THORNELY, Thomas (1781-1862), of Mount Street, Liverpool, Lancashire

A Unitarian merchant from Liverpool, Thornely was described as a ‘worker rather than a talker’.1‘Memoir of the late Thomas Thornely’, Christian Reformer, or Unitarian Magazine, xviii (1862), 361-84 (at 374). Although he was ‘a fluent and a terse speaker’, he privately confessed that ‘I am sorry to acknowledge I am wanting in confidence or I should speak more than I do, in the House’.2Liverpool Daily Post, qu. in Birmingham Daily Post, 10 May 1862; Thomas Thornely to Henry Lee, 3 Mar. 1843, in ‘Lee-Thornely letters, 1840-1847’, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd series, 53 (1919-20), 275-325 (at 309). However, Thornely, a Radical Reformer, was a highly effective parliamentary operator. He was ‘one of the most regular attenders in the House of Commons’, voting in over 86% of divisions in 1849, 72% in 1852-3 and 70% in 1856.3Liverpool Mercury, 5 May 1862. When illness meant that he was unable to attend he was ‘sadly mortified not to take my share of public business’.4Thomas Thornely to Charles Pelham Villiers, [May or June 1845], Thornely-Villiers correspondence, 1835-1861, transcripts, 2 vols., London School of Economics, R (1094) SR, I, f. 96. An authority on trade and commercial issues, he served on a number of important select committees and offered advice and unstinting support to the anti-corn law campaign of his colleague Charles Pelham Villiers from 1838 until its successful conclusion in 1846. A loyal supporter of successive Liberal governments, Thornely was one of the industrious, quietly efficient MPs who enabled public and private business to be processed by the early and mid-Victorian House. As one obituary observed:

In many respects Mr Thornely was a model of what it is desirable, as a rule, that a Member of Parliament should be … [possessing] soundness and promptness of judgment, clearness of view, intelligent and unremitting attention to business, great practical experience as a travelled merchant, and, to crown all, inflexible consistency and uprightness of purpose.5‘Memoir of Thomas Thornely’, 374.

Thornely hailed from two distinguished Dissenting families, the Thornelys, of Hyde, Cheshire, and the Mathers, of Toxteth Park, Lancashire.6This paragraph is based on ibid., 361-3. After being schooled at Hyde Unitarian chapel, Thornely was apprenticed to the Liverpool merchant house of Rathbone, Hughes and Duncan. In 1802 he became a junior partner in the firm of Martin, Hope and Thornely, and from 1805 to 1810 he represented the business in New York. After his return he joined the campaign against the Orders in Council, through which the British attempted to restrict trade to France and the continent during the Napoleonic Wars, penning letters to the Liverpool Mercury under the pseudonym of ‘Mercator’ and organising deputations from Liverpool to lobby the government. After the Orders were repealed he refused a piece of plate voted to him by a public meeting in recognition of his efforts. From 1812 until his retirement from business in 1841 he was a partner with his brother in the firm of Thomas & John D. Thornely, American merchants.7Thornely to Lee, 5 Jan. 1851, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 287.

An original member of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, Thornely was a founder, and later secretary, treasurer and president of the Liverpool Mechanics’ Library founded in 1824, as well as a proprietor of the town’s Athenaeum.8‘Memoir of Thomas Thornely’, 377. He contested Liverpool at the October 1831 by-election and 1832 general election as a Reformer opposed to ‘commercial monopolies’ and supporting municipal reform and the abolition of slavery.9Ibid., 363-6. He was defeated both times, largely due to the corruption of the freemen.10HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 590-2.

Thornely was invited by local Reformers to contest Wolverhampton at the 1835 general election, when he was returned alongside another Liberal, Charles Pelham Villiers, against Conservative and Radical opposition. After seeing off another Conservative challenge at the 1837 general election he faced no further contests. He later remarked to Villiers that ‘we cannot be too thankful to the excellent constituency we represent. I know no constituency like them’.11Thornely to Villiers, 12 Jan. 1853, LSE R (1094) SR, II, f. 21. At Westminster, Thornely was generally associated with other Radical Reformers such as Joseph Hume and Villiers, who opposed monopolies, and supported retrenchment and political reforms including the ballot. Like them, Thornely’s attachment to the principles of political economy made him a strong supporter of the new poor law and he opposed attempts to regulate working conditions and hours in factories by legislation.

