THOMPSON, Harry Stephen (1809-1874), of Kirby Hall, Bedale, Yorks.

‘A fine example of the true country gentleman, dignified and courteous’, Thompson was ‘shrewd and intelligent, and no man ever presided over an agricultural society, or a railway company, with more ability and with sounder judgment’.1Leeds Mercury, 19 May 1874. These two interests – as a prominent member of the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) and the long-serving chairman of the North Eastern Railway (NER) – informed much of his career as Liberal MP for Whitby.

Thompson was born at Kirby Hall, Yorkshire, which had been in his family since 1684.2York Herald, 23 May 1874. His father Richard (1771-1853) had served as a captain in the 4th Dragoons.3Burke’s landed gentry (1847), ii. 1389. A ‘clever, shy child, apt for work’, Thompson ‘could read and sum at three, and knew something of Latin grammar at five’. Delicate health meant that he was educated by the local vicar rather than at school, although he was prepared for university by a private tutor near London. At Cambridge he studied entomology under Charles Darwin, but ‘the allurements of society, and the attractions of the tennis-court were... sad disturbing influences’. Nonetheless, he graduated senior optime in mathematics in 1832. Thereafter he had hoped to enter the diplomatic service or seek a parliamentary seat, but instead bowed to his father’s wishes and settled for ‘the rural life of an English country gentleman’. First, however, he toured Scotland and the Continent, where he perfected his French and travelled as far as Hungary.4Earl Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson, Bart. A biographical sketch’, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (2nd series, 1874), x. 520-2. The illness of one of his travelling companions prevented Thompson from visiting Constantinople. He ‘more or less... understood three modern languages’, and was a fine shot. His ‘natural shyness and reserve’ and ‘unobtrusive modesty’ were sometimes misinterpreted as aloofness and haughtiness.5Ibid., 519-20. However, Earl Cathcart, a fellow RAS stalwart, remembered him as

a patient man, of clear perception that went straight to his point; passionately fond of work – overwork – he delighted in setting wrong to rights, and establishing order where he found confusion. Always ready to help others to bear their burdens, he kept many irons in the fire, and yet allowed none to cool. A careful gleaner of opinion, consequently a good listener, he was never in a fuss or hurry, nor irritable nor boastful.6Ibid., 520.

Thompson was one of the prime movers in establishing the Yorkshire Agricultural Society in 1837, and played a key part in its leadership, serving as president in 1862. In 1838 he helped to found the RAS, of which he was a long-serving council member and trustee.7Venn, Alumni Cantabrigiensis, v. 162; York Herald, 17 Nov. 1874. He rallied to the defence of the corn laws, seconding a resolution at a meeting at York in 1844 that urged all classes ‘to counteract the baneful agitation of the Anti-Corn Law League’, and attended a protectionist meeting in the same town in 1850.8The Times, 24 Feb. 1844, 24 Jan. 1850. He also took a practical interest in agricultural improvement, touring farms in Britain and Ireland,9Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 528. and in conjunction with a York chemist, Joseph Spence, made important discoveries regarding the soil’s ability to absorb fertilisers.10N. Goddard, Harvests of change. The Royal Agricultural Society of England 1838-1988 (1988), 88-9; J. Martin, ‘Thompson, Sir Harry Stephen Meysey’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. During the Great Exhibition of 1851 he served on the jury for agricultural machinery and implements.11The Times, 30 May 1851. He served on the same committee for the 1862 exhibition: The Times, 27 June 1861. In 1853 he succeeded to his father’s estates, where he took a keen interest in education, teaching farm lads on Sundays for many years.12Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 539. Thompson was also involved with the management of diocesan training colleges at York and Ripon, was chairman of the House Committee of the York County Hospital, 1854-65, and a vice-president of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society: Ibid.; York Herald, 10 Feb. 1855. Prior to succeeding to Kirby, Thompson had been resident at Moat Hall, Boroughbridge: Morning Post, 21 Mar. 1849. Having contributed several ‘thoroughly practical’ papers to the RAS journal, he became one of its editors in 1855, and continued to chair the journal committee once a professional editor was appointed in 1859.13Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 530; Goddard, Harvests of change, 111. He incurred some criticism for his strictness about keeping political issues such as land tenure out of the journal’s pages.14Goddard, Harvests of change, 105; Martin, ‘Thompson, Sir Harry Stephen Meysey’.

