FENTON, John (1791-1863), of Crimble Hall, Rochdale, Lancs.

The Fenton family had resided near Rochdale for centuries, ‘most of them humble tillers of the soil’.1A. Muir, The Kenyon tradition. The history of James Kenyon & Son Ltd, 1664-1964 (1964), 32. Fenton’s father Joseph made the family fortune, diversifying from woollen and flannel manufacture into cotton. In 1819, he was one of the founders of the banking firm of Fenton, Eccles, Roby and Cunliffe (later Fenton and Roby), in which Fenton and his brother James subsequently became partners.2Heywood Notes & Queries, 3 Nov. 1905, 175; Bankers’ Magazine (1845), iii. 432. In 1826, in partnership with James Schofield, Joseph constructed a water-powered and gas-lit cotton mill at Hooley Bridge, near Heywood, which reputedly cost £100,000. He also owned bobbin mills at Hurst Green, near Blackburn.3O. Ashmore, The industrial archaeology of north-west England (1982), 96; J. Hannavy, Roger Fenton of Crimble Hall (1975), 14-15. Joseph expanded the family estates with the purchase of Clegg Hall (1810), Bamford Hall (1816) and the lordships of the manor of Ribchester, Dutton and Bayley (1829).4http://manchesterhistory.net/rochdale/clegg.html; VCH Lancaster, v. 136-141; Chetham Society, Remains historical & literary connected with the palatine counties of Lancaster and Chester, xxii (1850), 471n. On Fenton’s marriage in 1814, Joseph built Crimble Hall for him.5Heywood Notes & Queries, 3 Nov. 1905, 176. At Joseph’s death in 1840, his £500,000 fortune was divided between his two sons, and Fenton inherited the Crimble estates, and a share in the banking and textile manufacturing concerns.6Morning Chronicle, 17 Sept. 1840; Hannavy, Roger Fenton, 15. He appears to have left the day-to-day business management to his sons and nephews.7Hannavy, Roger Fenton, 15. On his mother’s side, Fenton was first cousin to the social and educational reformer Sir James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth, who resided at Bamford Hall for two years in the 1820s while working at the family bank.8Burke’s Landed Gentry (1886), i. 364; A.L. Calman, Life and labours of John Ashworth (1875), 14. The Fentons were Congregationalists, and ‘liberal benefactors’ to Bamford Chapel, where Fenton taught in the Sunday school in his youth.9VCH Lancaster, v. 136-41 [notes]; Heywood Notes & Queries, 3 Nov. 1905, 176. He supported the British and Foreign School Society, acting as patron of Moor Street school, and chairing the education meeting which saw Richard Cobden’s first public speech in Rochdale in 1837.10Liverpool Mercury, 1 Aug. 1834; Manchester Times and Gazette, 23 Dec. 1837.

‘Rather above the middle height, and a fine hale-looking man’, Fenton ‘had a habit of carrying gingerbread in his pocket, which he munched frequently at odd times’.11Manchester Times, 8 July 1882. Despite his wealth, he was ‘homely in his habits’, trimming Crimble Hall’s hedges and digging fields with his workmen. He was also ‘ingenious at needlework’, which he apparently performed with a favourite canary perched on his shoulder.12 Heywood Notes & Queries, 3 Nov. 1905, 176-8. He did not, however, make a good impression on Richard Cobden, who, dining with him in 1837 in company with three other northern manufacturing MPs, described them as ‘a sad lot of soulless louts’.13R. Cobden to F. Cobden, 6 June 1837, A. Howe (ed.), The letters of Richard Cobden. Vol. 1, 1815-1847 (2007), 106. The other MPs were Henry Marsland (Stockport), Joseph Brotherton (Salford) and Richard Potter (Wigan). Fenton, a Whig, was first in the field for Rochdale in 1832, declaring his support for ‘cheap and equitable government’ and the removal of abuses in church and state, including reducing taxation on the industrious classes, introducing a property tax and amending the corn laws. He announced in June 1832 that ‘I am not a reformer of yesterday, or forced to become so for the sake of expediency’, but offered to withdraw if a more eligible reform candidate appeared.14Leeds Mercury, 9 June 1832; Manchester Times and Gazette, 23 June 1832. He did not, however, yield when challenged by a Radical, James Taylor, whose retirement at the close of the first day’s poll saw Fenton returned ahead of the Conservative, John Entwisle.