Despite his radical leanings, Thornely was a reliable Liberal voter in all the important party divisions. He made over a hundred speeches, usually brief, low-key contributions on subjects where he had expertise. In his early years in the Commons he served on parliamentary inquiries on the Weights and Measures Act, the British Museum, mining accidents, railway bills and the salt trade, the last of which recommended ‘free competition’.12PP 1835 (292), xviii. 490; 1835 (479), vii. 2-3; 1836 (440), x. 2-5; 1835 (603), v. 2-10; 1836 (511), xxi. 222-31; 1836 (518), xvii. 2-4. Thornely was a member of the 1836 select committee that offered qualified approval of the system of slave apprenticeships in the West Indies, arguing that the experiment proved that free labour was more effective than slave labour.13PP 1836 (560), xv. 2-8. He divided against a uniform national rate of postage as a member of the 1838 select committee on postage.14PP 1837-38 (278), xx, pt. I, p. 2; 1837-38 (658), xx, pt. II, p. 2; 1837-38 (708), xx, pt. I, pp. 518-21.

Thornely’s energies were increasingly directed towards promoting free trade, which he believed was the only remedy for economic distress and depression. However, in the late 1830s he thought that a total repeal of the corn laws was impracticable, and pragmatically advocated ‘a moderate fixed duty on corn’ as a first step towards free trade.15Thornely to Villiers, 10 Nov. 1836, LSE, R (1094) SR, I, f. 13. See also Thornely to Villiers, 14 Nov. 1839, 24 Oct. 1840, 23 Nov. 1840, ibid., I, ff. 51, 57-8. To this end he lobbied Whig ministers including Lord John Russell, Henry Labouchere, Lord Ebrington and Charles Poulett Thompson when they visited Liverpool and was also part of a deputation of free traders that saw Lord Melbourne.16Thornely to Villiers, 28 Oct. 1838, 20 Nov. 1838, 22 Dec. 1839, n.d. [1840], LSE, R (1094) SR, I, ff. 33, 35, 52, 54. Privately he complained that ‘our ministers are all favourable to an alteration of the corn laws’ but were ‘timid about it, knowing that they have not the support of either House of Parliament’.17Thornely to Lee, 3 Sept. 1840, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 284-5.

In 1839 he served on a select committee that pressed for further reduction in the duties on foreign fruit, lowered the previous year by the Whig government as a limited free trade experiment.18PP 1839 (398), viii. 378-83; C. Griffin, ‘Placing political economy: organising opposition to free trade before the abolition of the corn laws’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 34 (2009), 489-505 (at 500). Even more important was the 1840 inquiry on import duties, essentially a propaganda exercise orchestrated by free trade MPs including Thornely, Villiers and Hume. Evidence from board of trade officials and merchants was used to support revision of and reductions in import duties, which it was argued would boost trade and revenue.19PP 1840 (601), v. 100-7. Although he was not entirely satisfied with the report, Thornely thought the evidence ‘discloses a system which is perfectly disgraceful to a commercial community’.20Thornely to Lee, 18 Sept. 1840, 19 Oct. 1840, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 286-7 (at 286). Thornely briefly spoke in favour of Villiers’s unsuccessful motion that the anti-corn law petitioners be heard at the bar of the Commons, 19 Feb. 1839, and he offered valuable private support and tactical advice to his colleague during his parliamentary campaign for free trade.21Hansard, 19 Feb. 1839, vol. 45, c. 655. He also provided essential information to Villiers, particularly regarding grain prices and American trade policy.

Thornely enthusiastically backed the Whigs when they finally adopted his preferred policy of a low fixed duty on corn in May 1841. Although the government was defeated and the Conservatives victorious at the subsequent general election, Thornely was ‘delighted the fight has come’ as he was confident that free trade principles would ultimately triumph.22Thornely to Lee, 25 May 1841, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 291. He urged the new Conservative government to adopt free trade measures to alleviate the manufacturing depression, 20 Sept. 1841.23Hansard, 20 Sept. 1841, vol. 59, cc. 636-9. Privately, he had a low opinion of Peel, ‘a narrow minded man’, and thought that he ‘will not dare boldly to attack the fortress of Monopoly’.24Thornely to Lee, 3 Sept. 1840, 27 Jan. 1842, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 284, 301. He disliked the 1842 revised sliding scale of duties on corn, but welcomed the general revision of tariffs, commenting that ‘Sir Robert Peel shall have my vote, wherever he proposes the removal of prohibitions and of protective duties’.25Thornely to Lee, 3 Feb. 1842, 2 Mar. 1842, 2 Apr. 1842, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 301-3 (at 303).

