FEILDEN, Montague Joseph (1816-1898), of Feniscowles, Blackburn, Lancs.

Described by one contemporary as ‘a very intelligent gentleman’, but by the hostile Blackburn Standard as someone ‘whose aptitude for business is problematical, and whose intellectual resources are either doubtful or undeveloped’, Feilden followed in the footsteps of his father William to become MP for his native borough.3P.A. Whittle, Blackburn as it is (1852), 357; Blackburn Standard, 16 Mar. 1853. However, unlike his father, who transferred his political loyalties from the Whigs to the Conservatives not long after entering the Commons in 1832, and received a baronetcy from Peel in 1846, Feilden sat as a Liberal. With his older brother set to inherit the family’s Feniscowles estate, Feilden became a partner in the Blackburn cotton manufacturing business which his father had established. He travelled extensively, spending several years on the Continent, and also visiting the Middle East.4Whittle, Blackburn as it is, 347. In the early 1840s he spent two years in India on business, where he was a partner in Bates, Feilden & Co., merchants and commission agents, at Calcutta, returning to Blackburn in 1845.5This partnership was dissolved in 1846: London Gazette, 4 Dec. 1846. Feilden’s absence overseas meant that he was struck off the Blackburn register in 1845: Blackburn Standard, 8 Oct. 1845. On his father’s death in 1850, Feilden inherited his share in the business, which he operated in partnership with Robert Raynsford Jackson.6London Gazette, 16 Aug. 1861. He continued his travels in the early 1850s, visiting Canada and the United States.7Whittle, Blackburn as it is, 347.

Feilden had become increasingly active in Blackburn’s public life in the 1840s. A magistrate since 1842, when he was assaulted while reading the Riot Act during Chartist disturbances, he quarrelled with fellow magistrates in 1849 when they decided that the bench should sit from 11 rather than 10 a.m., declaring brusquely that he would sit at any reasonable business hour.8The Times, 14 Sept. 1842; G.C. Miller, Blackburn: the evolution of a cotton town (1951), 142; Blackburn Standard, 18 Apr. 1849. A governor of Blackburn grammar school since 1839, he was appointed in 1849 to the committee charged with removing the unpopular headmaster.9Blackburn Standard, 25 Dec. 1839, 18 April 1849. The headmaster was not removed until 1855, despite dwindling pupil numbers: Blackburn Weekly Standard, 21 Sept. 1895. He was a freemason, a patron of the Blackburn Mechanics’ Institute ball, and served as president of the Blackburn Agricultural Society, 1848-50.10Blackburn Standard, 23 Feb. 1848, 18 Oct. 1848, 31 May 1849, 17 Oct. 1849, 23 Jan. 1850. Feilden spoke on his father’s behalf at the opening of the Blackburn and Preston railway in 1846, when he stated that ‘he was only waiting for a profitable opportunity’ of investing himself.11Blackburn Standard, 10 June 1846. Feilden served alongside his father on the provisional committee of the London Union railway in 1845, and succeeded his father as a director of the East Lancashire railway: The Standard, 21 Oct. 1845; Whittle, Blackburn as it is, 347. He had investments of £8,750 in railway stock in that year.12PP 1846 (473), xxxviii. 99. It was, however, commercial questions, particularly free trade, which occupied most of his attention. Although William Feilden was a Conservative, he supported Peel on corn law repeal, a position his son endorsed.13See, for example, his comments to the Blackburn Agricultural Society in 1846, and his eulogy of Peel in 1850: Preston Guardian, 10 Oct. 1846; Blackburn Standard, 7 Aug. 1850. Feilden was keen to extend free trade to other items, and served as chairman of the Blackburn association for reduction of the tea duty in 1846, when he saw Lord John Russell as part of a national deputation.14Blackburn Standard, 2 Dec. 1846, 9 Dec. 1846. He also attended a meeting in Manchester on the tea duties the following year: The Times, 29 Dec. 1847. In the same year he convened a local meeting to oppose the East India Company’s salt monopoly, and lobbied ministers on the issue.15The Times, 25 Sept. 1846, 19 Dec. 1846. It was hoped that abolition of this monopoly would benefit Blackburn’s manufacturers by giving Indian consumers more money to spend on imported cotton goods. In 1847 he was the prime mover in establishing the Blackburn Commercial Association, of which he became president.16Blackburn Standard, 8 Sept. 1847. As well as petitioning on the tea duties and the salt monopoly, this body sought to promote local manufacturing interests by encouraging cotton cultivation in Natal (where Feilden himself invested17Manchester Times, 27 Mar. 1852.), and railway developments in Bengal.18Blackburn Standard, 29 Dec. 1847; The Times, 6 Apr. 1848, 7 Nov. 1848; The Standard, 9 Feb. 1849. Feilden also showed his support for free trade by attending a meeting for the revival of the Anti-Corn Law League in 1852: The Times, 3 Mar. 1852. In 1850 Feilden was involved in another public spat, this time with the Blackburn Commercial Association’s secretary, after Feilden cavilled at paying him a promised £10 salary.19Blackburn Standard, 6 Feb. 1850.

