MARTIN, James (1807-1878), of 68 Lombard Street, London, Mdx. and Chislehurst, Kent

Martin was born in Lombard Street, London, where his father was a senior partner in the family banking business of Martin, Stone, and Co., (famous as ‘The Grasshopper’), of which he became a junior partner in 1830.1J.B. Martin, “The Grasshopper” in Lombard Street (1892), 100, 102. His opulent family also owned land in the rural west midlands and had represented Tewkesbury for much of the previous century, his grandfather and father having sat as Whig reformers, 1776-1807, 1812-32, and his older brother, John, as a Liberal, 1832-5 and 1837-59.2I.S. Black, ‘Martin family’, Oxf. DNB, ?. ?; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 558-62; HP Commons, 1820-1832, vi. 362-4; W.R. Williams, The Parliamentary History of the County of Gloucester (1898), 248-55; Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 262.

Upon his father’s death in 1832 Martin inherited freehold property in Herefordshire and became a member of Tewkesbury corporation.3HP Commons, 1820-1832, vi. 364. Although a friend of parliamentary reform and a supporter of his brother’s claims on the borough from the early 1830s, Martin appears to have played little part in politics until his brother retired on grounds of ill-health at the 1859 general election.4Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 20 Oct. 1831, 17 Jan. 1833. Coming forward ‘to please his fellow-burgesses’, he adhered ‘to the old Whig principles of his family’ and stood as ‘the decided friend of civil and religious liberty’. A supporter of free trade, retrenchment, and an advocate of popular education (‘ignorance’, he insisted, ‘being the mother of all crime’), he endorsed the ministry, citing the penny postage scheme as a prime example of useful Liberal reform.5Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 30 Apr. 1859; Standard, 30 Apr. 1859; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1864), 251-2. Eager to extend the elective franchise, he was in favour of admitting the working classes to a share of political power proportionate to their ‘increasing intelligence’. He was returned without opposition.6Morning Post, 16 Apr. 1859; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 30 Apr. 1859.

Martin is not known to have spoken in the Commons, served on any select committees or introduced any bills. He generally supported Lord Palmerston’s ministry, backing Lord Hartington’s want of confidence motion in the Derby ministry, 10 June 1859, but not infrequently voted against the government in favour of progressive measures of reform. He supported the ministry over the budget, 24 Feb. 1860, and divided in favour of the paper duties repeal bill, 12 Mar., and the second reading of the Maynooth College bill, 20 July (later opposing a motion to consider the withdrawal of the college’s endowment, 4 June 1861). With regard to electoral reform, he consistently opposed the ballot, 20 Mar. 1860 (and again, 21 June 1864), but divided in favour of widening the franchise for the counties and boroughs, 13 Mar., 10 Apr. 1861. He favoured other progressive measures and, having voted against the continuation of church rates in July 1860, backed Trelawny’s church rates abolition bill, 14 May 1862. He voted against Gladstone’s planned grant for the purchase of the exhibition buildings at Kensington, 2 July 1863, and differed with Palmerston over British policy. Regarding the American Civil War and the dispute between Prussia and Denmark over Schleswig Holstein, he told his constituents in 1865 that he ‘heartily sympathised with the South, and was willing to support the Dane’, but still gave the prime minister credit ‘for keeping clear of a war’ on those questions, and supported the ministry on the vote of censure, 8 July 1864. He also backed the government over the union chargeability bill, 27 Mar. 1865, which he believed would save ratepayers in his constituency ‘something like £400 a year’.7Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 July 1865. He remained committed to other measures of reform, supporting Baines’s borough franchise bill, 8 May 1865, and voting for the abolition of university tests, 14 June 1865.

After receiving the backing of his local Liberal Association in November 1864, Martin came forward again for Tewkesbury at the 1865 general election, standing on the strength of his recorded votes in parliament, his promotion of local interests, and the achievements of the Liberal government.8Standard, 22 Nov. 1864; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 1, 15 July 1865. After being beaten into third place in the poll, he offered again after the Liberal member retired to contest West Worcestershire in March 1866, but was narrowly defeated by a Conservative.9Morning Post, 10 Mar. 1866; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 17 Mar. 1866. Thereafter he took no part in politics.

Martin remained a bachelor and lived with his widowed mother at Camden until her death in 1862. After his elder brother John retired from the family bank (now Martin & Co.) in 1875, he became the senior partner, and was in the habit of riding to London to do business, being ‘perhaps, one of the last to keep up this practice’.10Martin, “The Grasshopper” in Lombard Street, 103, 105; G. Chandler, Four Centuries of Banking; as illustrated by the bankers, customers, and staff associated with the constituent banks of Martins Bank Limited, i (1964), 316. The bank remained independent until absorbed by the Barclays Group in 1969. Having suffered from angina pectoris for some time, he died very suddenly at Cannon Street station while leaving his place of business for his residence at Chislehurst, Kent in August 1878.11Martin, “The Grasshopper” in Lombard Street, 105. He was buried at Overbury, Worcestershire, and his personalty was sworn under £500,000.12Bristol Mercury, 23 Aug. 1878; Williams, Parliamentary History of Gloucester, 257. He left no heir, and in his will bequeathed most of his property to his nephew John Biddulph Martin (1841-97), a London banker.13Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 28 Sept. 1878.