Alongside his agricultural interests, Thompson displayed considerable business acumen as a railway director, making the NER ‘one of the first and best-paying railways in the kingdom’, a process aided by his ‘thoroughly honest, and admirably straightforward’ management.15York Herald, 19 May 1874; Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 537. This was in contrast with the disgraced railway entrepreneur George Hudson, whose misdeeds Thompson was instrumental in exposing. In 1849 he had summoned a meeting of the York, Newcastle and Berwick railway’s shareholders which instigated an inquiry into Hudson’s conduct.16Morning Post, 21 Mar. 1849; Pall Mall Gazette, 18 May 1874. Having secured Hudson’s resignation from his directorships, Thompson was invited to join the new board of the York and North Midland railway (YNMR). He initially declined, but later relented and became the YNMR chairman in Hudson’s stead.17Pall Mall Gazette, 18 May 1874; Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 536. As one of the YNMR’s directors he was found guilty by a coroner’s jury of the manslaughter of two of the company’s employees, but this verdict was reversed when the directors were tried at the assizes in 1853: Morning Post, 16 July 1853; Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 16 July 1853. He was involved on the company’s behalf in lengthy legal proceedings against Hudson to recover the money he had defrauded,18M.A. Robertson, English reports annotated, 1866-1900: 1867 (1914), i. 435-52. and oversaw the YNMR’s amalgamation with the York, Berwick and Newcastle railway in 1854 to form the NER, of which he became chairman.19The Times, 3 Nov. 1852; W.W. Tomlinson, The North Eastern railway, its rise and development (1914), 666, 771. Thompson made a short-lived attempt to establish a Railway Companies Association in 1852, which he successfully revived in 1858, and as its chairman he became a key spokesman for the railway interest.20Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 537; The Times, 8 Oct. 1858.

At the 1859 general election, after some vacillation, Thompson accepted an invitation to offer as a Liberal at Knaresborough.21Leeds Mercury, 16 Apr. 1859. Expounding his views at a public meeting, he supported proposals to remove one seat from small double-member boroughs in order to enfranchise populous towns, but considered franchise reform more problematic, as a £5 limit would not operate uniformly. However, he promised to endorse any measure enfranchising ‘persons who by their perseverance and industry had acquired a certain amount of money or property’. A ‘decided opponent’ of the ballot, he was ‘a staunch Churchman, but in favour of the total abolition of church rates’. He admitted that his former support for protectionism was ‘a great blunder’.22Leeds Mercury, 19 Apr. 1859. He polled a close third behind the Conservative incumbents. Alongside his own contest he took a prominent role in the Liberal campaign in the West Riding.23The Times, 1 June 1859. Thompson had also proposed Sir John Ramsden on the West Riding hustings at the by-election earlier that year: Leeds Mercury, 26 Feb. 1859.