One of Feilden’s detractors later claimed that it was ‘notorious’ that Feilden’s ‘sole purpose’ in establishing the Commercial Association had been to advance his claim to become Blackburn’s MP,20Blackburn Standard, 31 Mar. 1852. and in January 1852 it was rumoured that he would offer as a second Liberal.21Blackburn Standard, 7 Jan. 1852. However, by April he had apparently decided against this after being assured that the Conservative incumbent John Hornby would support free trade.22Blackburn Standard, 14 Apr. 1852. A testy exchange with Hornby’s brother, William, led the latter to challenge Feilden to ‘a political match... over the Blackburn ground, for not less a sum than One Thousand Pounds a-side, play or pay’, but Feilden confirmed his decision to keep his powder dry, although he stated that he would offer should either of the Hornbys advocate protection.23Blackburn Standard, 21 Apr. 1852. At the contest he backed the Liberal incumbent, James Pilkington, and chaired a dinner which celebrated Pilkington’s return and that of William Eccles, a Peelite who quickly adhered to the Liberals.24Preston Guardian, 3 July 1852; Blackburn Standard, 15 Sept. 1852. When Eccles was unseated on petition for bribery, Feilden seized the opportunity to offer at the March 1853 by-election, opposed by William Hornby.25Manchester Times, 5 Mar. 1853.

Declaring his opinions to be ‘moderate, and yet thoroughly Liberal’, and wishing to see ‘Reform, Retrenchment, Education and Free Trade’, Feilden endorsed the Aberdeen ministry, but promised to act independently.26Blackburn Standard, 2 Mar. 1853. He emphasised his support for the ballot and franchise extension, and defended himself against charges that his Liberalism was only recently acquired,27For such charges, see Blackburn Standard, 2 Mar. 1853, 9 Mar. 1853. Feilden had attended Conservative events alongside his father in the 1830s: Blackburn Standard, 18 Jan. 1837. explaining that, as any young man would have done, he had assisted his father’s return as a Conservative, but that as he grew older he formed his own ‘liberal’ principles ‘from observation, experience, and conviction’.28Blackburn Standard, 16 Mar. 1853. His record as a factory owner was attacked, with herrings and bags of meal displayed at the hustings ‘as a memento of the 27 weeks’ stoppage [in 1847] of the honourable candidate’s works, during which time he counselled his operatives to live upon herrings and oatmeal stirabout’.29Morning Post, 24 Mar. 1853. Noting Feilden’s lengthy sojourns abroad, Hornby asked what ‘good deeds’ he had done for the people of Blackburn, while the Blackburn Standard averred that he had ‘given evidence of nothing but self obtrusiveness and vanity’.30Blackburn Standard, 9 Mar. 1853. Accused of being hot-tempered, Hornby hinted that his opponent possessed the same fault: ‘I have heard something of a pistol going off at a toll-gate’.31Blackburn Standard, 16 Mar. 1853. Feilden’s victory was said to owe much to the reaction created by Eccles’s unseating.32Blackburn Standard, 2 Oct. 1875. Two petitions against his return, 13 and 15 Apr. 1853, both charging that he did not meet the property qualification, with the second also alleging corruption, were dropped.33W.W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 229.