In autumn 1842 Thornely went on a two-month tour of the United States covering 2,000 miles.26Thornely to Villiers, 16 Nov. 1842, LSE, R (1094) SR, I, f. 78. His trip was an exercise in informal commercial diplomacy, lobbying American businessmen and politicians on the advantages of freer trade and lowering their high tariffs. He even saw the president, John Tyler, in Washington, to emphasise the benefits to American manufacturers from Peel’s revision of import duties. 27Thornely to Villiers, 28 Oct. 1842, LSE, R (1094) SR, I, f. 76. He drew on his American experiences in a series of speech in the following session, informing the House that the president had told him that ‘ “I do not see how we can trade largely with your country, while your present corn law exists”’, 15 May 1843.28Hansard, 15 May 1843, vol. 69, c. 365. From 1832 to 1842 the American tariff had allowed a gradual reduction of duties on British goods, but Britain had not responded with reciprocal measures. Peel’s concessions had come too late, as the ‘high tariff party was at present the popular party’ in America and had passed a prohibitive tariff in Congress.29Ibid., c. 366. See also Hansard, 16, 19, 29 May 1843, vol. 69, cc. 426-7, 613-15, 991. Outside Parliament, Thornely chaired public meetings of the Anti-Monopoly Association, Liverpool’s main free trade pressure group. He described Richard Cobden as ‘very clever, honest and not an adventurer’, but like Villiers kept a certain distance from the Anti-Corn Law League.30Thornely to Villiers, 10 Nov. 1841, LSE, R (1094) SR, I, f. 65. Thornely denied the distinction between free and slave-grown sugar and accordingly supported the lowering of duty on foreign sugar in 1845.31Thornely to Lee, 18 July 1844, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 318; Hansard, 3, 5 Mar. 1845, vol. 78, cc. 239-41, 322-3. The following year he was in the majorities that voted for the repeal of the corn laws. He preferred Peel to pass the measure, as he thought it was more important for Lord John Russell to assume the mantle as ‘leader of the Free Trade party’ than to be in office.32Thornely to Villiers, 14 Dec. 1845, LSE, R (1094) SR, I, f. 106;

Although free trade consumed much of Thornely’s energies, he made important contributions in other areas. In 1844 he played a vital part in the passing of the Dissenters’ chapels bill, which he noted ‘added very much to my labours’.33Thornely to Lee, 18 July 1844, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 318. He remained silent in debate and persuaded other Dissenting MPs to do so, leaving the case to be made by ‘impartial statesmen’ from both sides of the House, including Peel, Gladstone and Macaulay.34‘Memoir of Thomas Thornely’, 372-4 (at 373). A member of many railway committees, in 1844 Thornely successfully moved a clause that third-class passengers should pay the same fare on Sundays as during the rest of the week.35Ibid., 374. He strongly supported the Maynooth College Act of 1845, even though he was criticised by many of his Dissenting constituents. Thornely thought they were ‘most wrong-headed’ on the issue and motivated by crude ‘ “No Popery”’ feeling.36Thornely to Villiers, 25 Aug. 1845, LSE, R (1094) SR, I, f. 99.

Thornely was also an expert on monetary issues. Although he was ‘not sure about a currency entirely metallic’, he contended that critics of the 1819 Bank Act like the Birmingham school of Thomas Attwood were ‘wrong-headed’.37Thornely to Lee, 3 Sept. 1840, 3 Dec. 1841, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 284, 298. He believed that Peel’s 1844 Bank Charter Act was ‘managed with great skill, and I think it will be a great check upon paper issues’.38Thornely to Lee, 18 July 1844, 318. Always fearful of speculation, he warned Villiers against investing in the railways, which in his view was a bubble waiting to burst. The companies were ‘got up in consequence of the great abundance of money’ and the value of railway stocks and shares would fall when the credit dried up.39Thornely to Villiers, 27 Nov. 1844, LSE, R (1094) SR, I, f. 92. Thornely blamed the commercial crisis of late 1847 on ‘the country Joint Stock Banks’ for ‘carrying on a very wild business’. ‘Speculation and over trading’ had caused ‘terrible mischief’, and those banks that had failed had deserved to.40Thornely to Lee, 30 Nov. 1847, ‘Lee-Thornely letters’, 324-5. Accordingly, he sided with the majority who defended the Bank Acts against assorted critics on the 1847-48 secret committee on commercial distress.41PP 1847-48 (395), viii, pt. I, pp. 2, 11-13. He responded similarly to the next commercial crisis in 1857, blaming it on a ‘terrible system of speculation’.42Thornely to Villiers, 17 Nov. 1857, LSE, R (1094) SR, II, f. 60.

