POTTER, Edmund (1802-1883), of 22 Prince’s Gardens, Hyde Park, London; Queen’s Gate, South Kensington, London and Camfield Place, Hatfield, Hertfordshire

Born at Ardwick, Manchester, Potter was an internationally renowned calico printer and an ‘ardent supporter’ of the Liberal cause, whose ‘great and intimate acquaintance with commercial matters ... frequently led the government of the day to consult him on important ... questions’.1Manchester Guardian, quoted in J.G. Hurst, Edmund Potter and Dinting Vale (1948), 58. The son of a Manchester merchant, little is known of Potter’s early life, though he claimed to have had ‘a sound education and a severe apprenticeship’.2Quoted in M. Hewitt, ‘Potter, Edmund (1802-1883)’, Oxf. DNB., www.oxforddnb.com. In 1825 he went into partnership with his cousin Charles as a calico printer at Dinting Vale, Glossop, and although the enterprise subsequently failed, Potter continued under administration, cleared his debts, and in 1836 resumed trading on his own account. Thereafter Potter was at the forefront of the shift from block to cylinder printing and Dinting Vale, which employed over 1,000 men, became reputedly the largest calico printing works in the world.3Hurst, Edmund Potter, 70-1; Hewitt, ‘Potter, Edmund’. An advocate of design education, he authored the pamphlets Calico Printing as Art and Manufacture (1852) and A Lecture on the Positions of Schools of Art (1855), helped establish the Manchester School of Design, serving as president 1855-58, and was the key figure behind the 1857 Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, which he championed amongst his employees.4Following the opening of the exhibition Potter sent tickets to all his employees at Dinting Vale, accompanied by a letter which stated that historical facts were best ‘read and comprehended through pictorial representation’: E.A. Pergram, The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857: Entrepreneurs, Connoisseurs and the public (2011), 106-7.

A founding member of the Anti-Corn Law League, Potter, who was an ‘intimate’ friend of Richard Cobden and a zealous free trader, ‘threw himself into the movement’ in south Lancashire, though his activity was largely behind the scenes.5Hurst, Edmund Potter, 18-19. The author of two published letters to Lord John Russell on the subject of parliamentary reform,6E. Potter, A few words on the Ballot and Reform (1857); Reform in 1859: A Second Letter to Lord John Russell (1858). he gained further prominence in 1858 when he helped establish the Manchester Reform Association (later the National Reform Union), which called for franchise extension and the ballot.7Hurst, Edmund Potter, 39-40. He also served as president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and assiduously campaigned on the cotton supply question.8A. Howe, The Cotton Masters (1984), 242.

Potter stood at the 1861 by-election at Carlisle, necessitated by the death of Sir James Graham, and offered himself ‘not in his individual capacity, but as a supporter of the Liberal party’.9Daily News, 27 Nov. 1861. He championed his ability as ‘a commercial representative’ and lamented the disastrous effect that the ‘silly, foolish, mischievous quarrel with America’ was having on workers in the cotton trade.10Hurst, Edmund Potter, 51-2. He narrowly defeated his Conservative opponent by three votes and, following a campaign marked by great disorder, was re-elected in second place at the 1865 general election.11Newcastle Courant, 14 July 1865. A frequent attender, Potter’s votes underlined his loyalty to progressive Liberalism. He voted for church rate abolition, 14 May 1862, the tests abolition (Oxford) bill, 16 Mar. 1864, the borough franchise bill, 11 May 1864, and the Russell ministry’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866. He followed Gladstone into the division lobby on most other major issues, including the main clauses of the Derby ministry’s representation of the people bill, and his Irish church resolutions, 3 Apr. 1868.

Although an irregular speaker, Potter made a number of expert interventions on commercial matters. In his first handful of speeches, he doggedly pressed the government to provide relief for cotton manufacturing districts, arguing, in debates on the Union relief aid bill, that the poor law was ill-equipped to cope with the ‘amazing amount’ of distress that threatened ‘ruin such as no man could estimate’, 9 May, 24 July, 28 July 1862. He subsequently moved for the appointment of a royal commission to inquire into the state of the country’s cotton manufacturing districts, arguing that, with ‘no fewer than 80,000 able-bodied men walking about in enforced idleness’, the ‘seeds of demoralization which had been sown should not be allowed to bear fruit’, 27 Apr. 1863. However, although his motion was vociferously supported by Cobden, it failed to garner the support of the House and was withdrawn. Potter’s commercial expertise was also evident in his contributions on the sugar duties question. An assiduous questioner of witnesses on the 1862 select committee, he unsuccessfully opposed Gladstone’s proposal to retain the sliding scale system by pressing for a single uniform duty, 15 Apr. 1864, and developed his arguments in the pamphlet The Sugar Duties (1864).12PP 1862 (390), xiii. 2.

Potter’s avid interest in artistic education was reflected not only in his contributions to debate but also his diligent select committee service. Always a probing questioner who displayed a mastery of detail, the report of the 1864 select committee on schools of art, on which he sat, noted that Potter had ‘watched the growth and progress of art education in the country for the past 30 to 40 years’, and he brought further expertise to select committees on the Paris exhibition and scientific instruction.13PP 1864 (466), xii. 135; PP 1867 (433), x. 609; PP 1867-68 (432), xv. 2. Although a zealous advocate of art education, he believed that employers rather than the state should fund schools of design. He criticised ‘how recklessly the public money had been spent’ on the South Kensington museum, and unsuccessfully moved that spending on schools of science and art should be reduced by £1,000, 1 June 1865. In a debate on scientific instruction, he warned against ‘any attempt to make grants for education to those who were very well able to pay for it themselves’, arguing that ‘if our employers of labour did not come forward as they ought to do to provide this education, it was not the duty of the government to supply their deficiencies’, 24 Mar. 1868.

Potter’s commitment to laissez-faire was also evident in his outspoken criticism of trade unions, co-operation, and limited liability legislation.14Hewitt, ‘Potter, Edmund’. A member of the 1865 and 1866 select committees on the master and servant bill, he was reluctant to press ahead with reform on the issue and took pride in the fact that ‘as an employer’ he ‘never put the law in force against any of his workmen’, 4 June 1867.15PP 1865 (370), viii. 2; PP 1866 (449), xiii. 2. However, he pressed for state intervention in matters of sanitary reform and education, speaking in support of the Derby ministry’s artisans’ and labourers’ dwellings bill, 27 Mar. 1867, and calling for ‘a compulsory system of education for the labouring classes’, 24 June 1868. Moreover, after initially opposing the Factory Acts, he became ‘a convert on seeing their beneficial working’, 17 June 1864, and pressed for further reform as a member of the 1867 select committee on the Factory Acts extension and hours of labour regulation bill.16PP 1867 (429), ix. 576.

Re-elected in 1868, Potter remained implacably opposed to trade unions, insisting that ‘forty-five years’ experience had taught him that trade unions did no good to the men, and certainly no good to the masters’, 7 July 1869. His health declining, he placed his eldest son Edmund (1830-1883) in charge of Dinting Vale, and retired from Parliament at the dissolution in 1874.17Hewitt, ‘Potter, Edmund’. He died at Camfield Place, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, in October 1883, leaving estates valued at £441,970 10s. 9d.18The Times, 29 Oct. 1883; England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, Index of wills and administration, 1861-1941, 17 Jan. 1884. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, Rupert William, a barrister, whose eldest daughter was Beatrix Potter, the artist and children’s writer. Potter’s papers and correspondence are held at the Derbyshire record office.19Derbys. RO, Edmund Potter and Co. MSS.