WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 A MEMOIR
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 A MEMOIR 
 
 BY 
 
 ELEANOR F. RATHBONE 
 
 ILontion 
 MACM1LLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK I THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1905 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 First Edition, March 1905 
 Reprinted, April 1905
 
 5140363 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT became clear after my father's death, that among his 
 fellow-citizens in Liverpool, his former constituents in 
 Wales, and his fellow-workers and friends everywhere, 
 there were many who would value a record of his life. 
 It is for these that this Memoir is intended. Owing to 
 the number and variety of his activities, I found it im- 
 possible to keep the book as short as I wished, without 
 making it either too vaguely general on the one hand, or 
 a mere string of facts and names on the other. But it 
 has been so arranged, that readers interested in any one 
 subject at which he worked will usually find what they 
 want in one chapter, and can leave out as much as they 
 like of the rest. 
 
 Apart from the familiar pitfalls, that lie in the path of 
 any one who attempts to write about the life of a very 
 near relation, there have been other difficulties. When 
 my father left London, he destroyed nearly all the papers 
 that had accumulated during his twenty- six years of 
 Parliamentary life. This obliged me to rely, for those 
 years, too much upon newspaper reports and the recollec- 
 tions, of himself and others, written down long after the 
 event. It also aggravated the difficulty inevitably great
 
 vi WJLLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 when one was describing work done so closely in con- 
 junction with others of steering a course between 
 claiming too little and claiming too much. The know- 
 ledge of how greatly he would have himself preferred the 
 former extreme could not but influence me, at times 
 perhaps overmuch. But to do what he would have con- 
 sidered justice to those who worked with him, has been 
 impossible in the space at my command. 
 
 The shortcomings of the book would have been even 
 greater than they are but for the help of many friends. 
 The Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University (Mr. A. 
 W. W. Dale) and Mr. A. F. Warr have both found time, 
 amid the great pressure of their own work, to read through 
 a large part of the typed script, and to make many valu- 
 able suggestions. Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, Principal 
 Reichel, and Professor MacCunn have also been good 
 enough to read each the portion which treated of work 
 with which they had been intimately connected, and to 
 supply me with interesting notes. Some suggestive notes 
 on my father's political work were given me by Mr. James 
 Bryce. Other friends have lent letters and answered 
 inquiries, and I take this opportunity of thanking them 
 all. The help of my mother and other members of my 
 family has been, of course, even more indispensable. 
 
 December 1904.
 
 CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE EARLIER WILLIAM RATHBONES OF LIVERPOOL . i 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY YEARS 1819 TO 1842 . . . . -55 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 GETTING AND SPENDING . . . . . .105 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 BEGINNINGS OF PUBLIC WORK 1847 TO 1859 . . 131 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WORK FOR NURSING . . . . . 155 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 POLITICS AND PARLIAMENT 1862 TO 1869 . .187
 
 viii WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE WORK OF A PRIVATE MEMBER 1869 TO 1880 . 224 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 \ 
 
 LIVERPOOL POLITICS AND ELECTION CONTESTS 1880 . 284 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WORK FOR EDUCATION ...... 325 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE POOR LAW, CHARITY AND SOCIAL REFORM . . 363 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY WORK 1881 TO 1895 . . . 397 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 RELIGION AND THE AFFAIRS OF RELIGION . . . 427 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OLD AGE 1895 TO 1902 ..... 453 
 
 NOTE 495 
 
 INDEX . 497
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE, tftat. 80 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE (1726-1789) 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 
 GREEN BANK 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Face page 6 
 
 10 
 
 3 6 
 
 4
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EARLIER WILLIAM RATHBONES OF LIVERPOOL 
 
 THE first William Rathbone to settle in Liverpool 
 was the great-great-grandfather of the subject of 
 this Memoir. He was born in 1696, the third 
 son of William Rathbone of Gawsworth, near 
 Macclesfield, and of Martha Vigour his wife. At 
 an unknown date, but certainly before i 730, he left 
 that most picturesque and charming of Cheshire 
 hamlets, and came, as it is believed, to set up a 
 sawmill in Liverpool, being perhaps attracted 
 thither by the recent and rapidly growing pros- 
 perity of the town. At the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century the population had been five 
 thousand and odd. By 1710 it had doubled. 
 By 1750 it had doubled again, reaching 20,000. 
 Only at the very end of the previous century had 
 the town attained the dignity of a separate parish 
 church. Before that it was a mere hamlet in the 
 ecclesiastical parish of Walton, served by a small 
 chapel-of-ease, now the Church of St. Nicholas.
 
 2 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 The petition put forward by the Corporation in 
 favour of the change gives their own account of 
 the causes of their increasing prosperity, but makes 
 no mention of the chief cause of all the growth 
 in the cotton manufacture of Lancashire, and the 
 need of a convenient port for the export of 
 " Manchester goods " and the import of raw 
 material and necessaries for the manufacturing 
 population. 
 
 THE CASE OF THE CORPORATION OF LIVERPOOL in 
 Relation to a Bill for making a new Church there. 
 
 It was formerly a small fishing-town, but many 
 people coming from London in time of the sickness and 
 after the fire, several ingenious men settled in Liverpool, 
 which caused them to trade to the plantations and other 
 places, which occasioned sundry other tradesmen to 
 come and settle there, which hath so enlarged their 
 trade, that from scarce paying the salary of the officers 
 of the Customs, it is now the third port of the trade of 
 England, and pays upwards of ^50,000 per annum to 
 the King ; and by reason of such increase many new 
 streets are built, and still in building ; and many gentle- 
 men's sons of the counties of Lancaster, Yorkshire, 
 Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, and North Wales, 
 are put apprentices in the town. And there being but 
 one chapel, which doth not contain one -half of our 
 inhabitants in the summer, upon pretence of going to 
 the parish church, which is two long miles, and there 
 being a village in the way, they drink in the said village, 
 by which and otherwise many youth and sundry families
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1696-1746) 3 
 
 are ruined ; therefore it is hoped the Bill may pass, being 
 to promote the service of God. 1 
 
 In 1730 the town, in spite of its pretensions to 
 rank as " the third port in the kingdom " (London 
 and Bristol being, of course, the first and second), 
 was insignificant in size and singularly wanting in 
 architectural beauty. In the words of a native 
 writer : 
 
 The inhabitants lived for the most part in mean and 
 exceedingly narrow, tortuous streets, between the brow 
 of the hill on which the Town Hall now stands and the 
 margin of the river. The houses were chiefly of brick, 
 and without the charms of shape, colour, or carving. 
 There was a quay protected by a sea-wall, and but one 
 completed dock. The old Custom-house stood where 
 now stands the Sailors' Home. Well-to-do merchants 
 were just beginning to build themselves better dwellings 
 in Hanover Street, Church Street, and Duke Street. 
 No highway as yet entered the town. He who would 
 to Liverpool had to go there on horseback or on foot. 
 No carriage could take you nearer to Liverpool than 
 Warrington. The mails went out and came in on 
 horseback, and so late as 1775 one letter-carrier sufficed 
 for the whole correspondence of the town. 
 
 The growth in the business of this William 
 Rathbone was not untypical of that of the town 
 generally. Beginning as a timber sawyer, he 
 seems to have become in turn a timber merchant, 
 
 1 Picton's Memorials of Liverpool, vol. i. p. 145.
 
 4 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 a general commission merchant, a shipowner, and 
 perhaps a shipbuilder. By the middle of the 
 century, the firm which he founded, and of which 
 all his direct successors up to the present day 
 have been members, owned or hired five or six 
 small vessels, which went out under charge of a 
 supercargo, trading chiefly to the West Indies, the 
 Plantations (i.e. the Southern States of America), 
 and the Baltic. They took cargoes of salt or 
 of West Indian produce to Norway and Sweden, 
 and returned with freights of timber. They also 
 shipped mahogany from the West Indies. They 
 carried earthenware and linen from Dungannon 
 to Philadelphia, and brought thence tobacco, 
 wheat, rye, and rice. In turning over the early 
 letter-books of the firm, one realises how tiny 
 was the volume of trade in those days com- 
 pared with our own, even in " the third port of 
 the trade of England," and how many the diffi- 
 culties it had to contend with, from laws, pro- 
 tective and retaliatory, as well as from imperfect 
 means of communication, and from the acts of 
 God and of the King's enemies. Cargoes had to 
 wait for weeks or months for a convoy, and to 
 ensure against privateers. Timber from the Baltic 
 had to be paid for through Amsterdam, there 
 being, as the letter-books show, no exchange 
 between the North of Europe and Great Britain 
 except through Amsterdam, then the financial
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1726-1789) 5 
 
 centre of Europe. A passenger desiring in 
 August to go to Norway was obliged to travel to 
 London on horseback, " as it was not expected 
 that a ship would sail for Norway from Liverpool 
 that year." Moneys owed in Chester or Man- 
 chester could not be collected until some one 
 chanced to be coming thence to Liverpool. 
 
 This William Rathbone died in 1746, or, as a 
 contemporary notice words it, " was removed from 
 this probationary life by a fever in the fiftieth year 
 of his age." The same notice explains that he 
 had been a member of the Established Church 
 until about the year 1730, when he was convinced 
 of Friends' principles, and was received into unity 
 with their Society, of which he died an upright, 
 faithful member, leaving a testimony in the hearts 
 of many survivors that his life had corresponded 
 with his holy profession. His father, William 
 Rathbone of Gawsworth, " received the truth " 
 soon after his son. 
 
 The third bearer of the name was a very 
 typical Quaker merchant of the eighteenth century. 
 There are several descriptions of him in con- 
 temporary letters and memoirs, but an extract 
 from one of them will suffice. It is from the pen 
 of Dr. Rutter, a well-known Liverpool physician. 
 
 MY DEAR COUSIN In compliance with thy request 
 that I would state in writing what I mentioned to thee
 
 6 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 in conversation respecting the character of thy grand- 
 father, William Rathbone, I sit down with great pleasure 
 to the task. Although it is now about forty-six years 
 since he died, my recollection of his person, his character, 
 and his manners, is as vivid as if I had seen him only 
 yesterday. . . . 
 
 No human being whom I have ever yet met with has 
 left upon my mind so strong an impression of his worth. 
 In business he was very diligent and active ; yet the 
 concerns of business disturbed him not ; and when at 
 the close of the day he sat down with his family, there 
 was such calmness, such composure in his aspect and de- 
 meanour, that it was almost impossible for those who 
 were near him not to feel the full influence of it. Still 
 more strongly have I felt this, when I have seen him 
 on a summer's evening sitting alone near the riverside, 
 in a state of contemplation ; so calm, so mild, so tran- 
 quil, I seemed as if I had been in the presence of a 
 being not of this world, to the feverish, selfish, and 
 restless spirit of which his own state of mind presented 
 so striking a contrast. To me his kindness was constant 
 and uniform. Soon after I settled here he said to me 
 one day : " Now, in this large and dangerous town, thou 
 mayest probably often be invited into company which 
 may be neither profitable nor agreeable to thee. In all 
 such cases thou hast a ready excuse. Thou art always 
 engaged to me." I felt deeply the kindness of the 
 motives from which this hint proceeded, and I often 
 afterwards availed myself of it. In all his conduct there 
 never appeared anything which bore the slightest 
 approach to selfishness ; there were no littlenesses, no 
 fretfulness or impatience. There was in all his pro- 
 ceedings a moral dignity and greatness, which it was
 
 /: ",\ 

 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1726-1789) 7 
 
 easy to perceive, but it is difficult to convey an adequate 
 conception of it to another. 
 
 It is evident from the record of his business 
 transactions that the placid exterior here described 
 hid a considerable fund of worldly shrewdness and 
 energy. It must be admitted that his letters as 
 well as the expression recorded in his portrait give 
 more evidence of what the writer elsewhere calls 
 the " uncommon firmness and dignity of his 
 conduct," than of the mild and contemplative 
 personality remaining in Dr. Rutter's memory 
 after forty years. Two of his sayings which have 
 come down to his descendants are fair specimens of 
 the vein of humour that belongs to his type. 
 
 He used to tell how when he was just grown 
 up, an old Quaker lady, an elder in the Society, 
 said to him, " William, thou art a man now. Thou 
 wilt be thinking of taking a wife. Now, do thou 
 look out for a wife with a natural good-temper. 
 Religion comes and goes, but a natural good- 
 temper is there always." 
 
 Another time he had lent his horse to a friend 
 to attend the Quarterly Meeting in Shropshire. 
 When it was brought home, the lender asked, 
 " Sam, did'st thou see my horse fed ? " " No," 
 was the reply, " I told the man to feed him, and I 
 paid him for feeding him, but I did not see him do 
 it." " Ah," said the old Quaker, " thou shouldst
 
 8 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 have seen it done. Remember, Sam, men are 
 saved by faith in the next world, but by the want 
 of it in this." 
 
 He became in his old age an ardent Abolitionist, 
 and when in 1788 a branch of the Society for the 
 Abolition of the African Slave Trade was started 
 in Liverpool, he and his son were among the first 
 eighteen members. He supplied the Rev. Thomas 
 Clarkson with copies of the muster-rolls of Guinea- 
 men (as the slave-ships were called) from the 
 Custom-house of Liverpool. The revelations of 
 the mortality among the sailors on the ships went 
 far to explode the argument used by the supporters 
 of the trade, that it was a " nursery for British 
 seamen." In Clarkson's book on the Abolition of 
 the African Slave Trade, he says : 
 
 I went round accordingly and took leave of my friends. 
 The last of these was William Rathbone, and I have to 
 regret that it was also the last time I ever saw him. 
 Independently of the gratitude I owed him for assisting 
 me in this great cause, I respected him highly as a man. 
 He possessed a fine understanding with a solid judgment. 
 He was a person of extraordinary simplicity of manners. 
 Though he lived in a state of pecuniary independence, 
 he gave an example of great temperance, as well as of 
 great humility of mind. But however humble he 
 appeared, he had always the courage to dare to do that 
 which was right, however it might resist the customs or 
 the prejudices of men. In his own line of trade, which 
 was that of a timber merchant on an extensive scale, he
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 9 
 
 would not allow any article to be sold for the use of a 
 slave-ship, and he always refused those who applied to 
 him for materials for such purposes. But it is evident 
 that it was his intention, if he had lived, to bear his 
 testimony still more publicly upon this subject ; for an 
 advertisement, stating the ground of his refusal to furnish 
 anything for this traffic upon Christian principles, with a 
 memorandum for two advertisements in the Liverpool 
 papers, was found among his papers at his decease. 1 
 
 By this time the Slave Trade was regarded in 
 Liverpool as the mainspring of the prosperity of 
 the port. It was a common prophecy that if the 
 Abolitionists succeeded in their agitation, the grass 
 would soon grow in the streets of the town. 
 Most of the wealthiest citizens and those of the 
 highest repute were making their fortunes out of 
 " black ivory." It was no wonder that the small 
 handful of men who denounced the trade were 
 bitterly unpopular and were not unfrequently the 
 objects of mob violence. 
 
 The third William Rathbone died in 1789. 
 His son and successor took a more prominent 
 part in public affairs and had greater ability to give 
 effect to his views. On slavery his opinions were 
 those of his father, and like his father he seems to 
 have been noted for the " simplicity of his manners." 
 But in most respects the two men belonged 
 to very different types. The son was too essenti- 
 
 1 Vol. i. pp. 413, 414.
 
 io WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 ally a fighter to be at home in the Society of 
 Friends, from which he was, in fact, expelled in 
 middle age. He was a man of ardent and im- 
 passioned, yet laborious and painstaking tempera- 
 ment ; a man born to belong to minorities and to 
 champion lost causes. He had an eager thirst for 
 knowledge. Though he left school at sixteen or 
 seventeen to go into his father's office, and though 
 office hours in those days were often long and late, 
 he found time to acquire a good working know- 
 ledge of French, Latin, and Greek, and to keep 
 himself well acquainted with contemporary thought 
 in politics, economics, theology, and philosophy as 
 represented by the Scottish school. Constant 
 allusions in his letters show that he looked forward 
 with as much eagerness to an expected new 
 volume by Dugald Stewart, or Godwin, or his 
 friend Roscoe, as his less strenuous contemporaries 
 were soon to display over a forthcoming novel by 
 the author of Waverley. Yet his appetite for 
 knowledge was evidently not that of a book-worm, 
 but of a man who, as he said of himself, loved the 
 world, and to whom everything that threw light 
 on the great permanent concerns of humanity was 
 of interest. Absorbed as he was in public affairs, 
 he did not neglect his own, for while in. his hands 
 the business of his firm flourished greatly. Mr. 
 Thomas Thornely of Liverpool, who had been an 
 apprentice in his office, told his grandson many
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809). 
 Grandfather of the subject of this Memoir.
 
 apprentice 
 
 
 the hu 
 Ihomta "(o8i-^ 

 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) n 
 
 years afterwards that while he was quite a young 
 man he had reorganised the American trade with 
 Liverpool, and that, while he was in the office, the 
 firm had sometimes as many as twenty or twenty- 
 five ships consigned to it in dock at the same 
 time. 
 
 In 1784 his firm imported the first consignment 
 of American cotton ever landed in England. It 
 came in eight bales and three barrels. The 
 navigation laws then decreed that produce 
 imported into England must be carried either in 
 English bottoms or in those of the country whence 
 the produce came ; and as this cotton came in an 
 American ship, the Custom-house officers seized 
 it, saying that no cotton was grown in America. 
 It was soon released, but did not easily find a 
 purchaser, being of a longer staple than the cotton 
 then in use. Such was the humble beginning of a 
 trade destined to give to Liverpool all, and far 
 more than all, the prosperity she was soon to lose 
 by the prohibition of her sinister traffic in men. 
 
 In 1786 William Rathbone married Hannah 
 Mary Reynolds, only daughter of Richard Reynolds 
 of Bristol, known in his native city as the 
 Philanthropist. Reynolds was a partner in the 
 ironworks at Coalbrookdale, in Shropshire, one 
 of the greatest industrial concerns then in the 
 country. He was a Quaker and a man of great 
 piety and benevolence. He spent the greater part
 
 12 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of his large fortune on public objects (much of it 
 in releasing poor and respectable debtors from 
 jail), and is said to have been the author of the 
 saying, "Every'man should be his own executor." 
 
 In 1787, on the birth of William Rathbone's 
 eldest son, he being a delicate child who needed 
 country air, his father bought Greenbank, then 
 a farm-house, three miles from the edge of the 
 town in which it is now almost engulfed. Here 
 they continued to live during the greater part of 
 the year, moving for the winter months into 
 Liverpool. 
 
 William Rathbone was fond of hospitality, 
 and had many friends among men like-minded 
 with himself in matters of politics, or religion, 
 or both. In Liverpool the party of Reform, 
 or, as they called themselves, the Friends of 
 Freedom, were then as always in a minority, 
 and the consciousness of this drew them the closer 
 together. Comparatively few as they were, there 
 were several men among them, now almost 
 forgotten, who had then a considerable renown 
 beyond their native Liverpool, and who attracted 
 thither visitors to whom the commercial greatness 
 of the city was as nought. The unquestioned 
 leader among them was Roscoe, the historian 
 of Pope Leo the Tenth and of Lorenzo de 
 Medici. Roscoe's literary reputation has not worn 
 well, but in its own day it was very great. His
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 13 
 
 contemporaries freely compared him, as an historian, 
 to Gibbon, and as a poet to whichever of the 
 really great names of the day chanced to be most 
 in fashion. Whatever may be thought of their 
 judgment, it was at least sincere, for Roscoe had 
 in the beginning nothing but his talents and his 
 personal qualities to commend him to Fame. His 
 father was the owner of a small public-house, 
 standing where the Adelphi Hotel now stands, and 
 of a market-garden, which stretched up the slopes 
 of Mount Pleasant. The boy's early occupation 
 was carrying his father's vegetables on his head to 
 market ; afterwards he became an attorney, and 
 much later in life a banker. In addition to his 
 work as an historian, poet, and politician, he was 
 the first and greatest patron of the Fine Arts in 
 Liverpool, and the city owes him many of its 
 institutions. 
 
 Another of the Friends of Freedom and of 
 William Rathbone's intimates was Dr. James 
 Currie, the biographer of Burns, and the author 
 of the once famous open letter to Mr. Pitt, signed 
 Jasper Wilson, protesting against the French war 
 of 1793. 
 
 Yet another was Edward Rushton, formerly 
 mate of a slaving-ship, afterwards one of the 
 bitterest opponents of the trade, and a poet of 
 some celebrity, who exercised his Muse chiefly in 
 the cause of Abolition.
 
 14 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Dr. Shepherd was the squib-writer of the party, 
 and one of its best speakers. He kept a boys' 
 school at Gateacre, which was well-known among 
 the Nonconformist gentry of the northern coun- 
 ties ; and, like Roscoe, he wrote about Italian 
 mediaeval history. He and another intimate 
 friend, the Rev. John Yates, were both ministers 
 of Unitarian chapels. 
 
 Outside Liverpool, Wedgwood the potter, 
 John Dalton the chemist, 1 the Darbys of Coal- 
 brookdale, and Abraham Shackleton the Irish 
 Quaker, whose father was Edmund Burke's 
 schoolmaster, were among William Rathbone's 
 friends. 
 
 He was a copious letter-writer, and with some 
 of these and other friends he kept up an active 
 correspondence, chiefly on the two subjects of 
 religion and politics, in which it is clear his real 
 self lived and moved and had its being. In 
 politics he was what wo.uld be called in the Eng- 
 land of to-day a thorough -going Radical and 
 Little Englander. Free Trade and a consistent 
 
 1 In the Life of John Dalton there is a letter which gives a lively picture 
 of the free social intercourse between these Liverpool " Reformers." One 
 wonders in reading it how busy men of strenuous spirit found time to pay 
 each other so many and such lengthy visits. " The etiquette in Liverpool," 
 he says, a frofos of a dinner at Greenbank, "is to sit down to dinner a little 
 after three ; as soon as the cloth is drawn, in winter, candles are brought in ; 
 when the bottle has gone round about half an hour, the ladies retire j the 
 gentlemen remain till a servant informs them tea is ready, when all meet 
 together again in the tea-room, where they remain till they are informed 
 supper is on the table."
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 15 
 
 policy of non-interference abroad ; at home uni- 
 versal suffrage, the ballot, the reform of the Poor 
 Law, perfect liberty of speech, unchecked develop- 
 ment of trade, these were some of the articles of 
 his creed. He had the magnificent faith of the 
 Liberals of his day in Reason and in first prin- 
 ciples, and the wisdom and justice of these reforms 
 were to him less a matter of opinion than a neces- 
 sary truth. That they did not find universal 
 acceptance, even among the oppressed mass of the 
 people who would most surely profit by them, was 
 an anomaly he could scarcely explain, except upon 
 the supposition of a national depravity. Upon 
 the theme of religion he brought to bear the same 
 courageous rationalism. It compelled him to let 
 go much that his father had held dear, but it does 
 not seem to have impaired at all his devotional 
 piety, or his dependence upon the two beliefs 
 which he held to be the essence of religion his 
 belief in the providence of God and the immor- 
 tality of man. A few extracts from the mass of 
 his correspondence will serve to show a little more 
 fully than this brief description his views upon 
 these two subjects of politics and religion. They 
 are all taken from his letters to one of his prin- 
 cipal correspondents, Mr. Dugald Bannatyne of 
 Glasgow. 
 
 The first letter I give was written a fortnight 
 after the execution of Louis XVI. and a week
 
 1 6 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 before the declaration of war with France. The 
 war was enthusiastically welcomed by the great 
 majority of Liverpool citizens, and as bitterly 
 denounced by the small band of Reformers. 
 They opposed it chiefly upon the ground of 
 justice, that England had no business to force 
 France to take back a form of government which 
 she had rejected. The war, with all that had led 
 to it, was a cruel disappointment of the hopes 
 they had been cherishing hopes of what the 
 Revolution was going to do for France and for 
 humanity, and hopes of a long period of peace, 
 economic development, and social and political re- 
 forms at home. As the struggle went on year after 
 year, they believed that it must ruin the country. 
 Later events showed them that they had under- 
 estimated British resources, and at the same time 
 completed the disillusionment of their faith in 
 France. 
 
 LIVERPOOL, February 3, 1793. 
 
 ESTEEMED FRIEND I have been much longer than 
 I intended in acknowledging the receipt of two accept- 
 able letters from thee, but I have felt less inducement to 
 write from the 'unhappy state of things which renders 
 the present disgusting and the future almost hopeless. I 
 hope and trust, however, that matters are more favour- 
 able with you and in Ireland than in this kingdom, for I 
 confess my politics are taking a turn which I once little 
 expected ; and the scenes which are passing in England, 
 as well indeed as some of those which have been acted
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 17 
 
 in France, lead me to think less and to hope less of the 
 dignity of Human Nature and of the quantum of Virtue 
 in individuals than I have hitherto done or would now 
 wish to do. I have hitherto hoped much from a reform 
 of the corruptions of Government, and attributed more 
 of the vice and profligacy of the lower classes to the 
 want of this reform than I fear is consistent with justice. 
 In short, my friend, I begin to think that the Govern- 
 ment of England is as good as the People deserve, and 
 from late symptoms it certainly appears that it is as good 
 as the majority wish it ; and if this really be the case 
 we Reformers cannot consistently wish more than to 
 enlighten our fellow -creatures, as one step towards 
 Reform, for before this be done the reform itself ought 
 not to be wished for, if Government is only the organ 
 of a majority of the People's will. That interest should 
 influence those who are interested in the perpetuation 
 of abuses, and that a cringing spirit should possess those 
 who live near the vortex of a Court, is not matter of 
 much surprise ; but that those who pay many taxes 
 should voluntarily promote measures by which they are 
 to be continued and increased ; that those who have not 
 the elective suffrage should prefer the degradation of 
 being without it ; that Englishmen should wilfully 
 surrender the Liberty of the Press, become spies on each 
 other's conduct, and submit to become agents in restrain- 
 ing even the Freedom of Speech ; that the great mass of 
 the people should willingly endure the injustice and 
 oppression of the few^ and the middle ranks be able to 
 delude those below them ; that a Nation exulting in its 
 own freedom should be influenced to calumniate the 
 French for obtaining theirs, and finally to sanction a 
 war against them without even the pretext of injuries 
 
 C
 
 1 8 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 received; these, I fear, are symptoms of a national 
 depravity^ and do not wholly originate in the corruptions 
 of Government. I ask myself, if the right of suffrage 
 were (as I think it ought to be) universal, would it at 
 this time make the Government more the organ of the 
 Nation's will than it already is ? If it would not, the 
 evils we now suffer are to be attributed to the ignorance, 
 the prejudice, and perhaps the luxury and riches of indi- 
 viduals, and would not be removed by political Reform, 
 though I still hope this would help to lessen them. 
 Our most effectual Reformer must, I fear, be a national 
 Calamity, and till then I despair of much being done 
 either politically or individually as Citizens. I am almost 
 afraid I may be misunderstood in what I have said when 
 I consider how little I am known to my friend, but I 
 hope this will not be the case, though I ought not 
 perhaps to have entered on the subject without having 
 time to make myself more clearly understood. 
 
 I sent thee a few days since by one of the Greenock 
 traders a small parcel containing a few tracts. The 
 Life of Isaac ^Jenkins was written by a friend of mine in 
 Shropshire, and I think is likely to do good to the lower 
 classes. I wish it had occurred to me to send the Duke 
 of Richmond's letter to Colonel Sharman. It contains 
 the idea I alluded to about a reform in the mode of voting. 
 At present the plan for doing this would have some diffi- 
 culties, but they might be assisted on the plan of Uni- 
 versal Suffrage and the elections through the kingdom 
 being on one day and at the same hour, the mode would 
 be the easiest imaginable. I have some ideas about the 
 reform in this respect under the present system, such as 
 increasing the number of Returning Officers to shorten 
 the time of contested elections, voting by Ballot, shut-
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 19 
 
 ting up public-houses, or taking away the licence on 
 complaint of intoxication, a more serious oath on the 
 part of Candidates, etc. etc. ; but I think it is clear that 
 no reform in the mode of voting will be brought about 
 till a reform in the qualifications of Electors is also 
 effected, and then the business of the former will be 
 abundantly simplified. I hope, however, we shall surely 
 have some specimens in this way, with you and in 
 Ireland, and they will serve as experiments how far our 
 theories are reducible to Practice in the reform of old 
 Governments, for with respect to new the whole busi- 
 ness is done in America ; and so much has had a pretty 
 fair trial in France. 
 
 Speaking of France leads to the late melancholy event 
 there. I think the French showed want of Magna- 
 nimity at least, possibly of Justice, and certainly were 
 informal in their proceedings about the King. It has 
 hurt their cause greatly here, and, though improperly, 
 yet the business of Reform in England is implicated 
 with it, and is become still more unpopular in these 
 parts. At present no good can be done by introducing 
 the subject, and we are therefore quiet, and glad that the 
 town is preserved in peace, for with respect to party 
 spirit I believe we are better off than most other places. 
 Indeed there seems a general abhorrence of war, yet I 
 don't think our Merchants will have the courage to send 
 up an address to Government against it. 
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE. 
 
 GREENBANK, January 8, 1797. 
 
 ... I wish him (Roscoe) to give us a pamphlet 
 showing the folly and impolicy of our making foreign 
 conquests, or even retaining any foreign possessions of
 
 20 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 any kind. With the right to trade to all Countries on 
 an equal footing with any other Nation, what can we 
 have to expect for from the government [i.e. the con- 
 quest] of any of them but the support of that patronage 
 and the constant temptation to those wars by which we 
 are likely to be overwhelmed. And instead of trucking 
 with the French for the restoration of this island and the 
 possession of the other^ how much more toAhe point it 
 would be to say, Let us unite in making them all inde- 
 pendent of us and of each other, and with them form a 
 mutual Guarantee for the independent right of each to 
 regulate its own internal Concerns and to have a free 
 Trade to all the world besides. I have always hoped the 
 present contest would lead to this, and if it does I should 
 be almost induced to think the purchase worth the price, 
 great beyond all calculation as the latter must be allowed 
 to be. . . . W. R. 
 
 March 26, 1799. 
 
 There is a report in circulation here, that a pheno- 
 menon no less extraordinary than that of David Hume's 
 going twice a day to Church with his Bible under his 
 arm^ is now to be seen at Edinburgh every Sunday, and 
 that this orthodox Philosopher hath applied to several of 
 the Heads of the College to withdraw their names from 
 the list of members of the Speculative Society, which is 
 represented as an association of Atheists and Jacobins ; 
 that some of these members have called the Author of 
 such report and proceedings to account, but that the 
 charge was evaded by him with much subterfuge and 
 meanness. I would hope, for the credit of a name that I 
 always wish to respect, that this report is not true, and
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) ^\ 
 
 that purposes of worldly interest and preferment would 
 not in such a Character lead to a conduct so justly 
 degrading. By the way, I should write with caution on 
 this and all other subjects, for who now knows by whom 
 his letters are to be read, and especially those between 
 Liverpool and Glasgow, now that the secret Committee 
 have denounced both places as the residence of Traitors 
 and Conspirators. . . . W. R. 
 
 HARROWGATE, July 9, 1799. 
 
 How enormous have been all our political Speculations, 
 and how different is the present state of things from 
 what in the earlier, or even in the more advanced periods 
 of the War, any of us would have predicted ! Who 
 could have thought that such expedients as those the 
 Minister hath from time to time adopted, could have not 
 only kept him up so long, but exalted him beyond his 
 former popularity ; and that a Government avowedly 
 supported by Corruption and encroaching so rapidly upon 
 the Liberty and Property of its subjects, should still be not 
 merely the most popular, but perhaps the most truly free 
 and respectable of any now existing ; and this, too, after 
 the theories of Liberty have had so fair a trial both in 
 America and France ? How humiliating is this reflection, 
 and what is there now in Politics with which a virtuous 
 man would wish to connect himself? We have thought 
 the measures of administration wrong in point of 
 Morality that they were at variance with the un- 
 changeable principles of justice and the regard due to 
 the essential Rights of Man. On these" grounds I 
 trust we shall always differ from him [Pitt] ; for I own
 
 22 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 I have no wish to survive my attachment to my code of 
 Morality, however I may change my opinion respecting 
 political measures. But we have also thought the 
 Minister wrong in point of the Expediency of his 
 measures. On the great scale he will probably prove so 
 still. But with respect to the intermediate links, he has 
 certainly judged more prudently than we conceived ; for 
 I do think that something more than the Success of 
 Accident should be allowed him ; and though we may 
 not give him credit for all his flourishing reports of our 
 prosperity, finances, etc., yet unquestionably the War 
 hath proved less ruinous, in this respect, than most either 
 of its friends or opposers had predicted. Yet, should this 
 apprehended prosperity continue and even increase, what 
 are we likely to gain from it whilst that high spirit of 
 independence which made our Fathers jealous of all en- 
 croachments upon their Liberty is sunk and lost, and we 
 are now no longer jealous of that branch of the Con- 
 stitution which most excited their vigilance, but, instead 
 thereof, are fearful only of each other and whilst we 
 have lost all sympathy with the wrongs, the sufferings, 
 and the oppressions, not only of any other Nation, but 
 of our Brethren at home, and peculiarly so with ill-fated, 
 oppressed, and unhappy Ireland. . . . 
 
 November 30, 1799. 
 
 What a wonderful Revolution indeed hath taken 
 place in France, and when or in what form of Govern- 
 ment will the long and sorely agitated state of that 
 country settle ? I own I have for some time feared, and 
 do it not the less for this eveat, that the experience of
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 23 
 
 France, like that of America, will not realise our theories 
 of liberty ; and that previously to our study of Govern- 
 ments, or at least to our acting upon the lessons we have 
 learned, we must apply more closely to the study of 
 human nature, and consider man as he is, rather than as 
 we conceive him to be, or likely to become by any change 
 in government or in other external affairs. I don't mean, 
 however, that we are to suppose him incapable of im- 
 provement, but that we are not to look for sudden or 
 rapid improvement, and that we must at times be prepared 
 for even retrograde steps towards folly, infatuation, and 
 profligacy. 
 
 I don't yet know what to make of Buonaparte's 
 conduct. I am so strongly impressed in his favour that 
 I cannot lightly give him up. But, giving him credit for 
 the soundest judgment and purest intentions, will not the 
 obvious tendency of his conduct be to put France under 
 a military Government? and whilst he is at the helm this 
 may prove the best thing that can be done for her, and 
 she may even enjoy great freedom and happiness. I 
 hope and still believe this would be the case under his 
 Presidency, but who is to succeed him ? And is it not 
 melancholy that the fate of more than twenty millions 
 should thus be dependent on the personal character of 
 one man ? How nearly will this be allied to the old 
 Despotism of France ; though there are points, I yet trust, 
 in which it is morally impossible for this resemblance to 
 hold. But if such, however, be the present tendency of 
 things, where or when are all our fine theories of liberty 
 to be realised ? Shall I not be thought in danger of 
 Apostasy for such sentiments as these ? I really am, 
 however, uncorrupted at present ; at least I have received 
 neither place nor pension. . . .
 
 24 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 January 2, 1800. 
 
 One would think that long before Buonaparte's 
 return from Egypt enough had been done to show the 
 world that he was no common character, yet how lightly 
 were his talents estimated by the Ministerialists at the 
 last opening of Parliament ! Now, however, they are 
 wonderfully come about. They hesitate not to admit 
 Talents, and they are prepared to think there may even be 
 Integrity ; and gladly would they rejoice to see any way 
 of opening an intercourse between him and their Idol, but 
 the haughty language and temper of Pitt seem to preclude 
 much hope of this. His adherents, however, appear to me 
 fast preparing to leave him, and if Buonaparte pursues 
 his present truly illustrious career, I think he will soon 
 cease to be the object of abuse with the Alarmists 
 Surely he will not disappoint our fond hopes and prove 
 otherwise than great and virtuous, superior to the 
 temptations of power and ambition, and using all the 
 uncommon advantages of his situation and the peculiar 
 circumstances of the times only for the good of mankind. 
 Never was there a finer opportunity for a great Character 
 to attract the notice of mankind. Never has there been 
 a period on which History will be compelled to dwell 
 longer than the close of the last and the opening of the 
 succeeding Century ; and amongst the number of 
 characters and events which it will be compelled to hold 
 up to the execration and terror of succeeding times, one 
 cannot help wishing that there may be at least one 
 character which Virtue may claim as her favourite, and 
 Patriotism, Science, and the Arts hold up to the admira- 
 tion and imitation of others. ,
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 25 
 
 April 1795. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND ... I shall be very glad to 
 know thy opinion of Paley's book. When men alike 
 appeal to the decisions of Reason and admit that the 
 Evidences of Christianity are to be examined in exactly 
 the same manner as any other system consisting of facts 
 and doctrine, it is desirable that those who differ from 
 us, and may possibly prove ultimately to be in the right, 
 should know that if we are mistaken it is not because 
 we appeal to any Laws of Evidence different from those 
 which they admit, but because the same evidence pro- 
 duces a different effect on different minds. For my own 
 part, I consider Christianity as of all subjects the most 
 proper for a strictly rigorous and rational examination. 
 Its pretensions are high, and its evidences should there- 
 fore be strong. But no evidence could be sufficiently 
 strong to establish doctrines which are opposed to the 
 genuine deductions of Reason ; and of this class I con- 
 sider the doctrines of the Trinity, Atonement, etc., 
 which I fully believe are as destitute of support from 
 Scripture as they are from Reason. The important 
 doctrine of Christianity I conceive to be that of a Future 
 State which, though probable from deductions of Reason, 
 can yet (from the nature of the case) be made certain only 
 by the evidence of a Revelation ; and its importance 
 to the happiness of Mankind appears to me sufficient 
 to justify the probability of so very extraordinary an 
 interference on the part of the Deity as that certainly 
 is which Christians contend for when they assert the 
 Miracles performed by Jesus Christ. I think Paley has 
 stated this with great ability and an uncommon share of 
 candour. Difficulties doubtless still attach to the subject,
 
 26 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 but I think these were less to the Christian than to the 
 Unbeliever ; and we shall all admit that on this subject, 
 as well as, and as much as on any other, it is not un- 
 reasonable to expect the discussion to be taken up by 
 minds who are equally free from the bias to Credulity 
 or to Scepticism, and upon whom the rational Laws of 
 Evidence will have their due effect. 
 
 I own I think much harm has been done to the cause 
 of Christianity from representing its evidences as of so 
 strong and imposing a nature as to be absolutely irresist- 
 ible ; whereas it appears to me that this entirely depends on 
 the mind of the inquirer being previously accustomed by 
 exercise and habit to demand not the highest possible 
 evidence (for this I do not think Christianity exhibits), 
 but only such a balance of probability as respecting facts, 
 or of presumptive truth as respecting Doctrine, as should 
 be sufficient to secure assent on the grounds of rational 
 evidence. As, however, I hope to hear thou hast read 
 Paley, I will not attempt to say what will be found so 
 much better stated by him. I am sure the rejection of 
 this System by candid minds after mature examination 
 will not subject them to the disapprobation of God, nor 
 should it excite any diminution of esteem in the minds of 
 good men. Perhaps I should not be justified in saying 
 that I have not made up my own mind on this subject, 
 yet I think I am still capable of listening to and of 
 considering any difficulties or objections attending it. 1 
 confess I am glad to find that these do not shake my own 
 belief, by which I mean that they do not produce that 
 wavering and indecision which on such a subject would 
 to me be peculiarly painful and undesirable. For if I 
 were to reject the system myself, I think I should believe 
 it right to give my reasons for doing so to my children,
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 27 
 
 when they become of proper age ; and though I hope I 
 would be satisfied either with the decided acceptance or 
 rejection of the system, yet I am sure I should be un- 
 happy to be in doubt between both. If I were convinced 
 its pretensions were false, it would be what I already 
 believe of Mahometan! sm, and would equally justify me 
 in rejecting it. But if I thought there were some grounds 
 for admitting its pretensions, I own I could scarcely forbear 
 repining at the Supreme Being that these grounds, when 
 fairly and fully discussed, should not be sufficient to gain 
 my firm belief, not only that it was in reality a Revelation 
 from Him, but also that it was in all respects worthy of 
 Him. . . . 
 
 It is not surprising that a man who held the 
 views set forth in these extracts, and who practised 
 little economy in expressing them, incurred much 
 odium among his fellow-citizens, and came into 
 sharp conflict with the authorities of his religious 
 denomination. When to the offence of opposing 
 the slave trade, he added that of denouncing the 
 war, he became for a time so unpopular with his 
 well-to-do neighbours that a physician attending 
 an illness in the family, asked leave to pay his 
 visits after nightfall, explaining candidly that it 
 would injure his practice for his carriage to be 
 seen standing at Mr. William Rathbone's door. 
 His hair having turned prematurely white, he was 
 nicknamed the hoary traitor. His appearance and 
 address are said to have been very impressive, and 
 this, combined with a reputation for great benevo-
 
 28 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 lence, worked in his favour with the lower orders. 
 There is more than one story of his having ridden 
 straight into a mob furiously excited against 
 the Abolitionists and persuaded them quietly to 
 disperse. An old Scotch merchant, little given to 
 eulogy, who had known him as a youth, described 
 him to his grandson as the most convincing 
 speaker he had ever heard. There was, he said, 
 no attempt at oratory in his speaking, but it had 
 the persuasiveness which is the fruit of intense 
 convictions and a clear head. 
 
 The immediate cause of his expulsion from the 
 Society of Friends was his publication of a book 
 entitled A Narrative of Events that have recently 
 taken place in Ireland among the Society called 
 Quakers. The Narrative is a detailed statement 
 of the circumstances under which a number of 
 Irish Friends had been disowned for what were 
 held to be lax views regarding the authority of 
 the Bible and for breaches in Quaker discipline, 
 especially in the matter of marriage with persons 
 not belonging to the body. 
 