In the second half of his parliamentary career, from 1847 to 1859, Thornely offered loyal support to the Liberal and coalition governments led by Russell, Aberdeen and Palmerston. He repeatedly cast votes in favour of Jewish relief and the abolition of the church rates and continued to press for the removal of existing restrictions on trade such as the navigation laws and the quarantine laws.43Hansard, 18 Mar. 1847, vol. 91, c. 159; 24 July 1849, vol. 107, c. 896. He was sceptical about the appointment of Gladstone, who he thought had a ‘cloudy mind’, as chancellor of the exchequer in 1852, preferring Charles Wood, but he was won over by Gladstone’s ambitious budget of 1853.44Thornely to Villiers, 31 Jan. 1853, LSE, R (1094) SR, II, f. 22. A long-time advocate of the ballot, Thornely voted for Hume’s motion for the ‘little Charter’ in 1848, 1849 and 1850 and Locke King’s proposal to equalise the borough and county franchises in the early 1850s. However, he stood aloof from the agitation of the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association for the ‘little Charter’, regarding its driving force, Sir Joshua Walmsley, MP for Bolton, as ‘a great schemer’.45Thornely to Villiers, 13 Oct. 1851, LSE, R (1094) SR, II, f. 16. Walmsley, like Thornely, was a retired Liverpool merchant. Thornely’s experiences of Liverpool elections made him an enthusiastic champion of disenfranchising freemen and he supported the limited disenfranchisement of small boroughs.46Thornely to Villiers, 10, 11, 17 Jan. 1854 and n.d. [1854], LSE, R (1094) SR, II, f. 22, 25-7. However, he had always opposed universal suffrage and was generally sceptical about substantially extending the franchise, or giving more seats to large boroughs which already had ‘enormous expenses’.47Thornely to Villiers, 13 Jan. 1859, LSE, R (1094) SR, II, f. 68. In the late 1850s he was critical of the reform campaign of John Bright ‘who never gives any credit to the Reformed Parliament for the immense good it has done’.48Ibid.

As a respected parliamentarian, Thornely served on a number of committees relating to Commons administration and procedure including on offices (1849), standing orders (1849 and 1852) and printing (1854-55).49PP 1849 (258), xii. 390; 1849 (525), xii. 462; 1852 (512), v. 511; 1854 (434), vii. 304; 1854-55 (447), xi. 8. From 1844 to 1853 he was chairman of the select committee on public petitions, and he also served on the small committee that selected members to sit on election committees.50‘Memoir of Thomas Thornely’, 375. In 1857 Thornely seconded the election of John Evelyn Denison as the new speaker, stating that he ‘has all the qualifications to make an excellent speaker’.51Hansard, 30 Apr. 1857, vol. 145, cc. 7-8. Privately, however, Thornely thought Denison the ‘least promising’ of the potential candidates and believed that Edward Baines, MP for Leeds, would be a better choice.52Thornely to Villiers, 16 Apr. 1857 and n.d. [Apr. 1857], LSE, R (1094) SR, II, ff. 47-8. By this time, Thornely felt that he was ‘failing in both mind and body’, with trembling in his hands spreading to other parts of his body, which was diagnosed as ‘a sort of paralysis’.53Thornely to Villiers, 10 Dec. 1856, LSE, R (1094) SR, II, f. 42. As his health was ‘no longer equal to fulfilling the duties of a Member of Parliament’, he retired at the 1859 general election.54Thornely to Villiers, n.d. [1859], LSE, R (1094) SR, II, f. 70.

A lifelong bachelor who lived with his sister, Thornely died in 1862, his personal estate of £40,000 passing to his nephews William and James Thornely, of Liverpool, who continued the family merchant house.55Calendar of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration (1862), 91. Transcripts of Thornely’s correspondence with Villiers are held by the London School of Economics, and Thornely’s letters to Henry Brougham and Robert Heywood are kept by University College London and Bolton Archives respectively. His letters to an American correspondent, mostly about trade and monetary issues, were published in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, volume 53 (1919-20