Thompson entered Parliament later that year for a vacancy at Whitby, as its first ever Liberal MP. Hudson had initially offered as a Conservative, but withdrew, not wishing to return from France where he had fled to avoid his creditors, so Thompson faced Thomas Chapman, the scion of a prominent Whitby shipping family.24The Standard, 21 Oct. 1859; Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 22 Oct. 1859; R. Beaumont, The railway king: a biography of George Hudson (2002), 166. The NER’s legal action against Hudson had resulted in Whitby’s West Cliff, a prime development site, coming under the NER’s control, and this, together with the company’s plans for improved railway links, gave its chairman considerable clout.25Robertson, English reports annotated, i. 435-52. Thompson did not rest on his laurels, however, but campaigned energetically, seeking to downplay claims that the railway and shipping interests were antagonistic by emphasising that the ‘railways brought more to shipping than they carried away’.26Ibid. While free trade could not be reversed, he promised to back reciprocity and other measures to relieve the shipping interest.27The Times, 23 Nov. 1859. He described his politics as ‘of that happy medium which was generally considered the safest and best’. He endorsed a £6 franchise, but again opposed the ballot and supported the abolition of church rates.28York Herald, 22 Oct. 1859. Although one obituary suggested that Thompson’s ‘coldness and reserve of manner were serious drawbacks in electioneering’,29Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 537. he was revealingly expansive at the declaration, where he read an election poem he had composed for his children, a pastiche on ‘The house that Jack built’, and recounted how having learnt of his victory, ‘I was obliged to smoke an extra cigar’.30York Herald, 26 Nov. 1859. Thompson’s return was celebrated by his tenants at Kirby, who took his horses from his carriage and drew him to Kirby Hall: Leeds Mercury, 3 Dec. 1859.

At Westminster Thompson was said to have taken ‘a gratifying, sometimes a conspicuous share’ in debates, ‘acted with cheerful assiduity’ in committee, and voted in divisions ‘with a scrupulous regard to conviction, and always in the interest of political and commercial freedom’.31York Herald, 23 Sept. 1865. He ‘was soon recognised as an authority’ on railway and agricultural questions due to ‘his conspicuous knowledge’, although he contributed to debate on many other issues. ‘As a speaker, with a mastery of detail, he was always clear and definite; he never attempted oratorical flights – his was a thoroughly House of Commons style, full, ready, and conversationally flowing’.32Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 537. His first known speech was to support the abolition of church rates, for which he consistently divided, although he hoped that provision would be made for the repair of churches ‘built by the liberality of our fathers’, 8 Feb. 1860. He intervened on other church questions, endorsing efforts to augment the income of poorer benefices, 26 July 1860. Although he generally divided with the Liberals, he was among 167 Liberal MPs who signed a memorial to Palmerston in July 1860 objecting to having a question on religious affiliation in the census.33The Times, 2 July 1860. He spoke in support of a £6 borough franchise, arguing that it would enfranchise those who had shown ‘industry, skill, and economy’, 23 Apr. 1860. He routinely divided for reform of the borough franchise, but opposed the ballot. He argued against splitting the West Riding into two divisions, fearing that it would lose its status as ‘a leading constituency’, 10 June 1861.

Thompson’s other contributions reflected his diverse extra-parliamentary interests and his familiarity with the workings of local administration. His position as a parish surveyor prompted several speeches in favour of highways legislation, and he sat on the committee on the 1862 highways bill.34PP 1862 (226), xvi. 640. He also spoke on education, serving on a committee on the subject in 1865;35PP 1865 (403), vi. 2. This committee did not have time to report before the end of the session. Thompson was a witness to the schools inquiry commission later that year: The Times, 16 Dec. 1865. the game laws, successfully arguing that an inquiry into their operation was premature, 17 Mar. 1863; and the union chargeability bill, complaining that burdens on rural property owners would increase and that poor law union boundaries must be rationalised, 27 Mar. 1865. However, he failed in his attempt to delay this measure’s progress, 11, 15 May 1865. Given his agricultural expertise, it was unsurprising that Thompson backed calls for the collection of agricultural statistics, 7 June 1864, and was appointed to that year’s select committee on the cattle diseases prevention and cattle importation bills.36PP 1864 (431), vii. 3. Thompson also served on the committee which considered the operation of new procedures for dealing with private bills: PP 1865 (393), vii. 8. He opposed repeal of the malt tax, contending that it would not benefit the majority of farmers, 7 Mar. 1865. He was not inattentive to Whitby’s interests, accompanying a deputation to the board of trade on the 1861 harbours bill, which would deprive Whitby of £5,300 annually in passing tolls.37The Times, 20 Apr. 1861. However, with the feeling of the House against him, he withdrew his motion for a select committee on the issue, 18 June 1861. He did, however, successfully insert a clause whereby ships over ten tons would pay to enter Whitby harbour, 21 June 1861. Thompson founded an annual competition to encourage the Whitby jet trade, and became chairman of the Whitby waterworks company.38Leeds Mercury, 19 May 1874; The joint stock companies’ directory for 1867 (1867), 594. In 1864 his constituents lobbied him to support the proposed Scarborough, Whitby and Staithes railway, but he demurred on the grounds that the NER was spending £250,000 to improve Whitby’s railway links, and that it would not be in keeping with his promises to shareholders to endorse an alternative project.39York Herald, 23 Jan. 1864.