 These Quakers, who included many of the most 
 earnest and pious members of the Society, had 
 insisted on applying to the teachings of Scripture 
 their doctrine of the inward light, with the result 
 that they found themselves unable to accept as 
 equally inspired all the parts of the Bible. Their 
 special stumbling-block seems to have been not
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 29 
 
 Genesis, or the question of miracles, but the many 
 acts of treachery and blood-thirstiness recorded in 
 the Old Testament. To minds trained to look 
 upon all violence as wrong, it seemed impossible 
 that these things could have had the divine 
 sanction. Their sense of right and justice equally 
 forbade them to conform strictly to the discipline 
 of the Society in the matter of marriage. This 
 decreed not merely that any one who married out- 
 side the Society should be disunited from it, which 
 perhaps was, according to the constitution of the 
 Society, not unreasonable, but also that the same 
 penalty should be extended to any one who attended 
 such a marriage, and that the parents of the offend- 
 ing child should forthwith disown, disinherit, and 
 give up all intercourse with the wedded pair. The 
 Society in England does not appear to have been 
 in the habit of exercising this amount of rigour in 
 its own discipline, but many of its elders resented 
 the condemnation of it implied in William Rath- 
 bone's book. Although the book is in form merely 
 a neutral record of fact, they maintained, and an 
 impartial reader of the Narrative would probably 
 agree with them, that it was evident that the 
 author shared the heretical opinions of those whose 
 case he was relating. The matter was brought 
 before the Monthly Meeting of Hardshaw, of 
 which he was a member, and in the end a testi- 
 mony of disunion was brought against him.
 
 30 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 It is evident that many of William Rathbone's 
 friends rejoiced at his final severance from a re- 
 ligious communion with which he had long ceased 
 to be really in sympathy, and regretted only the 
 labour and thought he expended on the controversy. 
 But his native earnestness and pertinacity had made 
 it hard for him to give up the hope of arousing 
 the Society to a sense of the tyranny and short- 
 sightedness of much of their discipline. 
 
 In this matter, as well as in most of the political 
 affairs in which he took part, his views were in 
 advance of his age ; perhaps they were not of a 
 kind to be popular with the majority of any age. 
 Though several of the causes for which he worked 
 triumphed in the end, he did not live to see it, 
 save in the one instance of the abolition of the 
 slave trade. 
 
 It is recorded of him that he tried very hard to 
 secure certain reforms in the administration of the 
 Poor Law. At the time he seemed totally un- 
 successful, but some years after his death the 
 measures which he had urged were carried into 
 effect, with such good results that when after the 
 introduction of the new Poor Law, the Com- 
 missioners visited Liverpool, they found that they 
 had, comparatively speaking, little to do to bring 
 the administration of relief into accordance with 
 the Act. 
 
 Perhaps the only political question upon which
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 31 
 
 William Rathbone ever found himself working 
 cordially with the main body of his fellow-citizens 
 was the question of the opening of the trade to 
 the East to British merchants. In 1772 an active 
 agitation was begun to induce the Government to 
 allow the exclusive Charter of the East India Com- 
 pany to expire. There seemed at first some chance 
 of success, but the reaction against all liberal 
 measures, caused by the excesses of the French 
 Revolution, threw back the question for many 
 years. In 1807 William Rathbone took a leading 
 part in reviving and organising this agitation, which 
 was carried on for some time, but without success. 
 The monopoly flourished until 1833. 
 
 In 1806 the Reform party in Liverpool tasted 
 the unaccustomed flavour of success. In a sudden 
 fit of sympathy with liberal principles, or perhaps 
 only because pride in Roscoe's celebrity overcame 
 for the moment the unpopularity of his views, the 
 electors returned him to Parliament at the head of 
 the poll, and thus enabled him, in the capacity of 
 senior member of the greatest slave-port in the 
 kingdom, to vote and speak in the debates which 
 ended in the abolition of the trade. It was no 
 wonder that the Reformers felt themselves as 
 William Rathbone wrote to a friend "like a 
 man half awake, who knows not whether it is 
 an unfinished dream or one of the realities of life 
 that presses itself on his recollection." It is true
 
 32 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 that, six months later, when Abolition was an 
 accomplished fact and Parliament was dissolved, 
 Roscoe was received on his return to Liverpool by 
 a mob armed with stones, sticks, and knives ; and 
 although he was more fortunate than some of his 
 followers in escaping physical injury, he was left 
 far at the bottom of the poll. 
 
 From the beginning of 1807 onwards, public 
 opinion in Liverpool ran high upon the question 
 of the famous Orders in Council. These Orders 
 were the answer of the British Government to the 
 Berlin decree issued by Buonaparte in November 
 1 806, which declared the British Islands in a state 
 of blockade, all British subjects, wherever found, 
 prisoners of war, all British goods lawful prize. 
 The first Order in Council prohibited neutral 
 ships from trading between any one port and 
 another belonging to or under the influence of 
 France. The second, issued in November, 
 declared all the ports of France, of her colonies, 
 her allies, and of all countries where the British 
 flag was excluded, to be in a state of blockade, and 
 all trade in the produce of such countries to be 
 lawful prize. 
 
 The subsequent moves in this game of tit-for- 
 tat are too many and complicated to be recorded 
 here. Some of its effects were grievously to 
 injure British trade, to drive the new-born foreign 
 commerce of America practically off the seas, to
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 33 
 
 bring about war between England and America, 
 and to sow in that country the seeds of a dislike 
 of England which has endured ever since. The 
 party of Reform opposed the Orders as being 
 needlessly injurious to neutral powers and ruinous 
 to English commerce ; and in Liverpool they were 
 joined in their opposition by many belonging to the 
 other side. They petitioned Parliament against 
 the Orders, and employed Brougham to argue their 
 case and call witnesses in its support, before both 
 Houses, but the Ministry would not yield. The 
 Orders were finally repealed in 1812, too late 
 to prevent the outbreak of war with America. 
 
 As one of the principal merchants in the 
 American trade, William Rathbone took a leading 
 part in the agitation. Unlike many of his party 
 and unlike Brougham, who took the line of de- 
 preciating America, he appears to have clearly 
 foreseen her coming greatness, and to have felt 
 strongly the importance of maintaining friendly 
 relations with her, on the ground both of com- 
 mercial interest and of natural affinities. He 
 gave evidence in the House of Lords, and one 
 of his friends was told by Lord Grenville after- 
 wards that his clear and reasoned testimony 
 produced so great an impression that, while it 
 was being given, " a pin might have been heard 
 drop." 
 
 This visit to London was his last public 
 
 D
 
 34 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 service. He had never been a strong man, and 
 had led a life of almost unremitting toil. The 
 strain had been the greater because, with him, the 
 difficult public questions of his day stirred anxieties 
 and penetrated depths of feeling which, in most 
 men, are only reached by their personal concerns. 
 His strenuous, eager spirit had " o'er informed its 
 tenement of clay," and when, in 1808, he fell a 
 prey to an unnamed, agonising, internal disease, 
 the doctors declared his constitution to be utterly 
 worn out. For months his sufferings were 
 terrible, but his spirit remained unsubdued. 
 Within a few days of the end, after some suit- 
 able remarks upon the emptiness of the things of 
 this world, he said with energy, " But I love the 
 world, and should have wished to stay longer in 
 it." He spoke of his approaching death as a 
 " serious matter, but nothing dismal," and of his 
 coffin as " only a packing-case." He died on the 
 I ith of February 1809, in the fifty-second year of 
 his age, exhorting his sons, almost with his last 
 breath, to take warning by his example, and to pay 
 more heed than he had done to the inexorable 
 laws of Nature. 
 
 It is impossible to read through the papers 
 upon which the foregoing short sketch of this 
 William Rathbone is based, without being struck 
 by the contrast between the smallness of his 
 achievement and the great impression which his
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1757-1809) 35 
 
 character and abilities seem to have made upon 
 those who knew him. Thus the son and bio- 
 grapher of Roscoe writes of his father's friend : 
 
 The character of Mr. Rathbone was of the highest 
 cast ; and it was ever the subject of deep regret with 
 those who knew and appreciated him, that a genius, 
 which might have shone with the brightest lustre in the 
 most extended sphere, was restricted to comparative 
 obscurity. The talents for public life manifested by 
 him on various occasions, when he came forward in 
 support of liberal principles, were of the first order. A 
 friend to peace, to toleration, and to improvement, had 
 he been placed in a situation where scope could have 
 been given to his lofty and benevolent views, his name 
 must have been for ever associated with his country's 
 happiness and honour ; but confined to the narrow limits 
 of a private station, a man framed of the clay from which 
 in former days heroes and martyrs were moulded, ex- 
 pended the strength which might have ruled the nation, 
 in contests, the recollection of which has already passed 
 away. (Life of Roscoe.} 
 
 These are high words, and it must be admitted 
 that they were written by one under the bias not 
 only of personal friendship, but of fellow-member- 
 ship of a group of men, whose consciousness of 
 being a small and unpopular minority made them 
 the more loyal to each other. But several other 
 contemporary records strike much the same note. 
 Mr. Thomas Creevey, though a Liverpool man, 
 was certainly no mere provincial, and little given
 
 36 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 to enthusiasm. Yet speaking in Liverpool eight 
 years after William Rathbone's death, he was 
 moved to refer to his former fellow-citizen as 
 " that good and great and enlightened character, 
 so honoured, so revered, so loved, so lamented." 
 
 William Rathbone's widow, Hannah Mary Rath- 
 bone, as she was, after the " plain style " of her 
 sect, usually called, survived her husband for thirty 
 years. Greenbank was left to her for her lifetime, 
 and in obedience to her husband's dying wish that 
 she should " have her outward habitation to her 
 mind," she rebuilt the greater part of the house. 
 The architect designed it in the style sometimes 
 contumeliously called " Strawberry Hill Gothic." 
 Before the building was finished she was overcome 
 with remorse at having been guilty of the grievous 
 inconsistency of spending money, even inad- 
 vertently, upon unnecessary ornament. Not long 
 after the marriage of her eldest son, she insisted 
 on giving up the house to him, and retiring to a 
 little house called Woodcroft Cottage, which she 
 built for herself near by. Her personality became 
 familiar to many as an exquisite specimen of 
 eighteenth-century Quaker womanhood. She was 
 adored in turn by her father, husband, sons and 
 grandsons, and many of their friends, young and 
 old, joined in the cult. A lively description of 
 her, and of Greenbank during her reign, couched 
 in a style of whimsically affectionate eulogy, occurs
 
 i HANNAH MARY RATHBONE 37 
 
 in the Autobiography of H. F. Chorley. 1 I give 
 an extract : 
 
 Hannah Mary Rathbone was a noble and fascinating 
 woman. . . . In 1819, when I stayed at Green Bank, 
 she was in the last ripeness of her maturity, looking 
 older than her years, but as beautiful as any picture which 
 can be offered by freshest youth. . . . Her profuse white 
 hair, which had been white from an early age, was cut 
 straight like a man's, to lie simply on her forehead. 
 Above this was her spotless cap of white net, rescued 
 from meagreness by a quilled border and a sort of scart 
 of the same material round it a head-dress as picturesque, 
 without being queer, as if its wearer had studied for 
 years how to arrange it. Her gown was always a dark 
 silk, with a quantity of delicate muslin to swathe the 
 throat, and a shawl which covered the stoop of her short 
 figure the shawl never gay, though mostly rich. But 
 the face was simply one of the most beautiful faces 
 (without regularity) that I have ever seen ; beautiful in 
 spite of its being slightly underhung : the eyes were so 
 deep, brilliant, and tender ; the tint was so fresh, the 
 expression was so noble and so affectionate ; and the 
 voice matched the face so low it was, so kind, so 
 cordial, and, as I fancied, so irresistibly intimate, which 
 means appreciating. . . . 
 
 She had been throughout her life the admired friend 
 and counsellor of many distinguished men, all belonging 
 
 1 Henry Fothergill Chorley (1808-1872), the well-known critic, and the 
 friend of Mendelssohn, Dickens, Lady Blessington, and, in fact, nearly every 
 one worth knowing in the artistic and social world of early Victorian London. 
 Chorley, in his youth, was for some years in a Liverpool office, and, then 
 and afterwards, paid many visits to Greenbank. He left his Memoirs for 
 posthumous publication.
 
 38 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 to the liberal school of ideas and philosophies, which 
 were wakened, especially in the world of Dissenters, by 
 the first French Revolution. . . . 
 
 Since that time I have been in many luxurious 
 houses ; but anything like the delicious and elegant 
 comfort of Green Bank during her reign I have never 
 known plenty without coarseness ; exquisiteness without 
 that super-delicacy which oppresses by its extravagance. 1 
 It was a house to which the sick went to be nursed, and 
 the benevolent to have their plans carried out. It was 
 anything but a hide-bound or Puritanical house ; for the 
 library was copious, and novels and poems were read 
 aloud in the parlours, and such men as William Roscoe, 
 Robert Owen, Sylvester of Derby, Combe of Edinburgh, 
 came and went. There was a capital garden ; there was 
 a double verandah and if I live to see all the glories of 
 sun, moon, and seven stars, I shall never see that 
 verandah equalled ; and there was a pianoforte not 
 like my mother's pianoforte at Green End (which 
 Dickens must have known, else he could never have 
 described Miss Tox's instrument, with the wreath of 
 sweet peas round its maker's name, in Dombey] kept 
 under lock and key. There were water and a boat ; 
 but more, there was a touch of the true fire from 
 Heaven in the owner of all these delights, which spoke 
 to me in a way hardly to be described, never to be 
 forgotten. . . . 
 
 How that great, and good, and gentle woman ruled 
 her family having been left a widow at middle age 
 how toned them to a standard such as few even try to 
 
 1 Early impressions are strong, and the visit described was Chorley's first 
 visit to a well-to-do home. His parents, though of a good Lancashire 
 family, were in very straitened circumstances.
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 39 
 
 reach, many, very many, living know as well as I. 
 Few have influenced so many by their affections, by 
 their reason, by their understanding, so honourably as 
 that retiring, delicate woman ; and it is a pleasure (not 
 without tears in it) to me to think that when we are 
 all no more, some one, untouched by family partiality or 
 tradition, shall say this much by way of laying a leaf on 
 a modest, but a very holy, grave. 
 
 William Rathbone's eldest son and successor 
 was just of age when his father died, and his brother 
 Richard was a year younger. He was hardly, 
 perhaps, his father's equal in intellectual power 
 nor in native eloquence ; but he had high courage 
 and an ardent, generous nature. His temper was 
 quick, and when roused by anything he considered 
 wrong or unjust, his judgments were apt to be 
 severe and his speech caustic. He suffered all his 
 earlier life from dyspepsia, which caused at times 
 great depression, and made the starting of every 
 activity or change in its direction a painful effort. 
 But he had high principles and strong will enough 
 to overcome these obstacles to energy, and he led a 
 life nearly as full and much more extended than 
 his father's. His lot, too, fell in happier times, 
 and he was able to see more fruit of his labours. 
 
 In 1812 he married Elizabeth Greg, daughter 
 of Samuel Greg of Quarry Bank, near Manchester. 
 She was the eldest of twelve children, of whom 
 only two died under seventy. They were all
 
 40 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 brought up in a liberal atmosphere, and encouraged 
 to take an active interest and, as far as circum- 
 stances permitted, an active part in public work 
 of some kind political, educational, or philan- 
 thropic. The eldest daughter was mentally and 
 physically one of the strongest of them all. She 
 had great insight into character, and a cool, clear 
 judgment, upon which her husband, and later on 
 her sons and daughters, placed an almost un- 
 bounded and implicit reliance. Her husband 
 consulted her upon all his work ; and in the 
 educational questions which formed no inconsider- 
 able part of it, it was usually she who initiated 
 and suggested, though the custom of the day 
 prevented her from coming forward openly. 
 Between her and her eldest son, William, the sub- 
 ject of this Memoir, there was a very strong re- 
 semblance physical, mental, and moral. Both had 
 an abounding, exuberant, extraordinarily tenacious 
 vitality. The bent of both minds was intensely 
 practical, amounting almost to the genius of com- 
 mon sense. In both, at least in their old age, 
 conscience and will seemed almost to have grown 
 into one ; so that what they felt to be right, that 
 they instinctively wished, and desired, and strove 
 at once to do. But to enlarge upon this resem- 
 blance would be to anticipate the later portions of 
 this Memoir. 
 
 As the Gregs were Unitarians, William Rath-
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868). 
 Father of the subject of this Memoir.
 
 :r hushand 

 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 41 
 
 bone had, according to the discipline of the Society 
 of Friends, incurred the penalty of expulsion by 
 marrying out of the body. He was, however, 
 readmitted it is said, upon his giving an assurance 
 that, though he could not out of courtesy to his 
 wife say he repented having married her, he would 
 not do it again. Some years later he and his 
 family finally severed their connection with the 
 Society, and joined a congregation of Unitarians. 
 
 At the time of his marriage William Rathbone 
 was already deeply immersed in local politics, 
 helping to organise the various petitions, and 
 addressing the meetings, in favour of Reform, which 
 were held in Liverpool during the period between 
 the end of the war and the final passing of the 
 Reform Act. That period was one of poverty 
 and suffering and consequent discontent, attri- 
 buted by the Government entirely to the ''political 
 agitators " who were working for Reform. Strong 
 measures were taken to suppress the evil. The 
 Habeas Corpus Act was suspended and the right 
 of public meeting taken away. Lists of "suspected 
 persons " in other words, of members of the 
 Reform party all over the country were prepared, 
 and their movements spied upon. William Rath- 
 bone's name was seen by a Conservative friend of 
 the family in one of these lists, prepared for the 
 eye of Lord Castlereagh, with the entry against it, 
 " dangerous, but has done nothing as yet."
 
 42 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 In. 1820, at a town's meeting held to condole 
 with His Majesty for the death of his father, 
 George III., an incident happened which, though 
 insignificant enough, established for William Rath- 
 bone, then about thirty years old, a reputation for 
 moral courage which even his opponents never 
 afterwards found reason to question. A Quaker, 
 who in accordance with the rules of his Society 
 kept his hat on when the rest of the audience 
 uncovered, had it rudely knocked off his head. 
 A Mr. Adam Lodge applauded the insult, exclaim- 
 ing loudly : " If people will not conform to the 
 decorums of society, they ought to keep out of 
 that society." William Rathbone immediately 
 came forward on the platform and, putting his 
 own hat on, said that it would indeed be hard 
 if the members of a Society who owed so much 
 to the late king for the removal of their disabilities 
 during his reign, were to be debarred from honour- 
 ing his memory, unless they consented to violate 
 their consciences. This act took the fancy of the 
 meeting, feeling turned in favour of the Quaker, 
 and when Mr. Lodge's name was proposed, as had 
 been pre-arranged, to join the Mayor in presenting 
 the address, the meeting rejected it and another 
 name was put forward. 
 
 At about this time corruption at parliamentary 
 and municipal elections reached its climax. In 
 this respect the freemen voters of Liverpool
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 43 
 
 attained such an evil pre-eminence as almost 
 to justify Lord Brougham's description of the 
 city as "the greatest of the rotten boroughs." 
 Being a wealthy community and one where 
 party feeling ran high, candidates and their 
 friends were able and willing to pay for votes on 
 a scale unknown in humbler constituencies, and 
 the market price rose steadily from the reasonable, 
 well-established fee of five shillings the supposed 
 equivalent of the day's work lost in going to the 
 poll to the average reached in the Ewart and 
 Denison election in 1830, of 40 a vote. This 
 election, in which the candidates were both highly 
 respected men, whose after careers in the House of 
 Commons were conspicuously useful and honour- 
 able, cost over 80,000. Out of 4400 freemen a 
 bare thousand remained unbribed. The high-water 
 mark of corruption in municipal politics had been 
 reached three years before, when two candidates 
 for the office of Mayor, Mr. Robinson and Mr. 
 Porter, spent 10,000 apiece, the only question 
 between them being which should be Mayor first. 
 
 At the parliamentary contest of 1 8 1 6, when 
 the Reformers ran Leyland, a local banker, against 
 Canning, William Rathbone had been treasurer 
 of the election fund ; and although he had used 
 no bribes himself, he had had an insight into all 
 that went on. The effect of the experience was 
 to breed in him a deep-laid disgust and hatred of
 
 44 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 corruption, and a conviction, which time only 
 strengthened, that in Liverpool the first step towards 
 uprooting the evil was to disfranchise the freemen. 
 The scandal raised by the Ewart and Denison 
 election raised his hopes and those of his friends 
 that something might be done. Ewart was un- 
 seated on petition in March 1831, and a month 
 later the Reform Ministry was beaten in the House 
 of Commons on a resolution moved by General 
 Gascoigne, who for thirty-five years had been one 
 of the members for Liverpool. In the succeeding 
 election Ewart, Denison, and Gascoigne were again 
 the candidates. By an Act passed three years be- 
 fore, any parliamentary candidate might in writing 
 " demand the booths" ; that is, require the erection 
 of a compartment or polling station for every six 
 hundred voters. The effect of this, if carried out, 
 was greatly to shorten the duration of the election, 
 and thus to limit the opportunities for corruption 
 and drunkenness. But the Act had remained a 
 dead letter ; for no candidate had, so far, ventured 
 to incur the displeasure of the corrupt portion of 
 his constituency by putting it into force. William 
 Rathbone made an effort to persuade the three 
 candidates to unite in demanding the booths ; 
 but they all refused. He then announced that, 
 rather than risk a repetition of the orgies of the 
 previous election, he would get himself nominated 
 as a candidate and enforce the Act himself. Strong
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 45 
 
 pressure was put upon him by his own party to 
 desist. He was assured that he could not have 
 chosen a more inopportune moment to anger the 
 freemen ; that he was giving the seat away to 
 General Gascoigne, whose motion had carried the 
 defeat of the Reform Bill ; that he would be stoned, 
 and every window in his house broken. He 
 persisted ; and the result more than justified him. 
 The zeal in the country for Reform was so great 
 that it infected even the freemen. Ewart and 
 Denison headed the poll, while Gascoigne, who 
 had stood by the freemen through thick and thin, 
 was mobbed and execrated, and received only 450 
 votes. The erection of the booths, by limiting 
 the duration of the poll to two days, was thought 
 to have destroyed the only possible chance that 
 remained to him of regaining by bribery his lost 
 popularity. William Rathbone was received with 
 enthusiasm, and escorted to his house in Aber- 
 cromby Square by the cheers of the very mob, 
 with whose vengeance for his interference with 
 their usual carnival he had been threatened. 
 
 His favour with the freemen was not of long 
 duration. The following year, another bye- 
 election with bribery having taken place in the 
 meantime, he and his friends prepared a Petition 
 to Parliament, praying for inquiry into the alleged 
 abuses in elections for many years, and for redress by 
 the disfranchisement of the freemen. The Petition
 
 46 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 was referred to a Committee of the House of Com- 
 mons, chosen by ballot. The case for the petitioners 
 was conducted by Sergeant Merryweather and Mr. 
 Edward Rushton, and lasted from March until July 
 1833. They proved extensive and flagrant corrup- 
 tion and bribery for many years, and also that in 
 two cases offices in the Customs were sold, and the 
 money appropriated to the expenses of General 
 Gascoigne's election. 1 The following year a Bill of 
 Disfranchisement was introduced into the House of 
 Commons, and passed through all its stages there 
 in the teeth of the fiercest opposition, which was 
 renewed with such success in the Lords that it 
 never became law. In the cause of municipal 
 reform, the friends of purity were more successful. 
 After a long inquiry and a tremendous struggle, 
 the Municipal Corporation Reform Bill was passed 
 in 
 
 1 The evidence before this Commission affords some picturesque if un- 
 savoury reading. One incident illustrates the reluctance with which some 
 of the poorest voters yielded to irresistible temptation. 
 
 A canvasser for Mr. Denison, one John Atkinson, deposed that he had, 
 with great difficulty, and relying upon the entreaties of the man's wife, per- 
 suaded a poor voter to take 50 for his vote. The man held out a long 
 time, but at last caught up his coat and, putting it on, told Atkinson he 
 would go with him. When they got to the polling station the man asked, 
 "In whose interest am I here?" and on being told Mr. Denison's, voted 
 accordingly. Mr. Denison, who was standing by, blandly expressed a desire 
 to shake hands with his supporter, who roughly replied, " No sir, I have 
 given you my vote, but I will not give you my hand." 
 
 What the future Speaker said and felt is not recorded. 
 
 2 The later moves in this struggle for electoral purity in Liverpool arc 
 described at pp. 141-145.
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 47 
 
 During the three years occupied by this agita- 
 tion, William Rathbone, and the friend most in- 
 timately associated with him in the matter, Mr. 
 R. E. Harvey, were obliged to pass a large part 
 of each session in London, and to devote a con- 
 siderable portion of their own fortunes to the ex- 
 penses of the struggle. The sacrifice, to him at 
 least, was a very real one, for he detested from 
 the bottom of his heart the turmoil of political 
 negotiations in which he found himself in London, 
 and he could ill spare the time from his business. 
 In Liverpool their efforts made them, for the 
 moment, very unpopular. They were accused 
 of blackening the character of their native city 
 although, after the notorious scandal of the 
 Ewart-Denison election, that was perhaps scarcely 
 possible. On one occasion, on his return from 
 London, William Rathbone was openly hissed 
 on 'Change. In 1835, wnen Municipal Reform 
 was an accomplished fact, there was a revulsion 
 of feeling, and he and Mr. Harvey were presented 
 by their fellow-citizens with services of plate in 
 commemoration of their labours. At the Novem- 
 ber election the Liberals were returned to power 
 with the unprecedented majority of fifty-nine seats 
 out of sixty-four, and very unwisely, against the 
 advice of many of their best friends, they chose all 
 the sixteen aldermen out of their own party a 
 precedent which the Tories assiduously followed
 
 48 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 when they regained their usual predominance. 
 William Rathbone, who was one of the new coun- 
 cillors, was offered the Mayoralty. He declined 
 it at the time; but two years later, in 1837, he 
 accepted the office of Mayor, and in that capacity 
 laid the foundation stone of St. George's Hall, and 
 did the honours of Liverpool to Marshal Soult. 
 
 It was not long before he and his party 
 again came into sharp conflict with the opinion of 
 the majority. The Corporation owned two ele- 
 mentary schools, supported out of the rates and 
 maintained " on the principles of the Church of 
 England." This arrangement had always seemed 
 to the Reformers unjust to all dissenting sects, but 
 more especially to the Roman Catholics, who 
 formed the majority of that poorest section of the 
 community, for whose benefit these schools were 
 especially intended. As soon as the Whigs found 
 themselves in a majority a committee was appointed, 
 of which William Rathbone, who in this matter 
 had an unseen but able colleague in his wife, was 
 one of the most active members. After much 
 consideration it was decided to introduce what was 
 known as the Irish National system. The children 
 all received secular instruction together, and then 
 Protestants and Catholics were congregated into 
 separate rooms, where the Protestants received 
 religious instruction from Mr. Aspinall, the in- 
 cumbent of one of the Corporation churches, and
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 49 
 
 the Catholics from a priest of their own denomina- 
 tion. 
 
 This arrangement was then considered quite 
 satisfactory by the Catholics, and at first it seemed 
 likely to satisfy the Church party also. But a 
 section of the Low Church clergy, headed by the 
 Rev. Hugh M'Neil, at once saw their opportunity 
 for at the same time dealing a blow at the Catholics 
 and undermining the Liberal majority in the 
 Council. From the pulpit and the platform, and 
 through the medium of the press, they began a 
 campaign against the Corporation schools which 
 lasted for four years. To strengthen their case 
 they employed such flagrant and deliberate mis- 
 representation as it would be hard to parallel, even 
 in the annals of religious controversy. The Bible, 
 they shouted, had been banished from the schools. 
 They knew perfectly well that it was being taught 
 there daily, by a clergyman of their own Church, 
 more systematically and intelligently than ever 
 before. But the appeal to religious intolerance is 
 never made in Liverpool without a response. The 
 electors would probably in any case have gone 
 back sooner or later to their old allegiance ; but 
 the cry of " No Popery " hastened and stimulated 
 the reaction. 
 
 The municipal elections for the next three 
 years were fought mainly on this issue, and a 
 Bible, suspended to a pole, was carried at the 
 
 E
 
 50 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 head of the Tory processions. The Whigs 
 steadily lost ground, until, in 1841, the coup de 
 grace came in the return of thirteen Tory candi- 
 dates out of sixteen. William Rathbone, who had 
 sat for Pitt Street Ward, was one of the dis- 
 possessed Whigs. He soon returned to the Council 
 as member for Vauxhall Ward, but in 1850 was 
 again thrown out this time on the question of the 
 town's water supply. He had been chairman of 
 the committee that carried the Rivington Pike 
 scheme, which was denounced by a large party 
 outside the Council as unnecessarily extensive and 
 extravagant. The need in later years for the sup- 
 plementary supply from Vyrnwy proves that, if 
 anything, the Rivington scheme had been hardly 
 extensive enough. 
 
 After the defeat of the Whigs on the educa- 
 tional question, William Rathbone and his wife 
 turned their attention to the Hibernian Schools 
 and succeeded in making them, for their day, 
 model elementary schools. The religious instruc- 
 tion was managed upon the Irish system, and 
 Catholic and Protestant children sat harmoniously 
 side by side. The schools became noted for the 
 number and excellence of the teachers whom they 
 trained. 
 
 In 1870, when Mr. Forster's Education Act 
 was under discussion, Mrs. Rathbone, then in her 
 eighty-first year, sent her son William, who was
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 51 
 
 in Parliament, a string of memoranda, based upon 
 her experience as a school-manager, dealing with 
 the practical working of various clauses of the 
 Bill. These he showed to Mr. Forster, who after- 
 wards assured him that he had found them the 
 most useful hints of their kind that he had received 
 during the passage of the Bill. 
 
 William Rathbone long outlived the unpopu- 
 larity brought on him in early manhood by his 
 advocacy of measures distasteful to the majority, 
 or by his caustic tongue. His fellow -citizens, 
 with the generosity which Liverpool has always 
 shown to those who have, in the main, served her 
 well, forgot what was repugnant to them in his 
 political or theological views, and remembered only 
 his long and disinterested labours, his zeal in every 
 cause of social and civic improvement, and his 
 benevolence to the poor. His influence in the 
 town grew steadily. His portrait, which at the 
 time of his greatest unpopularity had been rejected 
 by the Town Council, when offered by some of his 
 friends, was unearthed from the obscurity of the 
 Mechanics Institute and hung in the Council 
 Chamber. After his death, a statue of him, an 
 admirable likeness, was erected by public subscrip- 
 tion in Sefton Park. His own character during 
 these later years had ripened and mellowed. He 
 had an old-world, elaborate courtesy of manner, 
 which, combined with a certain antique distinction
 
 52 WILLIAM RATH BONE CHAP. 
 
 of dress, gave him an air of belonging to a genera- 
 tion at least one before his own. A sarcastic turn 
 of speech made him, especially to young people, a 
 rather formidable old gentleman. But he could 
 be a genial and charming host, and he and his 
 wife had always made of their home a kind of 
 general rendezvous for all visitors to Liverpool 
 who had some especial opinion to propagate, or 
 some philanthropic scheme to advance. If the 
 visitor happened to be obscure, or in bad health, 
 or regarded with suspicion by the rest of the 
 world as a heretic or a faddist, his welcome was 
 all the more sure. 
 
 Audubon, the American naturalist ; Robert 
 Owen, the socialistic founder of New Lanark and 
 New Harmony ; Blanco White, the former Spanish 
 priest, and author of the once -famous Doblados 
 Letters ; Dorothea Dix, who reformed the lunatic 
 asylums of the United States and of several parts 
 of Europe ; Lady Byron ; and Father Mathew, the 
 temperance reformer, were some of these casual 
 visitors who afterwards became lifelong friends. 
 
 At the beginning of 1868 William Rathbone's 
 health began seriously to fail. He was told by 
 the doctors that an operation, if successful, might 
 give him several years of comfort and intercourse 
 with his friends, and that without it his life would 
 have to be that of an invalid ; but that it was not 
 unlikely that the issue would be fatal. He did
 
 i WILLIAM RATHBONE (1787-1868) 53 
 
 not hesitate to make his choice. He " had no 
 wish to live to be a burden upon others, and would 
 take the full responsibility of the operation." He 
 set all his affairs, down to the minutest detail, in 
 order, but he refused to express to his sons any 
 wishes regarding the continuance of his work or 
 of his subscriptions. While in the world he had 
 done what he thought right ; when he was gone, 
 the responsibility of his property became theirs, 
 and he would not fetter their freedom. He died 
 a few days after the operation, on February i, 
 1868, in the eighty-first year of his age. His wife 
 survived him for fifteen years. 
 
 The foregoing sketch of William Rathbone's 
 predecessors in Liverpool has extended itself be- 
 yond the limit originally intended for it. In 
 thinking over the past, it was impossible not to 
 feel to how unusual an extent the life and character 
 which are the principal subject of this Memoir, 
 were the outcome and the natural continuation of 
 the lives that had gone before. But for the 
 incidents of birth and death, they might seem at 
 least on a cursory view which ignored the real 
 differences of individuality and power to be but 
 a single life extended over three generations. It 
 seemed therefore impossible to deal adequately 
 with the one, without giving some account of the 
 others. Perhaps, too, there is some interest, at 
 least for the limited circle for whom this book is
 
 54 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, i 
 
 intended, in tracing in the lives of a series of 
 individuals, none of them with any pretensions to 
 celebrity, but all, within the limits of their own 
 town, essentially public men, the gradual shifting 
 of activities, corresponding with the shifting of the 
 real centre of national interest, from civil and 
 religious liberty in the eighteenth century, to 
 political reform in the first half of the nineteenth, 
 and again to social reform during the last fifty 
 years. 
 
 Lastly, it must be said, that if any reader find 
 the few foregoing pages wearisomely eulogistic, it 
 should be remembered that in writing of lives 
 beyond the reach of living memories, one has to 
 use materials, written or traditionary, as one finds 
 them, and when these relate to persons not famous 
 enough to have enemies, they are apt to reveal an 
 observance even too scrupulous to be quite satis- 
 factory to the would-be picturesque biographer, 
 of the rule " De mortals, ml nisi bonum" At least 
 nothing of a eulogistic nature has been used that 
 appeared merely conventional, or that had not a 
 solid backing of fact.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY YEARS -- iSlQ TO 1842 
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE, the sixth bearer of that 
 name, was born on the nth of February 1819 : 
 exactly ten years after the death of the grandfather 
 whose character and temperament he seems in 
 several points to have inherited. In some Remi- 
 niscences set down in his old age for the amuse- 
 ment of his family, he wrote : l "I was born at 
 Cornhill, a piece of land between the Salthouse 
 Dock and the river, now the site of the Albert 
 Dock Warehouses. There my grandfather and 
 father in turn had possessed a large warehouse, an 
 office, and their dwelling-place, using Greenbank 
 as a country resort in summer. We soon after- 
 wards removed from Cornhill to a house in Hope 
 Street, facing Falkner Street; and in 1825 we 
 moved again to a house at the south-west corner 
 
 o 
 
 1 In the quotations given from these Reminiscences, names and elates have 
 occasionally been corrected or supplied, and such insignificant verbal altera- 
 tions made as were necessary to connect together just those sentences or 
 fragments of sentences which it was desired to extract. 
 
 55
 
 56 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of Abercromby Square, which was built for my 
 father's occupation. While we lived in Hope 
 Street the celebrated Burke and Hare murders 
 took place, and as some bodies intended for dis- 
 section were found on the premises of a joiner 
 three or four doors from our house, we children 
 imagined that the cemetery at the top of Duke 
 Street, then a deserted stone quarry, had been the 
 resort of Burke and Hare in Liverpool, and used 
 to put our hands before our faces when out at 
 dusk, to avoid the fatal pitch plaster with which 
 they suffocated their victims." 
 
 It is difficult for the inhabitants of the Liverpool 
 of to-day to realise what a small place comparatively 
 was the Liverpool of eighty years ago. It was the 
 custom then for prosperous men of business to live, 
 as William Rathbone's father and grandfather did, 
 opposite to or above their own offices and ware- 
 houses, and on fine evenings they took the air 
 sitting by the dock side, while their children played 
 at a safe distance from the deep water. St. Anne's 
 Street was then the fashionable abode of the great 
 West Indian merchants of the day, while Rodney 
 Street was the new quarter to which some of them, 
 including Mr. Gladstone's father, had migrated. 
 Hope Street and Abercromby Square, mentioned 
 in the above passage, now seem almost in the centre 
 of the town, but they were then on its very border, 
 and all beyond were fields and lanes. One of
 
 ii CHILDHOOD 57 
 
 William Rathbone's earliest recollections was of 
 flushing a snipe while gathering water-cresses in a 
 brook running where Falkner Street (then Crab- 
 tree Lane) now stands. 
 
 At the age of four, he was sent to a day-school 
 in Seel Street, having been detected in inciting his 
 elder sister to rebellion against their governess. 
 
 A letter from his grandmother, Mrs. Samuel 
 Greg, gives a lively but unflattering picture of him 
 at this age : 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND I thought the hour spent at 
 lessons morning and afternoon (and less sitting still this 
 hot weather is not desirable) might be well spent in 
 writing a letter, and told Willy one morning if he would 
 tell me what to say, I would write it quite fair, and then 
 he could copy my writing. This he quite disdained, and 
 said, as he does of everything, " that he can do all that 
 very well, and never needs a copy at home," so I merely 
 ruled lines and provided him with pen and ink, and what 
 is written on the other side, with inquiries about spelling, 
 and thinking what to say, which I did not help him to, just 
 filled up the hour. He told me he had made only one mis- 
 take, and had scratched this out ; and by showing him 
 there was one in every line^ I have endeavoured to make it 
 a lesson of humility ; and think if he sometimes had 
 it pointed out to him, his boasting so much might be 
 corrected quietly, as it involves, besides pride, a careless- 
 ness about truth) which certainly at his age no time 
 should be lost in rectifying ; and he is so sensible, that 
 reasoning with him always seems to impress him for the 
 time. He has been more cheerful since he came here
 
 58 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 than I ever saw him, and even the expression of his 
 countenance is improving, and I hope may recover in 
 time the unequalled beauty he had at two years old, 
 before discontent, and the exercise of power, which always 
 brings discontent, clouded its open cheerfulness. Indeed 
 he has been so happy here on the whole the harvest, and 
 various works going on have furnished him with such a 
 succession of amusements that I wish he could have 
 remained longer, so as to recover some habit of cheerful- 
 ness, and to lose that of listlessness ; for it has only been 
 when (as appeared to me) the fermety and another time 
 a fresh egg Mrs. H. at the Farm gave him, and he had it 
 dressed for his lunch made him uneasy, that he has said, 
 " I must go home on Monday," or, " I expect to go home 
 on Tuesday, as Miss Tomlinson will expect me." These, 
 however, have been momentary thoughts, and we have 
 had nothing to call a cloud, or a cry. . . . 
 
 You will be amused by the attempts to spell fermety^ 
 which I do not know that I spell right myself. I think 
 I mentioned before that I had found it advisable to give 
 up the plan of Debtor and Creditor account of time and 
 work. " How long does it want now ? " " Oh, I am 
 sure it is more than a minute," etc., took up the attention, 
 and was very unfavourable to the deference and respect to 
 teachers, etc., that Willy most wants. I am well per- 
 suaded that the degree of restraint established here, and 
 decorum expected, has made him relish his pleasures 
 much more, and be tenfold happier than when uncon- 
 trolled and also more affectionate and feeling to 
 others. 
 
 Apparently the discipline of home and a day- 
 school was found insufficient to wean this youth
 
 ii SCHOOLDAYS 59 
 
 from " the exercise of power " and its evil results, 
 for when just six, he was sent to a small boarding- 
 school at Gateacre. This is only four miles from 
 Liverpool, and he was fetched home for his 
 Saturdays and Sundays. Three years later, his 
 parents heard of a school at Cheam, conducted on 
 the new Pestalozzian system, in which they were 
 greatly interested. It was kept by a clergyman, 
 the Rev. William Brown, on strictly orthodox 
 Church lines. William arrived there in a broad- 
 brimmed Quaker hat intended to shade his eyes. 
 This at first caused much amusement, and earned 
 him the name of the little Quaker. It did not, how- 
 ever, trouble him much or long, for he was an 
 active boy, fond of mischief, and got on well with 
 his school-fellows. Mr. Brown's letters show that 
 he was interested in his new pupil, and delighted 
 with that pupil's parents, whose vivid interest in 
 educational methods contrasted with the usual dead 
 level of parental apathy. A year later, William 
 was moved nearer home, to a school of about a 
 hundred boys, kept by Mr. Voelker at St. Domingo 
 House, Everton. His brother Samuel, younger 
 by three years, was sent with him, to begin that 
 close companionship in work and interests which 
 lasted for the rest of their lives. There he spent 
 the remainder of his school-days, from 1830 to 
 1835. His recollection of them and of his master 
 may be told in his own words :
 
 60 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Mr. Voellcer was a German and an enthusiast. He was 
 supposed to have been a member of the Tugendbund, the 
 league formed to exact from the King of Prussia a fulfil- 
 ment of his promise of freedom, and he had had to fly from 
 Germany when despotism was re-established in Prussia, 
 after the close of the Napoleonic wars. He had a very 
 high tone of character : generous, courageous, en- 
 thusiastic, with almost a woman's unselfishness and 
 refinement, and his moral influence over the boys did 
 much to make them the useful men they were in after 
 life. The school was a very good one in leading boys to 
 think, in giving them a liking for reading, and in teach- 
 ing them mathematics and modern languages ; but it did 
 not turn out classical scholars, and fitted people more for 
 practical thought and action than for the learned professions. 
 Many of the boys were afterwards successful as merchants, 
 manufacturers, and politicians. Among the more inti- 
 mate friends I made there were Thomas Ashton, James 
 Stansfeld, James Worthington, and J. Birley. The last 
 two were afterwards partners ; Stansfeld I knew well in 
 the House of Commons ; and Thomas Ashton was one 
 of the most intimate and best friends a man ever had. I 
 had a very pleasant time at school, never doing any- 
 thing seriously wrong, but getting into plenty of 
 active mischief, and possessing a very comfortable sort of 
 conscience, on which so long as I was never guilty 
 of untruth or anything foul or mean other sins of 
 omission and commission sat very lightly. During my 
 last six months I was left the head boy. I am afraid 
 that I had been rather prominent in insubordination 
 against any master I thought incompetent or unjust ; and 
 at the end of the previous term, one of the masters whom 
 I liked came to me and said that Mr. Voelker was rather
 
 6i 
 
 troubled at the idea of such a rebel as I was being left the 
 head of the school. The school was absolutely free from 
 serious faults, but they, had got into the way of innumer- 
 able small punishments for small offences, such as 
 "breaking bounds," or a " pillow fight" between two 
 boys, or much of active boyishness that Mr. Voelker 
 would have been only too glad if his masters would have 
 avoided taking so much trouble to find out. I pointed 
 out this to my friend, and said it was difficult to expect 
 authority to be respected which was so minute and trivial 
 in its dealings ; that if they would give up all these minor 
 tasks which encroached upon our play hours, I thought I 
 might engage that they would have infinitely less trouble 
 with us. They took us at our word, and certainly there 
 were never a better set of boys than during those few 
 months. But it was awfully dull, and the boys found it 
 so ; and after I and a few more of the old set left, 
 leaving three or four great hulking, idle fellows, without 
 principle or refinement, some drinking and other evil got 
 into the school, and so disgusted Mr. Voelker that he 
 closed it and went back to Switzerland. I left school a 
 fair French and German scholar, a very poor classical one, 
 with a decided desire for knowledge, a good deal of 
 miscellaneous information and general observation, but a 
 careless worker, with a very bad hand-writing. 
 
