CHILD, Smith (1808-1896), of Rownall Hall, Staffordshire

A Conservative landed gentlemen, Child was a devout churchman. A member of the National Club, he was a reliable and vocal supporter of ultra-Protestant causes. He declared that ‘it is of the utmost consequence to uphold the Protestant principles which are interwoven with our constitution and laws’.1Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 Apr. 1852. The Tory squire Ralph Sneyd, of Keele Park, described Child as ‘a very good man & Conservative – not aback in the category of the County Candidates of 25 years ago’.2Ralph Sneyd to earl of Clare, 10 Feb. 1851, Sneyd MSS, Keele University Library, SC 7/194. Child voted in 61 (23.7%) of 257 divisions and 79 (39.8%) out of 198 divisions in the 1852-3 and 1856 sessions respectively.3Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck (1857), 17.

Child succeeded to the family estate of Rownall Hall in his infancy. He was a rumoured protectionist candidate for North Staffordshire at the 1847 general election, but did not offer.4Staffordshire Advertiser, 3, 10 July 1847. He was returned unopposed for the same constituency at a by-election in February 1851. Liberals complained that local apathy had secured the election of a man ‘hitherto almost unknown beyond the precincts of his own parish’ put up ‘by a half-Puseyite parson and a knot of protectionists’.5Daily News, 24 Feb. 1851. A more favourable observer remarked that Child was ‘an active county magistrate, benevolent and respected in his peculiar sphere, but hitherto he has not displayed any of the abilities that are most essential in a senator’.6Qu. in ibid. During his campaign, Child advocated industrial protection and agricultural relief, and staunch support for the established churches of England and Ireland.7Ibid.

Child took his seat at Westminster in time to back the ecclesiastical titles bill, which he considered a necessary response to the turmoil caused by the Pope’s establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in England, 21 Mar. 1851.8Hansard, 21 Mar. 1851, vol. 115, cc. 366-8. In the same year he cast votes for Disraeli’s motion for agricultural relief and Cayley’s proposal to repeal the malt duty, 25 Mar., 11 Apr. 1851. The following year, after opposing assorted schemes for electoral reform, Child was returned unopposed at the general election in July. The main themes of his campaign were agricultural distress and Protestantism. Although he conceded that it was impossible to restore protection, he argued for the modification of income tax in order to relieve farmers.9Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 Apr. 1852. As the chairman of the North Staffordshire Protestant Association, Child described the Catholic seminary at Maynooth as an ‘anomaly’ in a Protestant country and proudly declared that he had voted against Jewish emancipation ‘on every occasion’.10Staffordshire Advertiser, 17, 24 Apr. 1852.

In the ensuing parliament Child repeatedly cast votes against Jewish relief and in favour of Richard Spooner’s anti-Maynooth campaign. In the 1852-53 divisions on financial policy he backed the budget of Disraeli and opposed that of Gladstone. In the same session he expressed concern that the Canadian church should be treated in the same way as the ‘Church at home’ and opposed the use of church revenues and property for non-sacred duties, 11 Apr. 1853.11Hansard, 11 Apr. 1853, vol. 125, cc. 960-3. He later condemned Jewish relief as a fatal breach in the Protestant constitution and Parliament’s Christian character, 15 Apr. 1853.12Hansard, 15 Apr. 1853, vol. 125, cc. 1242-5. He was in the majority which voted Aberdeen’s government out of office, 29 Jan. 1855, and later supported the censure motions of Disraeli and Roebuck on Palmerston’s management of the Crimean war, 25 May, 19 July 1855. In 1856 Child introduced a bill to allow patrons to sell off advowsons, the right to appoint parsons, and borrow funds to establish new advowsons. The bill progressed as far as a second reading.13Hansard, 21 May 1856, vol. 142, cc. 466-7.

Although he voted in favour of Cobden’s Canton motion, 3 Mar. 1857, at the ensuing general election, Child denied that he had ‘any hostile feeling to the government’.14Staffordshire Advertiser, 14 Mar. 1857. However, he later attacked Liberals for attempting to present Palmerston as ‘something infallible; a sort of Political Pope’.15Daily News, 31 Mar. 1857. He reiterated his hostility to the ‘unjust and oppressive’ income tax.16Staffordshire Advertiser, 4 Apr. 1857. After his re-election in second place, Child reaffirmed his opposition to the Sunday opening of the British Museum, although he thought its opening hours should be extended on weekdays, 2 July 1857.17Hansard, 2 July 1857, vol. 146, cc. 809-10. He was in the majority that turned out Palmerston’s government on the conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, and later seconded Slaney’s abortive motion to establish a board or commission to consider and propose ‘practical suggestions’ to benefit the working classes, 18 Mar. 1858.18Hansard, 18 Mar. 1858, vol. 149, cc. 343-6. Child retired at the 1859 general election after backing Derby’s reform bill.

An active philanthropist, in 1867 Child established and endowed a hospital for children in north Staffordshire. He also founded art and language classes in Staffordshire connected with the pottery trade, and provided funds ‘for sending convalescents to the seaside, for nursing at poor homes, and for providing surgical appliances for poor people’.19Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 4 Apr. 1896. Granted a baronetcy by Disraeli in 1868, later that year Child was returned for the new division of West Staffordshire but retired at the 1874 general election.20McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 273. The highlight of his second spell in Parliament was introducing and passing the Sale of Advowsons Act in 1870.21F. Boase, Modern English biography, supplement (1912), i. 654. Having predeceased his two sons, on his death in 1896 his title and estate passed to his grandson Sir Smith Hill Child, 2nd baronet (1880-1958), Conservative MP for Stone, 1918-22.22Burke’s peerage and baronetage (1949), 403-4; M. Stenton and S. Lees, Who’s who of British Members of Parliament (1979), iii. 64.