WEGUELIN, Thomas Mathias (1809-1885), of Goldings, Hertfordshire

A merchant and former governor of the Bank of England, Weguelin was an expert on commercial issues, who ‘devoted much of his attention to the subjects of finance, trade, and currency’, and was a reliable supporter of the Liberal governments of Lord Palmerston.1The Times, 14 July 1865. However, he lacked the popular touch and his official position meant that he was often attacked as a government nominee or placeman by his electoral rivals. During the acrimonious 1861 Wolverhampton by-election he was greeted with jeers of ‘ “We gull ‘em”’.2J. Lawrence, Speaking for the people: party, language and popular politics in England, 1867-1914 (1998), 82.

Weguelin’s father was an East India proprietor who also owned Bank of England stock.3A list of the names of the proprietors of East India stock (1837), 97; A list of the names of all proprietors of the stock of the Bank of England (1843), 81. Weguelin developed similar commercial interests to his father, but was also a partner in the firm of J. Thomson, T. Bonar & Company, Russia merchants. In 1856 he lobbied a select committee for the removal of the Sound dues, an impost levied by Danish ports on Baltic shipping.4PP 1856 (380), xvi. 689-98. He was appointed a director of the Bank of England in 1842, acted as deputy governor 1853-5, and served as governor from 1855 until April 1857. In February 1857 he was elected at a by-election for Southampton, his official position and mercantile background winning the backing of its ‘commercial and shipping interest’.5Daily News, 11 Feb. 1857. He was re-elected without opposition at the general election a month later after denying that he would give ‘indiscriminate support’ to Palmerston.6Hampshire Advertiser, 28 Mar. 1857.

Weguelin’s most significant contribution in his first session was his evidence to the select committee on the Bank Acts. In his testimony, he argued against altering the 1844 Bank Act, even to enforce a more rigid separation of the banking and issue departments.7J.H. Clapham, The Bank of England: a history (1958), ii. 235; PP 1857 session 2 (220), x, pt. I, pp. 17, 20-1. In his opinion, there would be no advantage if notes were issued by the Treasury or the Royal Mint. Indeed this would increase the political pressures on the currency, and the government would be subjected ‘to all the clamour and unpopularity which are engendered by financial and monetary crises’.8Ibid., 23, 81-2; qu. from Weguelin’s letter to the chancellor of the exchequer, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 10 Nov. 1856, reprinted as an appendix in ibid., pt. II, p. 11. Nor did Weguelin approve of extending the fiduciary limit, the legal limit for the amount of notes the Bank was allowed to issue against its gold reserves.9Ibid., pt. I, pp. 25, 69. Although he conceded that country bank notes were not effectively secured, Weguelin again rejected a change in the law.10Ibid., 30-3. With regard to the management of the national debt and currency, he likened the Bank’s relationship with the government to that of a private banker to his client.11Ibid., 27. He also argued that the Bank was the ‘pivot of the whole banking system’.12Ibid., 30, see also 36. Although Weguelin summed up the 1844 Act as a ‘fair settlement’ and defended the Bank’s record of monetary management, there were some significant differences between his views and those of his deputy and successor Sheffield Neave.13Ibid., 128. While other Bank directors preferred to raise the interest rate to stem drains of gold, Weguelin argued that shortening the terms of bills was a more effective way of raising the value of money.14Ibid., 43-5, 60, 117; Clapham, Bank of England, ii. 236.

In the chamber, Weguelin again criticised the great ‘loss and inconvenience’ the Sound dues inflicted upon merchants, 5 June 1857.15Hansard, 5 June 1857, vol. 145, cc. 1232-4. He supported the chancellor’s investment of exchequer bills in savings banks funds, 29 June 1857, and strongly urged better pensions for civil servants as a just reward for public service, 23 July 1857.16Hansard, 29 June 1857, vol. 146, c. 553; 23 July 1857, vol. 147, c. 263-70. That autumn, Weguelin and other Bank directors were ‘in great apprehension’ about the commercial crisis that had originated in America.17G. Arbuthnot to Lord Overstone, 11 Nov. 1857, in The correspondence of Lord Overstone, ed. D.P. O’Brien (1971), ii. 784. A wave of failures among merchant houses connected with U.S. trade spread to banks.18Clapham, Bank of England, ii. 227-8. The crisis was eventually averted by the raising of the Bank rate to stem the outflow of gold, a policy which Weguelin initially opposed, and by the Chancellor’s insistence that the Bank Acts be temporarily suspended, despite the qualms of a number of Bank directors and other financial experts.19Ibid., 228-34; E.D. Steele, Palmerston and liberalism, 1855-65 (1991), 194-6.