 The boy then became junior apprentice in the 
 small office of Messrs. Nicol, Duckworth, and 
 Co., merchants in the Bombay and Mediterranean 
 trade, where he remained for three years. 
 
 There I did nothing but copy letters and accounts, 
 run errands, mend the fires, and take weights on the
 
 62 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 dock quays and in warehouses. . . . This period of my 
 apprenticeship was one of the least happy periods of my 
 life. Sam was still at school, and I had no young friends 
 in Liverpool. My two companions in the office were 
 very good-natured but uncultivated and rather coarse 
 Scotchmen, with whom I never became intimate. Though 
 I picked up a good deal of business information and 
 knowledge of how work was done, I had nothing in business 
 really to occupy my thoughts and interests, and I became 
 rather morbid and sentimental. I was conscious of 
 having wasted a good deal of time at school, and I thought 
 I had missed the chance of making a life worth living. 
 Fortunately, a young lady, daughter of Dr. Tuckerman 
 of Boston, much older than myself, and a great friend of 
 my eldest sister, made more than one long stay with us. 
 She was highly cultivated, very fond of German poetry, 
 and I admired her genius 1 and intelligence greatly. She 
 was herself rather morbid, but had the sense to know that 
 it was a mistake, and to convince me that it was mere 
 childishness regarding the past, as I was still a boy and 
 had my life before me in which to amend. My elder 
 sisters, too, did all that they could, both for Sam and 
 myself, being always ready to put aside their own pursuits, 
 to sympathise with us, and to try to lead us to worthy 
 interests and steady work. 
 
 During these three years in fact, from the 
 sixteenth to the nineteenth of his life, William Rath- 
 bone was making the rough passage from boyhood 
 to manhood, and the " very comfortable sort of con- 
 science " of his school-days was quickening into the 
 
 1 William Rathbone frequently used this word in its old-fashioned sense, 
 as roughly equivalent to "individuality" "mental characteristics."
 
 ii APPRENTICESHIP 63 
 
 sensitiveness and activity which it never again lost. 
 He must have had from the first a stiff moral back- 
 bone, and a clear notion of what the possibilities 
 of life were for him. When he first came into 
 Nicol and Duckworth's office he found that owing 
 to the amount of time and money his father gave 
 to public work, an erroneous impression prevailed 
 that he was a very rich man, and that his eldest 
 son was destined for political life rather than for a 
 serious business career. Many boys of sixteen 
 would have slidden more or less consciously into 
 the same belief, but he set himself deliberately to 
 overthrow it by a scrupulously exact and punctual 
 performance of his very dull duties. He used to 
 say that much of what he did during those years 
 seemed to him utterly useless at the time, but that 
 afterwards he found the advantage of it in several 
 ways, and especially in enabling him to judge how 
 every one in his office, from highest to lowest, was 
 doing his work. 
 
 As illustrating the change produced in the 
 conditions of commerce by the introduction of 
 steam-ships, he described how he had once during 
 his apprenticeship posted thirty letters on thirty 
 consecutive days in the letter-box of a single ship 
 which was waiting to sail for Bombay, but was 
 detained day after day for a month by contrary 
 winds. When at last the wind changed, the Mersey 
 presented a beautiful sight. It was so crowded
 
 64 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 with white-sailed ships, all tacking outwards, that 
 it looked as though you could have crossed it by 
 stepping from deck to deck. 
 
 Some years earlier than this, but still, he believed, 
 in his own lifetime, the firms of Cropper, Benson, 
 and Co., and Rathbone Brothers and Co., which 
 were closely connected, joined in chartering a Liver- 
 pool pilot-boat to take out to their correspondents 
 in New York the news of a bad harvest and the 
 approaching opening of the ports to the importa- 
 tion of wheat. She was towed out to sea by the 
 one little Mersey steam ferry-boat, not larger than 
 many a modern steam-launch, while one of the 
 strong, persistent winds from the west was blowing. 
 When the pilot-boat arrived back in the Mersey, 
 she found the westerly winds still prevailing, and 
 all the vessels still in the river that she had left 
 there. 
 
 Nicol and Duckworth's largest ship was the Elides, 
 an East Indian of 250 tons. This took more than 
 a fortnight to discharge, and the captain was con- 
 sidered very well paid at^io a month. Freight 
 from the East Indies was then 4 or 5 a ton. 
 At that time the record passage had been made to 
 New York by the Independence, of the old line of 
 New York packets, in fourteen days. She was a 
 ship of 300 tons. When a New York firm started 
 the Dramatic Line in opposition, with ships of 600 
 and 700 tons, everybody anticipated that they
 
 ii RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 65 
 
 would fail, as they were thought too large to be 
 run at a profit. 
 
 The dulness of William Rathbone's life during 
 these years may have indirectly done him some 
 service by leaving his mind the more open to an 
 influence which had already been brought to bear 
 on it, and which was destined to be probably the 
 deepest and most permanent that his spiritual life 
 ever knew. Since their final severance from the 
 Society of Friends, the Rathbones had attended 
 the Unitarian Chapel in Renshaw Street. It was 
 a plain, unpretentious building, with a flat roof 
 and commodious galleries, of the type then usual 
 for Nonconformist chapels. In 1831, the Rev. 
 John Hamilton Thorn was appointed to the 
 ministry there -a ministry which was to last, with 
 one break of three years, till the close of 1866. 
 At its beginning, Mr. Thorn was only twenty- 
 three years old, and the congregation he had to 
 face numbered among its members men and 
 women who were in their several ways leaders in 
 the political, civic, and literary life of the town. 
 Their own earnestness of conviction and of life 
 made them perhaps the better able to appreciate 
 unusual power in others, and Mr. Thorn's influence 
 among them soon became unique and profound. 
 His following was never a very large one, for 
 although he had some of the best qualities of an 
 orator, his sermons made too great a demand upon 
 
 F
 
 66 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the attention and spiritual thoughtfulness of his 
 hearers to suit the mass of churchgoers. The 
 qualification necessary for understanding and 
 responding to them was not indeed culture nor 
 cleverness, for they scarcely ever contained learned 
 allusions, and rarely, if ever, entered the sphere 
 of metaphysical or theological speculation. A 
 stranger reading them would have to infer the 
 section of the Christian Church to which the writer 
 belonged if he did discover it rather from the 
 absence of certain allusions and phrases than from 
 any more positive evidence. When forced from 
 outside to define his doctrinal position, he could 
 do so in outlines that have nothing blurred or 
 hazy about them, and, as his contributions to the 
 " Liverpool Controversy " l show, he was, when 
 thus roused, a powerful, an acute, and an unsparing 
 controversialist. But doctrinal theology was not 
 the special function of his preaching. In the words 
 of his lifelong and intimate friend, Dr. James 
 Martineau, " his function was to realise and 
 interpret the relation and intercommunion between 
 the human spirit and the Divine, and from his own 
 inward experience bring it home to the conscious- 
 
 1 In 1839, thirteen clergymen of the Church of England challenged the 
 three Unitarian ministers in Liverpool James Martineau, J. H. Thorn, and 
 Henry Giles to a public discussion of the doctrinal questions at issue 
 between Unitarians and Trinitarians. The result was a series of lectures 
 delivered by each side on alternate dates. The whole series was reissued by 
 the British and Foreign Unitarian Association in 1876.
 
 ii RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 67 
 
 ness of others." l But it would be a mistake to 
 suppose from this description that the tenor of his 
 preaching was merely contemplative and mystical 
 made up of holy musings and emotions. Most 
 of it, on the contrary, is concerned with definite 
 principles of character and conduct ; but in the 
 formulation of these he appeals not to utilitarian 
 sanctions, but to those drawn from the depths of 
 a profound and distinctively Christian religious 
 experience. Perhaps it would be impossible to 
 sum up the general scope of his sermons better 
 than is done in the title which Mr. Thorn himself 
 gave to the two volumes published during his life- 
 time. They are an attempt to interpret, and to 
 apply to the conditions of modern life, " the laws 
 of life after the mind of Christ." 2 
 
 Of his influence on his audience it is difficult to 
 speak. To many of them he appears to have been 
 what Charming had been to himself, " the opener 
 of a new religious life, not as the founder of a 
 school, but as the destroyer of all schools except 
 the school of the spirit." 3 
 
 In moments of intimate conversation, William 
 Rathbone often tried to describe the impression 
 which this preaching left upon his own mind. The 
 point upon which he laid most stress was, perhaps, 
 
 1 Memorial Preface to A Spiritual Faith, by J. H. Thorn. 
 
 2 Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ. Philip Green, Strand. 
 
 3 Speech by J. H. Thorn at the Channing Centenary Celebration in 
 Liverpool, 1880.
 
 68 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the poignancy of its appeal to the individual con- 
 science an appeal which silenced all desire to 
 question, to speculate, to note the application 
 of the preacher's words to others. But perhaps 
 it would be impossible to convey the gist of his 
 description of what Mr. Thorn's sermons actually 
 did for their hearers, better than by quoting a 
 passage from one of the sermons themselves, in 
 which the preacher defines his own function. He 
 has been denouncing the habit of facile discussion 
 and criticism of sermons, and asks the question : 
 
 Is a good sermon one that you are to judge, or one 
 that judges you ? What is a good sermon ? Something 
 that lays the law of God upon a man's conscience, that 
 brings the Spirit of God into a man's soul, that makes a 
 man start under the keen sense of unsuspected obliga- 
 tions, and feel to the quick that his very peace lies in 
 toils that he shrinks from, and in efforts that he shuns as 
 sacrifices. I do not know that a "good sermon" should 
 " please " any one, or that it should leave him in a con- 
 dition to express an easy opinion about it, but rather 
 that it should give him an opinion of himself on which 
 he would not desire to say anything, and introduce 
 some thoughts and purposes into his heart, on which 
 the deeper they went, the more would he be disposed 
 to be silent just then. 1 
 
 Preaching such as this, which quickens the 
 buried seeds of life in a man's own soul, soon 
 makes him independent even of itself. It was 
 
 1 A Minister of God, p. 92,
 
 ii RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 69 
 
 seldom, William Rathbone said, that as a young 
 man he was able to listen to the whole of a Sunday 
 morning's discourse. By the time it was half over, 
 his mind had travelled away on the track of the 
 " thoughts and purposes " it had introduced, and 
 was grappling with the " unsuspected obligations " 
 which had been revealed. 
 
 As a rule, Mr. Thorn dealt only with the 
 springs and principles of conduct, and his preach- 
 ing was, as one of his hearers has described it, 
 " singularly free from any kind of personal or 
 local allusion, from any element of consideration 
 for the special circumstances of himself or others." 
 But there were exceptions to this rule. One out- 
 growth of the work of the Unitarian body in 
 Liverpool was initiated by him in a sermon, and 
 for the remainder of his long life he devoted 
 much thought to its development. This was the 
 system of Domestic Missions, a ministry set apart 
 for bringing religious teaching to the poor in their 
 own homes. The idea had been brought to Eng- 
 land by Dr. Joseph Tuckerman of Boston, who 
 had visited Liverpool in 1833, anc ^ had then 
 stayed with the Rathbones at Greenbank. It was 
 two years later, on Christmas Day 1835, that Mr. 
 Thorn preached the sermon out of which the Liver- 
 pool Domestic Mission grew. Young William 
 Rathbone, then just at the beginning of his 
 apprenticeship, was present ; and long afterwards,
 
 yo WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 when presiding at the Annual Meeting of the 
 Mission, he alluded to the occasion on which the 
 seed had been sown : 
 
 On Christmas Day, thirty-eight years ago, a sermon 
 was preached in Renshaw Street Chapel, out of which 
 this Mission arose ; and which left a more clear and 
 permanent religious impression upon my mind than any 
 sermon I have ever listened to. The preacher took for 
 his text the question of John the Baptist : " Art thou He 
 that should come ? " and Christ's answer, " The poor have 
 the gospel preached to them." He called on us to con- 
 sider what, on that crucial evidence, the Christianity of 
 our age was worth, and told us that what we as Chris- 
 tians are is to be seen in what those who live by the 
 people and wield the influences of society suffer the 
 people to be. I was then just entering on the world's 
 work, with all the hopes and aspirations of seventeen, and 
 I felt so strongly the truth of the preacher's words that 
 had I not doubted my power of influencing others by 
 speech I believe I should have abandoned the desk for 
 work in the streets and courts of our town. I remained 
 in the work for which circumstances seemed to destine 
 me, and am grateful for success beyond my deserts or 
 most ambitious thoughts. But I feel now as I felt then, 
 that had I possessed the necessary powers successfully to 
 carry Christ's gospel of peace and hope and purity to 
 the toiling and suffering, it would be a success far nobler, 
 worthier, and more to be desired than any other 
 whatever. 
 
 In 1838, Mr. Thorn married Hannah Mary, 
 the second daughter of Mr. William Rathbone,
 
 n AT HEIDELBERG 71 
 
 senior, and was thus brought into still closer 
 relation with his young brother-in-law. 
 
 At the close of his three years with Nicol, 
 Duckworth, and Co., William Rathbone went for 
 a short time into his father's office, where, owing 
 to the illness or absence of some of the clerks, he 
 had to attend to the work of two or three depart- 
 ments. In the autumn of 1839, he persuaded 
 his father to allow him a year's leave of absence, 
 and with his old school-fellow and most intimate 
 friend, Thomas Ashton, went to study at the 
 University of Heidelberg. After much consider- 
 ation, they had fixed upon this University for the 
 sake of working under two of the professors there 
 Schlosser, 1 then a historian of considerable 
 celebrity, and Zacharia, 2 one of the principal 
 authors, after Napoleon, of the Code Napoleon, 
 and well known as a professor of Naturrecht, that 
 is, the principles of Law and Jurisprudence ; a 
 study at that time very little pursued in England. 
 From Oxford and Cambridge the two young men 
 would have been shut out by the Tests, even if 
 they could have spared the three or four years 
 
 1 Christoph Friedrich Schlosser (1776-1861), Professor of History at 
 Heidelberg. Principal works: GcscAicAte des ^.Jahrh, Uni-versalhistorische 
 ubersicht der GesMchte der Alien Welt, Weltgeschichte fur das deutsche Pott, 
 etc. Biographies by Gervinus (1861) and Weber (1876). 
 
 2 Karl Salomo Zacharia von Lingenthal (1769-1843), Professor of Law 
 in Heidelberg, 1807; ennobled 1842. Principal works: Handbuch des 
 Franyfis : Zivilrechts ; Vier-zig Biicher -vom Staat, 7 vols., 1839.
 
 72 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 over which every course of study there is spread. 
 It may be doubted whether the majority of Eng- 
 lish undergraduates get more, or even as much, 
 good from their three years' pleasant existence at 
 college as these two managed to get out of a 
 single session's hard study, followed by several 
 months' travelling. Although William Rathbone 
 had a strong love of reading, and a real faculty for 
 the study of history and political science (a term 
 apparently uninvented then), he was not by nature 
 a scholar, nor even a student, for study's sake. 
 Knowledge was always to him a means, and not 
 an end. He studied the past, in the hope that 
 it would help him to understand the present and 
 foresee the future ; and principles, in order that 
 he might apply them to practice in his after life. 
 Over the majority of young men who go straight 
 from school to college, he had one great advan- 
 tage that he had a clearly defined notion, based 
 in part on practical experience, of the field in 
 which the knowledge acquired and powers 
 developed at college would be employed. He 
 expected to spend a great part of his life in doing 
 the work of a merchant and shipowner, and he had 
 had the three years of his apprenticeship to learn 
 what kind of work that was. He intended that 
 what remained should be given to public work, 
 probably in or for his native town. 
 
 In the Reminiscences from which we have
 
 it AT HEIDELBERG 73 
 
 already quoted, he describes his memories of this 
 session at Heidelberg : 
 
 We worked very hard and steadily, getting up at 
 six, or half-past six, in the morning, and going on till 
 we went to bed at night, our exercise and relaxation 
 being walking in and out of the town nearly a mile 
 from our lodgings to our lectures and to our dinner at 
 the Prinz Karl. There, as it was out of the travelling 
 season, our dinner only cost us 1/2 a day, including, if 
 we chose to drink it, a pint of very light wine. On 
 Saturday we took a half-holiday and a walk, and had two 
 or four of the students to smoke and drink tea with us. 
 We never went to the " Kneips " with the students. It 
 involved a great deal of beer drinking, with possibly an 
 occasional duel, which, though not dangerous, left dis- 
 figurements honourable in Germany, but ridiculed in 
 England. I look upon this year as one of the most 
 progressive of my life, and a very happy one. I gained 
 habits of steady work and study, which laid a foundation 
 for reading afterwards, always with a view to the bearing 
 of what I read on active life and politics. Though 
 working so hard I never was in more perfect health than 
 during that year. The knowledge, also, which I 
 acquired of foreign politics has enabled me ever since 
 to watch with great interest the development of Europe, 
 and especially of Germany, from the state in which it 
 was left by the Middle Ages. 
 
 In Germany in 1839-40 there was hardly an indepen- 
 dent middle class, except in free towns like Hamburg, 
 Frankfurt, Bremen, etc. Every career open to the 
 students was controlled by the Government. Doctors, 
 mayors, lawyers, schoolmasters, etc., were all appointed
 
 74 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 by the Government, who watched vigilantly, and laid the 
 " dead hand " on any symptoms of liberality in thought 
 and character. Schlosser said to me one day, " If you 
 listen to the talk of the students, you would suppose the 
 country was on the verge of some great political revolu- 
 tion ; but, like those who have gone before them, as soon 
 as they approach the time when they have to leave the 
 University, they will remember that every prospect in 
 life depends on the favour of the Government, and all 
 this wild talk at their Kneips and beer gardens will cease. 
 The Government take no note of anything that the 
 ordinary beer -drinking, vapouring, duelling German 
 student says, but if they observe a determined hard 
 worker, reserved and laborious, they take trouble to find 
 out whether he holds liberal opinions, and if he does, he 
 is a marked man, and will never get on, unless he can 
 convince the Government that he has changed them." 
 
 The Grand Duke of Baden of that time was a very 
 liberal man, and anxious that his people should be free ; 
 but, as Schlosser said, he was one of the very few Liberals 
 in his dominions, and could not make them understand 
 how to set about reform. " They could not make a 
 gutter in Heidelberg without running to the capital to 
 ask the Government to do it for them." Schlosser gave 
 me a curious instance from his own experience, how 
 things were managed in Germany so as to effectually 
 repress liberal opinions and yet cause no scandal or outcry. 
 The Berlin University was at that time not distinguished, 
 and they were anxious to make it so ; and Schlosser, then 
 about the first historian in Europe, was privately informed 
 that the Senate had determined to invite him to take the 
 Chair of History, but he heard no more of it. What 
 happened was this. The Prussian Minister was afraid of
 
 n AT HEIDELBERG 75 
 
 Schlosser's well-known liberal opinions and freedom in 
 expressing them. He made no open objection to the 
 appointment, but he sent for each of the Senate or 
 Governing Body, in turn, and after discussing the Uni- 
 versity affairs, said, " Is it true that you are thinking of 
 asking Geheimer Hofrath Schlosser to take the Chair of 
 History at Berlin ? Do you think he is a very safe 
 man ? " Nothing more passed, but each thus asked 
 understood that if he voted for Schlosser he would become 
 a marked man : if he were a plain professor he would 
 never become a Geheimer Hofrath ; or if a Geheimer 
 Hofrath, would never become a Geheimrath, and so on. 
 
 Some one else was appointed, and nothing more was 
 heard of the matter. Even in Baden, with all the liberal 
 tendencies of the Grand Duke, it might have been 
 difficult for Schlosser to have taken the free course he did, 
 if he and his wife had not been independent, with no 
 children to depend on the favour of the Government 
 for future progress. Though a personal friend of the 
 Dowager Grand Duchess, Schlosser was not a Geheimrath, 
 only a Geheimer Hofrath, though he was one of the men 
 who made Heidelberg what it then was one of the most 
 distinguished Universities of Germany. Schlosser was 
 naturally, from his political opinions, a great admirer 
 of England. He always feared that if the House of 
 Commons were ever to attempt to interfere with the 
 patronage and government of India directly, there would 
 be great danger of demoralisation to the House of 
 Commons, disaster in India, and ruin to both countries. 
 He was a man of such powerful character, strong opinions, 
 and decided political views, that it would have been diffi- 
 cult for him, in a country where there was political life, 
 to remain the purely impartial historian that he was. He
 
 76 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 would inevitably have become involved in politics. He 
 once said to me, "Whatever you do in England, Mr. 
 Rathbone, don't make your professors into statesmen. 
 They will ruin you, if you do." He was then alluding 
 to Thiers' misleading influence over French politics and 
 opinion. When I saw him again later, I think about 
 1848 or 1849, his views had been curiously borne out, for 
 Thiers and Guizot in France, Hasenflug in Cassel, and 
 Bache in Austria, had nearly been the ruin of their 
 respective countries. 
 
 A few extracts from his correspondence at the 
 time may fill out this picture of life at Heidelberg 
 in 1839, and help to show what kind of young man 
 he was when he took part in it. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 HEIDELBERG, October 24, 1838. 
 
 We are now settled in our winter quarters, and I 
 suppose you wish to know what they are like. We have 
 a large sitting-room eight yards by six yards into 
 which two airy bedrooms open, with cupboards, drawers, 
 etc. For these rooms we pay only ten florins per month, 
 which will be ^4 : los. for the five months we shall stay 
 here. . . . 
 
 We have presented all our letters of introduction : the 
 first we presented was to Mr. Fries, the banker here, who 
 received us very kindly and gave us the best advice he 
 could ; and some of it very good. We then went to 
 Professor Schlosser, who received us as warmly as possible, 
 gave us some very good advice, and offered to lend us any 
 of his books or explain after the lectures anything we
 
 ii AT HEIDELBERG 77 
 
 might not understand, and lent us a book to enable us to 
 understand his lectures, and said we should come to him 
 when we wanted any advice about getting books, etc. 
 . . . The next day we went to call on Tiedemann, 1 whom 
 we found in the garret of a garden-house, with a room 
 full of smoke, a box full of ashes from his tobacco pipe, 
 and a parrot with the most squeaking voice I ever heard 
 like a badly-oiled wheel. He received us the least warmly 
 of any one, though also kindly. But he was evidently 
 engaged in study ; so after hearing his advice we took our 
 departure as soon as possible. We then went to call on 
 Muncke, who received us most warmly, inquired after 
 Dr. Trail and his family most particularly, also about 
 Mr. Scoresby ; said that the Professors were so much 
 engaged that we must not look to them for much society 
 (any society the Professors have, I expect we shall be in) ; 
 gave us his advice most openly, as indeed did all the 
 others ; said he hoped to have the pleasure of introducing 
 us to his family, and was as kind as possible. We after- 
 wards presented Mr. Voelker's letter to Mr. Winter, who 
 is a respectable bookseller here. We have met with so 
 much kindness from every one since we left home that we 
 are in danger of being spoiled. 
 
 November 4, 1838. 
 
 Our lectures begin to-morrow ; the courses we attend 
 are a little varied from what we at first intended. . . . 
 We find that there is no one here who can be recom- 
 mended for Moral Philosophy. We have given it up, as 
 we find that without it we shall have quite enough, as the 
 addition of a foreign language will help to confuse us ; 
 
 1 Friedrich Tiedemann (1781-1861), Professor of Medicine and Physio- 
 logy.
 
 78 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and if we studied many more things we should get com- 
 pletely confused. When we dined with Professor Schlosser 
 he introduced us to a young man for whom he said he 
 could vouch, and I think he does not run much danger in 
 so doing. Ashton declares he is now quite satisfied that 
 we came to Germany (he was not so before), as it was 
 worth coming to Germany to know Wetsell. He is 
 studying the same things as ourselves, intending to be a 
 professor. He at once offered to help us by all means in 
 his power, and on further acquaintance we find that not a 
 little. Finding that we were fond of Schiller he offered 
 to come whenever he had an hour to spare, and after 
 having explained anything we might not have understood 
 in our reading, or read some with us when we liked it, to 
 spend the rest of the time in reading Don Carlos. He 
 has already come for three hours, and the other evening 
 we drank tea with him, when he showed us how to take 
 notes, told us what we should want and what we should 
 avoid, and has been as kind to us as possible. You will 
 begin to be afraid we are striking up a very strong friend- 
 ship on a week's acquaintance, but we had, first, Schlosser's 
 guarantee, and next, his own advice to us and his con- 
 versation. He is a philanthropist, interested and well- 
 informed ; he is a religious man, feels deeply on the 
 subject and that of religious tolerance ; and last, not least, 
 he is a man who keeps his own self-respect and knows 
 what is due to it, and he prefers dwelling on the good to 
 the other side of things. He says we must not judge of 
 Germans by Heidelberg, as we do not by any means see 
 the best part of them there the young men being very 
 rough, and the ladies, as at the other Universities, rather 
 forward in their manners. He has given us an invitation 
 to go with him after the session to his native place, Hesse,
 
 ii AT HEIDELBERG 79 
 
 and he will do his best to show us a little German society. 
 Of Schlosser we hear from all hands the highest account, 
 but an equally universal account of the difficulty of 
 understanding his lectures. 
 
 The courses we are attending will, I expect, be very 
 interesting, if we can understand them and keep up with 
 our notes. Schlosser's Middle Ages and the Eighteenth 
 Century will be about the most interesting subjects we 
 could have had. His style of writing^ though rather 
 involved, is very short. The part of it -his History 
 that we have yet read, is a sort of essence of History, but 
 we hear that in speaking he often loses himself in the 
 length of his sentences, and is obliged to leave them 
 unfinished. Zacharia speaks very slowly, and if one may 
 judge from the little we have read of his book, both the 
 style and matter of his lectures will be very good. His 
 book is so beautiful that I have been almost tempted to 
 attempt the translation, both to impress it on my own 
 mind, and because I think its conciseness (it is in one 
 small octavo) and its beauty, if I could give a moderately 
 literal translation, would please Papa very much. The 
 course is on Naturrecht or Natural Law. We should 
 like to have attended many other courses, but I shall be 
 quite content if we find we can keep well up with what 
 we have undertaken. 
 
 I cannot write comfortably till I hear what is going 
 on at home, as in a one-sided correspondence I have 
 always, in spite of what I may know to the contrary, a 
 sort of feeling as if what I was writing might not be 
 welcome. 
 
 We hear of wars and rumours of wars, but we do not 
 know how much to believe of them. It was not till the 
 other day that we heard by accident that Lord Durham
 
 8o WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 had resigned. We have now become subscribers to a 
 news-room here, where a paper published in Paris is taken, 
 and where we can see something of what is going on in 
 the world ; but we hope soon to get an Examiner 
 regularly, which will keep us up with what we get 
 from our letters with what is going on in the world. 
 
 To HIS BROTHER, S. G. RATHBONE 
 
 HEIDELBERG, November 18, 1838. 
 
 "Sir, you are a humbug," as Mr. Pickwick said when 
 warming himself before the fire in the Club-room. Did 
 you really suppose I was not up to you, or had never 
 seen you cut a sheet of paper smaller that your letter 
 might appear larger ? Another time do not curtail the 
 dimensions of your paper, please; and choose a larger 
 sheet, and get some one else to fill it up. I suppose you 
 follow the example of the other Sam writing to his Mary, 
 and so time your letter that "she may vish there vas 
 more." But the old proverb held in your case " Short 
 and sweet," for your letter contained a great deal of 
 information, and I was very much obliged to you for it, 
 and it had the desired effect, for " I vish there vas more," 
 and shall be very grateful for more whenever you can 
 spare time to write. You need not be afraid of giving 
 me too much, for I am a complete glutton for letters. 
 Oh Sam, I saw a dog the other day would have suited 
 you : he was as ugly as Sin, a sort of mixture between 
 a slate and rat colour, smooth hair, long ears, and a 
 curled tail. His hair was rather short : it looked as if it 
 had been shaved ; he was a " reglar pictur'." I wish you 
 could join us here, you would like it very much. You 
 might fish or shoot as much as you liked, and we are
 
 n AT HEIDELBERG 81 
 
 in the middle of most beautiful scenery. The students 
 are the coolest fellows I ever saw. One of them told me 
 he had to fight a duel. I asked him when. He said he 
 did not exactly know, in a fortnight or month ; he had 
 never fought before, and was taking fighting lessons. 
 Rather cool, I guess. 
 
 It is here allowed for a man to sell his body to the 
 College, so that when he dies it may be used for dissection. 
 One man did them nicely : he sold them his body, and 
 then jumped over the bridge into the water ; so that had 
 they waited a few days they would have had his body with- 
 out paying for it, for all suicides are given for dissection. 
 
 We had a tea-party last night of three students who 
 came to read Schiller together, and we had a very pleas- 
 ant evening. . . . We might have most beautiful walks 
 here if we had time for it. To-day, though a dull, 
 damp, blowing day, with some showers, after church we 
 went up to the top of one of the hills and had a very 
 good view ; that is to say, what we could see looked very 
 fine, for the gloom of the day suited well the wintry 
 appearance of the country. 
 
 You should see what dinners the Germans eat. 
 They first take a quantity of soup, then a pile of 
 boiled beef, then a beef- steak or veal cutlet, and 
 about four or five different kinds of vegetables, then 
 pudding, then fish, then some made dish, then venison 
 or game and salad, and finish off with a dessert all 
 washed down with a pint of wine and accompanied with 
 not a small portion of bread j and they do not only eat 
 a scrap of each dish, I can assure you. And for this 
 dinner, wine and all, you only pay one-and-fourpence. 
 Their cookery is, however, very wholesome, though a 
 great deal of butter is used. . . . 
 
 G
 
 82 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 November 18, 1838. 
 
 Our second week at College is over ; with some things 
 I am more, with others less satisfied than before. We 
 have got to read quicker, but fifteen volumes have been 
 added to the books we had before to read no small 
 addition when our reading goes at the rate of ten pages 
 an hour. Schlosser's lectures I like as well as I did at 
 first ; they are exactly what we want, and what I am 
 afraid we could not get in England a philosophic view 
 of History and the way to study it, by a man who loves 
 freedom, who has seen a good deal of men and the world, 
 and who is entirely unconnected with any party, and 
 enamoured with no particular form of government. 
 Zacharia has not been quite so interesting this week. 
 But we could hardly expect all his lectures to be an 
 essence of the principle and laws of morality and legisla- 
 tion, as his first were. His lectures are always interesting, 
 and (perhaps it may seem absurd in me to say even this 
 much, but) they appear to me sound and founded on the 
 right principles. . . . 
 
 November 23, 1838. 
 
 I saw a genuine German student of the old school 
 yesterday, and he gave us some rather odd accounts of 
 their goings on in the good times. Among other things 
 he gave us a rather strange account of the burial of a 
 German student. He was pretty well known, so they 
 determined to give him a student's burial. It was by 
 torch-light, and eight hundred of the students attended, 
 each with a large torch. A student read the Service, and 
 students lowered the coffin into the grave. The pro-
 
 ii AT HEIDELBERG 83 
 
 cession then moved on past the grave, the students walk- 
 ing two and two, and each couple as they passed, dividing 
 at the grave, broke two bottles of beer together, letting 
 the beer and glass fall into the grave. Each threw some 
 earth on the grave and passed on. They then sang 
 together (accompanied by a military band which had played 
 the whole time) a German students' song I think it 
 began, " Es ist uns ein Bruder verloren " and marched 
 off again two and two, accompanied by the band playing 
 a march. When they came to the Place before the 
 College several of the Professors were standing there ; 
 they saluted them as they passed, and they did what they 
 call, I think, throwing the torches, i.e. all at once they 
 throw the blazing torches into the air so as to describe 
 a circle ; and I believe the effect of a number of blazing 
 torches thrown in this way is beautiful in the extreme. 
 All this sounds very strange, but the German students in 
 those times were a queer set. What they call the Corps 
 then contained about eight hundred men, and were partly 
 political bodies. Now they are merely drinking and 
 fighting ones, and contain only about one hundred. 
 Two of a corps or Corpbriiders never fight together. 
 
 November 25, 1838. 
 
 The state of things here is indeed very different from 
 what it is with us. England may almost be called the 
 land of Practice, and Germany the land of Theory. The 
 beauty and perfection of their theories in comparison 
 with their practice, as far as we can judge, are very strik- 
 ing ; though we are hardly fair judges, as we are not 
 acquainted with the same class of men in England. 
 Schlosser is a most extraordinary man. He studies from 
 morning till night now, but formerly he mixed a good
 
 84 
 
 deal in the world and saw a good many of the events he 
 is now treating of in his modern history, and has had 
 extraordinary opportunities of conversing with many of 
 the men active in the scenes, or those who had the best 
 means of knowing. He now writes from his study, 
 totally unconnected with any political party (for there are, 
 to speak properly, no politics in Baden), and without a 
 cause to even slightly distort or misrepresent things to 
 his own mind, as he has no particular theories of his own 
 to support, and is not fond of drawing character strongly 
 marked and making the actions fall in accordance with 
 the character he has drawn. . . . We heard an opinion 
 the other day, which, coming from such an authority as 
 a Jurist, is rather remarkable. Zacharia said, " After 
 fifty years' study of the science of right, I have come to 
 the conclusion that the punishment of death is not recht- 
 ma'sig" (that is, just, according to the law of right), 
 " though it may be necessary in a less advanced state of 
 civilisation." I wish Zacharia's book had been in Eng- 
 lish you would have liked it very much ; he is so clear, 
 and begins from the first and noblest principles of right, 
 and reasons out. It is a singular thing the Germans are 
 not a free nation. They have the principles of freedom 
 so clearly laid before them by such men as Schlosser and 
 Zacharia ; for instance, the latter's definition of the sole 
 aim of Law : " To establish for man a theatre on which to 
 act as a moral being." But I must not begin to quote, 
 for I may as well sit down at once to write you his 
 dictations and his book as attempt to pick out the beauti- 
 ful passages and noble principles contained in them. It 
 will be a pleasure when I return, to talk over and discuss 
 what I have heard. How slight a cause changes the course 
 of human events ! Had we arrived two days later, or had
 
 ii AT HEIDELBERG 85 
 
 Mr. Melly not given me the letter he did, had a thousand 
 other things occurred, we should have now most likely 
 been behindhand and unhappy, and perhaps attending 
 courses not worth hearing. As it is, I am almost more 
 hopeful than ever. It would have been worth coming if 
 it were only to receive so much kindness, for it makes 
 one think better of one's species and increases a man's 
 willingness to pay the debt he owes to his kind ; in other 
 words, to seek his own happiness in his duty. Thursday 
 was an academical holiday and there was a procession, 
 but it was nothing particular. In the evening there was 
 a ball, to which we went. Any gentleman may ask any 
 lady, and she has no power of refusal unless engaged. 
 This cannot be quite agreeable. They waltzed furiously 
 fast, i.e. not in the rate of the music, but in the quantity 
 of ground they went over. The waltzes were arranged 
 differently from anything I ever saw before. The 
 waltzers arranged themselves round the room, and a 
 steward went round and motioned to those who were to 
 begin, setting as many in motion as had plenty of room, 
 and stopped them when they had danced a certain time, 
 seeing thus that everybody waltzed their share and that 
 the circle was kept up. I feel always rather foolish, not 
 being able to waltz. Tell Sam to learn that among his 
 other accomplishments, as, if he "ever comes to Germany 
 and even in England he will need it. 
 
 Our diary would generally be : Got up at six or half- 
 past ; read till eight ; breakfasted and went to Muncke's 
 lecture ; came back and read till one ; dined and read, or 
 had German lesson, till three ; three to four Zacharia's 
 lecture (four days a week) ; went home and read till six ; 
 Schlosser six to seven ; got Wetsell to look over and 
 correct our dictations (which he does every evening
 
 86 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 before his tea) ; went home ; tea ; translated and wrote out 
 our dictations, which generally takes us to from half-past 
 nine to half-past ten or eleven ; translate some of 
 Zacharia's books ; read a chapter in the Bible to quieten 
 our minds, and go to bed. The books we are reading 
 are Schlosser's History^ that part concerning the Middle 
 Ages, with an abstract for repeating ; Schlosser's Napoleon; 
 Bignon's History of France since the 18 Brumaire (1800), 
 and we shall have to refer occasionally to La Valette and 
 D'Aure ; Zacharia, 3 vol. of his forty books Vom Staate 
 (of the State), and sometime's Muncke's Nat. Phil. We 
 have plenty more books to read had we time, but we have 
 as much as we shall do well. Is there any good English 
 History of the period from 1 800 ? 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 December 2, 1838. 
 
 I am glad you are satisfied with my letters, as written 
 in an evening when I was often very sleepy, and as I have 
 never had time to read them over again, I am afraid they 
 have been very incorrect and unconnected epistles, and 
 have stood in need of many charitable allowances. I hope 
 you will be able to find a school suitable for Sam and 
 Henry, as I confess it seems to me almost a pity that 
 when Sam has got a taste for study he should go into 
 an office before he has made a little use of it. I 
 know for my own part how difficult it was after returning 
 fatigued (as the youngest in an office always must) from 
 my day's work, to sit down and read, particularly as there 
 was no one reading with me with whom to discuss 
 what I was reading. Sam, again, will have a difficulty I 
 never had. Bessie and Mary are no longer at home.
 
 n AT HEIDELBERG 87 
 
 He will have no companion till I come back. He will 
 not therefore be able to stand aloof if he does not at once 
 see those whom he might entirely like as friends ; and 
 when an intimacy is once formed, even the best feelings 
 of our nature are against breaking it. If you find no 
 school that suits him, could he not go into your office for 
 three or four hours a day, or even from nine till three, 
 and take private lessons and read the remainder ? Mr. 
 Thorn would perhaps give him a little help. It would 
 be also an advantage when he first went among entire 
 strangers, to have some one to whom he might express 
 perfectly openly his opinion of persons and things, and 
 tell everything that occurred. Expression gives a clear- 
 ness to thoughts, feelings, and principles, and clearness 
 takes away half the danger of wrong. I confess the most 
 feasible plan seems to me the one I mentioned above. 
 Sam has not a decided bent for reading, but will read 
 when the necessity is put before him. Again, he is too 
 good-natured to repel advances, though he may dislike the 
 character of the person making them. He cannot keep 
 a person at a distance. He will laugh at a joke, for- 
 getting that it gives the person making it a step as it 
 were to familiarity, and will perhaps return it. I know 
 what you will think : that my being at home would hardly 
 help the matter, that my intolerance and over-bearingness 
 would perhaps do more harm than good. I have long 
 seen the evil. The habit, as it were, is broken, and I 
 hope it will not return on my return. I feel as if rather 
 longer than six weeks had passed over me since I left 
 home. My respect for others will, I hope, increase daily. 
 Formerly, even in spite of that, there was perfect open- 
 ness between us, and I do not think Sam ever avoided 
 telling me anything, and we shall, I hope, agree still
 
 88 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 better when I return. Then we shall read together, 
 which will increase the interest for us both, and prevent 
 either of us from losing our good habits. I have found it 
 very difficult to take to studying again. If no other plan 
 turns up, could he not join us here ? There are capital 
 classes for all ages, and he might learn a good deal. You 
 will, I am afraid, think me conceited in giving an opinion, 
 but I, of course, only can judge from or rather only 
 mention the difficulties and disadvantages I have found, 
 and which, it seems to me, will be increased for Sam by 
 Bessie's and Mary's absence. Sam has the materials for 
 a noble character ; but materials for good are also 
 materials for evil, and the first steps are everything, and 
 to have a friend of a person's own age is so powerful 
 an influence. If I have spoken too strongly on the 
 subject "Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh." Please let me hear when it is decided what 
 is to be done with Sam, as I shall be very anxious till 
 I hear. . . . 
 
 I did not expect you would be very much encouraged 
 on looking into business matters, but I had hoped the 
 banks would have suffered by their last year's transactions 
 enough to sicken them of such irregular courses. The 
 dearness of corn would make the tea trade even worse than 
 before, and I suppose we shall have to wait quietly till things 
 return to their proper channel. It seems to me as if in 
 America things would be very long before they did so, as 
 (though certainly not if we calculate happiness, but per- 
 haps if we take mere money] America I should think was 
 the gainer, 1 as the American debts of those that fail 
 are generally so much more punctually paid to American 
 creditors than to the English ones, and they have always 
 
 1 i.e by the crisis of 1837.
 
 ii AT HEIDELBERG 89 
 
 the use of a large sum of English capital, which, if they 
 were more honest and the laws more just, might be of 
 great use to them, as it might be secured on property- 
 there. It seems to me quite legitimate that the English 
 having more capital than they can use at home should 
 employ part in America ; and perhaps the use the capital 
 may be to Americans may for some time so nearly (as far 
 as worldly prosperity goes) counterbalance the evil of an 
 uncertain credit as to prevent them from seeing for some 
 years that honesty is the best policy, which, however, they 
 must ultimately find out. 
 
 January 20, 1839. 
 
 One of the Professors here is a very odd fish, Zacharia. 
 He dresses in Hessian boots, a coat bought from the 
 Jews, and which has seen many seasons, and a hat ! 
 I have never seen an Irish beggar with a worse. 
 One day on his walk he took ofF his hat and sat 
 down on a bank, laying it on the bank beside him ; 
 a peasant passing looked on him with great com- 
 passion and dropped a 6 Kreuzer (2d.) into his hat. 
 Zacharia said nothing, but quietly pocketed the money. 
 Another time, at dusk, a soldier stopped him and asked 
 him if he had a Wanderbuch (what the travelling 
 mechanics are obliged to carry). Zacharia replied that 
 he had not, and the officer took him into custody. 
 Zacharia said nothing. Presently they met another 
 soldier, who asked if he knew whom he had got it was 
 the Geheimer Rath (Member of the Privy Council) 
 Zacharia. The man was in great, trouble. "But," he 
 said, " you did not tell me who you were." " You did 
 not ask me ; you asked me if I had a Wanderbuch, and 
 I said I had not."
 