The factory reformer Richard Oastler was said to have written in Feilden’s support in 1853, and it was thus fitting that his maiden speech was to second John Morgan Cobbett’s motion to bring in a bill to prevent evasion of the Ten Hours Act by stopping the motive power in factories between 5:30 p.m. and 6 a.m.34Preston Guardian, 27 June 1868. Stating that he employed between 1,300 and 1,400 people, and paid out £1,000 in weekly wages, Feilden complained of the ‘unfair advantages’ obtained by unscrupulous factory owners who evaded the legislation, although he ended his speech on a more altruistic note, pleading for ‘the suffering interests of humanity in the crowded districts of the North of England’, 5 July 1853. Although the motion succeeded, the bill was subsequently withdrawn, 27 July 1853.35Instead Palmerston passed an alternative measure limiting child labour, which it was hoped would prevent the use of double shifts of child labour in order to evade the Ten Hours Act: J.T. Ward, The factory movement 1830-1855 (1962), 397. Feilden also spoke briefly in support of legislation to reduce working hours in bleaching and dyeing works, 2 July 1856. Other than this, his only known contribution to debate was to second Henry Berkeley’s annual ballot motion, 22 May 1855, when he contrasted his experience of orderly elections in Belgium, America, France, Sardinia and Switzerland with the violence and intimidation of Blackburn contests.36Feilden was also reported to have asked a question regarding militia officers and postage: Blackburn Standard, 11 Mar. 1857.

During the 1853 session Feilden was present for 93 of the 219 divisions in which he could possibly have voted.37Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. He backed repeal of the ‘taxes on knowledge’ (advertising, newspaper stamp and paper duty), 14 Apr. 1853, and supported Gladstone’s budget, 2 May 1853. He divided for removal of Jewish disabilities, 15 Apr. 1853, and consistently backed abolition of church rates. He rallied to ministers over the Crimean war, pairing against Roebuck’s motion on the condition and management of the army, 29 Jan. 1855, and dividing against Disraeli’s critical motion, 25 May 1855.38The Times, 30 Jan. 1855. He was considerably less assiduous in the latter part of this Parliament, for in July 1855 he embarked for Gibraltar with the 3^rd royal Lancashire militia, in which he had been promoted to the rank of major shortly before his election.39Lancaster Gazette, 7 July 1855; London Gazette, 15 Mar. 1853. Never missing an opportunity to criticise Feilden, the Blackburn Standard reported that following an officers’ dinner prior to embarkation from Liverpool, ‘he graduated so far in the school of Bacchus as to become quarrelsome and pugnacious’, and was put under military arrest by his commanding officer after an altercation with a fellow officer.40Blackburn Standard, 4 July 1855. His business partner Jackson denied that Feilden had been arrested, but did not specifically refute the other allegations.41Preston Guardian, 7 July 1855. Back in England in 1856, Feilden was present for only 44 out of 198 divisions that session.42J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 9. He voted for Locke King’s county franchise bill, 19 Feb. 1857, and supported the Maynooth grant the same day. His loyalty to ministers was demonstrated by his vote with Palmerston on Cobden’s censure motion on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857.

Feilden did not seek re-election at the 1857 general election, having lost the confidence of Blackburn’s Liberals ‘because he devoted too much time to his duties as an officer in the militia, and too little to his parliamentary duties’.43Blackburn Standard, 2 Oct. 1875. He continued to pursue his militia interests thereafter, commanding his regiment during training in 1866.44Lancaster Gazette, 21 Apr. 1866. Although he patronised events such as the local volunteer ball in 1861, he became a much less visible presence in Blackburn, particularly as that year he sold his business interests to Jackson.45Blackburn Standard, 16 Jan. 1861; London Gazette, 16 Aug. 1861. He spent time abroad, and in 1865 married his second wife, who came from Guernsey. Two years later he purchased the tenancy of the islands of Herm and Jethou.46Wilson, Feildens of Witton Park, 73; A. Faed, Jethou [guidebook from 1960s; http://www.faed.net/cfaed/jethou/jethou5.htm], 12; The freemasons’ magazine and masonic mirror (1868), xviii. 78. Courting Blackburn again in anticipation of a general election, in 1867 he declared that the Conservatives’ Reform Act was only a stepping stone and that the ballot and redistribution of seats must follow.47Blackburn Standard, 4 Dec. 1867. He endorsed Gladstone’s Irish church proposals the following year.48Blackburn Standard, 6 May 1868. He was defeated in fourth place at the 1868 election, and although the Conservative victors – one of whom was his cousin Joseph – were unseated on petition, did not offer again.

