledge, Allen was put up as a Liberal Unionist at the Stoke-on-Trent by-election in 1890, but he was defeated by a Gladstonian Liberal.16McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, p. 228. Expressing his complete surprise and displeasure to the New Zealand press, Allen said ‘I have no desire to re-enter the House of Commons, as, after having had a seat in it for twenty-one years, I found the late hours and increasing length of the sessions too great a tax on my time and strength’.17Auckland Star, 11 Mar. 1890. Later that year Allen stood for the Te Aroha constituency of the New Zealand parliament. Declaring himself an advanced Liberal in the British context, Allen favoured strict retrenchment, the repeal of the property tax and free trade.18Auckland Star, 16 Apr. 1890. Although returned at the 1890 New Zealand general election, Allen was unseated on petition, 3 Apr. 1891, and his attempt to return to the House of Representatives for the Parnell constituency was unsuccessful.19Bay of Plenty Times, 6 Apr. 1891; [New Zealand] Evening Post, 20 Jan. 1915. On his death in 1915, Allen was succeeded by his eldest son William Allen (1870-1945), Liberal MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme 1892-1900, defeated Constitutionalist candidate at Stoke-on-Trent in 1924, and National Liberal MP for Burslem 1931-5.20M. Stenton and S. Lees, Who’s who of British Members of Parliament (1979), iii. 6.