 90 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 To W. R., IN HEIDELBERG, FROM S. G. R. 
 
 Monday, February n, 1839. 
 
 I wish you many happy returns of your birthday. I 
 had no idea it was your twentieth I thought you were 
 only eighteen ; and if you look proportionally old, as you 
 informed us in one of your letters, you will have some 
 right to claim respect from Philip and me. 
 
 I intended to have answered your letter the Sunday 
 before last, and yesterday for that matter ; but Sunday 
 was meant for a day of rest, and after dinner I generally 
 read with Mama first thing, and then everybody else looks 
 so sleepy that I go to sleep, and when I wake I go to take 
 a walk to wake up, and when I come in it wants so little 
 ofF five that I never think it worth while sitting down to 
 write, and so each Sunday passes by without my writing 
 to you, and that is why I have not answered your letter 
 sooner. . . . 
 
 I suppose you will have heard a full account of the 
 Controfussy as Philip calls it. 1 Mr. Thorn's lecture will 
 take place to-morrow. As yet the Evangelicks have 
 made but a very indifferent figure, and even their own 
 side say they never saw truth put in so uninviting a form 
 and error in so tempting a one. The Low Church dis- 
 claim them, and say they're none of their champions, and 
 that if they go on they will ruin a good cause. I expect 
 you will take quite a fancy to turning when you come 
 home, when you see what nice things can be made with 
 such little trouble. I am not going to have the trunk of 
 the elm for my boat, as it was worth a great deal, and was 
 so immense that twelve men could hardly stir it. The 
 storm has done more damage at Greenbank than many 
 
 1 See p. 66.
 
 ii TRAVEL 91 
 
 years can make up, and the elm makes a great gap. I 
 slept through the whole of it, and was not aware it had 
 been blowing at all till on drawing up my blind I saw the 
 elm covering the lawn. 
 
 The two friends left Heidelberg about March 
 1 8, 1839, and travelled to Stuttgart and Munich 
 in an Express Coach (Eilwagen), which covered 
 the ground at the modest rate of five miles an 
 hour. Thence they made their way into Italy, 
 where they spent six weeks, seeing the same build- 
 ings and pictures that a tourist of to-day sees, but 
 a very different Italian people. 
 
 ROME, April 16, 1839. 
 
 We have now seen most of the principal sights of 
 Rome, the Villa Borghese excepted, which we shall see to- 
 morrow or the next day. We shall now try to see those 
 things we have liked best over again. Rome has not at 
 all disappointed me, though I have not found it all that I 
 expected. The ruins are much more ruins than I ex- 
 pected. A pillar or a stone or two in many places are the 
 only marks of what has been ; as most of the rest has 
 been used in other buildings. Most of the pillars, too, 
 have been transported into the churches. The columns 
 that remained were most of them half-covered with earth 
 until the French excavated them, and had the French 
 stayed here a little longer they would have made Rome a 
 much finer city than it is now. The Popes spend their 
 money on spoiling St. Peter's in the Holy Week by 
 hanging it all over with silk and bedecking it with gilt 
 ornaments.
 
 92 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 The Papal Government is one of the greatest abuses 
 still existing on the earth. There is a woman who is 
 expected to be guillotined day by day for the murder of 
 her husband. She has been five years in prison. It is two 
 years since she was condemned, and the case has been 
 passing through the other tribunals during that time. 
 There was one man guillotined not long ago who had 
 been ten years in prison. These two facts are enough 
 of themselves to stamp a Government as atrocious. We 
 came too late to Rome to see any society. All the 
 parties are over, and, as a Londoner would say, " every- 
 body " left Rome after the Holy Week. The people 
 seem employed and to work hard, and, freed from supersti- 
 tion and the Popes' government, I do not see why they 
 should not be again a fine nation. They want principle, 
 I am afraid, and many of the other Italians are boasters 
 and cowards, as was proved by the poor resistance they 
 made in their feint of an insurrection. The breaking up 
 of Austria, if that should ever take place, would give 
 them a help. But I am afraid the transition could not 
 be made without long civil wars, as they are jealous of 
 one another, every one wishing to be the first. 
 
 FLORENCE, May 1839. 
 
 Europe altogether seems in a very unsettled state, and 
 I do not think things can remain anywhere long as they 
 are. Germany in many places is ripe for a change. So 
 are Lombardy and the Roman States. Sicily is almost in 
 a state of revolution. In France the King and people are 
 at war. In England it seems almost as if the Queen 
 and people would not for long agree with the Lords as at 
 present constituted ; while Canada and the West and 
 East Indies seem inclined to keep our hands full out of
 
 ii RETURN TO ENGLAND 93 
 
 doors. In America the Slave Question seems likely to 
 give them plenty to do, to say nothing of their commercial 
 affairs, which appear to me in a state which can hardly 
 last. England seems to have in the distance a heavy 
 reckoning for all her iniquities. In the East, as one 
 wrong entails another, she will most likely have to con- 
 quer one native prince after another, and even reduce 
 Persia under her government. This will increase her 
 expenses and the number of places, i.e. the temptation to 
 and means of corruption ; and it will be years before India 
 can stand for herself. In the West Indies and Canada 
 we are already reaping what we have sown. Owing to 
 our narrow policy we are gradually being pushed out of 
 the best markets of the Continent, and pressed down 
 by the enormous weight of our National Debt on the one 
 hand. We are cramped, on the other hand, from taking 
 vigorous measures to counteract all these evils by Pitt's 
 other legacy of the upstart aristocracy ; and now when 
 energy and talent throughout the country seem rather 
 inclined to go to sleep, we look on complacently at what 
 has been done, forgetting how much was needed, par- 
 ticularly the leaders. The doctrine of expediency and 
 study of tactics are, I am afraid, too much attended to by 
 the Whigs. With all the faults of the Middle Ages, they 
 had vigour. 
 
 William's return to England was clouded by 
 the death of his grandmother, Hannah Mary 
 Rathbone, the central domestic deity of the 
 family. He had been among the most devout 
 of her worshippers, and during his apprenticeship 
 scarcely a day had passed that he did not pay her
 
 94 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 a visit, hitching up his pony at the gate of Wood- 
 croft Cottage, as he rode home from the office. 
 Thirty years after her husband's death, her remains 
 were laid by his in the Friends' Burial Ground in 
 Hunter Street. 
 
 As it was thought desirable for the young man 
 to see something of business in a large London 
 house, his father arranged with Mr. Joshua Bates, 
 then the senior partner of the London firm of 
 Messrs. Baring Brothers, to take him into their 
 office. 
 
 u This was a most important year in my life, 
 full of very hard and varied work, but of perfect 
 health, and freedom from anxiety or disturbance or 
 worry of any kind. The office hours were from 
 ten o'clock in the morning till five or six, for four 
 days in the week ; but on Tuesdays and Fridays 
 foreign post-days the clerks all had tea at the 
 office, and remained till they had finished their 
 work. I saw a great deal of the business of the 
 office, by letting my fellow-clerks know that I was 
 willing to take any one's work in addition to my 
 own, during their holidays, for experience' sake. I 
 made it a rule never to go out more than two 
 evenings a week, and, of course, it was only occa- 
 sionally that I went out as often, and I read the 
 other evenings. Each of the junior clerks had an 
 account-current book to make up at the end of 
 the year, and as I was one of the youngest, the
 
 ii VISIT TO AMERICA 95 
 
 largest fell to my lot. From their mode of 
 charging interest, the making up of the year's 
 accounts was a very laborious task ; but I was 
 determined not to be beaten, and by working at it 
 night after night, except when I had an engage- 
 ment, I finished it before any of the others." 
 
 Mr. Bates had the knack of seeing everything 
 without appearing to take any trouble to do so. 
 His letters to Mr. William Rathbone, senior, show 
 that he had formed a good opinion of his junior 
 clerk's abilities, and in the spring of 1841 he 
 proposed to take him on a business tour in 
 America. The opportunity of seeing American 
 social and commercial life as he would see it in the 
 company of Mr. Bates an American by birth and 
 a member of the leading financial house of England 
 was too good to be missed, and the offer was 
 gratefully accepted. The letter in which it was 
 communicated to William by his father is too 
 characteristic to be omitted. 
 
 Private. 
 
 LIVERPOOL, March 13, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR WILLIAM Mr. Bates desires me to 
 request that you will not mention in the counting-house 
 what I have now at his desire to communicate to you, 
 lest it should unnecessarily wound the feelings of some of 
 your companions, who may think they ought to have the 
 preference. He mentioned the subject of your going
 
 96 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 with him to America when here, but I said I would not 
 mention it to you until he had first spoken to you or 
 made up his mind on the subject, which I expressed the 
 hope that he would do without at all feeling fettered in 
 his decision by having spoken to me. I said I was sure 
 such a plan would be most gratifying to you, and that the 
 advantages of the plan were so obvious and manifold that 
 it did not require a moment's thought or hesitation, and 
 that if the offer was repeated I should most gratefully 
 accept it at once. He writes me word to write at once 
 to you, as the time is short, to prepare for your voyage. 
 Let this be done as quietly and with as little fuss as can 
 be expected from a young man who has such an agreeable 
 prospect before him. If I am not mistaken, the way in 
 which you receive the information and set about your 
 preparations will be watched and a judgment be formed 
 accordingly, and most important it is that the starting 
 impression should be favourable. To affect not to appear 
 gratified would be a deceit, and anything but creditable ; 
 but on the other hand, to show that it does not distract 
 your attention from the business of the counting-house, 
 that you even on first knowing it receive it with a quiet 
 self-composure, arrange your plans with method, and carry 
 them out like a man of business, prepared for any 
 emergency, however unexpected, this will be very 
 desirable. 
 
 It will be an anxious time with me. This close and 
 unreserved contact with Mr. Bates for so long a time will 
 serve either to shake or to confirm your estimation with 
 Mr. Bates, and require a discipline and tact for which you 
 have hitherto had little opportunity of preparing, and 
 which will therefore almost certainly at times leave you 
 at fault. On the one hand, you will have to guard against
 
 it VISIT TO AMERICA 97 
 
 being ostentatiously and uneasily afraid of being in the 
 way ; on the other hand, to be actively on the alert to 
 perceive when you may be really so. ... Never 
 wish to make yourself appear wiser than you really 
 are. A young man of twenty-two will not be expected 
 to have the knowledge and experience of a man like 
 Mr. B. with all his opportunities. Do not fear therefore 
 to speak of plans which he might at once say were 
 impracticable. Above all, do not be tenacious and self- 
 vindicating ; admit frankly and freely when you may 
 have been mistaken ; cultivate the feeling, and let it be 
 apparent that your object is to learn, that you are 
 conscious you have yet much to learn, and that infor- 
 mation and truth are what you seek. If you have 
 information to give, let it be communicated deferentially 
 and as very probable to have been known before by the 
 party to whom you speak ; this will give an air of reality, 
 of sobriety of purpose, and of modest self-appreciation, 
 which invariably secure confidence and respect, when the 
 real stuff is not wanting. If I am not wrongly informed, 
 the Americans are very sensitive as regards others, and 
 quick to discern the characteristics of a gentleman really 
 such, and to appreciate a sound judgment and a well- 
 informed man. Avoid the Slave Question : of course I 
 do not and cannot wish you, whatever may be the cost, 
 to be insincere, to utter one sentiment you do not feel ; 
 but sincerity is quite consistent with the remembrance 
 that you are in America to form your own opinions, not 
 to give them ; that you want the knowledge and experi- 
 ence which alone can justify any one in being tenacious 
 and dogmatical in their opinions. I believe you will 
 always find the most sensible and best-informed men the 
 most deferential and humble, because they know enough 
 
 H
 
 98 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 to be aware how much yet remains to be known. What- 
 ever may be the despotism of our laws^ I suspect you will 
 find that the despotism of public opinion in America 
 leaves less of freedom in conversation than in this country j 
 that if, therefore, you wish to get on comfortably, it will 
 require great prudence and circumspection, and that at 
 first, at any event, it will be best rather to listen than 
 speak. All this may be accomplished, and it may be fully 
 apparent that a man is conscious of his own position, has 
 his own views, and a firmness of principle to maintain 
 them and to act in consistency with them. . . . 
 
 I fear you will think this a long prose, and perhaps 
 unnecessary ; yet you will pardon the anxiety that has 
 little left to wish but to see you and Sam fairly under 
 way, and able to provide for yourselves and take care of 
 others, and then to leave the helm to as I trust it will 
 prove abler hands, -to say God speed, and leave the coast 
 clear. . . . 
 
 Arrange in your own mind the subjects on which to 
 speak to Mr B., which will save his time and show that 
 you feel it is of value ; be brief as is consistent with 
 obtaining the information needed. In my London 
 canvass of Members I was taught this lesson, and ever 
 after found the full benefit of keeping it in mind at all 
 times and seasons ; Harvey and myself often gained 
 admittance and attention when the confused and long- 
 winded were either refused or kept waiting. . . . Your 
 affectionate Father, W. RATHBONE. 
 
 In April the travellers started from Bristol, in 
 the Great Western. That stay in America lasted 
 four months, during which they travelled about
 
 n VISIT TO AMERICA 99 
 
 much, and were entertained everywhere they went. 
 In Washington, the President, Mr Tyler, gave an 
 evening party in honour of Mr. Bates. Although 
 this was to be only the first of several visits to 
 America, it was the one to which William Rath- 
 bone's memory recurred the most in later life, and 
 it is evident that what, at that susceptible age, he 
 observed and learnt of American methods, and no 
 less, perhaps, what he absorbed of the character 
 and business principles of Mr. Bates, did much to 
 form his opinions on many questions, though as 
 regards the former source, the lesson was one of 
 warning as often as of example. 
 
 The country was then going through a period 
 of commercial depression and financial disaster. 
 Five years before, President Jackson had suc- 
 ceeded, after a bitter struggle, in overthrowing 
 the National Bank, and his policy, besides in- 
 directly producing the great crisis of 1837, na d 
 encouraged the up-growth of a host of banks, 
 managed upon the vicious system then almost 
 universal in America. William Rathbone's letters 
 are full of allusions to this state of affairs. 
 
 The great evil of the country is the number and style 
 of its banks ; one-dollar notes in the North and shin- 
 plasters for sixpence upwards in the South deluge the 
 land, while in Pennsylvania, the richest state in the 
 Union, the state relieves ( ? ) the banks from the com- 
 pulsory part of their charter, on the faith in which their
 
 ioo WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 debts were contracted, and allows them to defraud their 
 creditors for some years, providing they will lend the 
 Government a certain sum of money ; in other words, a 
 bribe. Is . there anything in the history of despotism 
 more disreputable than this ? I hope, however, that in 
 the northern part of the States, at least, this swindle is 
 reprobated, though not perhaps as much as it deserves. 
 To give you some idea of the state of the currency of the 
 states south of Pennsylvania, the notes of a railroad com- 
 pany circulate as freely as any others. They are in the 
 following form: "Transfer to etc. etc. ia| cents (6^d.) 
 in Baltimore City 5 per cent stock, notes for an amount 
 exceeding ioo dollars being presented at once, etc. etc." 
 This, you see, does not pretend to pay the notes in specie, 
 but only to transfer to the holder a depreciated stock. 
 
 The remedy that occurred to him was a Bank- 
 ruptcy Law, which it should not be in the power 
 of individual states to repeal, extending to cor- 
 porations, and obliging the banks to either 
 pay their liabilities on demand or wind up their 
 affairs. 
 
 In spite, then, of his admiration for the natural 
 resources and for many of the characteristics of 
 the country, he " is not surprised at people coming 
 home from America more of Tories than they 
 left it." c< Certainly, though a republic may be 
 a very fine form of government, a democracy, 
 as far as we may judge from the United States, 
 is the next worst thing to a despotism. The 
 race between parties is so severe that principles
 
 ii VISIT TO AMERICA 101 
 
 are lost sight of. I am no favourer now of 
 shortening the duration of Parliaments, which 
 would probably have the effect of making repre- 
 sentatives mere tools of the lowest parts of the 
 community. It is very difficult, however, to dis- 
 tinguish here between the effects of the institution 
 and those of the youth of the country." With 
 regard to the personal question of commercial 
 prospects, he made the shrewd observation one 
 which, I am told, subsequent experience has amply 
 verified that the American business seemed so 
 simple and easy to carry on without sufficient 
 funds to justify it that it would probably always 
 be overdone. 
 
 While passing through Philadelphia he had 
 the good fortune to hear one of Daniel Webster's 
 great speeches advocating Protection. It was very 
 plausible, but was somewhat balked of its effect 
 by an amusing instance of American journalistic 
 ingenuity. 
 
 An hour after its delivery all the newsboys were 
 calling over Philadelphia, "Daniel Webster's great 
 speech on Free Trade and Protection " ; but the Pro- 
 tectionists were dismayed at reading a most powerful, 
 eloquent speech on Free Trade, denouncing the evils of 
 Protection. It was a speech delivered by Mr. Webster 
 some years before, when he and Americans generally 
 were in favour of Free Trade. Indeed, at that time 
 most Americans professed to be in principle Free-Traders ; 
 the manufacturers only asked for what they called
 
 102 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 "incidental Protection" in the taxes necessary to raise 
 revenue, and that only while their manufacturing system 
 was still in its infancy. While we were in America 
 the news came of Lord John Russell's proposal to sub- 
 stitute for the old Corn Law an eight shillings fixed 
 duty. The Americans were astounded at the boldness 
 of the proposal, considering our heavy debt and taxation. 
 " Free Trade," they said, " was for a new country like 
 America, with its unlimited, undeveloped natural re- 
 sources j but how could England, with its heavy taxa- 
 tion, compete with other countries without Protec- 
 tion ? " To this I replied that having a heavy burden 
 to carry, it did not seem to me that to put ourselves in 
 fetters was the right way to enable us to carry it. 
 
 This visit and two subsequent visits to America 
 made of William Rathbone a strong and uncom- 
 promising Free-Trader alike on economic and on 
 moral grounds. He found there three separate 
 effects of Protection which, as it seemed to him, 
 inevitably follow the system, in a greater or less 
 degree, wherever it prevails. First, the alternation 
 of periods of great prosperity among the wage- 
 earning class, with periods, often of longer duration, 
 of extreme stagnation and distress, when the over- 
 production and accumulations of the prosperous 
 period exaggerated as they are by the profits of 
 protected industries have overwhelmed the limited 
 market to be found within the walls of the tariff, 
 and can only be disposed of abroad, if at all, at a 
 ruinous loss. Secondly, the growth of inordinately
 
 ii VIEWS ON FREE TRADE 103 
 
 large fortunes among employers, a comparatively 
 small number of whom are often able to monopolise 
 a closely protected industry. These accumulations 
 of wealth, too vast to be greatly impaired by bad 
 times, must, even in the hands of wise and public- 
 spirited individuals, become dangerously conspicu- 
 ous when scarcity of work and distress give the 
 labouring class, by whose aid they have been built 
 up, the leisure and the temptation to dwell upon 
 them ; while, in the hands of those who set no 
 bounds to their ostentatious luxury, they become 
 an irresistible stimulant, if not a justification, of 
 social revolt. Lastly, to the pressure brought to 
 bear on those responsible for tariff legislation, both 
 in the Government and in Congress, by these 
 accumulations of wealth, and to the scramble, in 
 the lobbies of the Capitol, between various manu- 
 facturing interests for the adjustment of duties in 
 their favour, he attributed much, if not most, of 
 the corruption in some departments of political 
 life in America. 1 
 
 From the time of this, his earliest opportunity 
 of studying Protection at close quarters, to the 
 end of his life, he attributed to these fruits of the 
 system the fact that the working-class of Free- 
 Trade England have been, even in periods of 
 
 1 The influence notoriously exercised in the United States Senate by 
 certain groups of capitalists during the last decade, must be held to confirm 
 the soundness of these opinions.
 
 io 4 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 11 
 
 industrial depression, comparatively free from the 
 more dangerous manifestations of discontent, and 
 immune from the ideas of communism and anar- 
 chism to be found more or less in every protected 
 country.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 GETTING AND SPENDING 
 
 " In all things to serve from the lowest station upward is necessary. 
 To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, 
 whatever he attempts is still a trade ; for the higher, an art ; and 
 the highest, in doing one thing does all ; or, to speak less para- 
 doxically, in the one thing which he does rightly, he sees the like- 
 ness of all that is done rightly." GOETHE. 
 
 SOON after his return from America, William 
 Rathbone was made a partner in his father's firm 
 of Messrs. Rathbone Brothers and Co., and his 
 life as a Liverpool merchant began in earnest. 
 For the next fifteen years there is little in it to 
 record of general interest. Perhaps he was harder 
 worked during those years than at any other time 
 of his life ; but for that very reason he had not 
 time for many public interests, and as he was 
 seldom absent from Liverpool, except on short 
 holidays, his correspondence was presumably small. 
 At any rate, very little of it has been preserved. 
 His position in business was one involving a good 
 deal of anxiety and responsibility for a young man 
 
 105
 
 106 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of twenty-three. His uncle had retired from the 
 firm, and his father had been for many years so 
 engrossed in political and municipal work as to be 
 unable to carry out the changes in methods, or to 
 undertake the new forms of business made desirable 
 by the great expansion which had taken place 
 in the American trade between 1826 and 1836. 
 The credit of the house stood as high as ever, but 
 in the amount of its business it had not kept its 
 place relatively to its competitors. It was quite 
 clear to the young man, who had, it may be said 
 briefly, the instincts of a born member of the now 
 practically obsolete calling of merchant, that if 
 he and his brother were ever to be in a position to 
 take the share which their father and grandfather 
 had taken in the public life of the town, they 
 would have to devote themselves entirely for some 
 years to building up the business of the house. 
 The necessity was one he never seriously regretted. 
 Great as was his own zeal in later life for public 
 work, he felt that for young men compulsory 
 drudgery at their own business, with payment by 
 results, was a more wholesome training than either 
 politics or philanthropy with their inevitable accom- 
 paniments of a facile conspicuousness and exagger- 
 ated praise. 
 
 He was soon joined in the work by his brother 
 Samuel. S. G. Rathbone had been made an 
 apprentice in his father's office at seventeen, but
 
 in S. G. RATHBONE 107 
 
 before he had completed his apprenticeship or had 
 come of age, he was sent to China, to join his 
 brother's former school - fellow, young James 
 Worthington, in establishing a house there. 
 China had then just been thrown open to foreign 
 traders. Having carried out this responsible 
 commission with a skill, tact, and success which 
 justified the bold choice of so young a man, he 
 returned to England by way of India, coasting up 
 from Ceylon to Calcutta, thence up country to 
 Benares and Agra, and down to Bombay, and so 
 home. This took him through a part of India 
 then almost unknown, and gave him some curious 
 glimpses into the rule of the East India Company, 
 of which upon the whole he formed a high opinion. 
 Their servants then had the country practically to 
 themselves. Even they kept to certain well-known 
 routes, and part of his road from Calcutta to 
 Bombay had, he was told, been traversed before 
 by only one European traveller, Lord Elphinstone. 
 On his return home he was taken into partnership 
 with his father and brother, and with the exception 
 of another long visit to China in 1846, his work 
 lay thenceforward mainly with the Liverpool 
 house. 
 
 The two brothers were well suited to work 
 together. The friendship between them was very 
 close, but they were different enough to supplement 
 each other. S. G. Rathbone was of a much more
 
 io8 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 cautious and reserved temperament than his brother. 
 His judgment was very clear and sound, and he 
 was firm in holding to and acting on his opinions ; 
 but he was never in a hurry to express them or to 
 force them on others. He was singularly fair- 
 minded and observant, not only of the rights, but 
 of the feelings and prejudices of those with whom 
 he worked. Yet his attention to their wishes 
 evidently sprang from a sense of justice, and a 
 feeling that among colleagues " each should count 
 for one, and no one for more than one," rather than 
 from any tendency to over-rate the value of their 
 opinion. There was indeed something about the 
 expression of his grey eyes, with lids deeply 
 drooping at the outer corners, which, to those 
 who noticed it, must have carried instant con- 
 viction that he was not a man likely to mistake 
 geese for swans, and that if he obviously thought 
 little of himself, it was not because he over- 
 rated the greatness and wisdom of the majority 
 of mankind. His humour was one of his most 
 characteristic and delightful traits. It seldom 
 effervesced into epigram, but found vent in an 
 habitual vein of gentle irony, which pervaded 
 nearly all his conversation with his intimates, but 
 was rarely allowed to appear in the committee 
 room. At work he had a power of holding him- 
 self in reserve until every one else had said his say, 
 and then coming forward with a proposal which
 
 in CHARACTERISTICS 109 
 
 showed that all their arguments had been weighed 
 and a solution sought which met them as far as 
 possible. This judicial quality of his mind was 
 keenly appreciated by his brother William, who 
 rarely took any important step or decision without 
 consulting him. Even after middle life, when they 
 were engaged in different kinds of public work, 
 the one in politics and social reform, the other in 
 the organisation of elementary education, this close 
 intercourse was kept up. 
 
 William Rathbone's own impulsive and dynamic 
 temperament made such a judicious adviser espe- 
 cially valuable to him. In the early forties it 
 is clear that his high principles, unselfishness of 
 purpose, and great strength of will, had already 
 made themselves recognised in his circle, but it was 
 only by degrees that he learnt to direct his powers 
 so as to call out and stimulate, not restrain those 
 of others. In business, as his mother reminds him 
 in one of her letters, " when people have to walk 
 together the quicker natures must moderate their 
 pace, or others are left behind, or stumble forward 
 at a rate too fast to walk steadily." Seeing things 
 quickly, clearly, and strongly, and absorbed in 
 anxiety that the right course should be taken, it 
 was very difficult to him to leave to less prompt 
 and ardent natures the share in making a decision 
 which as fellow-workers was rightly theirs. If the 
 matter under discussion were one he thought
 
 no WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 important, above all, if it involved not only points 
 of immediate expediency, but principles upon which 
 future actions would hang, then his whole mind 
 and will would be concentrated upon the effort to 
 reach a right decision. In such a mood he had 
 not much attention to spare, at least at the 
 moment, for the impression which his bearing was 
 making upon the other persons in the case, and 
 being himself not easily depressed by opposition, 
 and entirely free from anxiety as to his own share 
 of credit or dignity, he was apt to assume an 
 equal buoyancy and an equal self-detachment in 
 them. As his experience widened there was no 
 mistake which he was more anxiously on his guard 
 against than this. He always remained super- 
 ficially rather inobservant, in the sense in which 
 most people are inobservant at times when their 
 minds are not, so to speak, sight-seeing, or on the 
 look-out for a job, but are occupied with definite 
 and engrossing questions. His mind was nearly 
 always so occupied, except when he was on his 
 holidays, and he had not the skin-sensitiveness to 
 what was passing in other people's minds which 
 serves some men in the place of conscious observa- 
 tion. But it is clear that he had from the beginning 
 the moral constituent of tact, the desire and purpose 
 to be considerate, and fair-minded, and respectful to 
 the individuality of others, and as life went on, 
 he strove with a success which varied, but seemed
 
 in CHARACTERISTICS in 
 
 always to increase, and perhaps most rapidly to- 
 wards the close, to learn the ways in which tact 
 manifests itself. 
 
 The necessity of giving to all he worked with 
 the fullest credit, not only in his own mind, but 
 publicly, for everything good they had done, or if 
 they had done nothing, then for the best inten- 
 tions, was one upon which his mind, or more truly 
 perhaps his moral bent, especially fastened. It 
 appealed to his sense of justice ; but besides that, it 
 was, as a point of diplomacy, very important to a 
 man whose work was to lie so much in breaking 
 into the peace of committees or individuals with 
 proposals which not only promised to be trouble- 
 some, but implied, however tacitly, a criticism 
 upon past performance. Often his enthusiasm 
 carried him quite unconsciously beyond the limits 
 of strict justice in his appreciation of his fellow- 
 workers' merits ; and when he was occupied with 
 some large new scheme or reform, his friends were 
 sometimes amused by his expedients for dragging 
 to the front the colleagues or official persons who 
 might have, but had not, set it in train, and by his 
 endeavours to persuade them, the world, but most 
 of all himself, that they were the real motive power, 
 he only the instrument or go-between. 
 
 Even as a young man his unselfconsciousness 
 and a certain impetuosity of manner had probably 
 made him seem more masterful and self-reliant
 
 ii2 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 than he really was. So far from being satisfied 
 with his own strength, he was in fact fond almost 
 to excess of taking advice, and few people could 
 trust themselves to the guidance of others with a 
 more whole-hearted confidence than he could on 
 occasion to those whose judgment he had once 
 learned to respect. Unreserved and unhesitating 
 acceptance of the best light upon a subject that he 
 could see, whether it proceeded from his own 
 reason and experience or that of other men, was 
 the principle upon which he usually acted, and it 
 was, it can scarcely be doubted, one great secret of 
 his effectiveness. While others were doubting and 
 hesitating over a needed reform, or a proposed new 
 enterprise, waiting till a perfectly safe path to it 
 should appear, and meanwhile jogging comfortably 
 along in the old ways, his quick eye had singled 
 out the route across country which offered the 
 safest going and fewest obstacles, and he was in full 
 career along it. Such promptness to act obviously 
 had its dangers, but with him it did not mean that 
 he was acting upon a chance impulse, or for the 
 sake of a temporary expediency. In every kind 
 of work with which he had much to do he had the 
 habit of laying down for himself general principles 
 of action. He formed these very carefully and 
 deliberately, but when once formed, he did not 
 lightly reconsider them, and without reconsidera- 
 tion scarcely ever departed from them. Thus,
 
 in CHARACTERISTICS 113 
 
 when the time came to act, the main lines upon 
 which, or at least the limits within which, his course 
 could be shaped were always determined, and the 
 most formidable barrier to action uncertainty 
 about general principles being removed, the rest 
 was comparatively easy. 
 
 The early years given entirely to business in 
 William Rathbone's life illustrate, as clearly as any 
 of the long years of public activity which followed 
 them, his determination not to allow his life to 
 drift, but to conduct it upon a settled plan. Before 
 he finally took his place in his father's office he 
 had made up his mind, as private memoranda left 
 behind him show, that in order to fulfil the 
 possibilities which he saw for himself, it was 
 necessary that he should command a fairly ample 
 fortune. He had no taste for personal luxury, and 
 a strong sense of the duty of frugality. But he 
 had observed that in England especially, the weight 
 which was given to a man's words or principles was 
 greatly determined by the skill which he had shown 
 in managing his own affairs, and that this skill, 
 in the case at any rate of men of business, was 
 inevitably roughly measured by the amount of his 
 wealth. He saw, too, that in the spheres of work 
 to which his father's and grandfather's example, as 
 well as his own tastes, pointed him, a considerable 
 command of money was, not indeed necessary, but 
 undoubtedly a great assistance. But both upon
 
 u 4 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the extent of this aim and upon the methods he 
 took to compass it he set very definite limits. 
 Great wealth he did not desire. It involved, he 
 thought, too much danger of enervation to a man's 
 self and still more to his children. 
 
 One who was closely associated with him in 
 business many years later, has supplied me with 
 some notes upon his characteristics as a man of 
 business. In these he says : 
 
 In guiding the policy of his firm, a reputation for 
 stability and absolutely sound principles were what he 
 chiefly aimed at, preferring the continuance of a firm 
 from generation to generation to a sudden outburst of 
 great prosperity. He abhorred short cuts to fortune, and 
 had a rooted contempt for what Americans call quick 
 rich firms. He trusted no prosperity that was not the 
 outcome of continuous and laborious work ; he avoided 
 openings that might lead to such prosperity, knowing 
 that for one firm which succeeds in business of this type, 
 there are ninety-nine which sooner or later it brings to 
 the ground. He himself was just one of those who 
 probably would have achieved this unusual success, be- 
 cause with great enterprise and optimism he combined a 
 remarkably level head, and would always stop well before 
 the climax. This almost intuitive knowledge, bred of 
 his long experience, clung to him to the end of his life. 
 In numbers of cases he warned his friends of what he 
 saw coming, and on practically all occasions when 
 they did not follow his advice they had great reason for 
 regretting it. 
 
 Yet in spite of his caution and dislike of anything
 
 in PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS 115 
 
 approaching gambling, his optimism and cheerful disposi- 
 tion made him very strong as an initiator. Perhaps one 
 of his most remarkable qualities, at least the one most 
 apparent to those who knew him only in his later life, 
 was his wonderful adaptability. If he had remained in 
 business to within a year or two of the end of his life he 
 would probably have been just as successful under the 
 changed state of things as he had been in the fifties. He 
 was able in a moment to grasp a business problem of the 
 new school, put a finger on the weak part in the argu- 
 ment, and give most excellent advice. Sometimes his 
 opinion was a little premature, but it was nearly always 
 right sooner or later, and generally sooner. 
 
 As a partner his practice was to accumulate -all the 
 information and evidence he could, think out quietly the 
 trend of things, and when he was satisfied with his con- 
 clusions, order his policy accordingly. In this, however, 
 he never rode roughshod over those associated with him. 
 He was always very ready to hear what his friends had to 
 say, and set great store on the judgment of those he 
 trusted. He would always give way in minor points, but 
 was equally firm where he believed the issue was of great 
 importance. He was a good judge of men and a firm 
 believer in the differentiation of work. He once said 
 that his principle in all business affairs, commercial or 
 otherwise, was " never do anything yourself that you can 
 get done for you at the rate of ^500 a year." But he 
 knew the value of details, was an expert accountant, and 
 could quickly detect the flaw in any carelessly drawn 
 balance sheet or financial statement. Philanthropist 
 though he was in the highest and noblest sense, he was 
 a firm believer that philanthropy should not be mixed up 
 with business. Thus he never approved of an account
 
 n6 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 which he believed unsound being continued for philan- 
 thropic reasons ; better let it stand or fall on its own 
 merits purely ; better for all concerned. But if a firm 
 had to be pulled up, it was well known whence came the 
 assistance and help that individuals received. Usually, 
 however, he was able to bring the necessary pressure to 
 bear in time to save his own money and the concern 
 itself. His view was that as many disasters in business 
 were due to mistaken kindness as to wild speculation, 
 and far more to leniency than to harshness. As long as 
 he remained in active business he gave his full working 
 time to his firm, reserving what spare time he could 
 snatch exclusively for honorary work. He disbelieved in 
 the expediency of holding directorships while engaged in 
 active business, and he used to try to dissuade young men 
 with whom he had to do from entering on a combination 
 of functions commonly considered not only compatible, 
 but mutually helpful. 
 
 In his private jottings (written, it should be 
 remembered, for his children and without any idea 
 that they would ever be published) he has noticed 
 some incidents of his very early business life which 
 illustrate well these characteristics of his later 
 age : 
 
 When public attention began to be devoted to rail- 
 ways, my father's friend, A. M., said to me one day, 
 " Your London friends, M., P. and Co., and others, 
 are among those who are bringing out the North of 
 France Railroad. Why don't you apply for shares ? 
 They are sure to go to a large premium, and they 
 would certainly give you some." I thanked him
 
 in PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS 117 
 
 for his advice, saying I did not know whether we had 
 much capital to spare to hold railway shares with, but 
 that I would consult my father. After consultation we 
 agreed that we could perhaps spare ^5000, and applied 
 accordingly, but only got 100 shares of, I think, ^10 
 each. At any rate they at once rose to ^5 per share 
 premium. Soon afterwards, meeting A. M., he asked 
 me whether we had not sold our shares. I told him 
 I did not know that we should be acting fairly to our 
 friends to do so, as I supposed they had been allotted 
 to us as likely to prove solid holders, and to hold on to 
 them for some time at least. He said that our friends 
 would expect us to sell, and would sell a great part of 
 their own, as soon as they could make a better investment 
 of their money. Accordingly I sold, and we pocketed 
 ^500 with much content, but it seemed to me it might 
 be a very insidious and dangerous precedent. I had 
 thought we were well paid if, after working all our 
 waking hours as hard as we could, and knocking about 
 the world, we added ^500 a year to the firm's profits ; 
 and here, without any work beyond writing a letter, we 
 pocketed ^500. I said to my father that if I were like 
 him, the only capitalist partner in the firm, absorbed in 
 politics, and with a very young and inexperienced partner, 
 I should dread allowing my partners to go into the now 
 increasingly profitable and exciting business of applying 
 for new shares. I should require them to confine them- 
 selves to their business as merchants. He agreed with 
 me, and it was very fortunate that he did so, for the 
 country was then at the commencement of one of the 
 wildest and most speculative manias I have ever seen. 
 From the novelty of the circumstance that the money was 
 at first spent in the country, no one seemed able to
 
 n8 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 realise the inevitable result. Being entirely out of the 
 speculation, and fond of working out things to their 
 probable results, it secerned to me absolutely certain that it 
 could only end in the most disastrous crisis we have ever 
 seen, for the country was undertaking, far beyond its 
 strength, engagements which could not be suddenly 
 terminated, but would continue to tax its resources for 
 years to come. I urged any friends I had who were 
 directors of railways to cease the wild system of competing 
 to buy up or amalgamate all those new schemes, as they 
 were certain to come to grief, and be bought up at a 
 very much smaller price later on. When I urged this 
 on Mr. J. C., then a director of the railway between 
 Liverpool and London, he said he thought I was right, 
 and if I would agree, he would retire from the Board 
 and propose me as his successor. At about twenty-five 
 years of age, I was, of course, very much flattered at such 
 a proposal, but I said that as long as I considered it my 
 duty to give my main efforts to make provisions for my 
 own family, I thought I should do it more effectually by 
 concentrating my efforts and attention on managing my 
 own business, than in helping to manage other people's. 
 
 In 1846, I think in August, Mr. Ross Smyth came 
 into the office very anxious about the future of Ireland. 
 He said that in 1845 the potato disease had not mattered 
 much, because it had struck the plant late after the tubers 
 were formed, and a larger portion of them was saved for 
 human food. But in 1846 the disease had struck them 
 so early that the tubers were small and immature, and in 
 many places there would be no crop at all available during 
 the winter. I asked him to try to calculate what import 
 of grain would be necessary on the most economical con- 
 sumption to supply this loss. He worked it out that
 
 in PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS 119 
 
 8,000,000 quarters at least would be necessary. As before 
 Free Trade the import of 2,000,000 quarters had been 
 enough to derange the exchange and bring on pressure, 
 I saw at once that even a very considerably less import 
 than he had named must bring on the severe crisis I had 
 considered inevitable sooner or later. I suggested to my 
 father that we should confine our business to the strictest 
 limits, and caution all our friends against extending theirs. 
 My father thought I was in a panic, but I told him I was 
 convinced I was right. He recommended me to go up 
 and talk the matter over with my wise friends in London. 
 This I did, but they all said the money being spent in 
 the country made this expansion different from other ones. 
 I urged that the United Kingdom had always consumed 
 what it produced to eat and drink, that a great part of the 
 money must be given out in wages, and that these would 
 be spent in eating and drinking and wearing more clothes, 
 which, or the materials for which, must be imported from 
 abroad and paid for. Mr. Whittaker, of Brown, Janson, 
 and Co., alone saw the force of my argument, but he 
 pointed out that there had hitherto been no important 
 rise in the prices of produce, and that the rise must take 
 place before increased imports and payment for them could 
 produce the approaching stringency. I saw that he was 
 right, and the whole prospect became perfectly clear to 
 me. I went home. We wrote fully to all our friends 
 and issued a circular on September I5th. We restricted 
 to the smallest compass our credits for advance on produce, 
 and did a small business on our own account on produce 
 which was low, in order to get advantage of the rise when 
 it took place. We also wrote to our friends in China not 
 to send us any bills from houses largely connected with 
 Calcutta, as Mr. Janson's opinion of the Calcutta trade,
 
 izo WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and what S. G. Rathbone heard on his way home from 
 China, had convinced us that there was much unsoundness 
 there. 
 
 Everything turned out as we anticipated. There was 
 a great fall in the autumn or winter in the price of 
 railway shares ; Indian corn rose to seventy shillings a 
 quarter, falling rapidly in 1847, w ^en the 8,000,000 of 
 bread stuffs had been secured. The first of the pressure 
 for money came, as I expected, in the spring, and in 
 October the crisis came on afresh with increased severity, 
 and a great many of the old and reputedly wealthy 
 Calcutta and Mauritius houses came to the ground. 
 
 In the first few years the business made little 
 way. Then it took a start. Houses were estab- 
 lished in Canton and Shanghai, at first as branches 
 of the Liverpool firm, but afterwards only in corre- 
 spondence with it. An agency was set up in New 
 York, and the consignment business in ships from 
 America increased. The two brothers joined Mr. 
 Ross Smyth in forming a firm in the grain trade. 
 They also became shipowners. After ten or twelve 
 years' hard and almost unremitting work, William 
 Rathbone was able to relax a little of his attention 
 to his private affairs, and to give a share of his 
 time, at first small, but steadily and rapidly in- 
 creasing, to public matters. 
 
 To an active-minded young man, the calling by 
 which he earns his living is always interesting 
 enough to make him theorise and form a creed for 
 himself upon it. The principles which William
 
 121 
 
 Rathbone held as to how money should be earned 
 were perhaps less unusual than the fact that at an 
 early age he formed equally fixed principles as to 
 how money should be spent. 
 
 It seems to have been about the beginning of 
 his married life while, that is, he was still in his 
 twenties that he laid down for himself a sort of 
 self-acting rule to determine the proportions 
 of income that should be spent upon public and 
 private uses. This is a personal matter about 
 which instinct and preference suggest saying as 
 little as possible. But the praises, exaggerated 
 and unwholesome as he considered them, which on 
 many occasions during his later years were lavished 
 upon his public expenditure, seem to suggest that 
 the matter is one upon which his authority would 
 have weight, and the record of his opinion may 
 therefore be of some practical use. It will be 
 given as nearly as possible in his own words. 
 