Weguelin was an active participant in the financial debates that took place after Parliament’s emergency recall in December 1857. Although he was a supporter of limited liability, he denied that the unlimited liability of joint-stock banks was a prime cause of the crisis, 8 Dec. 1857, and argued that the distinction between limited and unlimited liability in banks was often unclear.20J. Savile, ‘Sleeping partnership and limited liability, 1850-1856’, Economic History Review, 8 (1956), 418-33 (at 427); Hansard, 8 Dec. 1857, vol. 148, cc. 376-8 (at 376-7). The chief problem all banks faced was getting a good manager, although ‘it was easy enough to get ornamental and aristocratic directors’.21Ibid., 378. He later denied that the government’s letter (suspending the Bank Acts) had allayed the crisis, 11 Dec. 1857.22Hansard, 11 Dec. 1857, vol. 148, cc. 659-62 (at 662). In Weguelin’s view, the crisis stemmed from the over-consumption during the Crimean War, which people had wrongly assumed would continue in peacetime.23Ibid., 661-2. The implication was that commercial distress arose from ‘reasonable and natural causes’ rather than legislation, a view that led Weguelin to support the 1858 report of the select committee on the Bank Acts that essentially endorsed the status quo.24Ibid., 662; PP 1857-58 (381), v. 73.

Weguelin backed Palmerston in the votes on the conspiracy to murder bill in 1858. In the same session he argued that as banking was different from other businesses, the principle of limited liability should be modified to ensure that banks were stable. However, his amendment to the joint-stock companies bill to preserve a degree of individual liability for joint-stock banks was rejected 40-128, 10 June 1858.25Hansard, 10 June 1858, vol. 150, cc. 1912-13. He later opposed legislation to register all partnerships, considering it useless and an unwarranted interference in commercial affairs, 23 June 1858.26Hansard, 23 June 1858, vol. 151, cc. 238-40.

Defeated at Southampton at the 1859 general election, Weguelin returned to the House after his victory in the acrimonious Wolverhampton by-election in July 1861. His two rivals described him as ‘one of the richest men in London’, a placeman, and the nominee of the local Liberal clique.27Birmingham Daily Post, 28 June 1861. During the campaign, Weguelin endorsed a £6 rateable borough franchise and the abolition of church rates and expressed qualified approval for the ballot.28The Times, 2 July 1861. Although he had opposed Derby’s 1859 reform bill, Weguelin generally backed the various county and borough franchise bills introduced by Liberal backbenchers between 1858 and 1865. He supported the partnership amendment bills introduced between 1863 and 1865 that proposed extending limited liability, which Weguelin argued was actually ‘a restriction on credit’ that would help prevent future abuse and commercial crises, 15 July 1863.29Hansard, 15 July 1863, vol. 172, c. 838. He also served on the select committee that in 1865 recommended abolishing imprisonment for debt, with a few exceptions, and establishing a court of bankruptcy.30PP 1864 (512), v. 3; 1865 (144), xii. 591, 593. He was returned unopposed for Wolverhampton at the 1865 general election after reaffirming his support for a £6 borough franchise and ‘non-intervention’ in foreign affairs.31Birmingham Daily Post, 11 July 1865.

Weguelin backed the Liberal government’s 1866 reform bill and the following year voted with the majority of Liberal MPs in favour of enfranchising compounders and lodgers and increasing the representation of the largest towns at the expense of the smaller boroughs, 12 Apr., 20, 31 May, 3,17 June 1867. However, the main focus of his parliamentary activity continued to be commercial and financial issues. He served on an 1866 committee that recommended improving the postal communication between Britain and India.32PP 1866 (428), ix. 2-8, 16-17. This probably owed something to Weguelin’s personal interests, as he had become a director of the Peninsula & Orient Steam Navigation Company in 1860, which had greatly profited from government postal contracts.33Hampshire Advertiser, 30 Apr. 1859; PP 1860 (431), xiv. 761. Weguelin championed the sale and purchase of shares bill, arguing that the restrictions the bill proposed on the sale of shares would protect the public, shareholders and depositors from ‘unprincipled speculators’, 5 Mar. 1867.34Hansard, 5 Mar. 1867, vol. 185, cc. 1409-10 (at 1409). He served on the 1868 inquiry into the expenditure and accounting practices of the admiralty, but missed the vote on its report.35PP 1867-68 (469), vi. 3, 28.

Weguelin was re-elected for Wolverhampton in 1868 and 1874 before retiring at the 1880 general election.36McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 323. He held numerous other commercial positions, being a partner in the bank of Robarts, Lubbock and Company founded in 1866, and a director of the Globe insurance company (1860) and the Paris and Strasbourg railway (1850).37F. Boase, Modern English biography (1901), iii. 1255-6; W. Carpenter, The perils of policy-holders and the liabilities of life-offices (3rd edn., 1860), 43; H. Tuck, The railway directory for 1850 (1850), 104. On his death in 1885 he left a personal estate worth £142,967, resworn at £145,064 in October 1886.38Calendars of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration (1885), 29. He was predeceased by his only son from his first marriage Christopher Weguelin (1838-81), Liberal MP for Youghal, 1868-9, who, like his father, was a partner in the Russia merchant house of Thomson, Bonar and company and became a director of the Bank of England in 1867, a year after his father’s retirement from the board.39Boase, Modern English biography, iii. 1255.