As this exchange indicated, Thompson’s NER interests were paramount, and he spoke several times on railway questions. He objected to calls for legislation to enforce the recommendations of an inquiry into the prevention of railway accidents, arguing that specific proposals would remove the responsibility from railway companies to take all possible precautions, 12 Mar. 1861. However, he supported proposals to pay prompt, moderate and fair compensation for railway accidents, rather than ‘the excessive damages now occasionally recovered’, although he noted that the dangers of railway travel were exaggerated, 13 May 1863. He reiterated his view that responsibility should be left with the railway companies when successfully opposing George Bentinck’s motion to empower the board of trade to frame safety regulations, 6 Mar. 1865. He again resisted efforts at compulsion in countering Sir William Payne Gallwey’s motion that there should be immediate provision for a means of communication between passengers and guards, 9 May 1865. He also watched over the companies’ financial interests, complaining that the system of rating ‘bore very unjustly upon them’ as property-owners, 3 July 1862, and objecting (unsuccessfully) to taxation of cheap excursion trains, 28 May 1863.

Thompson sought re-election in 1865, when Hudson re-appeared to challenge him. Hudson was embroiled in a Chancery suit with the NER in a bid to reclaim control of the West Cliff,40The Times, 7 June 1865. and the contest turned largely on personal rather than political issues, as he sought to defend his tarnished reputation and cast opprobrium on those involved in his downfall.41Leeds Mercury, 23 June 1865. Thompson faced a stormy reception at some election meetings, although he was praised for his ‘good nerve’ in endeavouring to get a hearing.42Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 1 July 1865. He endorsed Palmerston’s ‘wise, just and beneficial government’, and emphasised his own achievements for Whitby, which included securing additional postal and railway facilities, completing the Royal Crescent, and planning a cliff garden.43Leeds Mercury, 29 June 1865. However, the belief that Scarborough had benefitted more under his chairmanship of the NER than Whitby proved damaging.44Beaumont, Railway king, 186. He also lost favour among some supporters after declaring that, while he had divided for a £6 franchise, he would not support it again, as it was wrong to ‘swamp many classes for the sake of enfranchising one’.45Yorkshire Gazette, cited in Beaumont, Railway king, 178. Ill-feeling against Thompson was exacerbated by Hudson’s dramatic arrest just two days before the nomination.46Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 July 1865. This was done at the suit of one of Hudson’s creditors, and Thompson strenuously denied any involvement, but this claim has been dismissed by one of Hudson’s recent biographers.47Beaumont, Railway king, 187-90. For a written denial by Thompson, see The Times, 29 July 1865. Whatever the truth, the desire to ‘avenge Hudson’s wrongs’ damaged Thompson’s prospects, and he was narrowly defeated by Hudson’s replacement.48The Times, 15 July 1865. Thompson was subsequently presented with a candelabrum by Whitby’s Liberal voters: York Herald, 23 Sept. 1865. At the same general election Thompson chaired the Liberal election committee for the West Riding (North) division, and proposed Lord Frederick Cavendish on the hustings.49Bradford Observer, 13 July 1865; The Times, 17 July 1865.