 In deciding how to spend his income, he thought, 
 a young man should consider not only the immediate 
 objects of his expenditure, but also its effect on his 
 character. Saving and giving are both habits. It 
 often happens that a man of naturally generous 
 nature is obliged while he is young to work hard 
 and to be economical. He yields to this necessity, 
 hoping when he has made a fortune to use it for the 
 good of others. But by the time success comes 
 he has allowed the saving habits of his youth to
 
 122 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 master him so completely that he is affected by a 
 sort of " pecuniary paralysis." This very frequently 
 befalls even men who while poor have been generous 
 in giving on the modest scale suitable to their 
 means, so that it is exceptional to find a man who 
 has grown very wealthy without becoming less 
 generous as his wealth increased. It follows, then, 
 that a man who would escape this moral disease 
 must give something for the sake of practice, even 
 out of small means, and as his income swells (and 
 this was the point he laid most stress on) he must 
 increase not only the amount, but the proportion of 
 it to be devoted to public objects. 
 
 He was fond of defending -this maxim on 
 utilitarian grounds, and by an argument which 
 seemed to have a faint echo of the economic law of 
 Diminishing Returns. Imagine the case, he would 
 say, of a young man of business, with a wife and 
 family, and an income of ^500 or 700 a year. 
 He finds that every additional ^10 which he can 
 afford to spend adds very considerably to the en- 
 joyment of his family and himself. It enables them 
 to take a better holiday, and to indulge in some 
 real and healthy pleasures. But if he increases his 
 expenditure by 500 or 600, still more by ^1000 
 or ^2000, the increase in their pleasures and 
 advantages will not be in at all the same proportion. 
 Part of it will almost certainly be spent in satisfying 
 the expectations of Mrs. Grundy as to the style
 
 in PRINCIPLES OF EXPENDITURE 123 
 
 in which well-to-do people ought to live, part in 
 costly forms of amusement, which, though pleasant, 
 gave little or no more enjoyment than simpler forms. 
 Assuming that the production of happiness is the 
 object of expenditure, then, as an economist might 
 say, he has reached the point at which every fresh 
 dose applied to his particular family field yields a 
 diminished return. This should be a sign to him 
 to divert an increasing proportion of his means to 
 cultivating the broad acres of the common weal. 
 If we suppose that he has begun, as he fairly may, 
 by laying aside ten per cent of his expenditure for 
 objects unconnected with himself and his family, he 
 should increase the percentage as his means increased, 
 until it reaches, if he become very prosperous, say 
 one-half of the total. If he were wise, he would 
 not stop there, but would rather fix a limit beyond 
 which his private expenditure should not go, 
 spending everything that he could afford beyond 
 that limit on objects of public utility. Of course 
 this does not mean that he should necessarily spend 
 the whole portion so allotted during the year. If 
 he did he would probably do a great deal of harm ; 
 for wise spending needs much time and thought. 
 But he should keep an account with himself, and 
 consider the balance as a debt which he owes the 
 public. No fear but that to an active citizen 
 opportunities will come in time for spending use- 
 fully all that he has accumulated.
 
 1 24 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 His plan, as he was fond of pointing out, has a 
 collateral advantage : it lessens the risk of a man's 
 children being brought up in habits of expenditure 
 which it will be impossible for them to keep up when 
 he is dead and his property has been divided. The 
 necessity to consider ways and means is rather a 
 stimulus than a barrier to happiness in youth, but 
 it may be hard and painful when it is forced, as it 
 so often is, on men and women for the first time 
 after their standards and tastes have been formed 
 in a luxurious home. 
 
 There are probably some people who, in reading 
 advice like this, cannot shake off the feeling 
 that in a country in which the great majority 
 of families have incomes of less than ^3 a 
 week, it is an anomaly that there should be 
 a class at all to whom six or seven hundred 
 a year represents poverty, or at least the modest 
 competence suitable for young people to begin 
 life on. To these, any system of giving away 
 percentages will only seem to make the best of 
 a state of things which has something funda- 
 mentally wrong about it. With this point of view 
 William Rathbone had great sympathy. He some- 
 times said of himself that he was a Socialist in 
 respect of ends, and would become one out and out 
 if he could see his way clearer as to methods. For 
 the so-called " rights of property," except so far as 
 they fitted in with the interests of the community,
 
 in PRINCIPLES OF EXPENDITURE 125 
 
 he cared little, and his whole trend of opinion 
 shows that he would have been willing to adopt 
 very drastic measures for securing a more equal 
 distribution, if he could have convinced himself of 
 their practicability and efficacy. The increasing 
 luxury of modern habits of life was to him a cause 
 of abiding soreness and uneasiness, not so much 
 perhaps on the ground of injustice to the poor who 
 did not share them, as of their demoralising and 
 enervating influence on the characters of the well- 
 to-do. But it must be remembered that in forming 
 his " rule " he intended it, not as a counsel of 
 perfection, but as a working principle which might 
 be accepted by men born in a certain position and 
 bred in certain habits, neither prepared to break 
 wholly with custom, nor content to live as selfishly 
 as it permits. It was not an ideal which a man 
 should set before himself, but a line below which he 
 should not allow his conduct to fall. Those who 
 had kept to it might feel that they were at the best 
 but unprofitable servants, who had done that it 
 was their duty to do. 
 
 " You should," he once wrote to a young man 
 to whom he had been expounding this plan, " very 
 carefully and constantly keep before your own 
 mind, that in doing this you are simply discharging 
 a trust which there is no merit in discharging, but 
 which it is a sin and disgrace to neglect ; and that 
 all the nonsensical rubbish talked about the gener-
 
 iz6 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 osity of those who attempt to do this is a poison 
 to be guarded against and rejected with disgust." 
 Praise of his " munificence," in fact, gave him no 
 pleasure. It does not gratify a man to be praised 
 for paying his tradesmen's bills, or for being 
 temperate in eating and drinking, and he regarded 
 his public expenditure as an almost equally obvious 
 and elementary duty. " It is very easy for a rich 
 man to get the reputation of being generous ; almost 
 impossible for him to deserve it," he said once at a 
 public meeting, and the saying was no conventional 
 disclaimer, but the expression of one of his most 
 deep - seated and practical convictions. For his 
 own use he copied out a saying of Emerson's, of 
 which the significance extends far beyond money 
 spending : " If in the hour of severest truth a man 
 were to deal honestly with his soul, he would say 
 that he had never made a sacrifice." 
 
 As to the methods and occasions of discharging 
 this debt to the public, William Rathbone's ideas 
 developed with his experience, and they may best 
 be gathered from the story of his own work in its 
 several branches. Here it need only be said that 
 by public expenditure he did not mean simply 
 giving money to charities or to needy individuals. 
 That is one of the forms. But education, science, 
 art, literature, the collection of information on 
 subjects important to public welfare, the trial of 
 promising new schemes of social amelioration, the
 
 in PRINCIPLES OF EXPENDITURE 127 
 
 supply of healthy pleasures to masses or to indi- 
 viduals- all these offered in his eyes a practically 
 unlimited field for judicious spending. 
 
 At the same time, he was very far from under- 
 estimating the difficulties of spending even in these 
 ways without doing more harm than good. He 
 felt strongly that if those who spend freely on 
 luxurious living are likely to demoralise themselves 
 and their households, those who give carelessly 
 and foolishly to public objects run the risk of in- 
 juring all whom their bounty reaches, and of 
 lowering the whole tone of the community to 
 which they belong. 
 
 The account of his efforts to diminish, in his 
 own town at least, the sum of wasted charity must 
 be left to a later chapter. In this, one may seem 
 already to have paid too little regard to chronology, 
 passing in a breath from the practices of youth to 
 the precepts of maturity and age. This will be 
 less done in the later portions of this sketch, 
 though to a certain extent it has been necessary 
 throughout. In describing activities that were not 
 given to a single profession or pursuit, but ranged 
 to and fro over a number of quite distinct fields, it 
 has often seemed better, for the sake of clearness 
 and continuity, to trace out the whole of what was 
 accomplished in one field before passing to the 
 next. The order in which the several branches of 
 his work have been described has been as a rule
 
 128 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the order in which they were undertaken. It was 
 natural that when he first began work upon a new 
 subject it should occupy for a time the forefront of 
 his thoughts, and then, when the limits of what he 
 could hope to do in it made themselves plain, it 
 should fall into the background and become more 
 or less a matter of routine. 
 
 One trivial personal experiment in " charity 
 organisation" belongs properly to this time. When 
 William Rathbone first entered his father's office he 
 found that the numbers of applicants for charity 
 who called there was a serious nuisance and impedi- 
 ment to the business. His father, he says, " held 
 very sound opinions on the subject of the evil done 
 to character by relief given without sufficient know- 
 ledge," but being very tender-hearted, he could 
 seldom resist sweetening his lectures on the duty of 
 self-reliance by a shilling or half-a-crown. At his 
 son's suggestion he consented to refer all applicants 
 to the office of a local relief society, with instruc- 
 tions to make strict inquiries and to give sub- 
 stantial help when desirable. At the end of a 
 month or two the office was almost cleared of 
 applicants, and of those that persisted so few stood 
 the test of investigation that the amount disbursed 
 on his behalf by the charitable society was under ^5 
 a year. 
 
 This was practically the same plan of dealing 
 with charitable claims that he pursued all his life.
 
 in PRINCIPLES OF EXPENDITURE 129 
 
 He never gave help, and, except in obviously bad 
 cases, very seldom refused it, without careful in- 
 quiries made either through agents whom he paid 
 for the work, or from any other available sources, 
 and of these inquiries careful permanent records 
 were kept. When the merits of a case were 
 doubtful he always inclined to give the applicant 
 the benefit of the doubt, and in later years, when 
 he was in close touch with the Liverpool Central 
 Relief Society, and with the London Charity 
 Organisation Society, he specially encouraged the 
 reference to him of cases where the risk of failure 
 seemed so great as not to justify the expenditure 
 of ordinary funds upon them. He was always 
 very willing to risk losing money and even what 
 he valued more, time, provided, first, that the end 
 to be gained was worth the risk, and secondly, 
 that the element of doubt was due to the nature 
 of the case and not to removable deficiencies in 
 information or precaution. 
 
 In small personal matters, where the duty of 
 hardening one's heart could not well be fulfilled 
 vicariously, his practice, it must be confessed, fell 
 short of the ideals of the Charity Organisation 
 Society. Like his father, he had probably " very 
 sound opinions " as to the duty of being particular 
 in such matters, but the instinct of liberality was 
 usually too strong for them. Abroad, he must 
 have seemed to hotel-keepers, waiters, and drivers 
 
 K
 
 130 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, in 
 
 the very archetype of an Englishman, in the 
 facility with which he permitted himself to be over- 
 charged, as well as in his zeal for walking up hills 
 in the heat of the day. He was one of the very 
 few human beings who positively enjoy tipping. 
 When leaving an hotel he would stand at the door 
 fingering loose coin, and exhorting his party to 
 notice " whether there was not some one else who 
 looked as if they expected something." Of course 
 the obscurities of a foreign tongue did not prevent 
 the desired expression from overspreading the 
 faces of most of the bystanders. The bare possi- 
 bility of underpaying anybody made him miserable, 
 and when the market price of a service seemed to 
 him inadequate, he quietly set the standard of the 
 market aside. In all such matters, it is to be feared, 
 he was " the sort of man that Simonides would not 
 commend." l 
 
 1 "The liberal man, again, is easy to deal with in money matters ; it is 
 not hard to cheat him, as he does not value wealth, he is more apt to be 
 vexed at having failed to spend where he ought, than to be pained at having 
 spent where he ought not the sort of man that Simonides would not com- 
 mend." Aristotle, Nic. Eth. \\. i, Peter's translation.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF PUBLIC WORK 1847 TO 
 
 ON September 6, 1847, William Rathbone married 
 Lucretia Wainwright Gair, the eldest daughter of 
 Mr. Samuel Gair, who had died about a year before. 
 He had been a partner in Messrs. Baring Brothers 
 and Company, in Liverpool, and was an old friend 
 of William Rathbone's father, his house, Penketh, in 
 which his family continued to live after his death, 
 being within half-a-mile of Greenbank. In the 
 autumn of the year following his marriage William 
 Rathbone was obliged to go to America on business, 
 and on this, his third visit, his wife accompanied 
 him. Her parents were both Americans by birth, 
 and she had many relations and friends in New 
 England, with whom she stayed while her husband 
 was travelling about the country seeing to his 
 affairs. His letters from America to his father 
 are full of business, and of reports of visits to 
 mutual friends and correspondents ; those to his 
 mother are much taken up with discussions, or
 
 132 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 rather with assents to her proposals, as to the best 
 ways of laying out a certain sum, I think a hundred 
 pounds, which he had placed in her hands for 
 charitable purposes -a subject upon which she was 
 lavishing, after her wont, as much conscientious 
 deliberation, shrewd common - sense, and clear 
 judgment, as might have ensured the success of a 
 large business. Three of his letters seem of suffi- 
 cient interest, in relation either to the subjects they 
 treat of, or to his character, to be quoted : 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 SAVANNAH, January 15, 1849. 
 
 This place is an old-fashioned looking town, more like 
 a country town than anything else, and the people seem 
 pleasant, old-fashioned people who take the world easily 
 enough, except, I fancy, when the cotton fever is raging, 
 and then all is bustle. The streets are unpaved, heavy 
 sand ; it is built on a " bluff," as they call it, or ridge, 
 and between it and the sea stretches an extent of low 
 marshy ground, part of which is cultivated in rice. The 
 stores lie along the river, and the good folk ride about in- 
 stead of walking, owing to the warmth and sand, and 
 hitch up their horses, wherever they stop, to places 
 put for the purpose. You see them standing about tied 
 in that manner. The streets are all lined with trees, 
 many of them apparently of great age and considerable 
 size ; and a great many of them being the live oak and 
 wild olive, are of course green even now. There is a good 
 deal of social visiting, and the whole community seem on
 
 iv LETTERS FROM AMERICA 133 
 
 terms of good fellowship together, but not much gaiety. 
 The planters are, I hear, a very free (sometimes reckless) 
 sort of fellows, very hospitable in a rough sort of a way. I 
 was told a curious instance of this, a propos of a place we 
 drove out to on Sunday, about three miles out of town. 
 It bears the marks of having been a magnificent place, 
 splendid avenues of large old trees intersecting one another, 
 with the long moss hanging from all the branches I to 3 
 feet long, looking almost like weeping willows, and yet 
 the branches like oaks. The proprietor was of one of 
 the best and wealthiest families, but was impairing his 
 estate by expenditure and speculations. When a large 
 party were dining with him a fire broke out ; he would 
 not let any of his servants leave the room, and said they 
 might put it out in the kitchen if they could. The fire 
 at last broke into the dining-room, when each guest took 
 a decanter, his glasses and plate, and they adjourned to 
 the lawn and finished their wine, while the splendid house 
 burnt before them. He was unable to rebuild, but 
 became gradually more involved, till he was obliged to 
 sell the estate, except a small plot on which is the family 
 burying- ground. The keeper of this hotel bought it, 
 and is going to convert it into a cemetery on the plan of 
 Mount Auburn. 
 
 On Sunday night I went to a church belonging to the 
 blacks, in hopes of hearing a black preacher over ninety 
 years of age, formerly a slave, and knowing little beyond 
 his Bible, which he knows thoroughly. He is a very 
 sensible preacher, and so much respected that Mr. Paddle- 
 ford said his funeral would be larger, of blacks and whites, 
 than any man's in Savannah. This congregation has 
 uoo communicants, who are Baptists, and he was so 
 tired with baptizing fifteen in the morning that he could
 
 134 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 not appear ; consequently one of the elders, a cooper, a 
 pure negro, conducted the service. They were singing 
 when we entered, and he then read a chapter with great 
 propriety, and added, " Let all of us consider and apply 
 this chapter, and let those who can read, read and con- 
 sider at home." They then sang again, and he concluded 
 with a short extemporary prayer, simple, earnest, and to 
 the purpose. I was very much pleased, and regretted 
 more than ever the absence of their preacher. 
 
 So many of the men of business here live in hotels and 
 boarding-houses that I have seen nothing of the interior 
 of their houses, and I shall go on to Charleston to-morrow 
 night, where I hope to get a better place to write in, and 
 hope to send another letter home by the steamer which 
 takes this. Time seems getting on towards the day of 
 coming home ourselves, and I need not tell you I shall 
 not be very sorry when it does come, though the kindness 
 of people here does as much as can be done to lessen the 
 feeling of being away. . . . 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 CHARLESTON, January 18, 1849. 
 
 . . . Many thanks for your most kind, affectionate 
 letter, and most cordially I wish you all the blessings you 
 wish. I look forward with great pleasure to the time, 
 now not, I hope, far distant, when I shall be with you 
 all again with Lucretia. I am sometimes almost angry 
 with myself for being so easily depressed by slight 
 matters when away from her ; but it is difficult, having 
 once enjoyed such a blessing as her almost unvarying 
 cheerfulness, and entirely unvarying gentleness, to do 
 without it. This morning something in the letters about
 
 iv LETTERS FROM AMERICA 135 
 
 China put me out, and it required several readings of 
 your kind letters to get over the effect. However, they 
 were in the end successful : it was impossible to withstand 
 the effect of so much kindness and affection. . . . Nor 
 would it be possible for any one after having suffered some 
 trials (even of his own making) to be so flooded with 
 everything that can make life happy prosperity, health, 
 friends, relations, and wife, all to one's mind without 
 feeling some grateful feelings arise within him. But 
 until these feelings become principles and actions, I 
 can only consider them as responsibilities, and tremble 
 lest they should pass, and sorrow and trial come before 
 they have been turned to account. You must not 
 mistake expressions for acts. I believe my visit to 
 America has not been without service to me, but I 
 have yet to see on my return whether I have availed 
 of it to some purpose. Merely giving out of our 
 abundance costs hardly an effort. It is only system- 
 atic self-denial and effort that prove progress. Till 
 that has been evinced we must not cry " Peace, 
 peace," where there "is no peace." One thing I have 
 learned to appreciate more correctly the difficulties of 
 others ; and I hope to be more careful and more just in 
 consequence. 
 
 The more I see, the more I become convinced that 
 Unitarianism, or rather Christianity emancipated from 
 creeds, ought to have produced more effect in the world 
 than it has, and I cannot understand its not having done 
 so. Again, Quakerism seems to me to have much of 
 beauty and truth in it. Could they not be united that 
 is, the merits of both in some new sect, which, bringing 
 rich and poor together and in a more compact body, 
 might work great things ? I almost wish I were a
 
 136 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Quaker again, if there were Unitarian Quakers as 
 in New York. It seems to me as if much of their 
 machinery might be made a valuable engine to work 
 with. Their conduct in Ireland showed how much 
 truth they must have among them. A religion which 
 alone of all the sects kept its members actively and wisely 
 benevolent in such an atmosphere as the south of Ireland, 
 must have the true spirit in it. ... 
 
 The next and last extract has, perhaps, a certain 
 interest of its own. It is sometimes made a 
 reproach against Liverpool that in the American 
 Civil War the sympathies of her men of business 
 were almost universally with the side which English 
 public opinion now agrees to call the wrong side 
 the side of the South. William Rathbone was an 
 exception to the rule ; on the whole, he was dis- 
 tinctly with the North in the war. When this 
 letter was written, however, he was a young man 
 of thirty, more amenable to the influences which 
 made it all along perfectly natural that Liverpool 
 sympathies should lie as they did lie. The town's 
 principal commerce was in cotton with the South. 
 When business took its merchants to America they 
 dealt with Southern traders, were entertained by 
 Southern planters, felt the charm of Southern 
 refinement and patriarchal ways, saw the best side 
 of slavery and heard the case for it from its most 
 respectable exponents. With the North they had 
 less close ties.
 
 iv LETTERS FROM AMERICA 137 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, February 15, 1849. 
 
 . . . The whole country through which we have been 
 lately travelling is cultivated entirely by slaves, as you 
 know, and I have made a point of talking with all the 
 most intelligent slaveholders I have met, and I always 
 found them perfectly willing to discuss it fairly, and not 
 in the least sore with your opinions, provided you let 
 them see in the commencement that you considered the 
 whole question as their business, not ours. I believe 
 throughout Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland slavery 
 would be abolished at once if they could get rid of the 
 blacks when emancipated, but they one and all are sincere 
 believers in the impossibility of doing any good with 
 free blacks. Further south many really contend for the 
 institution of slavery as favourable for the development of 
 black civilisation, and point with pride to the care taken 
 of them and the kind feelings which, in a majority of 
 cases, subsist between the slave and his master. As an 
 animal, I really believe the slave of a great part of America 
 has as large a share of animal enjoyment and freedom 
 from misery as the labouring population of any part of 
 the world ; but the absence of motive is as great an evil, 
 I think, as it has ever been represented to be, except with 
 those immediately around the master, with whom personal 
 attachment supplies it in many cases. And yet, in the 
 present state of feeling between the two races, I must 
 confess I should look with some anxiety to any sudden 
 emancipation ; for, treated and considered as a degraded 
 race, I fear they would justify their character. It seems 
 to me now almost certain that slavery will not be allowed
 
 138 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 to extend into the new territories, and abolished in the 
 district of Columbia (the latter, however, not immediately, 
 perhaps). Even this will be some violation of the con- 
 stitution, but beyond this the general government has 
 not a shadow of a right to go, each state being supreme 
 in its own boundaries, and the Northern states therefore 
 having no responsibility in any way for slave-holding. 
 Abolition must then be left to the growth of opinion 
 gradually in each state, which is being preceded, in spite 
 of their own laws, by an attempt to educate them. I re- 
 peatedly heard public announcements from the pulpit of the 
 meeting of negro schools. Kentucky will probably at once 
 abolish slavery, and in Maryland and Virginia there is a 
 strong party in favour of such a measure. The South 
 are taking the alarm, and I hear it is not improbable that 
 they may soon prohibit themselves the internal transfer 
 of slaves from one state to another, for fear that when 
 Virginia, etc., have sent most of their slaves south they 
 may join the abolition party, and the whole loss of eman- 
 cipation fall on a few of the Southern states. The slaves 
 thus confined to the old states, and increasing rapidly, 
 will fall in value, and emancipation follow at the instance 
 and with the concurrence of the masters themselves. In 
 Charleston they all complain of the accumulation of 
 blacks in the city. I trust no tumults will force on 
 emancipation suddenly and irritatingly to the master and 
 slave, and the discussion and causes now at work will, I 
 think, soon set it going quite as fast as is for the advan- 
 tage of either party. I am not surprised to see the 
 bitterness of the South against the North, for I am sure 
 there is great truth in the accusation that, their new- 
 born zeal for free soil is to keep the power with the free 
 states and for that is the great bone of contention to
 
 iv PROVIDENT VISITING 139 
 
 keep up the protective tariff. In conversation, this is 
 hardly disguised by them as one motive. However, 
 selfish motives often work great ends. . . . 
 
 He and his wife reached home in the spring of 
 1 849, and soon after settled down in a little house 
 in Wellington Road, close to both their respective 
 homes. Two years later they moved over the 
 water to New Brighton, in Cheshire, to a house 
 on the cliff, overlooking the mouth of the Mersey. 
 This was his home for the next eighteen years. 
 His wife's life was not destined to last so long. 
 Her health was from the first very fragile, although 
 no actual flaw in her constitution was then sus- 
 pected, and they were obliged to live quietly and 
 to avoid much going into company. This was 
 probably an advantage as well for his health as for 
 hers, for the strain on him during the next ten 
 years was very heavy. His business was increasing 
 and pushing out fresh branches in the ways I 
 have described, and as he was admittedly the 
 initiating and organising member of the firm, the 
 lion's share of work and responsibility fell upon 
 him. 
 
 Besides this, he was taking a gradually increas- 
 ing share in matters outside his business. From 
 1849 onwards he visited a district weekly for 
 the District Provident Society, calling from door 
 to door in a few streets to collect the penny and 
 sixpenny savings of the poor. This work, in
 
 140 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 its small way, was as useful and appropriate an 
 introduction as he could have found to the 
 fifty years' social service 1 which followed it. His 
 district covered some of the alleys and courts 
 round about Lime Street, then as now one of 
 the poorest and lowest quarters of Liverpool. 
 Visiting as he did the same set of families from 
 week to week, and in many cases from year to 
 year, he learnt something of the homes, the 
 habits, and the difficulties of the very poor. He 
 saw them under normal conditions, and as the 
 Provident Society then undertook also the work 
 of a relief society, he was brought into still 
 closer contact with them in times of sickness 
 and distress. All this was of great value to 
 him in his future work in the organisation 
 of nursing, in the administration of charity and 
 the poor law, and in the reform of local 
 government. It supplied the basis of detailed 
 personal experience, which is so much needed to 
 give solidity and relevance to a man's conceptions 
 and utterances on these difficult subjects, and to 
 preserve him from doctrinarianism. It taught 
 him the truth on which he so often afterwards 
 insisted, that three-fourths of the actual material 
 
 1 The phrases in common use to describe generally the pursuits which 
 occupied much of William Rathbone's life, "philanthropy," "charitable 
 work," "social reform," even the vaguer "public work," have such a ring 
 of cant about them that I can only vacillate between them. The reader can 
 choose whichever he finds least distasteful.
 
 iv PROVIDENT VISITING 141 
 
 help needed by the poor is given them by the 
 poor, and it showed him where neighbourly 
 kindness stopped short and there was need for 
 trained intelligence, for organisation and legisla- 
 tion to step in. Some of the incidents he wit- 
 nessed made a painful impression. The sight of 
 a drunken mother pouring gin down her baby's 
 throat was never forgotten. He once entered a 
 court to find every individual in it men, women, 
 and children more or less intoxicated. But 
 upon the whole it was the inherent good that 
 shines through the faults of the poor that seems to 
 have made the most impression. In his later days 
 in the House of Commons he sometimes said that 
 while in the company of some of his fellow- 
 members he was often far more tempted to 
 take a low and sordid view of human nature 
 than he had ever been in the slums. Of the 
 work of Provident visiting itself, he told an 
 audience of penny - bank workers, thirty years 
 later, that upon no work he had ever done did 
 he look back with so much certainty that it had 
 done good and not harm. 1 
 
 In 1852 his father and he seem to have agreed 
 
 1 The District Provident Society, now one of the oldest Liverpool 
 societies, still continues its work, though with a steadily diminishing list 
 both of visitors and of subscribers, and still maintains its advantage over 
 more modern facilities for thrift, in that it brings its visitors into regular 
 personal contact with the people in their own homes in a natural way, 
 without suspicion of patronage or taint of almsgiving.
 
 142 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 together that it was time he should begin to take a 
 rather more active share in local politics. At the 
 General Election in that year he undertook the 
 charge of the Liberal canvass in the north end of 
 the town. The account of the election and of 
 following events may be given in his own words, 
 but as it casts some reflection upon the conduct of 
 political parties, it is only fair to say that the 
 passage was written in his old age, from memory, 
 without any idea that it would ever be made 
 public. His memory for such matters was, how- 
 ever, as a rule very accurate. The Liberal can- 
 didates were Mr. Edward Cardwell and Mr. J. C. 
 Ewart ; the Conservatives, Mr. Charles Turner 
 and Mr. W. E. Mackenzie. 
 
 It came to my knowledge that there was a large 
 amount of treating going on, and a great number of 
 small bribes in the form of payments of five shillings as a 
 day's wage to every one who chose to claim it for voting 
 Conservative ; the Liberal side were absolutely pure, 
 not a penny or a glass of beer being given. We were 
 beaten, but petitioned against the return of Turner and 
 Mackenzie, in the hopes of disfranchising the freemen. 
 Mr. Ronald and 1 were the petitioners, but the manage- 
 ment of the petition fell upon me, advised, or rather 
 directed, by Mr. Rigge, who, however, did not appear pro- 
 fessionally in the case. We unseated the two members, 
 but did not succeed in our chief aim the disfranchise- 
 ment of the freemen. The petition cost on our side over 
 j8ooo, and at least the same on the other side. The
 
 iv LOCAL POLITICS 143 
 
 Liberal party paid their bills as soon as possible after the con- 
 clusion of the Committee, but the Conservatives did not, 
 and thereby brought themselves into disfavour with some of 
 their most energetic and warm supporters. Of course, at 
 the election which immediately followed the success of our 
 petition, the Conservatives won, for the freemen whom 
 we had tried unsuccessfully to disfranchise voted against 
 us. But in the subsequent election their unpaid bills, 
 and the consequent unpopularity of the Conservatives, 
 gave us the victory. The political difficulties arising 
 out of this election, and the knowledge that any 
 corrupt election would be followed by a petition, 
 seemed to have completely purified Liverpool for the 
 time from electoral corruption. Of the degradation 
 which the whole system inflicted upon the freemen 
 I had rather curious evidence in after years. I was 
 investigating some social question in which it came 
 up that the artisans in Liverpool the shipwrights, car- 
 penters, and others whose laws of trade required a seven 
 years' apprenticeship did not, as a rule, live in houses of 
 their own to the extent to which classes obtaining much 
 lower wages were in the habit of doing. On inquiring 
 the cause, I was told that they lived in hired houses or 
 rooms, so as to be nearer their work, and to have more 
 time and money for drink. In former days the seven 
 years' apprenticeship made a man a freeman of Liverpool; 
 he was exposed to the degrading influence of the annual 
 election of a mayor, with its free drink ; and it appeared 
 as if, some ten or fifteen years afterwards, the habits then 
 engendered still belonged to the class. 
 
 Only three times after the Turner and Mackenzie 
 election was there, to my knowledge, a corrupt election, 
 either municipal or parliamentary, and I regret to say
 
 144 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 that a Liberal was the first offender. The Liberals and 
 Conservatives were almost equally divided in the Town 
 Council. A Mr. X. was most anxious to be Mayor, 
 and his friends, by a profuse expenditure of money, 
 carried the election. Retribution was speedy and severe. 
 The next year, Mr. Z.'s friends wished to make him 
 Mayor, and repeated the corrupt practices on the Con- 
 servative side. At the next parliamentary election the 
 contest was very severe. The candidates and principal 
 leaders of both parties, I believe, were free from the taint 
 of corruption, but a number of the electors, having again 
 tasted the sweets of bribery, were determined not to vote 
 without a bribe, however small. A Liberal agent, who 
 had had the charge of the witnesses at our petition against 
 Turner and Mackenzie's return, told us that a number 
 of men were determined not to vote without a fee of 
 some sort, that he recognised among them many of the 
 old corrupt voters of the Turner and Mackenzie election, 
 and that 500 would turn the election. We told him 
 that if five shillings would turn the election, we could not, 
 and would not, give it. Two eager and less scrupulous 
 Tory supporters paid the necessary fee, and the election 
 was lost. But we could not consistently dispute the 
 return. The Liberal party had in the election of 
 
 Mr. first set the example of a return to corrupt 
 
 action. The candidates and leaders of the Conservative 
 party had, we believed, had nothing to do with the 
 corrupt practices, and under such circumstances we did 
 not feel we could ask a committee of the House of Com- 
 mons to cancel the election. But it was clearly under- 
 stood that if we ever had a fair case and clean hands 
 again, we would spare no expenditure to cancel a corrupt 
 election, or to punish the bribers j and I believe Liver-
 
 iv LOCAL POLITICS 145 
 
 pool has since that time been remarkably pure in its 
 elections. 1 
 
 A start once made, work multiplied apace. 
 He became an active member of the Liberal party 
 in Liverpool ; helped Mr. J. P. G. Smith to 
 organise the town upon a system of division of 
 work which was then new but has since become 
 general, and afterwards, upon the retirement of 
 Mr. Smith, became Chairman of the Liberal party. 
 In 1851, as Chairman of the American Chamber 
 of Commerce, he presided over a dinner given to 
 Dudley Field, to celebrate the laying of the first 
 Atlantic Telegraph Cable. A cablegram was re- 
 ceived from America during the banquet. In 
 1856 he became a member of the old Dock Com- 
 mittee of the Corporation, and when the Mersey 
 Docks and Harbour Board was constituted, he 
 was one of its first members. In this capacity he 
 took an active part in resisting what the Board 
 considered the exorbitant demands of Birkenhead. 
 The Birkenhead docks had been a failure, largely 
 owing to the grasping management of speculators, 
 and their adoption was forced on the Liverpool 
 Board on terms which, in the view of William 
 Rathbone and those who thought like him, were 
 very injurious to the public service. He resigned 
 his membership of the Board in 1868. 
 
 At the beginning of 1857 he took an active 
 
 1 This was probably written about 1892.
 
 146 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 part in a movement of national interest. The 
 winter of 1854-55 had been, it will be remem- 
 bered, the terrible first winter of the Crimean 
 War. The reports which reached England 
 through war correspondents of the appalling 
 sufferings and losses of the army during those 
 months roused strong and bitter feeling throughout 
 the country, and the demand for an inquiry into the 
 causes brought about the downfall of the Coalition 
 Ministry. When Lord Palmerston became Prime 
 Minister one of his first acts was to send out to 
 the Crimea two commissions one sanitary, the 
 other to inquire into the commissariat, the depart- 
 ment which more than almost any other had 
 broken down. The two Commissariat Commis- 
 sioners were Sir John M'Neill l and Colonel 
 Tulloch. 2 They had introduced many improve- 
 ments, and their Report, published in the following 
 winter, showed that much of the mortality and 
 sickness from hunger, privation, and cold, were due 
 to preventable blundering, mismanagement, and 
 disorganisation. The worst incidents in the 
 miserable story are well known. The scurvy- 
 stricken soldiers had been fed entirely on salt 
 beef and hard biscuit, though supplies of flour and 
 lime-juice lay untouched on ships in Balaclava 
 harbour, and though live cattle, which might have 
 
 1 The Rt. Hon. Sir John M'Neill (1795-1883), Minister to Persia, 1836. 
 2 Sir Alexander M. Tulloch, K.C.B. (1803-1864).
 
 iv THE CRIMEAN COMMISSARIAT 147 
 
 been driven to the front, had actually been ten- 
 dered for delivery at Balaclava at a less price per 
 pound than was being paid for the salt meat, which 
 had to be carried over the swamps which lay 
 between Balaclava and the trenches. At the time 
 of the worst sufferings from cold, several thousand 
 great-coats lay in store, unissued because it was held 
 that the " Queen's Warrant " did not authorise the 
 issue of great-coats more frequently than once in 
 three years, and only a small portion of the army 
 was entitled to receive them under this rule. The 
 men and horses of some regiments had suffered 
 much more cruelly than others, owing to the 
 dilatoriness and want of resource shown by their 
 officers in providing them with shelter. The men 
 of the Naval Brigade, though encamped furthest 
 from supplies, had suffered least of all, being under 
 the charge ' of officers who were accustomed to be 
 compelled to take responsibility and exercise 
 ingenuity in foreign ports. 
 
 The Commissioners in their Report, although 
 they avoided as far as possible blaming individuals 
 for what was chiefly the fault of a rusty and 
 obsolete system, did impute to certain officers a 
 want of initiation and of resource. The friends 
 of those implicated, who were men of high social 
 as well as military rank, raised an outcry and 
 demanded an inquiry. This was granted. The 
 Government appointed a board of general officers,
 
 1 48 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 none of whom had ever been in the Crimea, who 
 sat at Chelsea, and were known as the Chelsea 
 Commission. Their Report completely exonerated 
 the officers in question, and threw the whole blame 
 upon the failure of the Government department 
 to send out a sufficiency of pressed hay for forage. 
 The country, with the Times at its head, utterly 
 refused to accept this verdict, and nick-named the 
 Commission the Whitewashing Commission. The 
 Government practically ignored the Report of Sir 
 John M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch, and although, 
 in answer to a challenge from Mr. Gladstone, 
 Lord Palmerston expressed their full approval of 
 that Report, they quietly assumed that the services 
 of the two commissioners had been gratuitous, and 
 omitted even the most formal acknowledgment of 
 them. It was generally believed in the country 
 that the Commissioners had been too outspoken to 
 please the authorities, and that in view of the 
 powerful interests they had offended, the Govern- 
 ment wanted their Report to fall into oblivion. 
 Men were not only indignant on the Commis- 
 sioners' behalf at the injustice with which they 
 believed them to have been treated : they felt it 
 to be a menace to the veracity and thoroughness 
 of all public servants who might be employed in 
 the future for similar duties. 
 
 William Rathbone shared this feeling very 
 strongly. He did not then know Sir John
 
 iv THE CRIMEAN COMMISSARIAT 149 
 
 M'Neill personally, but through a mutual friend, 
 Mr. John Paget, he urged him to reply to the 
 Chelsea Commission. Sir John replied that it 
 was not his business to defend his Report ; it was 
 the business of the Government who had accepted 
 it ; but he added that if anything compelled him 
 to come forward in the matter, he would certainly 
 speak freely. William Rathbone then determined 
 to force his hand. He asked Mr. Paget to prepare 
 an address to the two Commissioners, express- 
 ing gratitude for their services and indignation at 
 the attempts to discredit and suppress their Report. 
 This address, which was very strongly worded 
 both in its laudatory and its condemnatory clauses, 
 he proceeded to carry round to all the principal 
 men in Liverpool, irrespective of their political 
 party to the Mayor, the Magistrates, the mem- 
 bers of the Town Council, the Dock Board, etc. 
 With one exception on each side in politics, every 
 prominent man whom he asked to sign it did so 
 without hesitation. There were in all 120 signa- 
 tures. Sir John's reply was long and outspoken. 
 He observed drily that the value of the address 
 was enhanced " by its being the only public 
 document I possess which contains an acknowledg- 
 ment that any service whatever was rendered by 
 the Commissioners," and after repeating the story 
 given above as to the Government dealings with 
 the Report, finishes by a trenchant summing up of
 
 i 5 o WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the facts in which lay, and still lies, however 
 variously modern opinion may apportion the 
 blame, the sting of the disasters of that fatal 
 winter. 
 
 The most anxious wish of the country, from the 
 Queen to the humblest of her subjects, was to provide 
 the army of the East with all that was necessary to its 
 welfare, and even to its comfort. There was no time, 
 from the commencement to the termination of the war, 
 at which the people of this country were not ready to 
 furnish any amount of funds that might be considered 
 necessary for that purpose. The resources of the country 
 were greater than at any former time : its power to pro- 
 duce every manufactured article that the army could 
 require was such as the world had never before seen ; its 
 mercantile marine provided fleets of transports, including 
 its magnificent ocean steamships, such as no other army 
 ever commanded ; the resources of the Turkish pro- 
 vinces were found sufficient to supply nearly three times 
 the number of men with abundance of wholesome food 
 for another year without being exhausted ; the army 
 occupied the same ground throughout the whole time, 
 and was as stationary as the population of a town. No 
 part of it was ever more than seven miles distant from a 
 secure harbour, and a considerable part was encamped 
 within a mile or two of the port. The allied navies had 
 undisputed command of the sea, so that vessels of all 
 classes navigated it with the same security as in a time of 
 profound peace. Yet the country is expected to believe 
 that, with all these almost boundless resources and these 
 means and facilities, it was impossible, by any exercise of 
 talents, energy, and foresight, to provide either sufficient
 
 iv THE CRIMEAN COMMISSARIAT 151 
 
 food or sufficient clothing for 20,000 or 30,000 men 
 during their first whiter in the Crimea. 
 
 When the address and the reply were published, 
 the effect was just what William Rathbone had 
 anticipated and wished. The flagging public 
 interest in the subject revived, and tributes con- 
 ceived in the same spirit as the Liverpool address 
 poured in upon the Commissioners from other 
 towns all over the country. He and his friends 
 requested Mr. Ewart, one of the Members for 
 Liverpool, to move an address to the Queen, pray- 
 ing for some signal recognition of the services of 
 Sir John M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch. Lord 
 Palmerston opposed the motion, declaring the 
 whole controversy to be stale, and belittling the 
 services of the Commissariat Commission ; but the 
 feeling shown in the House was so strong that he 
 yielded with his usual tact, disclaiming any desire 
 " to stand between the generous feelings of the 
 House and the accomplishment of its wishes." 
 The story which some one told William Rathbone 
 was, that until the last moment he intended to 
 persevere in his opposition, when Sir William 
 Hayter, the Liberal Whip, came behind him and 
 whispered that he would be beaten by two to one 
 if he pushed the matter to a division. As a result 
 of the address, Sir John M'Neill was made a 
 Privy Councillor, and Colonel Tulloch a K.C.B. 
 
 A letter from Sir John M'Neill to William
 
 152 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Rathbone may be quoted as showing how fully he 
 recognised his indebtedness to the energy of his 
 Liverpool defender. 
 
 GRANTON HOUSE, EDINBURGH, 
 March 14, 1857. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR I am not sure that I have not as 
 good a right to congratulate you as you have to con- 
 gratulate me on the result of the proceedings in the 
 House of Commons on Mr. Palk's motion. Of this I am 
 convinced, that if you had not moved in the matter that 
 result would not have been attained. It is you who have 
 beaten Lord Panmure upon this question, and I may justly 
 congratulate you on your signal success, because what- 
 ever may be the kindness of your personal feelings towards 
 me, I know that your leading motive was regard for our 
 national interests and the public good. 
 
 I will not therefore presume to offer you my personal 
 thanks for what is a public service, but I assure you that 
 I justly appreciate your character, and it would, I think, 
 be difficult to give you a stronger assurance of my regard 
 and esteem. 
 
 The act of the House of Commons embodying the 
 will and the sentence of the country upon these questions, 
 after full time for consideration and the most ample 
 investigation and discussion, is all that could be desired 
 for the security of the public interests and for my personal 
 satisfaction. Believe me to be, my dear sir, most sincerely 
 yours, JOHN M'NEILL. 
 
