| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Hereford | 5 Oct. 1841 – 1847 |
The younger son of ‘one of the wealthiest and most honourable merchants that ever shed lustre on the annals of our great Metropolis’, Pulsford represented Hereford as a Liberal for one parliament, leaving little trace of activity other than in the division lists.[1] Pulsford’s father William was a rich London merchant and slave-owner. On his death in 1833 he left a personal estate valued at £250,000.[2] After the abolition of slavery in 1833, Pulsford’s elder brother William successfully claimed compensation amounting to almost £8,000 for almost 400 slaves on the Aleppo, Sunning Hill estates (both Jamaica) and the Orange Valley plantation in Tobago. He was unsuccessful in claims for the loss of 205 slaves employed on two Antigua estates.[3]
On the sudden resignation of the Liberal MP for Hereford in October 1841, Pulsford was returned after winning an easy victory. Having no apparent connection with the constituency, his election was smoothed by the assistance of his brother-in-law, the future Liberal chief whip William Goodenough Hayter, MP for Wells, who accompanied Pulsford during the campaign and spoke in his favour.[4] At the nomination Pulsford was described as ‘a gentleman of fortune, considerable attainments and the son of one of the most eminent merchants in London’.[5] He backed the low fixed duty on corn proposed by the late Whig government. He told electors that ‘he had travelled a good deal; he had seen the effect of the despotic institutions in the east’, which he contrasted with the ‘happiness, comfort, and wealth of those who lived under a liberal government’.[6]
A silent member, Pulsford informed Charles Dod, compiler of the leading parliamentary guide, that he would ‘vote for all liberal measures & for the ballot’.[7] In the 1842 session he opposed Peel’s revised sliding scale on corn and the reintroduction of income tax. He was in the majority, with Conservative ministers and the Whig leadership, that rejected William Miles’ amendment to levy the duty on foreign cattle by weight, a measure backed by many protectionists.[8] He was generally undeviating in his support for the new poor law and the poor law commission.
His division in favour of Villiers’s anti-corn law motion, 15 May 1843, was commended by a testimonial from 200 Hereford electors, who expressed their ‘entire approval’ with his stance.[9] However, the Conservative Hereford Journal sniped that Pulsford was an ‘illustrious stranger’, who would not be recognised by one in fifty of the city’s inhabitants were he to visit.[10] He backed motions for a more conciliatory Irish policy, 12 July 1843, 23 Feb. 1844, but opposed a ten hour day for factory workers, 13 May 1844. He joined other Liberal free traders in supporting Miles’ amendment to reduce the duty on colonial sugar, 14 June 1844.
An advocate of religious liberty, Pulsford divided in favour of the 1845 Maynooth college bill. Perhaps with that measure in mind, Pulsford remarked to constituents later that year that when he first entered the Commons he expected to oppose the government on everything. He had since realised that ‘the principles which the Liberal party consistently advocated, Sir Robert Peel, though tortuously, now pursued’.[11] Before the 1846 session, Pulsford explained his shift of opinion on the corn laws: ‘though at one time I was favourable to a moderate fixed duty as a stepping-stone to allay the alarms of the Agriculturists (which by the way always appeared to be groundless), I have long been convinced that the wisest course would be a total repeal’.[12] Accordingly, he supported Peel’s corn importation bill at every stage. Once repeal had been secured, he voted in the majority to eject Peel from office over the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846.
Pulsford retired in favour of another Liberal at the 1847 general election. He explained that ‘for sometime past … ill health has … prevented … assiduous attention to my parliamentary duties’.[13] The Hereford Journal noted that ‘it is useless to conceal the fact that had he again presented himself as a candidate, such is the dissatisfaction of many of his former supporters at some of his votes, that Hereford would have been too hot to hold him’.[14]
Relations between Pulsford and his sister and Hayter later soured over the will of his elder brother William Pulsford, who died in 1879. Although he received £20,000 from the settlement, Pulsford argued that had his brother been of right mind when the bequest was drawn up he would have been left with even more money. He consequently opposed the probate.[15] On his own death in 1888, Pulsford’s personal estate was sworn under £192,000. By his will, dated 16 Sept. 1879, the residue, amounting to around £107,000, together with estates in Devon, Gloucestershire and Middlesex passed to his distant cousin Charles Seale-Hayne (1833-1903), Liberal MP for Ashburton.[16]
[1] ‘Cadmus’, letter, Hereford Times, 31 July 1847.
[2] W.D. Rubinstein, Who were the rich?: a biographical dictionary of British wealth-holders (2009), i. 390.
[3] UCL Legacies of British slave-ownership project database, www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/20796.
[4] Hereford Times, 2 Oct. 1841.
[5] By Ald. Gough, Hereford Times, 9 Oct. 1841.
[6] Hereford Journal, 6 Oct. 1841.
[7] Dod MS, iii. 911.
[8] Hereford Journal, 1 June 1842.
[9] Hereford Times, 10 June 1843.
[10] Hereford Journal, 14 June 1843.
[11] Hereford Times, 9 Aug. 1845.
[12] Hereford Journal, 7 Jan. 1846.
[13] Hereford Times, 26 June 1847.
[14] Hereford Journal, 30 June 1847.
[15] Reading Mercury, 7 Feb. 1880.
[16] Star, qu. in Edinburgh Evening News, 29 Sept. 1888; Western Times, 27 July 1888.