Thereafter Feilden resumed his interests in Herm and Jethou, where he abandoned his ‘hare-brained scheme’ for a floating causeway between the islands, but invested in oyster beds and granite quarrying, neither of which paid off.49Faed, Jethou, 12; The Star [Guernsey], 22 Sept. 1885. He kept ‘a retinue of Bretons and Welshmen on Jethou who fired on passing fishermen’, perhaps to prevent them discovering that he was using the island as a storehouse for smuggling brandy between France and Dorset, for which he was fined £50 in 1873.50Faed, Jethou, 13; The Star [Guernsey], 18 Feb. 1873. He left the islands in 1877, when he sold Herm with an asking price of £25,000.51The Star [Guernsey], 21 Apr. 1877. A family history suggests that his brandy smuggling activities caused him to be asked to leave Herm before the end of his tenancy: Wilson, Feildens of Witton Park, 73. He and his wife separated in 1878, although Feilden, then resident in Hammersmith, attempted a reconciliation in 1880.52http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=074-acc1317&cid=-1#-1 Alongside his unsuccessful money-making schemes on Herm, he had lent his name as a director of several other ventures, including the Newfoundland Mining Company, the Gellydeg Colliery Company, the Danish Freehold Land Reclamation Company, the Sunningdale District Water Company and the Westmorland Green and Blue Slate Company.53Morning Post, 4 Dec. 1872, 17 Dec. 1873; Blackburn Standard, 26 Mar. 1881; The Standard, 21 Jan. 1882; The Times, 13 June 1891. In 1876 he was defrauded of several thousand pounds of stock by a corrupt bank employee, a transaction which did little to help his precarious financial position,54Bristol Mercury, 5 Apr. 1878; The Times, 25 May 1878. and in February 1883 he was declared bankrupt, with assets of £4,583 and liabilities of around £22,900.55The Times, 5 Feb. 1883; Leeds Mercury, 3 Mar. 1883; London Gazette, 25 May 1883.

Feilden, who had latterly resided at The Chain, Ashton-on-Ribble, Lancashire, died in October 1898, leaving only a ‘nominal’ estate, and was buried alongside his first wife in Samlesbury churchyard.56London Gazette, 6 Dec. 1898; Blackburn Weekly Standard, 19 Nov. 1898; Miller, Blackburn, 417. Feilden’s estate was said to be ‘very heavily involved’: The Times, 7 Feb. 1901. His son from his second marriage, Montague Leyland Feilden (1867-1900), outlived him by only two years, having ‘drifted into a course of sin which had ended in unhappiness, misery, and an early death brought about by drink’. (He had married a brothel-keeper’s daughter, whom his father refused to meet, but subsequently deserted her and lived with another woman.57The Times, 7 Feb. 1901.) Feilden’s personal life seems to have been as tangled as his financial affairs, for he apparently fathered three other sons, two of them between his first wife’s death and his second marriage.58The Star [Guernsey], 22 Oct. 1885. The Times obituary and Who Was Who entry of the journalist Theodore John Valentine Feilden (1863-1955) both cite Feilden as his father, but after Theodore visited Herm in 1885, claiming to be his oldest son, Feilden repudiated any connection, stating that he had only one son.59The Times, 11 June 1955; Who Was Who, v. 367; The Star [Guernsey], 22 Sept. 1885, 22 Oct. 1885. In 1889 Theodore witnessed the marriage of another putative son, Frederick Ernest Feilden (c.1865-1953),60Marriage certificate of Frederick Ernest Feilden and Augusta Richards, 10 Aug. 1889 (on which Montague Joseph Feilden is named as the groom’s father); The Times, 10 Aug. 1939; http://www.bmj.com/cgi/issue_pdf/admin_pdf/2/4827.pdf; information from 1891 and 1901 census. and he later adopted the daughter of the third of Feilden’s putative sons, Charles Henry Hall Feilden, born around 1876, who testified that he was Montague Leyland Feilden’s half-brother in a 1901 court case involving the latter’s will.61The Times, 8 Feb. 1901; The Times, 5 Apr. 1934; information from 1901 census. Charles Feilden was living at the same address as Montague Leyland Feilden’s second partner on the 1901 census.