 For some time before these events, William 
 Rathbone's health had begun to show signs of 
 breakdown. He had undertaken too great an
 
 iv BREAKDOWN IN HEALTH 153 
 
 amount and variety of work. At all times, during 
 the whole of every day, work of very varied kinds 
 was waiting for him. Constitutionally incapable 
 of giving less than his whole mind to the least 
 thing that he did, the effort involved in with- 
 drawing his attention from one subject and con- 
 centrating it upon the next, exhausted him more 
 than continuous labour would have done. He 
 found that he had to be continually whipping his 
 brain up to his work, although when thus stimu- 
 lated it worked apparently faster and more clearly 
 than before. For two successive years he tried 
 short holidays, in Scotland or abroad, but this 
 proved not enough. His doctor at last told him 
 that he would never be really fit for work again if 
 he did not take a whole year's rest. This threat 
 had its effect. He took a house with shooting 
 and fishing Cumloden, near Newton Stewart, in 
 the most beautiful part of Galloway and installed 
 himself there with his family in the spring of 1858. 
 He was not one of the many busy men who 
 find it next to impossible to take, or at least 
 enjoy, a long holiday. He had plenty of country 
 resources ; liked fishing and shooting, riding and 
 walking, but, above all, loved with a sort of passion 
 mountain scenery and wild flowers. His ill-luck 
 as a fisherman was only exceeded by his hopeful- 
 ness. All his days on a river were, as the old 
 gillie at Cumloden described one of them, days
 
 154 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, iv 
 
 " fu' of expectation." With him ill-luck was not 
 merely a euphemism for bad fishing, though his 
 skill, I am told, was not remarkable. On one 
 occasion, when he had taken for the season a 
 fishing reputed to be particularly good, he caught 
 two salmon on the evening of his arrival. In the 
 night there was a spate, the mouth of his branch 
 of the river became silted up at the fork, and not 
 another fish was seen in it that season. His 
 neighbours on the other branch had unprecedented 
 sport, and invited him over for an occasional day's 
 fishing among the salmon that should have been 
 his. This was only one among several seasons of 
 equally bad fortune. 
 
 At Cumloden no such mischance happened. 
 His summer there was bright and happy. Only 
 towards the close of his stay the shadow of a great 
 cloud fell upon his life.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WORK FOR NURSING 
 
 "This change [i.e. the organisation of skilled nursing] is perhaps 
 the best fruit the past half-century has to show. . . . 
 
 " Of all the forms that charity takes, there is hardly one that is so 
 directly successful as district nursing. It is almost true to say that 
 wherever a nurse enters, the standard of life is raised." 
 
 CHARLES BOOTH : Life and Labour, Final Vol., p. 157. 
 
 IN 1859 the greatest sorrow of William Rathbone's 
 life fell upon him. At the beginning of the year 
 his wife's health began suddenly and rapidly to 
 fail. After some weeks spent at a watering-place, 
 they returned home to New Brighton, and thence, 
 when it became certain that she could not survive, 
 he brought her, at her own strong wish, to Green- 
 bank. There, on May 27, she died, leaving 
 her husband with five children, of whom the 
 eldest was ten years and the youngest only a 
 few days old. 
 
 To one of his disposition, the only course at 
 such a time was to busy himself in constant and 
 engrossing occupation. He returned to the duties
 
 156 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of his office, from which all zest had departed. 
 But very soon, wishing for more and more 
 absorbing work, and being anxious to do some- 
 thing in memory of his wife and of the happiness 
 of their short married life, he began the work for 
 Nursing with which his name is perhaps most 
 closely associated. He did not wish during his 
 lifetime to connect it with his wife's name by any 
 visible link, but forty years later, when the twilight 
 of his own life was fast drawing in, he asked 
 Mr. Charles Allen, the sculptor, to make a marble 
 bas-relief from a drawing he had of her, and to 
 cut beneath it St. Paul's description of Charity 
 words of which her character had seemed to him 
 the nearest human embodiment he had ever known. 
 After his death, this bas-relief was placed, as he 
 had directed, in the hall of the Liverpool Training 
 School and Home for Nurses. 
 
 His wife had been attended during her last 
 illness by a nurse, Mary Robinson, whose skill had 
 done much to ease her. Seeing how much differ- 
 ence trained nursing could make, even in a home 
 where every comfort and appliance that affection 
 could suggest was provided, William Rathbone 
 began to think what illness must mean in the 
 homes of the poor, where comforts, appliances, 
 and skill were alike wanting. He resolved to try 
 an experiment. He asked Nurse Robinson to 
 engage herself to him for three months, to nurse
 
 v THE FIRST DISTRICT NURSE 157 
 
 poor patients in their own homes in a certain 
 district of Liverpool. She was provided with the 
 most necessary appliances, and arrangements were 
 made for supplying such nourishment and medical 
 comforts as might be required to make her nursing 
 effective. After a month had passed, she came to 
 her employer in tears, and asked to be released 
 from the rest of her engagement. The amount 
 of misery she had to see was, she said, more than 
 she could bear. With some difficulty he persuaded 
 her to go on. At the end of the three months she 
 declared that she would never, if he would keep 
 her on, go back to any other kind of nursing. 
 The good she found herself able to do, and the 
 gratitude of her poor patients, had quite reconciled 
 her to the sadness of her work. Its effects seemed 
 indeed greater than even he had expected. Lives 
 had been saved which, without the nurse's care, 
 would almost certainly have been lost ; patients 
 considered chronic had been restored to health ; 
 object lessons in the value of cleanliness, order, 
 and fresh air had been given in many homes. 
 More than this, the nurse had 
 
 helped to prevent the moral ruin, the recklessness, the 
 drunkenness, and the crime which so often follow upon 
 hopeless misery. Within the space of a few months she 
 had had two cases in which the wife's sickness had thrown 
 a household into disorder, and the husband, unable to face 
 the wretchedness which he knew not how to remedy, had
 
 158 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 taken to drink. The nurse showed what might be done 
 to restore order and to lessen suffering. The husbands, 
 who were well-meaning, industrious men, took heart 
 again, left off drinking, and were saved, together with 
 their families, from the state of utter wretchedness and 
 collapse towards which they were fast drifting when the 
 nurse came to their rescue. 1 
 
 Considering that the success of the experiment 
 was proved, William Rathbone now wished to 
 extend it, and he began looking about for suitable 
 nurses. He very soon found that they were not 
 to be had. He applied to the new " Nightingale 
 Training School " at St. Thomas's Hospital and to 
 the Training School established by the St. John's 
 House Nursing Institution in King's College 
 Hospital. These were then the only hospitals in 
 London which had any regular organisation or 
 school for training nurses. Neither could spare 
 him a single nurse. Those trained by the Nightin- 
 gale School were all needed for the work of intro- 
 ducing the new system of nursing into hospitals : 
 the King's College nurses were wanted either for 
 the Hospital itself, or for the private patients by 
 whose payments it was in part maintained. He 
 next tried several smaller nursing institutions, but 
 their nurses too were fully employed, and the train- 
 ing they provided was quite inadequate, lasting 
 
 1 History and Progress of District Nursing, by William Rathbone, M.P. 
 Macmillan and Co. Much of the substance of the above account is taken 
 from this little book.
 
 v DISTRICT NURSING IN LIVERPOOL 159 
 
 only one or two months. He then did what every 
 one interested in the welfare of the sick has done 
 for the past forty years whenever they were in a 
 difficulty he consulted Miss Florence Nightingale. 
 She suggested that Liverpool had better form a 
 school to train nurses for itself in its own hospital. 
 The principal Liverpool hospital, the Royal 
 Infirmary, had then no facilities for training, and 
 most of its nurses, like those of most hospitals of 
 the day, were women of a rough type, often un- 
 trustworthy and intemperate, and, according to 
 the lowest modern standard, inefficient. The Com- 
 mittee were conscious of the need for improvement 
 in this respect, and had made an effort to attract a 
 better class of women by empowering the Matron 
 to offer any that seemed worth it a salary of 16 
 instead of the usual 10. But the Matron had 
 found only four nurses whom she could trust not 
 to celebrate such a rise in prosperity by getting 
 drunk on quarter-day. 
 
 Hearing that William Rathbone was interesting 
 himself in the improvement of nursing, the Com- 
 mittee invited him to become a member of their 
 body. He had been assured beforehand that 
 he would find an irreconcilable opponent of 
 his plans in the Chairman of the Hospital, 
 Mr. Edward Gibbon, who, though devoted to 
 its interests, was known to be intensely conserva- 
 tive in his ideas. He soon found that if slow to
 
 160 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 welcome changes, Mr. Gibbon was very loyal and 
 efficient in carrying them out when once convinced 
 that they were really needed. During the next 
 month he accompanied Mr. Gibbon in his official 
 visits to the Hospital, and in their conversation 
 together it soon became clear that the real difficulty 
 in the way of starting a training school was that 
 the Infirmary had not enough suitable accommoda- 
 tion for either nurses or probationers. After many 
 consultations, he made the Committee the follow- 
 ing proposal. He undertook to build a Training 
 School and Home for Nurses, and to present it to 
 the Infirmary. It should be managed by a Com- 
 mittee selected entirely from members of the 
 Infirmary Committee. In return, they were 
 merely to pledge themselves to carry on the Train- 
 ing School until it had had a fair trial. If it failed, 
 the building was to become the absolute property 
 of the Infirmary, and might be turned to any use 
 they pleased. The offer was accepted, with the 
 full approval of Mr. Gibbon, as well as, I believe, 
 all the lay and medical authorities of the Hospital. 
 The planning and building of the Home cost 
 William Rathbone much time and thought. Homes 
 of the kind were then rare, and he wished this one 
 to be a model which would be useful to others. 
 The work brought him one great personal pleasure. 
 It was the beginning of an intimate friendship with 
 Miss Florence Nightingale, upon whose advice he
 
 v DISTRICT NURSING IN LIVERPOOL 161 
 
 depended chiefly in the preparation of the plans, 
 and who gave to them, as he said afterwards, as 
 much attention as if she were herself going to be 
 the Superintendent of the School. The choice of 
 a Superintendent was another troublesome and 
 difficult matter. The number of ladies fitted by 
 training as well as character to fill such a post was 
 still extremely small, and all of them seemed 
 already engaged. In the end a lady, Miss Merry- 
 weather, was put through a short training at St. 
 Thomas's Hospital, and then placed in command 
 of the School, where she continued for many years 
 to render admirable service. 
 
 On July i, 1862, the nursing of the Infirmary 
 was handed over to the Committee of the new 
 "Liverpool Training School and Home for Nurses," 
 and after a year's work in temporary premises they 
 took possession of their Home in Ashton Street on 
 May i, 1863. Their work was to provide nurses 
 for three distinct purposes in the following order 
 of priority : first, for the Royal Infirmary ; secondly, 
 for poor patients in their own homes ; thirdly, for 
 well-to-do private patients. The training was, of 
 course, to be carried on in the wards of the Royal 
 Infirmary. 
 
 In the meantime the work of district nursing 
 had been spreading as fast as nurses could be found 
 or trained. By the close of 1865, within six years 
 from the time when Nurse Robinson had first gone 
 
 M
 
 162 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 into the homes of the poor, the whole of Liverpool 
 had been divided into eighteen districts, and each 
 district had been placed under the care of a nurse, 
 and of a lady or group of ladies, residents in 
 Liverpool, who undertook to superintend the 
 work of the nurse, to pay for her lodging, and 
 to provide the nourishment and medical comforts 
 needed for patients too poor to provide them for 
 themselves. 1 Salaries were paid by the Training 
 School, and a paid Inspector superintended the 
 work in its professional aspects. The arrange- 
 ment as to nourishment proved something of 
 a stumbling-block, for although it had been 
 expressly laid down that food and stimulants 
 were only to be given when necessary for the 
 successful treatment of the case, it was found 
 very difficult to get the less efficient of the nurses 
 to observe this limit, and relief- giving in many 
 districts tended to play an unduly prominent, 
 if not an absolutely mischievous part. Thus in 
 one district the amount paid yearly for relief and 
 medical comforts was about ^200, including ^40 
 for stimulants alone. This last item was soon cut 
 down. One lady tried the experiment of giving 
 scarcely any stimulants, but abundant milk, with 
 results so good that her example was soon followed 
 
 1 The Manchester Guardian, commenting on the above statement, re- 
 marked that in Manchester, the first city after Liverpool to introduce 
 district nursing, it had taken twenty-five years to extend the system over 
 half the city.
 
 v DISTRICT NURSING IN LIVERPOOL 163 
 
 by all. By degrees the standard of nursing rose, 
 and as the nurses became more interested in the 
 technique of their profession, and the public 
 learned to understand its aims, the temptation to 
 act as relieving officers diminished. At present 
 the amount given in relief is very small, and is said 
 to be strictly accessory to the nursing, the Central 
 Relief Society or parish charities being called in 
 when ordinary charitable help seems necessary. 
 
 William Rathbone was the first Honorary 
 Secretary of the new Training School, and much 
 of the work of organising the new districts naturally 
 fell upon him, though, from the first, Mr. Charles 
 Langton and others of the Committee also took a 
 great share in it. Mr. Charles Langton continued 
 for thirty-five years to make it his special care to 
 find lady superintendents for the districts, with a 
 success best attested by the fact that of the ladies 
 on the list in 1898, six 1 had held this office for 
 over thirty years, while in a great number of cases 
 it has been handed on from mother to daughter. 
 The plan of thus giving a real interest in and 
 responsibility for the work to individuals able to 
 support it, has always been one of the marked and 
 most debated features of the Liverpool system, 
 and to its adoption the comparative immunity of 
 Liverpool district nursing from financial cares is 
 
 1 Mrs. W. Rathbone, Mrs. C. Langton, Mrs. H. B. Gilmour, Mrs. Paget, 
 Mrs. G. Holt, Mrs. R. D. Holt (in order of appointment).
 
 164 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 greatly due. The professional inspection of the 
 work was in 1876 strengthened by the appoint- 
 ment of a matron for each group of nurses, and 
 by degrees the groups were, at Mr. Langton's 
 suggestion, all gathered together into district 
 homes. 
 
 In order to see for himself exactly how the 
 system was working, William Rathbone, at an 
 early stage in its history, took the place of one 
 of the Lady Superintendents during her absence 
 for about a year, going with the nurse weekly to 
 visit her patients, overlooking her accounts, and 
 so forth. Many years afterwards, a colleague who 
 sat with him on the Committee of an institution 
 charged with the organisation of district nursing 
 on a very large scale, made the remark that he 
 was the one male member of the Committee who 
 knew what the homes of the poor were actually 
 like, and what nurses could be expected to do, 
 and did do, in them. This knowledge he prob- 
 ably picked up while acting as " Lady Superin- 
 tendent " in Liverpool, as well as during his still 
 earlier experiences as a visitor for the District 
 Provident Society. 
 
 The experience at the time set him on the 
 track of another much-needed reform in nursing. 
 It often happened that the nurse was called in to 
 cases which for one reason or another could not 
 be satisfactorily treated at home, yet were too
 
 v WORKHOUSE NURSING 165 
 
 prolonged or hopeless to be accepted at a general 
 hospital. The proper place for such cases was 
 clearly the Parish Infirmary, but of this he found 
 that the respectable poor had such a horror, that 
 they would endure almost any suffering and 
 neglect at home rather than enter its doors. This 
 he felt must mean that something was wrong with 
 the Infirmary, and he began to inquire what the 
 defect was. The Liverpool Select Vestry of that 
 day had the reputation of being a rather energetic 
 and efficient body, as boards of guardians go. 
 Their Infirmary on Brownlow Hill was one of 
 the largest in England, and gloomy as it looks 
 from the outside, it still serves the purposes of a 
 highly organised modern hospital and training 
 school, and was then better in structure and 
 appliances than most of its kind. The medical 
 officers were encouraged to apply to the Vestry 
 for everything they needed in the way of diet and 
 medical comforts for their sick people. But there 
 was not in the building, nor it is believed in any 
 other Parish Infirmary in England, a single trained 
 nurse. Its twelve hundred sick persons, in every 
 stage of nearly every illness under the sun, a large 
 proportion of them incurable, or very old and 
 entirely helpless, were nursed if it could be called 
 nursing by pauper women selected from the adult 
 wards of the* workhouse. Now, as every one knows 
 who knows anything of workhouses, able-bodied
 
 1 66 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 women very rarely enter them unless there is 
 something wrong with them either mentally or 
 morally. In a seaport like Liverpool the work- 
 house women were of an especially low and 
 vicious type. Their work was superintended 
 by a very small number of paid but untrained 
 parish officers, who were in the habit, it was said, 
 of wearing kid gloves in the wards to protect their 
 hands. At night a policeman patrolled some of 
 the wards to keep order, while others, in which 
 the inmates were too sick or infirm to make dis- 
 turbance, were locked up and left unvisited all 
 night. 
 
 These facts, which seemed amply to account 
 for the popular abhorrence of the Infirmary, were 
 told William Rathbone by his friend, Mr. John 
 Cropper, then Chairman of the Select Vestry. 
 Mr. Cropper saw the faults of the system plainly, 
 but he did not think it would be possible to get 
 the Vestry to introduce trained nursing on account 
 of the expense. For a time the matter dropped. 
 The rest may be told in William Rathbone's own 
 words : 
 
 One mail-day Mr. Cropper came down to my office 
 and urged me to go with him at once to the Workhouse, 
 as I should find the Government Inspector and the 
 Governor of the Workhouse there in consultation to- 
 gether. I told him it was mail-day and it would be 
 very inconvenient to me to leave my office then ; besides,
 
 v WORKHOUSE NURSING 167 
 
 he himself had told me that it was impossible to introduce 
 reform. The only reply was : " Come ; it is your best 
 chance." So I went ; and we found the Governor, Mr. 
 Carr, and the Poor Law Inspector, Mr. Cane, in one of 
 the underground passages of the Workhouse. The 
 Governor at once admitted that the state of the Work- 
 house was most unsatisfactory as to the nursing depart- 
 ment, or rather, as to the want of nursing ; but, like 
 Mr. Cropper, he feared that the Vestry would not stand 
 the expense of what they would consider as, after all, an 
 experiment ; and it was agreed that, being responsible 
 for the hospital, they would not like to give any power 
 of interference from without. But the Governor declared 
 himself very willing to do what he could towards pro- 
 moting reform. Mr. Cane also was very helpful. 
 
 The proposal I made was that we should get from 
 Miss Nightingale a set of trained nurses, say about a 
 dozen ; that there should be in addition to these about 
 the same number of probationers of the same class that 
 they had in St. Thomas's Hospital and in the Liverpool 
 Infirmary ; and that the remaining nurses should be 
 taken from the able-bodied women in the Workhouse ; 
 that the latter should be taken off the books as paupers 
 and paid a small salary, say ^5 a year, and given better 
 food, in the hope that out of them we might make or 
 find at least some good nurses. About this latter part of 
 the scheme Mr. Carr was not at all hopeful but he was 
 quite willing to try the plan on that footing, and he 
 estimated that the increased expense to the Vestry would 
 
 be a year. I then proposed that without any one 
 
 except Mr. Cane, Mr. Cropper, and Mr. Carr knowing 
 anything of the matter, a proposal should be laid before 
 the Vestry, either by Mr. Cropper or Mr. Carr, that a
 
 1 68 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 man whose name should not be known to the Vestry, 
 and who should have no power of interference of any sort 
 or kind, was willing to place in their hands [the sum 
 named by Mr. Carr] to meet the expense of trying the 
 experiment for three years, the Vestry having absolute 
 and uncontrolled management of it. This was agreed to. 
 
 The proposal was duly brought before the 
 Vestry, but it seemed by no means certain to be 
 accepted. The doubt hung entirely on the point 
 of expense. The offer to provide funds met it 
 only temporarily : if the experiment succeeded, 
 the rates would have eventually to bear the cost. 
 The supporters of the plan urged that the cheapest 
 way to treat the sick was the way that cured them ; 
 and that the expense of the new system would be 
 repaid " by curing people more quickly, by curing 
 those who might otherwise become chronic cases, 
 by enabling those to resume their work who must 
 otherwise have remained or died, and by thus 
 diminishing the duration or amount of that part 
 of pauperism which is the result of sickness." l 
 Evidence was collected from the authorities of 
 hospitals which already had trained nursing, and 
 it was all in favour of this view. Mr. Hagger, 
 the Vestry Clerk, focussed the question at issue 
 very neatly when he asked the " Senior Honorary " 
 at St. Thomas's : " If you had to cure the sick by 
 contract at so much a head, and had to choose 
 
 1 Woikhouse Nursing : the Story Oj a Successful Experiment. 1867.
 
 v WORKHOUSE NURSING 169 
 
 between unpaid pauper nurses allotted to you 
 gratis, or paying yourself for skilled nurses, which 
 would you choose ? " " To pay for skilled nurses, 
 certainly," l was the unhesitating answer, which 
 much impressed the Vestry. The whole discus- 
 sion is interesting chiefly because it marks so 
 vividly the change which has come over average 
 opinion between then and now, when excessive 
 care for the ratepayer's purse is seldom, at least 
 in large towns, one of the lions in the path of the 
 Poor Law reformer. Finally, it was decided that 
 the new system should be given a trial, at first in 
 the male wards only, but in other respects in 
 practically the form William Rathbone had sug- 
 gested. 
 
 On the i6th of May 1865 the male wards 
 were put under the charge of a Lady Superin- 
 tendent, twelve nurses from St. Thomas's, eighteen 
 probationers, and fifty -four of the old pauper 
 nurses. At this point the central figure in the 
 story of this episode in nursing reform ceases to 
 be that of William Rathbone and becomes the 
 new Lady Superintendent, Miss Agnes Jones. 
 Her work in Liverpool was ended by her death 
 less than three years later. An account of it has 
 been published elsewhere, but something must be 
 said here, both to finish the story and because 
 his achievement in finding her and bringing her to 
 
 1 Workhouse Nursing : the Story of a Successful Experiment. 1867.
 
 1 70 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Liverpool was the one fact in the whole affair on 
 which William Rathbone was accustomed to dwell 
 with pride as well as satisfaction. 
 
 He had tried to get her four years earlier as 
 Superintendent of the new Training School at the 
 Royal Infirmary. She was then being trained at 
 Kaiserswerth, an institution for deaconesses on the 
 Rhine, and was surrounded by those who like 
 herself were ardent Evangelicals. She knew that 
 he was a Unitarian, and her reply to his letter 
 breathed a somewhat uncompromising spirit : 
 " You sent rne the ground-plan of the building, 
 but I would ask, Is its foundation and corner- 
 stone to be Christ and Him crucified, the only 
 Saviour. ... I shall not embark in any work 
 whose great aim is not obedience to the command : 
 'Preach the gospel to every creature.'' The 
 Committee, most of whom were Churchmen, felt 
 with him that if she talked in that way to the 
 doctors, it might increase the difficulty of carrying 
 out an already difficult experiment, and the nego- 
 tiation was allowed to drop. Miss Jones went 
 to work at a Bible Mission in London. But the 
 instinct to nurse was too strong, and at last in 
 1862 she made up her mind to enter St. Thomas's 
 Hospital as a Nightingale probationer. She had 
 had an interview with William Rathbone some 
 time before. The idea that at St. Thomas's she 
 would have as associates women who at that time
 
 v WORKHOUSE NURSING 171 
 
 were not of the same social habits, nor as a body 
 distinctively Evangelical, seemed to be very 
 repugnant to her. "Do you think," asked her 
 heretical friend simply, " that you will be as 
 much among your inferiors as Christ was when 
 He was with His disciples ? " The question 
 seems to have made a deep impression. When 
 he saw her next her year's training was over. 
 She had been living in contact with people of 
 broader views and a larger experience, and her 
 bearing was much changed. The central motive 
 of her life and work was the same, but the religious 
 phraseology was no longer obtruded, and she was 
 willing to submit, though no doubt it was a severe 
 trial, to the restrictions which it was necessary to 
 impose on the head of a great workhouse infirmary, 
 with a large proportion of Roman Catholic inmates. 
 In spite of these restrictions she was able to gain 
 an extraordinarily strong personal influence over 
 her nurses, and over many of the roughest and 
 wildest of her patients. 
 
 Her position was an extremely difficult one, 
 and in some respects it did not become easier as 
 time went on. One of the officials who had at 
 first given her valuable support had taken to evil 
 ways and did all he could to thwart her. The 
 discipline of the workhouse had become exceed- 
 ingly lax ; the infirmary was so crowded that the 
 patients had sometimes to sleep three in one bed ;
 
 1/2 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 a large number of them were malingerers, able- 
 bodied men with sore arms or legs, which they 
 took very good care should not get well, in order 
 that they might continue to enjoy hospital diet 
 and idleness. Miss Jones at last got rid of these 
 by persuading the Governor to institute a labour 
 test. Within a month 200 took their discharge, 
 saying that if they had to work, they might 
 as well work outside. The experiment of train- 
 ing the female paupers as a kind of under-nurses 
 proved, as the Governor had predicted, a dead 
 failure, serving only to suggest painful reflections 
 as to what must have been the sufferings of the 
 poor creatures who for so long had been trusted 
 entirely to their tender mercies. The moment the 
 eyes of the superior nurses were off them, they 
 would leave their work to cluster round the fire 
 and make and drink tea ; while they lost no 
 opportunity of getting at stronger liquors. Out 
 of 141 who were tried, even Miss Jones's ex- 
 ceptional powers of training and influencing did 
 not produce a single tolerable nurse. At the end 
 of the first year the experiment was abandoned, 
 and the women sent back to the workhouse, from 
 which most of them promptly took their discharge. 
 At the end of the second year the verdict of all 
 the authorities of the parish was unanimously in 
 favour of the new system. The Vestry decided 
 to extend it at once to the rest of the Infirmary,
 
 v WORKHOUSE NURSING 173 
 
 and to charge the cost upon the rates. They 
 refused any further contribution from the un- 
 known promoter of the scheme, and invited him, 
 through Mr. Cropper, to meet them and help 
 them to develop it. Thus it was that William 
 Rathbone became a member of the Select Vestry, 
 upon which he continued to serve for the rest of 
 his life. 
 
 Before the third year was over, on Feb- 
 ruary 19, 1868, Agnes Jones fell a victim to 
 an attack of typhus fever which over-work and 
 over -anxiety had left her too .weak to battle 
 through. But her work as pioneer was done. 
 The nurses trained in her school were able to 
 carry it on, though at first under infinite diffi- 
 culties, and the system of trained nursing spread 
 quickly to parish hospitals all over the country. 
 
 "Both in this case" so ends the private 
 memorandum upon which most of the above is 
 based " and in that of the introduction of trained 
 nursing into the Royal Infirmary and the districts of 
 Liverpool, I was told that the thing was impossible 
 by people of no ordinary energy and determina- 
 tion. In both cases, by acting on Miss Dix's 1 
 
 1 Miss Dorothea Dix, the remarkable Boston lady who procured the 
 reform of lunatic asylums in nearly every state of the United States and in 
 several countries in Europe, including the Papal States and Turkey, was an 
 old friend of William Rathbone's father and mother, and spent several long 
 visits at Greenbank. See Life of Dorothea Dix, published by Houghton, 
 Mifflin, and Company.
 
 174 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 principle of going straight to the persons whose 
 duty it was, and who had the power to put things 
 right, with a practical plan of doing so in my 
 hand, I found that the very powers who were 
 supposed to render reform impossible were those 
 who themselves welcomed and adopted and 
 thoroughly and loyally carried it out." 
 
 What follows belongs properly to the later 
 part of William Rathbone's life, but the subject 
 is one that stands in a sense by itself, and for 
 the sake of continuity it seems best dealt with 
 here. 
 
 In 1874, Sir Edmund Lechmere and others, 
 connected with the English Branch of the Order of 
 St. John of Jerusalem, desired to start an organisa- 
 tion for District Nursing in London. In response 
 to their invitation the late Duke of Westminster 
 consented to join in the movement, on condition 
 that the scheme should be arranged under the best 
 expert advice and on the most business-like 
 footing. Being aware of the success of the work 
 in Liverpool, he consulted William Rathbone, then 
 a member of Parliament and resident in London 
 for half the year. As a result of these conferences, 
 a meeting was held in June 1874, at which the 
 National Association for Providing Trained Nurses 
 for the Sick Poor came into being. The Associa- 
 tion immediately appointed a sub - committee, 
 whose main objects, as described in the words of
 
 v DISTRICT NURSING IN LONDON 175 
 
 the resolution defining its duties, were : " To 
 inquire into the state and need of district nursing ; 
 the training schools already existing capable of 
 training women for nursing the poor in their own 
 homes, and the hospitals suitable for such 
 institutions ; the district nurses already at work, 
 and the places where need of nurses is felt." 
 
 Of this sub-committee, William Rathbone was 
 appointed chairman, and Lady Strangford and 
 Miss Florence Lees (now Mrs. Dacre Craven), 
 honorary secretaries. 1 The information which they 
 set out to obtain, in the words of their Report, 
 " simply did not exist, and had to be collected 
 by close personal investigation and diligent re- 
 search." 
 
 The Report of the sub-committee was issued in 
 June 1875, and is, in the words of one of the 
 highest authorities on nursing matters, " a turning- 
 point in the history of district nursing." It 
 helped more than anything else to decide that this 
 branch of nursing, in London, and through 
 London in many parts of the country, should run 
 in a broad, well-defined, professional channel, 
 instead of meandering through the countless 
 runnels of parochial and sectarian philanthropy. 
 
 1 Its members also included Dr. H. W. D. Acland (afterwards Sir 
 Henry W. D. Acland, Bart., F.R.S., etc., Regius Professor at Oxford), 
 Sir Rutherford Alcoclc, K.C.B., Mr. Henry Bonham-Carter, Mr. James 
 Stansfeld (afterwards Sir James Stansfeld, G.C.B.), Dr. Sieveking, and, 
 others.
 
 176 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 It suggested nearly all the improvements that have 
 been effected since, and in its conception, methods, 
 and conclusions, it is very characteristic of 
 William. Rathbone's ways of work and opinions 
 on the subject with which it deals. 
 
 The following brief summary of its contents, 
 which readers not specially interested in nursing 
 can easily omit, has been kindly supplied me by an 
 expert. 
 
 The Report first defines the object of the National 
 Association, namely, the organising of a system of 
 training and supplying district nurses for the whole 
 country. " In order to learn how this might best be done, 
 the first step was to ascertain clearly the wants, in this 
 respect, of London, and the means by which they might 
 be met. This once thoroughly done, the method of 
 affiliating or combining other Associations, having a 
 similar object, in the several counties and great towns of 
 the kingdom, would be a question presenting compara- 
 tively little difficulty, 1 and it is therefore to London 
 chiefly, though not exclusively, that the inquiries of the 
 sub-committee have been directed." 
 
 The result of these inquiries is thus described in the 
 Report : " We now know exactly what nursing is done, 
 and by whom, and what training the nurses have had. 
 We know what districts are poorest and most suffering. 
 We know the name and address, the nature and professed 
 character, of the work of every nursing or nurse-training 
 
 1 As a matter of fact, the work of the Association remained chiefly 
 metropolitan, although it did good service to district nursing all over the 
 country, by affording a training-ground for matrons and superintendents.
 
 v DISTRICT NURSING IN LONDON 177 
 
 institution in the capital. We have ascertained in many 
 instances the results of their experience. We have 
 consulted the clergy and the medical officers of every 
 district, and have received from them much information 
 and some useful suggestions. We have seen, through the 
 eyes of a trained nurse 1 of the very highest grade, the 
 actual working of the best -organised district -nursing 
 systems in London and in other towns their effects, 
 their shortcomings, the difficulties they have to encounter, 
 the means they take to meet those difficulties. The 
 mass of information summed up in the Appendices has 
 taken months of constant, untiring, searching industry to 
 collect ; but, now that it is collected, the service it is 
 capable of rendering to those who wish to see their way 
 to forward one of the most important of charities, is well 
 worth both the trouble and the time it has cost." 
 
 The "Conclusions" note that there were then only two 
 organisations in London which employed trained nurses 
 in nursing the poor in their own homes. The Bible and 
 Domestic Female Mission, employing fifty-two Bible- 
 women nurses, and the East London Nursing Society, 
 which employed seven district nurses. There were 
 about one hundred nurses employed in such work in 
 London, but of these one-third were untrained, and could 
 be of little service except in the administration of nourish- 
 ment, medical comforts, and general relief. Secondly, the 
 hospitals, as nurse-training schools, did not afford such 
 means of training nurses for the sick poor at home as 
 ought to satisfy the requirements of the Association. 
 Thirdly, the existing system of district nursing was 
 open to grave objections. The chief faults observed 
 were : 
 
 1 Miss Florence Lees. 
 
 N
 
 178 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 1. Too much relief and too little nursing. 
 
 2. Too little control and direction, and consequent 
 lapses into slovenliness and neglect, sometimes dangerous 
 to the very lives of her patients, on the part of the 
 nurse. 
 
 3. Too little communication between the nurse and 
 the doctor. 
 
 4. Too little instruction given to the patient's friends 
 and family in regard to the care of the sufferer, to 
 ventilation, cleanliness, disinfecting, etc. 
 
 The remaining "Conclusions," being the sub- 
 committee's recommendations, may be briefly sum- 
 marised. 
 
 The nurses should receive more complete and 
 systematic hospital training,, based on Miss Nightingale's 
 suggestions, to make them real aids to the doctor. 
 
 The nurses should work under Inspectors or Superin- 
 tendents, who should be themselves nurses of higher 
 professional, social, and general qualifications. This 
 measure would lead to greater diligence in pressing 
 necessary advice, as to the sanitation of their homes, on 
 the families of the poor, and greater willingness on their 
 part to attend to it. 
 
 The nurses should work in closer touch with the 
 medical men, and as much as possible under their orders. 
 
 The duty of granting relief, medical comforts, 
 nourishment, etc., should be, so far as possible, separated 
 from the nurse's duties, and left to other agencies, such as 
 the parish authorities, the clergy, district visitors, or 
 charitable missions. 
 
 District nurses in large towns should be established in 
 District Homes, under highly-trained Superintendents. 
 In these Homes, probationers, already hospital -trained,
 
 v THE QUEEN'S INSTITUTE 179 
 
 should have special training, from three months upwards, 
 in district work. " Nurses who have passed satisfactorily 
 through this training should be entered on the register of 
 the Association a privilege which it would be dangerous 
 to extend to any whose qualifications have not been so 
 tested." 
 
 District nurses should possess some knowledge of the 
 treatment of women after their confinements, and of their 
 infants, which should be imparted to them, if this were 
 possible, during their course of training. 
 
 Those who are interested in nursing will notice that 
 the principles here outlined, which in some particulars 
 mark an advance on what had been done in Liverpool, 
 contain the germ of almost all that has been accomplished 
 in district nursing up to the present day. 
 
 The National Association adopted the principles of the 
 Report, and in thanking the sub-committee for their 
 labours, added a warm acknowledgment of the liberality 
 of the chairman in defraying the cost of collecting the 
 information and publishing the Report. Mr. Rathbone, 
 after protesting in vain against this tribute, took an 
 early opportunity of issuing a second edition of the 
 Report, from which he omitted it. 
 
 When the Liverpool system and the Metro- 
 politan and National Association, as it was renamed 
 in 1876, were both fairly afloat, William Rathbone 
 had for some ten years little to do with nursing, 
 except as taking his full share in the work of their 
 respective Committees. In 1887, the year of 
 Queen Victoria's Jubilee, an immense impetus was 
 given to the work which lay so near to his heart,
 
 i8o WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 by the Queen's decision to devote to district 
 nursing the surplus of the Women's Offering, a 
 sum of about ^70,000. She appointed as Trustees 
 of the fund the Duke of Westminster, Sir James 
 Paget, and Sir Rutherford Alcock. The Trustees 
 were engaged for some six months on preliminary 
 inquiries and plans, working as an informal 
 committee, and in consultation with William 
 Rathbone, who acted as a sort of unofficial 
 secretary. He used to describe this committee, 
 half-humorously, as "the most efficient he had 
 ever known, as it hardly ever met." Its proceed- 
 ings mainly consisted of suggestions, memoranda, 
 or questions, issued by the secretary in triplicate 
 to his three colleagues, who promptly returned 
 them with their assent or comments. As all four 
 were men of great knowledge of the subject and 
 capacity for business, no time and no words were 
 wasted. 
 
 In June 1878 the Trustees transferred the 
 executive part of their duties to a Provisional 
 Committee. The Duke of Westminster was 
 chairman, and William Rathbone undertook the 
 duties of honorary secretary. 1 
 
 In the course of eighteen meetings, extending 
 over more than a year, this committee organised 
 
 1 In addition to the three Trustees, the Provisional Committee included 
 the following members: Lady Rosebery, Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Henry 
 Bonham- Carter, Mrs. Henry Grenfell, Mrs. Theodore Acland, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Dacre Craven, and Mr. W. S. Caine.
 
 v THE QUEEN'S INSTITUTE 181 
 
 the work of Queen Victoria's Jubilee Institute for 
 Nurses on its present footing. By its original 
 charter, granted in September 1889, the Institute 
 was connected with St. Katharine's Royal Hospital. 
 This ancient foundation was instituted and en- 
 dowed by Queen Matilda, wife of Stephen, in the 
 twelfth century, and from that time to the present 
 the Queens of England have been its Patrons. 
 
 *^- O 
 
 Queen Victoria appointed the Master of St. 
 Katharine's for the time being to be President of 
 the Jubilee Institute, and placed at the disposal of 
 the Council offices, and a house for the 
 Superintendent and her assistants, at St. Katharine's 
 Hospital in Regent's Park. 1 It was the good- 
 fortune of the Institute to secure in its first 
 President, the Rev. Arthur Peile, Master of 
 St. Katharine's, a very able head, who has, for 
 fifteen years, devoted himself with unsparing 
 energy to perfecting and working the new 
 organisation. 
 
 The Provisional Committee met for the last 
 time in November 1889, on which occasion " they 
 placed on record their deep indebtedness to Mr. 
 Rathbone for his unceasing and most valuable 
 labours in the onerous duties of Honorary 
 Secretary. They all felt that the success of the 
 
 1 The connection between the Jubilee Institute and St. Katharine's 
 Hospital was terminated by the Supplemental Charter granted by His 
 Majesty in 1904.
 
 1 82 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 work was due to him and his long and wide 
 experience in similar work." 
 
 * jjThe first meeting of the Council resolved to 
 submit his name to the Queen for the office of 
 Vice-President. He was duly appointed by Her 
 Majesty and, owing to the kind insistence of his 
 colleagues for he made many attempts in later 
 years | to resign he retained that office until his 
 death. 1 
 
 This brief statement gives little idea of the 
 immense amount of work for which it stands. 
 The organisation of a comparatively new branch 
 
 1 There is some misconception as to the precise functions of Queen 
 Victoria's Institute. It does not itself nurse the poor. Its objects may be 
 shortly defined as follows : 
 
 To assist in organising, on right lines, local Associations in affiliation to 
 the Institute, who will employ district nurses, whether singly or gathered 
 in groups in a Home and under a Superintendent. 
 
 To give district-training to nurses, already hospital-trained, to fit them 
 for the service of the poor in their own homes. 
 
 To supply such nurses to affiliated Associations by whom they are paid 5 
 and also to prepare and recommend for affiliated Homes, Superintendents 
 whose appointment must be approved by the Institute. 
 
 To maintain the standard of the nurses by periodical inspection, 
 especially of those working singly, who are visited by an Inspector of the 
 Institute at least twice yearly. 
 
 Generally to advise and assist those starting or carrying on district 
 nursing, and to watch and safeguard the interests of district nurses. 
 
 The scope of the work may be roughly indicated by the following figures. 
 At this time (January 1905), about 1240 Queen's Nurses are being employed 
 by 659 affiliated Associations at a cost of about 115,000 a year. The 
 expenditure of the Institute, the cost of the training and supervision of these 
 nurses, and of its other incidental work, is about 11,000 a year. It may 
 therefore be said to stimulate and to regulate an expenditure by the localities 
 nursed, on district nuring, rather more than ten times as great as its own.
 
 v CHARACTERISTICS 183 
 
 of work over the whole of the three kingdoms in- 
 volved innumerable decisions upon large questions 
 of policy and small questions of detail, and upon 
 both William Rathbone, with his friend, Mr. Henry 
 Bon ham-Carter, was one of the principal referees. 
 Both were in close touch with Miss Florence 
 Nightingale, whose authority on nursing matters 
 of course stood above that of anybody else, and 
 who, hidden in her invalid's room, served as a kind 
 of final Court of Appeal. William Rathbone's 
 experience was by this time equalled in length and 
 variety by few others, either men or women, in the 
 nursing world. But besides this, he had qualities 
 which do not invariably accompany age and ex- 
 perience, but which fitted him admirably to be 
 the motive - power of a new undertaking an 
 unbounded faith in the work it had to do, courage 
 in facing risks, and energy to grapple with diffi- 
 culties. His readiness on all occasions to go 
 ahead as rapidly as possible, and to aim as high, 
 became so well-known to his colleagues that some 
 of the more cautious among them fell into a way 
 of always snipping a piece off everything that 
 " Mr. Rathbone" proposed, and he in his turn, find- 
 ing this out, used occasionally to propose more than 
 he expected or wished to carry. Except, however, 
 when acting on this principle, his wonderfully sure 
 instinct for the practicable saved him from often 
 doing or proposing anything really rash. As a
 
 184 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 rule he knew, like a skilful engineer, just how 
 much he could get out of his machinery without 
 overstraining it. Thus in deciding the standard 
 of nursing to be set by the Institute for its own 
 nurses and for affiliated institutions, he was very 
 anxious that while the demand was set high enough 
 to arouse enthusiasm and to secure that work 
 associated with the Queen's name should be as 
 perfect as possible, there should yet be elasticity 
 enough to meet the differing circumstances and 
 degrees of experience of different parts of the 
 country. When any institution that seemed to 
 have the germs of vigorous life was yet not quite 
 on the lines nor up to the standard that he and 
 his colleagues judged the best, his inclination was 
 always to grant it admission, and trust to persuasion 
 and the example of others to bring it up to the 
 mark. 
 
 The first article of his own creed was in- 
 spection : constant inspection of the work of 
 every small group of nurses by the matron of their 
 Home ; and periodic inspection by a travelling 
 inspector of the highest possible competency. 
 That nurses should receive the amount and kind 
 of training that would give them not the most 
 perfect drilling in hospital routine, but the greatest 
 fitness for their work in the homes of the poor, not 
 forgetting that they had frequently to act upon 
 their own responsibility in the necessary absence
 
 v CHARACTERISTICS 185 
 
 of the doctor ; that they should not act as relieving 
 officers nor, at least in any sectarian spirit, as Bible- 
 women ; that they should be the obedient hand- 
 maids of the doctors ; that wherever possible 
 they should live in Homes, so that they might 
 have not only some of the cheerfulness of 
 domestic life, but also the stimulus of exchanging 
 experiences ; that above all they should be taught 
 that their business was to do whatever would 
 relieve the sufferings of their patients and help to 
 cure them, and should never be allowed to refuse 
 any service necessary to this end, however menial, 
 on the ground that it was not " part of a nurse's 
 work," these were some of the principles on 
 which he constantly insisted. 
 