Thompson continued to expand his railway interests thereafter.50He became a director of the Hawes and Melmerby railway and the Furness railway: The Times, 2 Mar. 1866; The joint stock companies’ directory for 1867 (1867), 75. His agricultural expertise was missed during the Commons debates on the 1865-6 cattle plague,51Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 538. but he oversaw the management of the outbreak in the West Riding, and lobbied ministers in deputations from the West Riding magistrates and the RAS, of which he was president in 1866.52The Times, 8 Dec. 1865, 10 Jan., 10 Feb., 13 Feb. 1866; Farmer’s Magazine (1866), l. 456. He also presided over the Whitby agricultural society, and was renowned as ‘a most enterprising and skilful cultivator and breeder’.53York Herald, 6 June 1868; Leeds Mercury, 19 May 1874. He helped to organise a West Riding meeting in support of the Liberal government’s 1866 reform bill, and the following year drafted plans for the division of the West Riding which the Leeds MP Edward Baines presented to the boundary commissioners in preference to the Conservative ministry’s proposals.54The Times, 28 Mar. 1866, 18 Oct. 1867. Thompson declined to offer for Whitby at the 1868 general election, as he had already promised to contest the Eastern Division of the West Riding, where he was the local Liberal chairman.55Leeds Mercury, 25 Nov. 1868, 19 May 1874. He polled third, less than 100 votes behind the second Conservative MP. Although he was suggested as a candidate for Bradford in 1869, he did not make any further attempt to re-enter Parliament.56The Times, 5 Feb. 1869. He extended his estates with the purchase of Thorpe Green Hall, near Ouseburn, in 1869.57The Times, 6 Feb. 1869. In 1872 he gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into railway company legislation.58PP 1872 (364), xiii. 599. His paper that year on grassland management was described as ‘one of the best practical papers that ever appeared’ in the RAS journal.59Cathcart, ‘Sir Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson’, 534.

Failing health compelled Thompson to give up his agricultural and railway commitments. He resigned from the RAS council in December 187360Pall Mall Gazette, 18 May 1874., and as NER chairman in February 1874, when he was praised for his ‘zeal and sagacity’ which had contributed ‘very largely’ to the company’s prosperity. Grateful shareholders voted £2,700 for a service of plate for him.61The Times, 14 Feb. 1874; Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 15 Aug. 1874. The service of plate was presented to his son after his death. That March he received a baronetcy, and added his grandmother’s surname of Meysey to his own.62Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 14 Mar. 1874. He was too ill to accept a presentation from Whitby’s Liberals to mark his baronetcy that May, and died later that month at Kirby Hall after a ‘protracted and severe illness’.63Leeds Mercury, 2 May 1874, 19 May 1874. He was buried in the family mausoleum in Little Ouseburn churchyard.64York Herald, 19 May 1874. Thompson’s estate was sworn under £180,000; he left £1,200, his London house and a £2,500 annuity to his wife. After provision for his ten other children, the residue passed to his eldest son and successor in the baronetcy, Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson (1845-1929), who served as Liberal MP for Knaresborough, 1880, and Brigg, 1885-6, and Liberal Unionist MP for Handsworth from 1892 until December 1905, when he was created Baron Knaresborough.65Morning Post, 4 Sept. 1874. His successor in the Handsworth seat was Thompson’s youngest son, Ernest Claude (1859-1944), also a Liberal Unionist, who sat until 1922.66Several of Thompson’s children married the children of MPs: Ernest Claude married the daughter of John Joicey; Arthur Herbert married the daughter of Sir Hedworth Williamson, 2nd bt.; Richard Frederick and Charles Maude married two of the daughters of Sir James Robert Walker; and Elizabeth Lucy married Walter, the eldest son of Sir Stafford Northcote: Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval, The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: Mortimer-Percy volume (1911, reprinted 2001), 114. Their brothers Albert Childers and Charles Maude played on the winning side at the F.A. Cup finals in 1872 and 1873 respectively.67R. Cavallini, The Wanderers F.C.: ‘Five times F.A. Cup winners” (2005), 70, 100.