Fenton, who once admitted on the hustings that he was ‘not gifted with eloquence’, is not known to have spoken in debate.15The Times, 20 Apr. 1837. He spoke briefly when presenting a petition from Rochdale on the Irish Church (The Times, 19 Feb. 1833). He served on the select committees on the Caernarvon and Carlow election petitions (1833), and those on the sale of beer (1833) and drunkenness (1834).16A. Cockburn & W. Rowe, Cases of controverted election petitions (1833), i. 127, 438; PP 1833 (416), xv. 1; PP 1834 (559), viii. 315. His votes were generally consistent with his reforming Whig views, voting for the ballot, 25 Apr. 1833, and for a moderate fixed duty on corn, 7 Mar. 1834. In keeping with his desire for cheap government, he divided for the abolition of military and naval sinecures, 15 Feb. 1833, and for an inquiry into the pension list, 18 Feb. 1834. He also supported the reduction of the malt tax, 26 Apr. 1833. He voted in the minority against the use of courts martial for civil offences under the Irish coercion bill, 19 Mar. 1833, writing to The Times to correct its erroneous report on this.17The Times, 25 Mar. 1833. It may have been his family’s banking interests which informed his opposition to the Bank of England Charter Extension Bill, 9 Aug. 1833. He joined with other Nonconformist Whigs to divide against Althorp’s proposed substitution of £250,000 from the land tax for the church rates, 21 Apr. 1834. Fenton’s first stint in Parliament ended at the 1835 election, where he received the backing of his former opponent, Taylor, but was defeated by Entwisle. Fenton echoed local opinion in ascribing this to Tory use of beer as the ‘great canvasser’.18Manchester Times and Gazette, 27 Aug. 1836. However, his votes for the Poor Law and Conservative registration efforts also played their part.19D.W. Bebbington, Congregational Members of Parliament in the nineteenth century (2007), 40; Leeds Mercury, 10 Jan. 1835.

Fenton returned to Parliament at the April 1837 by-election following Entwisle’s death. Seconding his nomination, John Bright urged Rochdale’s electors to remember Fenton’s previous parliamentary service, and Fenton emphasised that ‘he was no suckling, but a man of experience and knowledge’. Although he was heckled on the subject of the Poor Law, Fenton argued that he had not voted for the third reading, had resisted its more obnoxious provisions in committee, and opposed its application to manufacturing districts.20The Times, 20 Apr. 1837. His position on electoral reform had shifted since 1832, now supporting franchise extension. Aided by registration gains, Fenton outpolled his Conservative opponent, announcing at the declaration that he would be in the House the following week to vote against church rates.21Manchester Times and Gazette, 13 Aug. 1836, 22 Apr. 1837. Shortly after his return, Fenton was attacked in the Radical press over Fenton & Schofield’s violations of the Factory Acts regarding the employment of children.22The Champion and Weekly Herald, 7 May 1837. At the general election in July, Fenton defeated a last-minute Conservative candidate.23Leeds Mercury, 29 July 1837.

Fenton’s second period in the Commons was characterised by lax attendance, being one of the least assiduous Lancashire MPs. He voted in 37 out of 293 divisions (13%) in 1838, and 48 out of 250 (19%) in 1839.24Liverpool Mercury, 21 Sept. 1838; Preston Chronicle, 7 Sept. 1839. He supported Villiers’ motion that the corn law petitioners be heard at the bar of the House, 19 Apr. 1839, and was part of an Anti-Corn Law League delegation to ministers in 1840.25The Times, 1 Apr. 1840. He backed Duncombe’s amendment on parliamentary reform, 18 Apr. 1839, although his preference was for household suffrage rather than the universal suffrage demanded by Rochdale’s Radicals at a meeting which he attended in 1838.26Northern Star, 20 Jan. 1838. Although he voted with ministers on the Canadian question, 7 Mar. 1838, and the Irish municipal corporations bill, 19 Apr. 1839, he was by no means an unswerving party loyalist, voting against ministers on judicial discretion over capital punishment, 27 June 1837, and the poor law continuance bill, 20 July 1839. By May 1839, Fenton had decided not to contest Rochdale again.27The Times, 30 May 1839. He rarely attended in the 1840 and 1841 sessions, voting in 16 out of 256 divisions (6%) in 1840, and 13 out of 109 (12%) in 1841.28Preston Chronicle, 22 Aug. 1840, 26 June 1841.