 With those upon whom the success of the 
 movement perhaps most of all depended the 
 superintendents, the matrons, the inspectors 
 his influence and, perhaps one may even say, 
 his popularity were great. He was brought 
 into close contact with a large number of these 
 ladies, not only through his personal connection 
 with the Institute and various hospitals and nursing 
 institutions of all kinds, but because he made a 
 practice of having always in training, at St. Thomas's 
 Hospital and at Brownlow Hill Infirmary, two or 
 three probationers of his own, destined, if they 
 turned out well, for important posts of superin- 
 tendence. They found in him a detailed, almost
 
 1 86 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, v 
 
 expert knowledge of their profession, combined 
 with a wide and lofty conception of its scope and 
 aims. Although he had a sympathetic appreciation 
 of their professional point of view, he never let 
 them forget that their work was a vocation as well 
 as a profession, and that they must be prepared, if 
 necessary, to sacrifice their personal ambition to 
 their usefulness. " If you agree to what I ask," 
 he said once to a nurse whom he was urging to 
 undertake a responsible and very difficult position, 
 u by the end of a year or two you will probably 
 have injured your professional reputation and 
 quarrelled with most of your professional friends. 
 But that won't matter. The work will be done." 
 There was something exhilarating and invigorating 
 in this high standard of expectation, especially 
 perhaps, from its unwontedness, to women. The 
 demands he made upon his subordinates or his 
 fellow-workers were honoured the more readily 
 because it was obvious to all that the level of 
 devotion to duty on which he expected to find 
 them was the level upon which he himself 
 habitually lived and moved.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 POLITICS AND PARLIAMENT 1 862 TO 1869 
 
 IN the spring of 1862 William Rathbone married 
 again. His wife was an Irishwoman, a daughter 
 of Mr. Acheson Lyle of Londonderry, and a 
 second cousin of his own, through kinship with 
 his mother's family, the Gregs. 1 They continued 
 for some time to live at New Brighton, in the 
 same house on the cliff, overlooking the Mersey. 
 
 The year of his second marriage was the year 
 of the Lancashire Cotton Famine. Civil war was 
 going on in America ; the Federal Government 
 had proclaimed a blockade of the Southern ports ; 
 ships laden with cotton could not get through, 
 
 I O D * 
 
 and the manufacturers, cut off from their principal 
 supplies of raw material, began to run their mills 
 short time or to close them altogether. The dis- 
 tress in the manufacturing parts of the country 
 
 1 "For the last thirty-two years," says the private Memoir before quoted, 
 written in 1894, " ive should be substituted for / in speaking of any action 
 or work of my life " ; and those who knew them best know how almost 
 literally true this is. 
 
 187
 
 1 88 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 was very great. In Liverpool, on the other hand, 
 merchants and others engaged in the cotton trade 
 were realising large profits from the rise in the 
 price of cotton. A relief fund had been started 
 for the benefit of the sufferers, and a meeting was 
 about to be held to raise a fund in Liverpool, when 
 Mr. Charles Melly called upon William Rathbone 
 and told him his fears that public opinion in the 
 town was not sufficiently awake to the gravity of 
 the distress, or to the very special claims which 
 the operatives, whom the scarcity of cotton was 
 reducing to starvation, had upon the merchants 
 whom it had enriched. They consulted the 
 Mayor, who surmised that fifteen or twenty 
 thousand pounds might be raised in Liverpool. 
 This seemed to the two friends entirely inade- 
 quate. They made a tour of the leading 
 merchants, explained their view as to the duty 
 of Liverpool, which met with very general agree- 
 ment, and got some of them to put down 
 their names for very large sums. This started 
 the fund on the right level ; more than the sum 
 named by the Mayor was subscribed at the first 
 meeting, and the total contribution from the town 
 amounted to over , 100,000. 
 
 When a Central Executive Committee was 
 formed in Manchester, to control all the various 
 relief funds, William Rathbone was put on it as 
 a representative of Liverpool. The Committee
 
 vi COTTON FAMINE RELIEF FUND 189 
 
 consisted of twenty-four persons. Lord Derby 
 was Chairman, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, Deputy 
 Chairman, Mr. Maclure (afterwards Sir J. W. 
 Maclure, Bart.), Honorary Secretary, and the other 
 members were carefully chosen so as to be re- 
 presentative of all parties and creeds and of the 
 three property-owning classes, the landowners, the 
 manufacturers, and the merchants. Several of 
 them were men of great administrative ability, 
 with whom it was instructive and stimulating to 
 work. This Central Committee had more than a 
 hundred local committees working under their 
 direction. Beside raising funds, it was their 
 business to decide the general principles upon 
 which the money should be expended. It was 
 impossible to estimate how long the war would 
 last, and both for this reason, and to prevent 
 demoralisation, relief had to be confined to the 
 supply of bare necessities. After some little 
 experience, they concluded that a sum graduated 
 for men, women, and children, but averaging two 
 shillings per head per week, would be just enough 
 to maintain life and health, nothing being allowed 
 for rent. There was some doubt whether this 
 would be sufficient, and week by week the members 
 of the Executive anxiously scanned the returns of 
 sickness and mortality, which, however, to the 
 general satisfaction, showed no perceptible increase 
 on the normal rates. Privation might be telling
 
 190 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 hardly on the old and weak, but among the able- 
 bodied it was clear that enforced sobriety and 
 release from the confinement of the factory more 
 than counterbalanced its ill effects. 
 
 The spirit shown by the Lancashire operatives 
 won the respect of all who were brought into 
 contact with them. It had been very generally 
 expected that they would raise a clamour in favour 
 of intervention of some kind by the British Govern- 
 ment to put an end to the blockade. The 
 Confederate Government itself counted upon this. 
 But the influence of Cobden and Bright was very 
 strong among them. As a matter of profit and 
 loss, they seem to have appreciated the futility of 
 ridding themselves of a costly blockade, by bringing 
 upon the country a ten times more costly war, and 
 in the point of principle they sided entirely with 
 the North. In the eyes of Mr. Gladstone it might 
 be true that " no distinction could be broader than 
 the distinction between the question whether the 
 Southern ideas of slavery are right, and the question 
 whether they could be justifiably put down by war 
 from the North," l but this broad distinction was 
 too subtle for the cotton operatives. To them the 
 cause of the North meant simply the cause of 
 emancipation and human freedom. As a direct 
 consequence of the blockade, they saw their means 
 of livelihood for the time gone ; their savings were 
 
 1 Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 71.
 
 vi COTTON FAMINE RELIEF FUND 191 
 
 exhausted to the last farthing ; they were reduced 
 to dependence on the poor-rate or on relief funds ; 
 the women the most independent and prosperous 
 section of working women in England sang or 
 begged in the streets. They bore their sufferings 
 as if they were the result of " an act of God," an 
 earthquake or a hurricane ; showed no bitterness 
 against either side in America, and stood out more 
 firmly than any class in England against the move- 
 ment in favour of breaking the blockade and 
 recognising the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 William Rathbone greatly admired their forti- 
 tude. He appreciated it the more that his attitude 
 towards the war was not unlike their own. He had 
 friends in both North and South, and sympathised 
 with both. He was utterly against intervention by 
 England in any shape on either side, but unlike 
 many who thus far went with him, he believed in 
 the future of the Union. Like almost every one 
 in England, including Richard Cobden, he seems, 
 at least in the early stages of the war, to have 
 thought it probable that some of the Southern 
 States would in the end have to be allowed to go, 
 but that there would be any general break-up he 
 would not believe. For the past twenty years he 
 had watched regretfully, from his standpoint as a 
 merchant in the American trade, the^ gradually 
 increasing corruption of American political life, 
 which he attributed largely to the means taken by
 
 192 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 slave-holders and protectionists respectively to 
 preserve their favourite institutions, slavery and a 
 tariff. But he insisted that the heart of the nation 
 was sound, and that when the disasters of the war 
 had taught them the necessity of purging the 
 administration and the army of corruption, they 
 would emerge into a purer and healthier national 
 life. He had many an argument on the subject 
 with his Conservative and land-owning colleagues 
 on the Executive of the Famine Fund. Their 
 sympathies, like those of the great majority of 
 their class, were of course with the South, and in 
 the darkest days of Northern fortunes, when the 
 Federal army was in retreat after Bull's Run, he 
 found the good-naturedly contemptuous tone of 
 their " I told you so," rather hard to bear. 
 
 In his own town, among men of his own class 
 and political party, his opinions were still those of 
 a very small minority. His friend, Mr. J. M. 
 Forbes, of Boston, came to England in the spring 
 of 1863 on a private mission from the Federal 
 Government. This mission required intercourse 
 with merchants and shipowners, as well as poli- 
 ticians and diplomatists. " Among the merchants," 
 he wrote afterwards, u I only remember as uncon- 
 ditional friends, Tom Baring and William Rathbone, 
 junior [the subject of this memoir], William Evans, 
 and Tom Potter." He found the climate in 
 London socially very chilly. " Our best friends,
 
 vi THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 193 
 
 with a very small circle excepted, were with us 
 only in feeling, and lamented that we should 
 approve of continuing the bloody contest, instead of 
 letting the ' erring sisters go in peace,' as many on 
 both sides at first wished. Bright, Cobden, W. E. 
 Forster, the Duke of Argyle, and a few others 
 were with us heartily, and took bold ground in our 
 cause ; but, generally speaking, the aristocracy and 
 the trading classes were solid against us." 1 The 
 question, like every question both new and great, 
 cut clean through the lines of political party. If 
 the champions mentioned above were of the Liberal 
 party, so also, unfortunately, were the authors of 
 the sayings which rankled worst and longest in 
 Northern breasts. It was Lord Palmerston, the 
 Prime Minister of the Liberal Administration, who 
 in a public speech jested at the " unfortunately rapid 
 movements " of the soldiers at Bull's Run. It 
 was Lord Russell, the Foreign Minister, who 
 talked sneeringly of the " once United States," and 
 described the struggle as one in which the North 
 was striving for empire and the South for indepen- 
 dence. Worst of all, it was Mr. Gladstone, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, the statesman whose 
 influence with the English people was then most 
 evidently on the flow, who spoke of disruption as 
 the cup which all the rest of the world saw that 
 the North must drink, and with most infelicitous 
 
 1 Life ofjf. M, Forbes, by Mrs. Forbes Hughes. Houghton, Mifflin, and Co. 
 
 O
 
 1 94 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 felicity said of Jefferson Davis and the other 
 Southern leaders that they had made an army, 
 were making a navy, and what was more than 
 either, had made a nation. The fact was, that in 
 English political circles the constitutional issue 
 had almost blotted out the question of slavery ; 
 but the Northerners, knowing that they were 
 fighting the battle of emancipation and of demo- 
 cracy, naturally expected sympathy and moral 
 support, at least from the Liberal party in England, 
 and these sallies, coming from its official chiefs, had 
 to them all the sting of treachery. 
 
 The Federal Government had a more substantial 
 cause of resentment against England than imprudent 
 rhetoric and ill-natured jests. The dispute as to 
 the right of a neutral to supply ships to a belligerent 
 for purposes of war seemed at one time on the 
 point of ending in a war between the two countries. 
 The main facts may be very briefly summarised. 
 The Alabama, a small steamer of rather more than 
 a thousand tons register, was built at Birkenhead 
 in the ship-yard of Messrs. Laird. It was pretty 
 generally known that she was intended for use as 
 a privateer in the service of the Confederates, and 
 some time before she was ready for sea, Mr. Adams, 
 the American Minister in London, lodged informa- 
 tion of her nature and destination with the British 
 Government, and asked for her detention pending 
 inquiry. Lord Russell had some doubts whether
 
 vi THE ALABAMA 195 
 
 he would be legally justified in complying. Some 
 delay occurred in consulting the Law Officers of 
 the Crown, and on the very day on which it was 
 decided to issue the order for her detention, news 
 came that the Alabama had escaped. Her career 
 as a privateer lasted for two years, and was so 
 successful that she almost banished the United 
 States mercantile marine from the seas. She was 
 not merely an English - built ship. Her crew, 
 gunners, and guns were chiefly English. She 
 habitually lured her prey within her reach by flying 
 the English flag, and she frequently put into 
 English ports. Very bitter feeling was excited in 
 the States against England, and their Government 
 maintained that the British Government was liable 
 for the damage done by the ship a view which 
 received final confirmation, after ten long years of 
 diplomatic dispute, by the unanimous verdict of 
 the Geneva arbitration. 
 
 To William Rathbone, as a Liverpool ship- 
 owner, the question was naturally one of deep 
 interest, and he was not long content to be entirely 
 passive in the face of it. Great Britain, he 
 reasoned, has the largest mercantile marine in the 
 world, and is more dependent than any other 
 country upon supplies coming from without. The 
 precedent set by the case of the Alabama^ if 
 turned against England in future wars, would be 
 more damaging to her than it could be to any other
 
 196 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Power far more so than to one so self-sufficient 
 and so seldom at war as the United States. 
 England, again, in time of war could build ships 
 for herself better than any one else. She had control 
 of seaports in every part of the world. These 
 advantages would be neutralised if the law of 
 nations permitted a foreign Power at war with her 
 to use the ship-yards and recruiting grounds of the 
 world to replenish its navy, and the ports of all 
 Northern Europe as a basis whence to prey upon 
 her commerce. Of the commercial and maritime 
 interests thus menaced, Liverpool was the centre 
 and natural champion, and many of her most 
 intelligent men of business shared these views. 
 With the rest, dislike of the Yankees and 
 neighbourly feeling for the Lairds, the highly 
 respected firm who had built the Alabama, com- 
 bined to obscure the real questions at issue. 
 
 In the spring of 1863 it was well known that 
 the same firm had nearly completed the building of 
 two formidable iron rams, and no one seriously 
 doubted, although legal proof was difficult to 
 produce, that these had been ordered by the Con- 
 federate Government, and were intended to be 
 used in breaking through the blockade. The 
 mission already alluded to, which brought Mr. J. 
 M. Forbes and Mr. Aspinwall to England, was to 
 prevent the sailing of these rams, and if necessary 
 to buy up these and any other vessels which they
 
 vi THE AFFAIR OF LAIRD'S RAMS 197 
 
 knew or suspected to be destined for war against 
 the North. On landing in Liverpool, Mr. Forbes's 
 first visit, after that to the American Consul, was 
 to William Rathbone, whom he found " full of the 
 soundest views as to the interest and duty of the 
 British Government to prevent the outfitting of 
 cruisers against us." In a letter written some 
 months later, Mr. Forbes alluded to this interview 
 in a passage which expresses well the crucial point 
 of the difficulty, and shows also how clearly it 
 had been apprehended by our Liverpool corre- 
 spondent : 
 
 As you told me the day I landed in Liverpool, your law 
 is, under your practice, radically defective. Ours did well 
 under our practice, but you can never for a moment count 
 upon our continuing the same practice in the face of your 
 precedents. You hit the nail on the head when you told 
 me that your law was worthless for our protection. 
 Accept my assurance that ours will be worthless for your 
 protection in the next war. Our mutual safety is to 
 change it, and that promptly, while you are strong and 
 can do it with a good grace, and while we are still in 
 danger from its defects. It is absurd to say that your 
 navy would have been much more efficient than ours in 
 catching the Alabama, etc. All naval ships are loaded 
 down with guns and stores and trash. Our mercantile 
 warships are better for speed than either your or our 
 warships. 
 
 Earlier in the same letter he says : 
 The more I think and know of the whole subject,
 
 198 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 however, the more sure I am that the only safeguard 
 against the war, if not now, certainly the first time you 
 get into a war while we are at peace, is your prescription 
 a radical change of your and our law. 
 
 The defects in the English law were in fact the 
 rock on which Anglo-American peace very nearly 
 split. During the controversy over the rams, 
 which dragged along for a full year after that 
 interview, Lord Russell took his stand obstinately 
 upon the question of legality. There was a doubt 
 whether the law as it stood justified him in detain- 
 ing the rams, and the Government at first tacitly, 
 afterwards explicitly, adhered to the doctrine that 
 England was not obliged to alter her laws to please 
 a foreign State. The object therefore of the 
 Englishmen who, like William Rathbone, realised 
 the seriousness of the situation, was to create a 
 public opinion that should force the Government 
 to change the law, not to please a foreign State, 
 but to allay the fears and satisfy the conscience of 
 classes in their own community who understood 
 the conditions of the mercantile marine better than 
 Lord Russell, and were determined that, under the 
 guise of law, an injustice should not be done to 
 their neighbours. William Rathbone first tried to 
 put the commercial point of view personally before 
 the leading men in Parliament. He wrote to his 
 wife from London on April 23 :
 
 vi THE AFFAIR OF LAIRD'S RAMS 199 
 
 After a very heavy day, I feel satisfied on the whole. 
 I think I was right to come. After an interview with 
 Layard I wrote to Lord Russell, and in the evening dis- 
 cussed matters with several members, including Forster 
 and Cobden ; and at their urgent recommendation, and 
 with Layard's approval, had a long discussion with Lord 
 Palmerston. He was very attentive and cordial, and took 
 the points in a way that showed he understood them. 
 Whether I made any impression it is difficult to say, but 
 I don't feel as if I had done harm, and may have done 
 some good. At any rate, I feel as if I had done my best ; 
 I also feel that Lord Russell and Layard and many others 
 are honestly in earnest and fully aware of the dangers 
 before them, and that they will do their best to avert 
 them. To-morrow I want to go to the Americans and 
 try to get them to enforce on their men the importance 
 of care and discretion to enable our Ministers to keep the 
 peace ; and then into the city. . . . 
 
 The principal impression left on William Rath- 
 bone's mind by this interview with Lord Palmerston 
 seems to have been surprise at that statesman's 
 ignorance of mercantile affairs. He appeared to 
 be of opinion that the Americans could easily, if 
 they had pleased, have taken the Alabama. He 
 was reminded that the American naval forces were 
 being strained to maintain the blockade, and that 
 they could not afford to detach sentinel ships for 
 the purpose. Moreover, to find and catch a fast 
 steamer like the Alabama^ under such a captain as 
 Captain Semmes, was no easy task. To illustrate
 
 200 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the difficulty of finding a ship at sea, William 
 Rathbone gave him the following instance : A 
 steamer on reaching Port Patrick gave notice that 
 she had passed a derelict ship laden with timber a 
 few hours before. Eight tugs were immediately 
 sent in search, but although they had only the 
 effect of wind and waves to reckon with, they had 
 failed entirely to find her. Lord Palmerston 
 objected that the Alabama was obliged often to 
 put into port, and that then at least she could be 
 easily caught. He did not seem to be aware that 
 from recent improvements in the economy of fuel, 
 it was possible for a steamer to remain almost an 
 indefinite time at sea, banking up her fires until a 
 ship came in sight, and he showed much surprise 
 on being told that a steamer could be built to 
 steam out to Bombay and back without touching 
 port, if she took coal as her cargo. It was pointed 
 out to him that as under the Treaty of Paris, the 
 flag covered the merchandise, anything which raised 
 even slightly the rates of insurance on cargo carried 
 in the ships of belligerents would cause such cargo 
 to be transferred to ships under a neutral flag. 
 This might mean that if England were at war, she 
 would lose her carrying trade, which was of greater 
 importance to her than perhaps to all the other 
 nations put together. 
 
 William Rathbone came back to Liverpool, 
 and, in association with Mr. George Melly,
 
 vi THE AFFAIR OF LAIRD'S RAMS 201 
 
 Mr. W. J. Lamport, and others of his friends, 
 busied himself with some success in rousing up 
 commercial opinion, and in getting it embodied in 
 the resolutions which were sent up to Government 
 by the Shipowners' Association, the Council of the 
 Chamber of Commerce, and other public bodies. 
 " I have been very busy about belligerent rights, 
 and am so still," he wrote to his wife in May. 
 " I think Liverpool is disgracing itself most 
 abominably in the person of some of its most 
 prominent men, and one does not see how to help 
 it." Again : " The fear of war with America 
 arising out of any fault of ours haunts me like a 
 nightmare ; and will, until I have tried everything 
 to open people's eyes. Lamport is helping me. 
 I hope another week will see all done that can be." 
 A few days later he adds : "I am still very anxious 
 about American affairs, though my hopes are 
 greater than my fears. The shipowners meet 
 to-morrow, and I hope we shall carry a good 
 resolution. Lidderdale, 1 who is no partisan, writes 
 confirming the view that the Americans will not 
 stand their commerce being destroyed by vessels 
 fitted out from here." While Mr. Forbes was in 
 London, William Rathbone wrote to him : " It 
 would be a great point gained if, either by a letter 
 
 1 The late Right Hon. Wm. Lidderdale, afterwards Governor of the 
 Bank of England ; at that time representative in New York of Rathbone 
 Brothers and Co.
 
 202 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 in reply to some question, or any other way, Mr. 
 Adams 1 could state publicly and authoritatively 
 that the American Government were quite ready 
 to join the English Government in such alterations 
 of the laws of the respective countries as might 
 make them more efficient to prevent neutral 
 countries from being made a basis for war against 
 the commerce of a belligerent. You are losing a 
 great deal by the absence of this public declaration. 
 I hear it constantly urged, sometimes by members 
 of Parliament, that America has declined or is 
 unwilling to make alterations similar to those we 
 might make." 
 
 On the 5th of September, Mr. Adams wrote to 
 inform Lord Russell that one of the ironclad rams 
 was about to sail for the United States, and added 
 the historic comment : "It would be superfluous 
 for me to point out to your Lordship that this is 
 War'' On the 8th September he was informed 
 that the departure of the rams had been stopped. 
 Some days later he heard that their detention was 
 only provisional, and was still under consideration 
 by the Government. This was the unpropitious 
 moment chosen by Mr. Sumner, the Chairman of 
 the United States Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
 to make a violent and belligerent speech to a 
 young men's Debating Society, attacking England 
 for her attitude during the war. William Rath- 
 
 1 The American Minister in London.
 
 vi THE AFFAIR OF LAIRD'S RAMS 203 
 
 bone wrote to Mr. Forbes to protest. In the 
 course of a long reply Mr. Forbes said : 
 
 BOSTON, October 31, 1863. 
 
 Your note about Sumner's speech was duly received, 
 and has been used so that it will do good. Being marked 
 private, I could not show it to Sumner, but I read it to 
 him without giving your name. I have also sent a copy 
 of its substance to one of our campaign orators who was 
 disposed to pitch into your Government and people too ! 
 Sumner was much disturbed at it, and at other similar 
 letters ; but insists that he was right in telling the truth, 
 and that he thus best served the interests of peace. He 
 does not shine in the perceptive faculties : has eloquence, 
 scholarship, high principles, and many other good qualities, 
 but he has not the faculty of putting himself in the position 
 of an opposing party, and conceiving of how things look 
 from a different standpoint to his own. 
 
 Nobody can appreciate the extreme sensitiveness of the 
 English mind to anything which can, however remotely, 
 be construed into a threat, unless he has been in the little 
 island within the past year. When to this honest sensi- 
 tiveness you add the many causes for taking offence in the 
 selfishness of certain parties to the prejudice of others who 
 wish to see our experiment fail, there is an array of dangers 
 against speaking out which will deter most men from 
 doing so. Sumner claims to be, par excellence^ the friend 
 of peace and of England, and therefore thinks he can best 
 sound the alarm when he sees war threatening. 
 
 He says that all the arguments that you and I use 
 against plain speaking were used with even more force 
 against speaking the truth against slavery. It would irri- 
 tate the South, would hurt our friends, would strengthen
 
 204 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the hands of our enemies, etc. etc., and if he had listened 
 then we should now be the supporters of a mighty slave 
 empire. There is something in this, but analogies are 
 not conclusive, and I shall continue to do my best to keep 
 people's tongues quiet ! l 
 
 The fate of the rams hung in suspense for 
 another six months, the Government still declining 
 to commit themselves to more than their temporary 
 detention. Those who saw the seriousness of the 
 issue continued their efforts to awake public opinion 
 and to keep it awake. The latter, as is always apt to 
 be the case, was the more difficult part of their task, 
 for few ventured openly to urge that the vessels 
 should be allowed to sail. On the 28th May 1864, 
 William Rathbone was at length able to write to 
 Mr. Forbes : "You will be glad to hear that Laird's 
 rams are at last disposed of to the British Govern- 
 ment ; and it is the opinion of the Government 
 that they have put a stop to fitting out ships." 
 
 Since his breakdown in health in 1857-58, 
 William Rathbone had not taken any active share 
 in local party politics. The organisation of district 
 and workhouse nursing, the work of the Cotton 
 Famine Relief Fund, and his activities in the matter 
 of the rams, had more than filled all the time he 
 could spare from the business of his firm. It was 
 therefore after some hesitation that in the summer 
 of 1865 he undertook to join Mr. T. D. Hornby 
 
 1 Life ofj. M. Forbes, ii. 59.
 
 vi MR. GLADSTONE'S ELECTION 205 
 
 in the management of Mr. Gladstone's candidature 
 for the constituency of South Lancashire, and was 
 soon made chairman of his election Committee. 
 The circumstances under which the contest was 
 fought made it a difficult one to organise. Mr. 
 Gladstone had for many years represented the 
 University of Oxford, and he intended to keep his 
 old seat if re-elected. But his tenure, always hotly 
 contested, was known this year to be more than 
 ever uncertain. South Lancashire was his native 
 county, and it had long been the ambition of the 
 Liberal party of the division to secure him as one 
 of its three representatives. They accordingly 
 decided to reserve a nomination for him on the 
 chance of his being defeated at Oxford, and in the 
 meantime to press forward the canvass with their two 
 other candidates, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson and 
 Mr. J. P. Hey wood. The calculations of the Liberal 
 workers seemed to promise a safe victory, but the 
 party had been demoralised by two previous defeats, 
 and the general belief that Mr. Gladstone's candida- 
 ture was not serious, had a damping effect on its en- 
 thusiasm. The Conservatives, on the other hand, 
 were stirred to do their best by the hope of inflicting a 
 second defeat upon their greatest opponent. The 
 party Whips were not willing to let Mr. Gladstone 
 appear in person to fight the seat, unless victory 
 could be fairly assured, and William Rathbone went 
 down to Hawarden to explain the local situation.
 
 206 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 He told Mr. Gladstone that while he and his 
 friends believed the seat would be won, they could 
 not absolutely promise a victory. The issue would 
 turn, they thought, on the votes of some thousand 
 hesitating Whigs, who up till then had always 
 voted straight, but whose latent dread of democracy 
 had been quickened by the American Civil War. 
 If Mr. Gladstone succeeded in soothing their fears, 
 his return, they believed, would be secured. Mr. 
 Gladstone decided to take the risk. Immediately 
 the defeat at Oxford was announced, he came down 
 to Lancashire and spent the two days that remained 
 before the poll in a campaign as brilliant as it was 
 brief. When the votes were counted, two Con- 
 servative names headed the poll, but Mr. Gladstone 
 came next, and so secured the third seat. 
 
 During the next few years he seems to have kept 
 up an occasional correspondence with the chairman 
 of his election Committee, on matters in which the 
 latter could give him information as to the political 
 feeling or local interests of his constituents. Five 
 or six of these letters, very characteristic of both 
 correspondents, are on the subject of the abortive 
 Reform Bill of 1866. After replying to some 
 questions of Mr. Gladstone's relating to the figures 
 at the election, his Liverpool correspondent, writing 
 in January, diffidently expressed a hope that the 
 expected measure was not going to be, as was 
 rumoured, " a mere lowering of the franchise with-
 
 vi REFORM BILL OF 1866 207 
 
 out putting it on any broad and intelligible principle, 
 with no redistribution of seats and no disfranchise- 
 ment of corrupt places and people. If so," he 
 added, " in trying to avoid opposition, it may be a 
 Bill no one cares for, and may bring about defeat 
 and distrust." Unfortunately the words were a 
 faithful description of the scope of the Bill which 
 Mr. Gladstone had all ready to introduce a few 
 weeks later, and, as the event proved, they were 
 also an accurate forecast of its fate. It was a mere 
 measure for lowering the franchise : from ten 
 pounds to seven in boroughs, and from fifty to 
 fourteen in counties. It failed because it roused 
 no enthusiasm in the country, and in its failure it 
 brought down the Government. Mr. Gladstone's 
 indefatigable and tenacious mind seldom let a 
 criticism slip past unopposed even when it came 
 from a single obscure individual, and in this case 
 he knew his critic to be representative of and 
 influential among his constituents. His answer 
 came by return of post : 
 
 Now a word as to your P.S. It touches four questions 
 with respect to a Reform Bill, of which I need only 
 trouble you, however, on two : 
 
 1. Do you advisedly think that the disfranchisement 
 of corrupt places and people ought to form part of any 
 plan of Reform now to be introduced ? To me it would 
 seem a receipt for destroying any hope of either. 
 
 2. Redistribution of seats is a different matter. But
 
 208 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 what do you say to this point ? We have an Opposition of 
 say 290. Suppose Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman with 
 their tail to be only ten. That gives 300. Then suppose 
 we have only a Schedule B, taking one member from 
 each of the thirty boroughs. How do you suppose the 
 votes of the sixty representatives of those boroughs will 
 go ? What margin will remain for carrying a Bill ? Why 
 is a good enfranchisement to be condemned unless with 
 a good redistribution ? 
 
 To this William Rathbone replied : 
 
 Many thanks for your note and cordial expressions 
 respecting the party in South Lancashire. 
 
 I have some hesitation in venturing on any reply to 
 your questions. I feel that (like most men) I am liable 
 to be biassed in my judgment of public opinion by the 
 views of those with whom I most act and come in 
 contact. 
 
 Among those of whose opinions I can judge, the Bill 
 talked of would not be considered a good enfranchisement, 
 and while it would alarm some, would excite little en- 
 thusiasm with any. Many think that it would increase 
 corruption, none that it would settle anything. 
 
 I hear many advocate, as much safer, giving the franchise 
 on some broad principle, say of rating and direct taxation, 
 to all who by paying these for a certain time have afforded 
 a fair presumption that they are good citizens ; and it is 
 thought that statesmen could surely guard this from any 
 risk of its swamping the legitimate influence of middle 
 and upper classes by some adaptation of some of the many 
 means which have been suggested by those wishing for a 
 broad basis for representation, but not for a government 
 by mere numbers.
 
 vi REFORM BILL OF 1866 209 
 
 How far any plan hitherto suggested would take 
 generally I cannot say, but Englishmen generally in the 
 end come right, when sound and just views are placed 
 before them. 
 
 There is now felt great and general disgust at the 
 corruption of the last election ; great desire to have the 
 question of Reform settled safely and for some time, and 
 great unanimity as to the object to be aimed at, viz., safe 
 admission of the working classes to an honest representa- 
 tion. But people look to their statesmen to say how this 
 is to be accomplished, and I would submit whether it may 
 not be safer to risk defeat with a broad and complete 
 measure which would gain support by consideration, than 
 to risk failure in carrying a Bill which neither con- 
 stituencies nor House thoroughly approve. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's reply again dwelt on the 
 question whether it was essential to a good Bill 
 that enfranchisement and redistribution should go 
 together. This hardly met his correspondent's 
 point, which was that the Bill as proposed pleased 
 nobody neither the under-represented inhabitants 
 of large towns, nor the lovers of electoral purity, 
 nor the persons of logical minds who wanted a 
 franchise based on intelligible general principles, 
 nor those who were tired of agitation and wanted 
 finality of some sort. Several other letters passed, 
 neither disputant convincing the other. The 
 events of the session showed that the Liverpool 
 merchant's forecast of the course of average public 
 opinion had been sound, as indeed it often was, 
 
 p
 
 210 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and on the 8th June the Bill passed into the limbo 
 of abortive creations which, as its author reminded 
 the House in his opening speech introducing it, is 
 peopled with the skeletons of Reform Bills. 
 
 Towards the close of 1867 the health of 
 William Rathbone's father began seriously to fail, 
 and he became anxious that his eldest son should 
 Jive nearer to him. So the house at New Brighton 
 was given up, and the Rathbones moved into one 
 adjoining the family home at Greenbank. The 
 next year opened sadly for them. In January 
 they lost a child, a little boy of two years old. 
 On February i, William Rathbone's father died. 
 Later in the same month came the death of 
 Miss Agnes Jones, upon whose life so much 
 of William Rathbone's hopes for the success of 
 his experiment in Workhouse Nursing seemed 
 to depend. Very soon after his father's death, his 
 mother begged that he and his family would come 
 to live with her at Greenbank. He gladly con- 
 sented, and Greenbank became his home for the 
 rest of his life. His mother, who survived his father 
 till 1882, took the liveliest interest in her son's 
 social and political work. The domestic arrange- 
 ments made necessary by his life in Parliament 
 would have been found somewhat upsetting by 
 most old ladies of eighty, but she accepted them 
 with unperturbed cheerfulness. For six months 
 of the year she and her servants had the house to
 
 vi PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATURE 211 
 
 themselves. During the other six, her son's large 
 family of children filled every spare corner of it, 
 and she cheerfully gave up the reins to her 
 daughter-in-law. Some years before her death 
 at the age of ninety -two she had a paralytic 
 seizure, which was followed by gradual and at last 
 complete failure of mental and bodily powers. She 
 possessed one of those constitutions of almost 
 terrible tenacity, which seem as if they can only be 
 torn piecemeal from their grasp on life. 
 
 In the spring of 1868 Mr. T. D. Hornby again 
 approached William Rathbone as a deputy from the 
 local Liberals, this time to ask whether he would 
 agree to stand as one of the two Liberal candidates 
 for Liverpool. He had often discussed with his 
 brother, S. G. Rathbone, the possibility of one or 
 other of them at some time entering Parliament, and 
 of the two, he seemed at the time the better able to 
 be spared from the business of their firm. But the 
 growing interest of his work on the Select Vestry 
 and for the various branches of nursing had led 
 him to lay the idea aside. In addition to this 
 reason for hesitation, he had serious doubts as to 
 whether he was the right candidate for the seat 
 under the special circumstances of the case. 
 Liverpool was one of the four great provincial 
 towns to which the Reform Act of 1867 had given 
 a third representative, with the provision that each 
 elector should only vote for two. The object of
 
 2i2 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 this was to ensure that the party in the minority, 
 if their adherents numbered not less than a third 
 of the electorate, should be able to return one of 
 the three representatives. William Rathbone had 
 always been a strong believer in the principle of 
 minority representation, upon the ground that it 
 gave an opportunity of securing the services of some 
 eminent men who might be unfitted or unwilling 
 to undergo the turmoil of a contested election with 
 the possibility of defeat at the end of it. He had 
 now one such name in his mind, that of a rising 
 politician in whose future he had great con- 
 fidence, and he told Mr. Hornby that if the 
 Liberal party would adopt the candidate he named, 
 he would contribute towards his election expenses, 
 if necessary, as much as double the sum that he 
 would be expected to contribute towards his own 
 if he consented to stand. Mr. Hornby strongly 
 advised him not formally to make any such offer, 
 saying that though he knew him to be sincere, no 
 one else would believe it, and it would be thought 
 to be simply a case of nolo episcopari. He offered 
 to make private inquiries, and to let him know 
 if such an arrangement were possible. He soon 
 came back and reported that the leaders of the 
 party whom he had sounded would not hear of it. 
 They had already chosen as one of their candidates 
 Mr. Massey, 1 an expert in Indian affairs, but 
 
 1 The Right Hon. W. N. Massey (1809-1881).
 
 vi PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATURE 213 
 
 without previous connection with Liverpool, and 
 for their second candidate they were determined to 
 have a local man who understood the commercial 
 and other special interests of the town. William 
 Rathbone's friends urged that so far from sacri- 
 ficing his Liverpool interests, he would be in a 
 better position in Parliament than outside it to 
 work for the improvements in local administration 
 and taxation, in social conditions and in com- 
 mercial legislation, which he had so much at 
 heart. 
 
 In the hope that this might prove true, he 
 accepted the nomination, but he stipulated that 
 before beginning to prepare for his election, he 
 should be allowed time to set everything in train 
 for that of Mr. Gladstone, so as to hand over his 
 work as chairman in good order to his successor. 
 South Lancashire had now been divided into two 
 constituencies, and it was a much-disputed question 
 among the wire-pullers of the party for which of 
 the two Mr. Gladstone ought to stand. As his 
 native town, Liverpool, was in South- West Lan- 
 cashire, that seemed his natural seat. But feeling 
 against the disestablishment of the Irish Church 
 the main question before the electorate was known 
 to be very strong among certain sections there, 
 and the South-Eastern Division was believed to be 
 a much safer seat. William Rathbone threw 
 himself hotly into the discussion, and, as usual,
 
 214 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 he was in favour of the bolder course. For Mr. 
 Gladstone to desert what was regarded as the post 
 of danger would, he felt, be argued to show a want 
 of confidence in the verdict of the constituencies 
 on his cause, and would have a depressing effect 
 on the elections all over the country. If he stayed 
 in South-West Lancashire it would be easy to 
 arrange to take the poll so late, that while the 
 party reaped all the benefit of his bold decision 
 and of the enthusiasm which his electoral campaign 
 was sure to evoke, his defeat if it came would 
 come too late to influence the other elections. He 
 was deputed by the party in Liverpool, who were 
 of course all anxious to keep Mr. Gladstone, to go 
 up to London to lay their case before Mr. Brand, 
 who was then, in the temporary absence of Mr. 
 Glyn, fulfilling the duties of the senior Liberal 
 Whip. Mr. Brand, afterwards Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, was a man of bold and sound 
 judgment in such matters. He saw the force of 
 the argument at once, and promised that Mr. 
 Gladstone should stand for the South -Western 
 Division of the county. 
 
 Having gained his point, and handed over 
 his work as chairman of Mr. Gladstone's Com- 
 mittee to his successor, he was able to go abroad 
 for his summer holiday. Already, on June 26, 
 one great meeting had been held in the Amphi- 
 theatre in Liverpool in support of his own candi-
 
 2I 5 
 
 dature and that of Mr. Massey, and they had 
 agreed with their opponents that all further 
 meetings and canvassing should be postponed till 
 the autumn. In October the work of the election 
 began in earnest, both in the county and the 
 borough. Mr. Gladstone's eloquence, with the 
 great and congenial subject of the Irish Church 
 for its theme, was at its best, and his campaign 
 was a sort of triumphal progress, marked by 
 scenes of the wildest enthusiasm. Until the last, 
 victory was generally expected ; but the newly 
 found strength of Conservatism in Lancashire (one 
 of the most curious discoveries of the Reform 
 Act) was too much for him, and he was defeated 
 by almost three hundred votes. In the South- 
 Eastern Division, which had been pressed on him 
 as a perfectly safe seat, the repulse of the Liberals 
 was even more decisive, and all the eight seats for 
 the county were filled by Tories. In the country 
 at large the verdict went the other way, the 
 Liberals being largely in the majority. After it 
 was all over, William Rathbone was assured, on 
 what he believed to be good authority, that in no 
 less than eight constituencies the Liberal agents 
 had waited to see if Mr. Gladstone would risk 
 a fight in South-West Lancashire before deciding, 
 to run a candidate. Emboldened by his decision, 
 they all fought, and in most cases carried their 
 man.
 
 216 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 The glories of the contest in the surrounding 
 county, with Mr. Gladstone as one of the candi- 
 dates, of course threw the borough election com- 
 paratively into the shade. Still, at the worst, a 
 Liverpool election of those days was a more 
 exciting affair than it has ever been since the 
 Redistribution Act of 1885. Party enthusiasm 
 and party oratory instead of being parcelled out, 
 as now, among nine different divisions, of which 
 no one, when the contest is over, remembers the 
 boundaries or the names, were concentrated upon 
 the one contest for the representation of the city 
 of Liverpool, and the three successful candidates 
 could boast that they represented a larger number 
 of constituents than any other members of the 
 House of Commons. Fortunately in those days 
 the town contained, what it contains no longer, at 
 least one hall capable of holding a really great 
 audience. The building known as Hengler's 
 Circus, on the site now occupied by the Hippo- 
 drome, was ugly and inconvenient in many ways, 
 but it could seat several thousand people, and we 
 know from Mr. Morley that Mr. Gladstone " always 
 described it as the place most agreeable to the 
 speaker of all those with which he was acquainted." l 
 It was here that the principal meetings of an elec- 
 tion were usually held, and either here or at one 
 of the other large halls the Amphitheatre or the 
 
 1 Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. p. 521.
 
 vi PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATURE 217 
 
 Theatre Royal it became the custom, during 
 William Rathbone's eleven years' tenure of the seat, 
 to hold a great annual meeting, usually in Novem- 
 ber, in order that he might render to his consti- 
 tuents what he was fond of calling an account of 
 his stewardship. These meetings were a revival 
 of an old Liberal practice which had fallen some- 
 what into disuse. In the life of the Liberal party 
 in Liverpool to-day there is nothing which quite 
 corresponds to them, and nothing, perhaps we may 
 add, which fulfils the same function of visibly 
 embodying the idea of representative government 
 by a democracy. The hall, if we may trust the 
 newspaper reports of the times, was, as a rule, 
 crowded from floor to ceiling long before the 
 proceedings began, by an audience composed mainly 
 of working men. These had not been drawn 
 together by the hope of hearing two or three well- 
 known statesmen speak upon some burning ques- 
 tion of the hour ; nor were they summoned only 
 on the eve of an election, to begin a cursory 
 acquaintance with a gentleman from the South 
 who intended shortly to solicit their votes. They 
 had come prepared to listen for some two hours to 
 one who, as he frequently said of himself, was no 
 orator, but who was able to set before them with- 
 out technicalities, in plain English which they could 
 follow, an account of the principal political events 
 of the past year, described of course, on the whole,
 
 218 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 from the point of view of his and their political 
 party, but yet, when a Conservative Government 
 was in power, with generous acknowledgments of 
 everything he thought good in the legislation which 
 his opponents had promoted, and always with special 
 reference to the bearing of current events on the 
 interests and problems of Liverpool. Although he 
 claimed great freedom of political action in Parlia- 
 ment, William Rathbone never allowed his consti- 
 tuents to forget that they were responsible for 
 sending him there ; and in addressing them at 
 these annual gatherings he took it quietly for 
 granted that they had come not for an evening's 
 amusement, nor even mainly as a demonstra- 
 tion of their political strength, but in order that they 
 might learn the facts and form a sound judgment 
 as to the merits of disputed political questions, and 
 might determine their suffrages at a future election 
 accordingly. The proceedings had thus something 
 of the air of a business meeting of shareholders, 
 called together by their Directors to hear how their 
 interests had been managed during the year. There 
 was, however, nothing of the coldness and formal 
 correctness of the business meeting about them. 
 To judge by the newspaper accounts, which are 
 confirmed in this particular by the reports of some 
 who remember the meetings of those days, the 
 reception which William Rathbone met with at 
 them was as a rule more than cordial, vociferously
 
 vi PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATURE 219 
 
 enthusiastic. Most of the audiences had known 
 him by name, and probably by sight, for most of 
 his and their lives. With generous facility they 
 transferred to him, who began his parliamentary 
 life a few months after his father's death, some of 
 the affection and confidence which they had felt 
 for the noble-looking, white-haired man who had 
 been a prominent Liberal in Liverpool since 
 Roscoe's election of 1806. He himself was a 
 Liverpool man in almost every sense in which it is 
 possible for a man to belong to a city born a 
 freeman within the city bounds, educated there, 
 apprenticed there, representing as a merchant and 
 a shipowner her two principal industries. He 
 had, too, a qualification in himself which always 
 seems to make special appeal to the working men 
 of the great Lancashire cities, a qualification which 
 may perhaps be best described as a union of 
 detailed knowledge and shrewd judgment as to 
 the present facts of commercial and national life, 
 with an idealistic faith in their future possibili- 
 ties. He was thus able in the most literal sense 
 of the word to represent Liverpool in the House 
 of Commons. 
 
