CHRISTY (AFTERWARDS CHRISTY-MILLER), Samuel (1810-1889), of Poynton Hall, Stockport, Cheshire

A mostly silent MP, whose spoken interventions were directed against the trading monopoly possessed by the Hudson’s Bay Company in north-western Canada, Christy (also known as Christie), was a Liberal Conservative. Christy’s grandfather, Miller Christy (1748-1820), of Stockwell, Surrey, had been a prosperous Quaker hat manufacturer.1C. Rogers, Genealogical memoirs of the Scottish house of Christie (1878), 62-4. A third generation partner in the family firm, Christy resided at Poynton Hall, Cheshire, near Stockport, a centre of the hat trade.

At the 1847 general election Christy offered for Newcastle-under-Lyme, which had been represented by his cousin William Henry Miller (1789-1848), 1830-41. During the campaign Christy emphasised that ‘his family had for more than a century past held a considerable position in one of the staple trades of the borough’.2Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 July 1847. Although he was a Conservative, Christy was at pains to make clear that he supported cheap bread and declared that ‘the principles of Free Trade were … not one iota more the property of the Whigs and the Radicals than they were of the Conservatives’.3Ibid. He also opposed any increase in the Maynooth grant, praised Lord John Russell and endorsed the Whig government’s education plan.4Staffordshire Advertiser, 17, 31 July 1847. Although he topped the poll, Christy immediately resigned and successfully sought re-election, 15 Dec. 1847, as there had been some doubt as to whether he was a government contractor at the time of his initial election.5The Times, 10 Dec. 1847.

Christy generally voted with the Derbyites 1847-52, but supported the Peelites on a number of key votes. These included opposing Hume’s proposal to renew the income tax for only a year, 13 Mar. 1848, and supporting Hutt’s motion to suppress the slave trade using British ships, 19 Mar. 1850.6J.B. Conacher, The Peelites and the party system (1972), 222, 226. He opposed political reforms and backed the ecclesiastical titles bill in 1851. Christy was absent for the division on Grantley Berkeley’s motion for a reconsideration of the corn laws, 14 May 1850, but promised to oppose any attempt to restore agricultural protection at the 1852 general election, when he was returned at the top of the poll.7Staffordshire Advertiser, 12 June 1852. He described himself as ‘a Conservative in politics’ who was prepared to offer ‘zealous, independent support’ for Lord Derby’s government.8Ibid. On the platform, however, he added the qualification that occasionally ‘he had felt compelled to give a considerable amount of support to the late [Whig] government’.9Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852.

Christy’s political views were interpreted differently by contemporaries. Writing to William Gladstone, 4 Aug. 1852, Sir John Young classified Christy as one of the ‘Free Trade Derbyites’.10Sir John Young to William Ewart Gladstone, 4 Aug. 1852, Add. 44237, qu. in W.D. Jones and A.B. Erickson, The Peelites, 1846-1857 (1972), 236. Later that year the former Liberal chief whip Henry Tufnell included Christy in a list of ‘those from whom I am pretty certain no opposition need be feared, of a factious character, in the event of a moderate Government being formed’ of Whigs and Peelites.11Henry Tufnell to Charles Wood, 18 Dec. 1852, Hickleton MSS, Borthwick Institute, York, A4/138. The historian J.B. Conacher has described Christy as an ‘Independent Conservative’, but Young’s categorisation of him as a ‘Free Trade Derbyite’ was probably nearest the mark.12Conacher, The Peelites, 234; idem, The Aberdeen coalition, 1852-1855 (1968), 558. Even so, Christy divided against Villiers’s motion eulogising free trade, 27 Nov. 1852, backed Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852, but later in the session also endorsed Gladstone’s budget, 2 May 1853. He was in the majorities which brought down the Aberdeen coalition and Palmerston’s first government, 29 Jan. 1855, 3 Mar. 1857. At the 1857 general election, Christy declared support for Gladstone’s financial settlement of 1853, and his opposition to the renewal of income tax and centralisation.13Staffordshire Advertiser, 21 Mar. 1857.

In the 1849, 1852-3 and 1856 sessions Christy voted in 35%, 26% and 30% of divisions respectively.1477/219 (1849); 68/257 (1852-3); 59/198 (1856): Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849; Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck (1857), 18. He spoke very occasionally, generally on Canadian affairs. His maiden speech, 18 Aug. 1848, expressed concern that the government was going to grant the Vancouver Island colony to the Hudson’s Bay Company, a chartered trading company, which he demanded be investigated.15Hansard, 18 Aug. 1848, vol. 101, cc. 263-4. See also 22 Apr. 1850, vol. 110, c. 627. In 1857 he served on a parliamentary inquiry on the Hudson’s Bay Company, which recommended that the Crown take over land held by the Company in north-west Canada, for settlement.16PP 1857 sess. 2 (224), xv. 2-4. The following year Christy welcomed the bill of the Conservative colonial secretary Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, which was designed to give effect to the committee’s recommendations. This included converting the New Caledonia territory, previously administered by the Hudson’s Bay Company, into a crown colony, later renamed British Columbia.17See B. Knox, ‘Conservative imperialism, 1858-1874: Bulwer Lytton, Lord Carnarvon, and Canadian confederation’, International History Review, 6 (1984), 333-57, at 343. The measure, he argued, 8 July 1858, was a consequence of the gold discoveries in the territory, and he pressed for the Company to be confined to the northern parts of Canada which were not suitable for European settlement, but which could support the lucrative trade in fur.18Hansard, 8 July 1858, vol. 151, cc. 1115-17. In a later debate, Christy accused Robert Lowe, Liberal MP for Kidderminster, of being a mouthpiece for the Company.19Hansard, 20 July 1858, vol. 151, c. 1831. As Canada had proved to be a fertile country rather than a barren and inhospitable one, the justification for the Hudson’s Bay Company no longer applied, argued Christy, 20 July 1858.20Ibid., c. 1831 However, the Company’s influence and privileged position meant that even if the fur trade was thrown open it could effectively hinder competitors through its connections and market position.21Ibid., c. 1832.

Christy was in the majority which defeated Palmerston’s second government on the conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, and he supported Derby’s reform bill the following year before retiring at the subsequent general election. In 1862 he had succeeded two female cousins to Miller’s estates of Craigentinny, Edinburgh and Britwell Court, Kent, and taken the additional name of Miller.22F. Boase, Modern English biography (1897), ii. 883; Burke’s landed gentry (1908), 1161. Christy-Miller died in 1889 after being predeceased by his only son William Henry Archibald Christy-Miller.23Burke’s landed gentry (1908), 1161. However, his family remained in control of Christy & Co and participated in the amalgamation of the major remaining Stockport firms in Associated British Hat Manufacturers Ltd from 1966 until 1980.24‘John Christie-Miller’, obituary, The Independent, 4 Feb. 2008. The Christy factory closed in 1997.25The Times, 24 May 1997. Family and business papers are held by Stockport Archive Service, letters from Samuel Christy-Miller to W.C. Hazlitt are in the British Library, and other correspondence, with David Laing and James Halliwell-Phillipps, is at Edinburgh University Library.