Although Fenton’s obituary ascribed his retirement to ‘infirm health and other causes’, the Manchester Times in 1843 attributed it to his ‘love for private life and domestic enjoyment’.29Gent. Mag. (1863), ii. 382; Manchester Times and Gazette, 27 May 1843. His family was growing rapidly, with ten children born to his second wife between 1831 and 1845. Fenton’s concern for his family prompted his involvement in a court case to secure adequate provision for his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, widowed in 1842, and her infant son.30http://microsites.lincolnshire.gov.uk/Archives/upload/public/attachments/552/REPORT22.pdf His decision to retire may also have been influenced by the Rochdale Radical Association’s withdrawal of support. Following his ‘vague and unsatisfactory’ response to questions on the rural police, it declared in March 1839 that Fenton had forfeited its esteem, and that it would support another candidate.31The Champion and Weekly Herald, 24 Mar. 1839. Fenton’s successor as MP in 1841, William Sharman Crawford, was noticeably more radical. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Crawford’s Conservative opponent was Fenton’s brother, James, Fenton’s was the first signature on the requisition to Crawford.32Northern Star, 1 Aug. 1840.

Aside from donations to the Anti-Corn Law League, Fenton does not appear to have been politically active following his retirement, although he signed a Lancashire millowners’ memorial against the ten hours bill in 1847.33PP 1847 (108), xlvi. 625. Fenton donated £100 in 1843, £500 in 1845 and £100 in 1852 (A. Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), ii. 133, 416; Manchester Times, 20 Mar. 1852). In 1846, he became a director of the Heywood Waterworks Company and the Rochdale, Heywood and Manchester Railway Company.34PP 1846 (504) xliii. 147, 216. That year, Roby left the banking partnership, and the Fentons carried on the enterprise.35London Gazette, 5 Jan. 1847. In 1849, Fenton subscribed £1,000 towards the liabilities of the Rochdale Savings Bank (of which he was a trustee), after its actuary embezzled over £70,000.36The Times, 17 Dec. 1849; Daily News, 1 Dec. 1849. In 1857, Fenton bought out James Schofield’s share in Hooley Bridge mills for £60,000, giving him two-thirds of the enterprise, while his brother James owned the remaining third. John’s son, Joseph, wanted to introduce steam power into the mill, but James’s son, also Joseph, demurred, prompting a family feud, which resulted in the closing of the mills in 1861.37Heywood Notes and Queries, 18 Aug. 1905, 132-3. The mills had to be kept running until 1861 under the terms of Joseph Fenton’s will. The derelict site was sold for £6,150 in 1896.

Fenton died in 1863, and was buried at Bamford Chapel. He is commemorated with a bust in Rochdale town hall, presented by his widow in 1872.38R. Mattley, Annals of Rochdale: a chronological view from the earliest times to the end of the year 1898 (1899), 34; http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/MR/MR-ROC08.htm; http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/images/nrpMR/MRROC081.jpg. His son William was active in Rochdale politics, seconding Cobden’s nomination in 1859, and being considered a potential successor to him in 1865.39The Times, 30 Apr. 1859; J. Vincent, ‘The electoral sociology of Rochdale’, Economic History Review, 16:1 (1963), 85. He spent nearly £3,000 unsuccessfully contesting Chester as a Liberal in 1865, and stood at North-East Lancashire in 1868.40Mattley, Annals of Rochdale, 38; The Times, 4 July 1868. Fenton’s son Roger canvassed Rochdale in 1850 in anticipation of a contest, but withdrew when the sitting MP, Sharman Crawford, recovered his health, and instead took up a career in photography, being renowned particularly for his depictions of the Crimean War.41Morning Chronicle, 7 Aug. 1850; R. Taylor, ‘Fenton, Roger’, Oxford DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. Shortly after his father’s death, Fenton’s youngest son, Robert, was sued for breach of promise of marriage; his jilted fiancée received £3,000 in damages. His father had disapproved of the proposed match, refusing to settle an allowance on his son.42The Times, 21 Aug. 1863. Having already suffered through the closure of Hooley Bridge mills, the family fortunes declined precipitously with the collapse of Fentons’ Bank in 1878, and the family assets, including Crimble Hall, were sold to pay creditors.43R. Taylor, Rochdale retrospect (1956), 92; Hannavy, Roger Fenton, 108-9. Crimble Hall fetched £12,300 in 1880 (Manchester Times, 12 June 1880).