 At the meetings of his first election the interest 
 was not, of course, of the same educational and 
 personal kind as at these later annual account- 
 renderings. They were of the ordinary type of 
 election meetings. The Reform Act of 1866 and
 
 220 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the proposed disestablishment of the Irish Church 
 were the two great questions of the day, and to 
 these topics, upon which he held the views common 
 to his party, much of his speeches was necessarily 
 devoted. But even at these meetings he gave great 
 prominence to the questions about which he knew 
 and cared the most : the incidence of local taxation, 
 the administration of the Poor Law and of other 
 branches of local government, the defects of the 
 bankruptcy laws, and of the laws regulating the 
 transfer of land. He did not hesitate to devote 
 a whole speech at a large meeting to a subject 
 offering as little scope for the lighter graces of 
 electioneering oratory as local rating. These 
 subjects were intensely interesting to him, because 
 his work as a man of business and a citizen had 
 brought home to him how great was their bearing 
 on the prosperity, happiness, and moral good of 
 the people ; and he took it for granted, as was his 
 way all through life, that if he could put the facts 
 important to social well-being before his audience 
 so that they realised their importance, they would 
 become as interested as he was himself. 
 
 Whether in this case his expectation was justified 
 by the event it is hard to say. His meetings were 
 crowded and enthusiastic, but it was a time of great 
 political excitement, and there were of course other 
 speakers. If his audience listened attentively, they 
 must have received some valuable help in forming
 
 221 
 
 an opinion worth the name upon some of the 
 questions which come most closely within the aver- 
 age man's experience. But from the report of 
 those who heard his speeches, it seems probable 
 that they were less effective in delivery than many 
 delivered at the same time by other speakers which 
 make far duller reading. They are full of matter, 
 better expressed and arranged than in later years 
 he ever gave himself time to make the wording 
 of his speeches, and are seasoned by anecdotes 
 and jests so good that it seems probable they were 
 supplied him by S. G. Rathbone, who, if he did 
 not surpass his elder brother in his enjoyment of 
 jokes, was incomparably better at making them. 
 But he was at this time in the habit of giving to 
 his speeches almost too careful preparation, and 
 of subjecting the matter of them to the criticisms 
 of his brother, or some other of his special friends 
 and advisers, who pruned and pared them down 
 into conformity with the somewhat restrained type 
 of Whiggism then prevalent among the official 
 Liberals of the city. Of course he would not have 
 submitted to their criticisms for a moment if he 
 had not been thoroughly convinced that they were 
 saving him from many blunders of over-hasty 
 judgment and over-strong expression. Perhaps 
 they were ; for it was natural to him to think 
 and feel strongly about the subjects for which he 
 cared at all ; but the process was scarcely favour-
 
 222 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 able to the chances of effective oratory. So 
 far as I have been able to judge, the popular 
 estimate of his speaking at this period was fairly 
 summed up by a hard-headed and blunt-spoken 
 man of business, living in a town at some consider- 
 able distance from Liverpool, who, talking of 
 William Rathbone to one of his family soon after 
 his death, said : " I never lost a chance of coming 
 into Liverpool to hear him speak, if I could help 
 it. He was a poor speaker, but he always had 
 something to say that was worth listening to." 
 
 Another of his auditors at these early election 
 meetings testifies that on one occasion at least the 
 earnestness and fire of his delivery carried him 
 in a single sentence to a high level of eloquence. 
 It was when he said : " Much as I value the honour 
 of becoming your representative in Parliament, I 
 would rather be left at the bottom of the poll than 
 believe that a single man, the humblest of my 
 fellow- townsmen, should trace his loss of self- 
 respect and the respect of his fellows to corrupt 
 means used to promote my return to Parliament." 
 
 Polling day was on November 17. The 
 Liberals all over the country were sweeping steadily 
 to victory, and the hopes of the party in Liverpool 
 ran high. But the town, like the county, remained, 
 as it has done almost without a break ever since, 
 obstinately Conservative. Lord Sandon and Mr. 
 S. R. Graves headed the poll. Mr. Massey was
 
 vi PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATURE 223 
 
 at the foot. William Rathbone, with nine hundred 
 votes less than Lord Sandon, became the minority 
 member, and thus entered into possession of a 
 perfectly safe seat, which he continued to occupy 
 for eleven years.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE WORK OF A PRIVATE MEMBER 1869 TO l88o 
 
 " Of all secular affairs, politics, rightly considered, are amongst the 
 most unworldly, inasmuch as the man who is devoted to political 
 life ought to be seeking no personal or private good." 
 
 DR. DALE OF BIRMINGHAM. 
 
 IT must be an easy matter for a biographer to 
 make the parliamentary career of a great party 
 leader interesting, even to readers who care little 
 for the causes and questions at which he chiefly 
 worked. If a measure has been great enough to 
 be made the subject of full-dress debates, to decide 
 the course of elections and the fate of governments, 
 the history of its passage or the failure to pass it 
 into law is sure to have a dramatic interest of its 
 own, however dry and technical its subject may be, 
 and however well known its fate. 
 
 The parliamentary work which is to be the 
 subject of this chapter was not of this order, and 
 the task of describing it at length enough to be 
 intelligible without being excessively tedious is a 
 more difficult one. Yet it must be attempted, if 
 
 224
 
 CH.VII A PRIVATE MEMBER'S FUNCTION 225 
 
 only because the work filled such a large place not 
 merely in William Rathbone's life, but also, if one 
 may use the expression, in his affections. Perhaps, 
 too, the very fact that attention is usually concen- 
 trated upon the great contentious questions makes 
 it worth while to recall the kind of opportunities 
 of usefulness which are, or then were, still open to 
 a private member who rarely took part in full- 
 dress debates and was not an aspirant for office. 
 
 In the account of his stewardship which he gave 
 to his constituents in the November following his 
 first session a session of which the Irish Church 
 Bill had almost wholly absorbed the time and 
 public interest William Rathbone made it a boast 
 that though he had taken part in every division on 
 the Bill, he had never once opened his mouth in 
 the debates upon it except to say Aye or No. The 
 principal claims which he put forward to the con- 
 tinued suffrages of his constituents were that he 
 had procured certain amendments to the Bank- 
 ruptcy Bill, had persuaded the Minister in charge 
 of the Bill restoring the power of compounding 
 for rates to allow Liverpool a special claim securing 
 to it the benefit of the Act, 1 and had called the 
 attention of the House by a resolution to the 
 unfair incidence of local taxation. This was very 
 characteristic of his theory of his own functions in 
 the House, a theory which he was sometimes obliged 
 
 1 He afterwards saw reason to regret the restoration of this power.
 
 226 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 to defend to constituents who would have liked 
 their member to make himself more conspicuous. 
 
 I know that many think that the only work of 
 Members of Parliament is to ask questions, make speeches, 
 and take part in divisions. But a far more laborious and 
 very important part of their work consists in carefully 
 collecting information to enable them to legislate wisely 
 and well, and in preparing bills and amendments in such 
 a form that they shall carry out effectively and well the 
 intentions with which they are proposed. 1 
 
 My constituents often ask me to ask questions in the 
 House of Commons, and perhaps I may be found fault 
 with for not doing so. Well, the reason is that I go 
 straight to the responsible Minister or head of a Depart- 
 ment. I show him the complaint and ask, "Can you 
 rectify this ? " Thus, you see, I go direct to head- 
 quarters. I try to get the complaint remedied quietly 
 and with expedition, and not to take up unnecessarily the 
 time of the House and to advertise myself. 2 
 
 From his first entry into the House his instincts 
 as a man of business and as a lover of thorough 
 work were outraged by the ineffective and slovenly 
 character of much of the legislation. Apart from 
 the few great measures which absorbed most of its 
 best statesmanship, Parliament seemed to perform 
 badly its work of making laws, and to perform it 
 under conditions which made efficiency almost im- 
 possible. A Bill would be introduced without 
 either the member responsible for it or the lawyer 
 
 1 Speech to his constituents. 2 Ibid,
 
 vii PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE 227 
 
 who drafted it having taken the trouble to consider 
 sufficiently how it would affect or be affected by 
 previous Acts. Amendments proposed by mem- 
 bers who knew nothing of the subject, and hastily 
 adopted to facilitate its progress, not unfrequently 
 nullified or distorted its whole intention. Its hope 
 of passing depended less on its merits than on 
 mere chance, or on its framer's success in conciliat- 
 ing opposition by concessions which not seldom 
 made it futile for its purpose. Much of the evil 
 arose, he believed, from the custom of referring all 
 Bills to a Committee of the whole House, even 
 when they had already passed through a select 
 committee supposed to consist of those members 
 who knew most about the subject. The attend- 
 ance during this stage usually consisted of some 
 thirty to fifty of the members specially interested 
 in the matter, but their work was liable to be 
 interrupted by others who, coming casually into 
 the House and thinking they understood the 
 point at issue, proposed amendments which made 
 nonsense of the Bill. 1 A further source of con- 
 
 1 See Mr. Morley's account of the passage of the Home Rule Bill 
 of 1893 : 
 
 " It was Mr. Gladstone's performances in the days of committee on the 
 Bill that stirred the wonder and admiration of the House. . . . When the 
 Bill came on he would put on his glasses, pick up the paper of amendments, 
 and running through them like lightning, would say, ' Of course, that's 
 absurd that will never do we can never accept that is there any harm in 
 this ? ' Too many concessions made on the spur of the moment to the 
 Unionists stirred resentment in the Nationalists, and once or twice they 
 exploded. These rapid splendours of his had their perils. I pointed out to
 
 228 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 fusion lay in the mass of undigested Acts relating 
 to the same subject. As each fresh Act usually 
 only repealed or amended portions of previous 
 Acts, the statute Jaw upon most subjects could 
 only be understood by reading all the Acts in con- 
 junction. Again, the Jaw relating to one subject 
 was frequently amended by Acts relating to other 
 subjects. Thus, to take an instance, of which he 
 once reminded the House, any one desiring to 
 master the law relating to the property of married 
 women could not do so unless he knew that Mr. 
 Russell Gurney's celebrated Act of 1869 had been 
 amended by the Metropolitan Board of Works 
 Act of 1871. All this rendered the law utterly 
 unintelligible except to lawyers, and sometimes 
 unintelligible even to them. Yet it had to be 
 amended by a Parliament of whom the majority 
 had no knowledge of legal matters, to be admin- 
 istered by an untrained magistracy, and to be obeyed 
 by the citizens at large. 
 
 him the pretty obvious drawbacks of settling delicate questions as we went 
 along with no chance of sounding the Irishmen, and asked him to spare me 
 a quarter of an hour before luncheon, when the draftsmen and I, having 
 threshed out the amendments of the day, could put the bare points for his 
 consideration. He was horrified at the very thought. ' Out of the question. 
 Do you want to kill me ? I must have the whole of the morning for 
 general Government purposes. Don't ask me.' " Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. 
 
 P- 489- 
 
 If this is the way things are done when the repeal of the Union is in 
 question, how much chance is there of thorough discussion of the details of 
 Bankruptcy Bills, Merchant Shipping Bills, and the like? Yet on them 
 great interests, the safety of large classes, may depend.
 
 vii PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE 229 
 
 It is not necessary to explain in much detail the 
 remedies which William Rathbone would have 
 liked to see applied to these defects. He sat on 
 committees on the business (i.e. the procedure) of 
 the House of Commons in 1 8 7 1 , and again in 1878, 
 and his views were partly the outcome of the 
 evidence brought before these committees, and 
 partly the outcome of his own observation and 
 experience ; substantially, they were in accordance 
 with those of perhaps the greatest authority on 
 parliamentary procedure, Sir Erskine May. In 
 the debates leading to little or no result which 
 periodically took place in the House of Commons 
 upon the question of its procedure, William Rathbone 
 usually took some part, and he from time to time 
 endeavoured to interest his constituents in the 
 question. In 1881, when the difficulties of getting 
 any legislation at all through the teeth of obstruc- 
 tion were beginning to seem insurmountable, he 
 published an article on the reform of parliamentary 
 business in the Fortnightly Review. Apart from 
 the importance of the question, his views have a 
 biographic interest from the light they throw on 
 the methods of his own parliamentary activity, 
 and they may be briefly summarised. 
 
 In the whole business of legislation there should, 
 he thought, be much freer use of expert legal 
 advice. Much more ample provision should be 
 made for the consolidation of Acts. The staff of
 
 230 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the drafting department of the Government should 
 be greatly strengthened in numbers and in position, 
 and it should be within its province to advise 
 members as to the effect of amendments and 
 to revise Bills after they had been amended. In 
 order to enable Parliament to cope with the steadily 
 increasing mass of its work, the work now badly 
 done by committees on private Bills should be 
 transferred to expert commissioners. Instead of 
 carrying all Bills through committee of the whole 
 House, extensive use should be made of grand 
 committees, and Bills which had been through a 
 grand committee or through a select committee 
 should not, except when the House specially 
 ordered it, pass through a committee of the whole 
 House. Unless these reforms, or something like 
 them, were accomplished, he believed that the 
 House would decline that it had already begun 
 to decline in efficiency and in credit. At the very 
 beginning of his parliamentary life he resolved 
 that, pending any great change, he at least as an 
 individual member would do nothing to increase 
 the confusion of the laws. 
 
 Wishing during his first session to introduce 
 certain amendments to the Bankruptcy Bill in the 
 direction of greater stringency, he asked the 
 Attorney - General, then Sir Robert Collier, to 
 recommend to him a young barrister of ability 
 with sufficient time on his hands to give him advice.
 
 vii THE BANKRUPTCY ACT 231 
 
 Sir Robert Collier named Mr. Robert S. Wright l 
 as the most brilliant young lawyer that Oxford had 
 turned out for some years. 
 
 The Chambers of Commerce in all the principal 
 towns had sent delegates to confer upon the pro- 
 visions of the Bill. Mr. Wright was able to advise 
 them how the alterations they desired could best 
 be carried into law. The Government could not 
 be persuaded to accept the amendment which 
 William Rathbone, backed by the Liverpool 
 Chamber of Commerce, wished to introduce, viz. 
 one which should make the Bill " clearly enunciate 
 the broad, sound English principle that a man who 
 has failed should be bound in law, as he un- 
 doubtedly is bound in honour, to pay his debts as 
 soon as he is able to do so." The proposal that 
 the law should give the bankrupt, not final legal 
 discharge, but protection to the extent that is 
 necessary for the maintenance of his family, and to 
 afford him encouragement for future exertion, had 
 to be withdrawn ; but a modified amendment was 
 accepted forbidding discharge for debts fraudu- 
 lently incurred. 
 
 About another point in the Bill he wrote : 
 
 At the request of the different Chambers of Com- 
 merce, I had remonstrated with Sir Robert Collier on the 
 provision of the Bill which discharged and compensated 
 
 1 Afterwards Sir R. S. Wright, a judge of the High Court of Justice, 
 died 1904.
 
 232 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 almost all the then holders of offices under the Bankruptcy 
 Laws. He admitted that the expense was large and 
 most undesirable, but he said that a large part of 
 the failure of the previous Bill had been from the in- 
 competency and gross mismanagement of those appointed, 
 and that it was hopeless to expect a new Bill to work 
 through such hands. I reported his statement, and it was 
 at once assented to by the delegates. While the Bill 
 was going through I obtained curious evidence of the 
 
 truth of the accusations against Lord L and Lord 
 
 B , and the awful jobs they had jointly or severally 
 
 perpetrated in the appointment of the officers in Bank- 
 ruptcy. From each town came reports of the most 
 tremendous scandals. In one of our largest commercial 
 towns the Judge was stated to have been appointed because 
 he married a certain statesman's mistress, and he was 
 known to be under heavy pecuniary debt to one of the 
 most disreputable attorneys of the town, who had in 
 consequence much practice in the Bankruptcy Court. 
 In a large manufacturing town a witness reported 
 that he had served, I think, twelve summonses on 
 the Judge, who was said to be in debt to almost every 
 officer of his court. In two others, a registrar or officer 
 in charge of the funds had embezzled them and dis- 
 appeared, and there was hardly any important town of 
 which some scandal was not reported. Of course we 
 could not but assent to the removal of a staff containing 
 so many black sheep. 
 
 Finding Mr. Wright's assistance invaluable, 
 William Rathbone asked him to accept a kind of 
 general retainer to draw for him any Bills or 
 amendments which he might wish to introduce,
 
 vii A PRIVATE MEMBER'S FUNCTION 233 
 
 and to advise him as to the Jegal bearing of measures 
 before the House in which he was specially in- 
 terested. This arrangement lasted for several 
 years, until Mr. Wright's growing and brilliant 
 success in his profession obliged him to discontinue 
 it. During these years he drew for William 
 Rathbone a number of Bills on such subjects as 
 local government, registration, the discouragement 
 of vexatious objections to voters, the institution of 
 public prosecutors, the reform of the law of con- 
 spiracy as applied to masters and servants, the 
 remuneration of attorneys and solicitors, etc. 
 
 The practical monopoly by the Executive Gov- 
 ernment of the right of initiating legislation had not 
 gone so far in the seventies as it has been carried 
 since, and a private member's Bill, if it dealt with 
 a fairly non-contentious subject, had a more than 
 negligeable chance of passing into law. Neverthe- 
 less, I do not think that any of the above Bills, 
 except the Attorneys and Solicitors Remuneration 
 Act, reached their fulfilment while still in the 
 hands of William Rathbone and their original pro- 
 moters. They were not on that account fruitless. 
 Being skilfully drafted and based on information 
 which no labour nor expense had been spared to 
 make as accurate and exhaustive as possible, they 
 were in nearly all the instances I have named made 
 the basis, sometimes with little or no alteration, of 
 Bills introduced by the Government.
 
 234 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 The first instance of this occurred in 1869. 
 The question of the legal position of Trades 
 Unions was then being hotly agitated in and out 
 of Parliament, and the Government under pressure 
 had at length promised to bring in a Bill the 
 following session. In the meantime the funds of 
 Trades Unions were left without any effective 
 legal protection, for although a recent Act had 
 made it possible for them to prosecute criminally 
 officials who embezzled their funds, a right of 
 which a previous judicial decision had deprived 
 them, they were still unable to recover the money 
 or to take any action at civil law. William Rath- 
 bone asked for an interview with the Home 
 Secretary, Mr. Bruce, and urged him to remove 
 this palpable injustice, which was causing very 
 bitter feeling, by putting through an ad interim 
 measure at once. He was told that the Govern- 
 ment was quite willing, but that so late in the session 
 it was impossible to get a Bill prepared in time. 
 He promptly pulled from his pocket a Bill ready 
 drafted by Mr. R. S. Wright after consultation 
 with Mr. Henry Crompton and other leaders of 
 the Trades Unionists. It was accepted just as it 
 stood, and hurriedly passed into law, in spite of 
 bitter opposition in the House of Lords. 
 
 But it was in his own special subject of local 
 government and local taxation that he did most 
 with Mr. Wright's help to influence legislation.
 
 vn LOCAL GOVERNMENT 235 
 
 The hope of doing something to promote reforms 
 in these matters had been one of the principal 
 inducements to him to enter Parliament, and he 
 looked upon the realisation of this hope as his chief 
 political task. The degree of his success is very 
 difficult to measure. He never expected or 
 attempted to carry a Bill of his own, for a Bill for 
 the general reorganisation of local government 
 would have been too important a measure to be 
 carried through by a private member. But neither 
 did he ever have the satisfaction of seeing a Bill 
 carried through by the Government of the thorough, 
 comprehensive, and simple character that he and 
 his friends desired. For nineteen years after he 
 moved his first resolution in his first session urging 
 the need for a radical reconstruction of the system 
 of local government and local taxation, no large 
 measure of reform at all was carried, and when the 
 Acts of 1888 and 1894 at last brought about a 
 reconstruction, it was upon rather different lines, 
 and introduced a more complicated machinery than 
 he had advocated. Still, it seems to be held by 
 those most competent to judge, that his quiet, 
 persistent advocacy did do much to prevent the 
 question from slipping altogether into the back- 
 ground, and that without the exposure of defects, 
 the collection and arrangement of information, the 
 drafting of schemes of reform, and all the other 
 preliminary tilling of the ground which he and the
 
 236 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 friends and fellow-members who worked with him 
 effected, the constructive legislation of later years 
 would hardly have been possible. Mr. James Bryce, 
 in some notes upon his old friend's parliamentary 
 work, with which he has been good enough to 
 furnish me, says that " the reconstruction of our 
 Local Government which was effected by the Acts 
 of 1888 and 1893 was largely due to his efforts." 
 The specific proposals brought forward upon a 
 question so intricate and technical as local govern- 
 ment and taxation need not be described in detail 
 here, but the main notions which underlay and 
 prompted all his work upon the subject are simple 
 enough. As was natural to him, his interest sprang 
 from a practical conviction born of experience and 
 observation, that certain changes were necessary to 
 the well-being of the people, rather than, in the 
 first instance, from an intellectual adherence to any 
 economic theory of taxation or political theory of 
 government. Thus, in giving an address upon 
 the subject to the Richmond Hall Liberal Club in 
 1872, he said : 
 
 It was indeed the incidence of local taxation on local 
 administration which first led me to take an interest in 
 local taxation. I found much unnecessary waste of life 
 and health, and deterioration of character, in our crowded 
 courts and streets. I found that the attempts of our 
 Vestry and others to remedy these evils were made more 
 difficult from the want of uniformity of administration in
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 237 
 
 the country. I found that this want of uniformity threw 
 on those who attempted to do their work efficiently the 
 duties of those who did not, and on classes not the most 
 wealthy and able to bear it, a burden which ought to be 
 shared by all. I became thoroughly satisfied that by a 
 better system, and by bringing home to all classes their 
 responsibilities and their duties, the waste of health, life, 
 and virtue might be diminished, the pressure be made less 
 unequal, and its total amount ultimately diminished, and 
 that we should thereby be able to secure better value for 
 our expenditure. Indeed in accepting the honourable but 
 deeply responsible position of your representative, it was 
 one of my most earnest wishes that I might be able in 
 some degree to forward this work. 
 
 He started from the obvious point of the unfair 
 distribution of the burden of the rates among 
 different classes : 
 
 The defect which has contributed most to draw public 
 attention to the incidence of local taxation, and especially 
 to its rapid increase, is, of course, its unequal pressure 
 unequal whether considered in relation to ability to pay, 
 or to benefits derived from the expenditure provided 
 for by such taxation. Personal property which does not 
 pay rates has enormously increased, and its wealthiest 
 possessors, manufacturers, merchants, etc., who have in 
 many cases caused and profited by the aggregation of 
 labourers, which has made the expenditure necessary, do 
 not pay their fair share of local taxation. As I stated in 
 the House of Commons, whereas many wealthy merchants, 
 shipowners, or brokers, are paying in local rates and taxes 
 only i \ per cent, and as far as I have been able to learn
 
 238 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 few pay as much as 2 per cent ; the labouring man 
 in their employ is paying 3! per cent ; the young doctor 
 or other professional man i\ per cent ; and the retail 
 tradesman 5 to 12 per cent or even more, of their 
 respective incomes. This mode of taxation falls very 
 heavily on professional men, small shopkeepers, and also 
 on the classes just one remove from pauperism : classes 
 whose rent is a very heavy item in their out-goings. 
 Unfortunately also rates increase most rapidly in those 
 periods of distress which at the same time cause a serious 
 reduction in the income of these classes. 
 
 Some years before entering Parliament he had 
 collected figures in Liverpool on which this 
 calculation of the proportion paid by the several 
 classes was based. He was fond of citing from 
 these the cases of a merchant and shipowner, 
 deriving an income of ^15,000 from a capital of 
 150,000, who paid 62 in rates on the^noo 
 rent of his counting-house and warehouses, and ^65 
 on his suburban residence assessed at 450 a year, 
 i.e. less than i per cent ; of a young doctor, who 
 from a fluctuating income of about 600 paid ^ 14 
 on a 60 house, or 2 per cent ; of a labourer 
 earning 245. a week and living in a cottage at 45. 
 a week, who paid 2 : 8 : 9, or 4 per cent ; and of 
 a tradesman with income of under 1000, whose 
 total assessment on his place of business and 
 residence was ^550 ; the total local taxes (tenant's 
 share) 120, or 12 per cent on his income. 
 
 The evil of this state of things was not in his
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 239 
 
 eyes merely its direct injustice measured in money, 
 serious though this was. It was open to another 
 objection, which would remain valid even if it 
 could be shown that the total proportion con- 
 tributed to public funds by the several classes was 
 equalised in other ways. 
 
 None were better fitted by training and experi- 
 ence to secure the efficient and economical 
 administration of local affairs than merchants and 
 manufacturers ; yet feeling the direct pressure of 
 local taxation so little, they took small interest in 
 its fluctuations or excess, and as a class held 
 themselves very much aloof from the duties of 
 local government. Thus he noted that he was the 
 only merchant on the Select Vestry of the parish of 
 Liverpool, of which the poor rate sometimes rose 
 to ^180,000. Of the other twenty- five members, 
 one was a manufacturer and nine were owners of 
 cottage property, who, under the compounding 
 clause, themselves paid the rates. In the adjoining 
 parish of Toxteth, out of eighteen guardians, no 
 less than eight were cottage owners. Such a 
 withdrawal of a whole class, and that one of the 
 most efficient classes of the community, from the 
 personal performance of their duties as citizens was 
 a grave peril, as the example of the United States 
 proved then, and has continued to illustrate ever 
 since. Of course, the withdrawal was not 
 wholly the result of the unequal incidence ot
 
 240 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 taxation, nor was it the sole cause of inefficient 
 administration. The machinery of local govern- 
 ment was radically defective. Until it was 
 reconstructed it would be almost impossible to do 
 the work properly, and the best class of men would 
 never be persuaded in any large number to attempt 
 the task. In his speeches to his constituents and 
 to the House of Commons, he frequently drew 
 attention, as other public men had done, to some 
 of the worst confusions and anomalies of the 
 existing state of things. One or two quotations 
 will give the gist of the matter : 
 
 Legislation for local affairs has proceeded piecemeal. 
 Instead of establishing one primary area, with one con- 
 solidated authority for all purposes of local administration 
 and taxation, we have, whenever any new work had to be 
 done, created a new special district, and a new taxing and 
 spending authority. The result has been the creation, in 
 the same area, of a number of taxing and spending bodies, 
 each having its expensive array of collectors, officers, and 
 machinery. The interest of the ratepayer is frittered 
 away by multiplied elections. Their vigilance is rendered 
 impossible by the number of spending authorities who 
 have to be watched ; and the danger of wasteful ex- 
 penditure and mismanagement is consequently greatly 
 increased. 
 
 He was accustomed to illustrate this by a 
 variety of instances, taken from different parts of 
 the country. Perhaps the most striking of these 
 was one which he quoted from a paper read by
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 241 
 
 Mr. Hagger, Clerk to the Liverpool Select 
 Vestry, before the Poor Law Conference of 1877. 
 Speaking of the confusion of areas and rates in 
 Liverpool, Mr. Hagger said : 
 
 By Liverpool I mean the continuous succession of 
 buildings constituting what would be properly called the 
 town. It comprises or extends into three Poor Law areas 
 the parish of Liverpool, the West Derby Union, and 
 the extra-parochial township of Toxteth Park. 
 
 When the county was divided into unions, the parish 
 of Liverpool, which was then conterminous with the 
 municipal borough of Liverpool, was formed into a 
 separate Poor Law district as a single parish, and twenty- 
 three of the surrounding townships were formed into 
 the West Derby Union. Subsequently, the municipal 
 borough was extended, so as to include two of the 
 adjacent townships and portions of two others. Then 
 the township of Toxteth Park was separated from the 
 West Derby Union, and formed into a distinct Poor Law 
 area, under a separate board of guardians. There have 
 been also formed within the same area eleven local board 
 districts and a second municipal borough, that of Bootle. 
 Thus there are within this area which is practically that 
 of the West Derby Union- two municipal councils, three 
 boards of guardians, eleven local boards of health, twenty- 
 four bodies of overseers ; and there are, besides, five burial 
 boards, two school boards, and one highway board, making 
 a total of forty-eight local authorities acting in complete 
 independence of each other ; the complication being 
 increased by the fact that a single board exercises its 
 different functions over different areas. Thus the West 
 Derby Board of Guardians have control over the whole
 
 242 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 twenty-two townships in the union for Poor Law purposes, 
 whilst they are the rural sanitary authority in only ten of 
 them, and the educational authority in eighteen-and-a- 
 half. 
 
 Mr. Goschen, in a speech made in December 
 1 8 8 1 , gave an even more curious example of the 
 confusion of areas and rates. His property in 
 Sussex, with an aggregate valuation of about 
 ^iioo, was situated, he said, in two counties, in 
 four parishes, in three highway districts, and in 
 five ecclesiastical divisions. The complex whole 
 was so entirely an enigma to him, and the method 
 of administration was so difficult to trace, that he 
 had never interested himself in it to the extent of 
 giving a single local vote. He had not, however, 
 been equally successful in ridding himself of his 
 financial responsibilities for the place, for in one 
 year he had received no less than eighty-seven 
 demand notes, one of his four parishes sending him 
 eight rate papers for a sum of I2s. 4d. in all. 
 
 Over an expenditure so broken up, and incurred 
 under so divided a responsibility, it was impossible 
 for the ratepayer to exercise any effective vigilance. 
 Its growth, which could only be checked locally, 
 was not locally known, and could scarcely have 
 been controlled even if it had been known. The 
 electors were confused and irritated by the num- 
 ber of elections, and took no intelligent interest 
 in any. Capable men did not care to serve on
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 243 
 
 bodies so numerous and petty, and the supply of 
 capacity was not large enough to go round. The 
 result was a real impoverishment of the national 
 life. Men who, if the work of local government 
 had been made sufficiently honourable and attrac- 
 tive, would have discovered in it ample scope for 
 their powers and legitimate ambitions, now found 
 the life of the provinces unbearably dull, and as 
 soon as they had made enough money moved to 
 London, where they were swamped in the crowd, 
 or to those parts of the country which offered 
 special resources to the idle. In the meantime, 
 under local bodies admittedly far poorer than they 
 should be in men of education, experience of large 
 affairs, or independent social position, and eman- 
 cipated by their very multiplicity and insignificance 
 from the salutary check of publicity, the amount 
 of local taxation and of local indebtedness had 
 increased with startling rapidity, out of all pro- 
 portion to the growth in the value of the property 
 on which it was levied. 
 
 Much of the increased expenditure was no 
 doubt right and necessary, an inevitable result of 
 the extended functions which local bodies were 
 called upon to perform, and of improved standards 
 of sanitation, education, etc. But it was notorious 
 that much of it was administered wastefully and 
 unprofitably. In any case, its growth should not 
 be allowed to go on in the dark, unscrutinised
 
 244 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and uncontrolled, and, except by a few public men 
 and statisticians, ignored. The weight of taxation 
 laid by local bodies on the present generation was 
 serious, but what mattered far more was their 
 unlimited power of burdening with debt the 
 industry of the future. 
 
 Such, expressed in briefest and baldest outline, 
 were the chief of the defects upon which William 
 Rathbone dwelt, with varying illustration, corro- 
 borative facts and figures, and with proposals for 
 amendment, in a score of speeches, to the House 
 and among his constituents, in pamphlets, articles 
 in the reviews, and letters to the Times. There 
 were, of course, other local government reformers, 
 notably Mr. Goschen, Mr. Stansfeld, and Sir 
 Massey Lopes, who harped upon the same string. 
 But the discussions on this dry theme were usually 
 left principally to experts, and excited little general 
 interest in the House. It may be said that this 
 was so, because no great contentious measure deal- 
 ing with local government had been before the 
 House since the new Poor Law of 1834. But 
 there were measures which would have been found 
 contentious enough, if the House had been awake 
 to their importance. Thus in his parliamentary 
 diary for June 7, 1869, William Rathbone notes : 
 
 Mr. Goschen's Assessed Rates Bill restoring com- 
 pounding passed second reading without a division and 
 with slight opposition. Strange to say, Mr. Hibbert's
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 245 
 
 Municipal Franchise Bill reducing the period of residence 
 qualifying for municipal franchise to one year, and almost 
 trebling some constituencies, and giving municipal votes 
 to women, was ordered to be read a third time without 
 any opposition whatever. 
 
 To a new member who cared more for local 
 administration than any other political question, 
 this indifference must have seemed in depressing 
 contrast to the excitement aroused by Bills affect- 
 ing the least change in imperial taxation or the 
 parliamentary franchise. He was quite willing, 
 however, to risk being considered a bore on the 
 subject if he could hope to do his share in gradu- 
 ally rousing the House to a more adequate sense 
 of its vital bearing upon the well-being of the 
 people at almost every point, physical, material, 
 and moral. 
 
 During his first session his place in the House 
 was next to Mr. Samuel Whitbread, who had 
 already represented Bedford for seventeen years. 
 Mr. Whitbread, besides being very kind in impart- 
 ing to his neighbour his own extensive knowledge 
 of the ways of the House, and of the opinions, 
 histories, and peculiarities of its members, was 
 also interested in local government, and for many 
 years they did much work upon it together. 
 Outside the House, he relied greatly upon the 
 help of Sir John M'Neill, who, since the affairs of 
 the Crimean Commission had first made them
 
 246 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 acquainted, had held the office of head of the 
 Scottish Poor Law Board. 
 
 His brother-in-law, Colonel Ponsonby Cox of 
 the Royal Engineers, also gave him much help in 
 local government matters. 
 
 His first effort to bring the question before the 
 House took the form of a Resolution in which he 
 urged, among other points, that grants should be 
 made from national sources in aid of Poor Law 
 expenditure. This he held to be the only practi- 
 cable means of compelling personalty, which it 
 was impossible to tax in the locality, to contribute 
 its fair share to local taxation. If the grant took 
 the form of a fixed proportion, not of actual 
 expenditure, but of the estimated minimum ex- 
 penditure, it could not encourage extravagance, 
 and being made conditional upon efficiency, some- 
 what after the mode of education grants, it would 
 bring about closer co-operation between the central 
 and the local authorities, more effective inspection, 
 and ultimately greater uniformity of administra- 
 tion. It should, he suggested, be given in aid of 
 the cost of sickness and imbecility, so as to mitigate 
 the unfairness of the existing system, by which the 
 parishes reputed to have the best infirmaries and 
 asylums were obliged to bear the full cost of the 
 poor who invaded them from parishes which had 
 made no adequate provision. Later on he often 
 urged that the grant should take the form of a
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 247 
 
 contribution towards the cost of maintaining work- 
 houses, so as to equalise the cost of outdoor and 
 indoor relief, and so remove from the guardians 
 all inducement to prefer the demoralising method 
 of outdoor relief on the ground of its supposed 
 cheapness. 
 
 Another change for which in later years he 
 often pleaded, and to which he attached consider- 
 able importance, was the division of rates between 
 the owner and the occupier. The main grounds 
 of this proposal, which was recommended by Mr. 
 Goschen's Committee in 1870, and formed part of 
 his abortive Bill of 1871, were two: first, that 
 under the existing law any increase in rates must 
 fall during the currency of the lease, however 
 long, entirely upon the occupier, and that in times 
 of depression this was severely felt ; secondly, 
 that it was desirable that both classes, owners and 
 occupiers, should feel the direct and immediate 
 pressure of local taxation, and all the fluctuations 
 in that pressure, in order that they might have 
 every inducement to keep a sharp eye upon and, 
 if possible, take part in local administration. 
 
 With the same object, he thought that division 
 of rates ought to be accompanied by direct repre- 
 sentation of owners. This would bring on to the 
 local bodies a few men of greater leisure and 
 wider experience than the majority of those elected 
 under the existing suffrage.
 
 248 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Hearing from Baron Mackey, afterwards Lord 
 Reay, that the system of local government in 
 Holland was particularly comprehensive and yet 
 simple, and that it gave general satisfaction, he, 
 with Baron Mackey's assistance, engaged a com- 
 petent Dutch lawyer to write him a detailed report 
 on the system. An abstract of this was prepared 
 as a pamphlet, and a copy sent to every member 
 of Parliament. 
 
 In 1874 he and Mr. Whitbread agreed that 
 it would be worth while to get a thoroughly 
 satisfactory scheme of local government reform 
 drawn up in the form of a Bill, so that, even if it 
 were impossible to introduce it, they might have 
 something before them at which to aim, and might 
 be able to see better the bearing of any proposals 
 'that might be introduced by others. They asked 
 Mr. R. S. Wright to prepare such a scheme. 
 Mr. Wright replied that it would be a very 
 troublesome matter, and would take at least a 
 year's work, but after some consideration he 
 agreed to undertake it. After two months' work 
 he reported that as things then were it was im- 
 possible for him or any one else to draw up a 
 good scheme of local government, for that neither 
 in any nor in all of the public offices did there 
 exist, in a collected and digested form, the informa- 
 tion upon which alone such a scheme could be 
 based. This seemed to William Rathbone to
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 249 
 
 make the necessity for doing something even more 
 pressing, and he persuaded Mr. Wright to under- 
 take the collection and arrangement of the neces- 
 sary material. This task occupied three years, 
 although Mr. Wright, who struck William Rath- 
 bone as being one of the quickest workers he had 
 ever known, gave it all the time that he could spare 
 from his professional work. It was completed in 
 1877, in the form of two Memoranda, and was 
 privately circulated among members of Parliament 
 and others interested in the subject. In 1884, in 
 view of an expected Local Government Bill, it was 
 brought up to date by Mr Henry Hobhouse l and 
 published. 2 In a form that could be compassed in 
 a few hours' reading, it gave a description in out- 
 line of the various areas, bodies, and purposes of 
 local government as they then existed, and a 
 statement with numerous tables showing the con- 
 dition of local taxation and indebtedness so far as 
 it was possible to ascertain it. The last portion 
 presented some " considerations with a view to the 
 amendment of local government." The direction 
 which reform should take, in the judgment of 
 the authors, was upon many points made clear 
 by a mere rehearsal of the defects revealed by the 
 earlier pages of the Report. The prime necessity 
 
 1 Now the Right Hon. Henry Hobhouse, M.P. 
 
 2 An Outline of Local Gowrnment and Local Taxation in England and 
 Wales, by R. S. Wright and Henry Hobhouse (W. Maxwell and Son, 
 London).
 
 250 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 was, of course, the consolidation and simplification 
 of the existing chaos of areas, governing bodies, 
 and rates. " So far as may be, local affairs ought 
 to be administered in simple areas or aggregations 
 of simple areas, without crossing or interlacing." 
 The nature of these simple areas or units of 
 administration was discussed. The larger boroughs 
 and local board districts might, it was thought, be 
 accepted as they stood ; as regards rural places the 
 Union was, upon the whole, thought preferable as 
 a primary area both to the parish and to any other 
 newly devised form of area. Only two kinds of 
 local boards were indicated as necessary the 
 primary authority in charge of the primary area, 
 and county boards to which could be assigned all 
 powers which could be better executed over a 
 wider area. The mere consolidation of functions 
 in each body would, it was thought, enhance the 
 importance and interest of office in such a body, 
 and so go far by itself to ensure that the work 
 was well done. 
 
 The Memorandum when it appeared excited 
 considerable interest, and a meeting of Liberals 
 who had been former members of Cabinets was 
 called to consider it. William Rathbone always 
 believed that it greatly facilitated, if it did not 
 make possible, the legislation of later years. In 
 1 88 1 he and Mr. Whitbread commissioned Mr. 
 Ilbert, now Sir Courtenay Ilbert, to draw with
 
 vii LOCAL GOVERNMENT 251 
 
 Mr. Wright's help a Local Government Bill upon 
 the lines indicated in the Report. This they placed 
 unreservedly at the disposal of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board. It could not, they knew, be carried 
 as a private member's Bill, and they feared that the 
 Government would be less likely to adopt it if it 
 had once been introduced as such. In his Remi- 
 niscences, written before the Local Government 
 legislation of 1894, William Rathbone said of this 
 Bill: 
 
 I believe it has been of no inconsiderable use, but I 
 think it is much to be regretted that no Government has 
 had the courage to adopt the thoroughness and simplicity 
 of the measure. No doubt a certain amount of opposi- 
 tion would have been raised by sweeping away a number 
 of small, confused, overlapping Local Government 
 authorities and officers, but I am satisfied that the best 
 chance of carrying any great Local Government measure 
 would depend on the completeness and perfection of the 
 measure giving force to the Government to overcome 
 petty opposition. Bills are far oftener lost from being 
 pared down to conciliate support, till there is not enough 
 left in them to interest, and give the necessary strength 
 to carry a good measure. 
 
 Among other subjects which specially interested 
 William Rathbone, and on which he not unfre- 
 quently spoke in the House of Commons, was that 
 of the licensing laws. In this he was to a great 
 extent the mouthpiece of his brother, S. G. Rath- 
 bone, who, as an acting borough magistrate and
 
 252 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 chairman of the visiting justices, had had much 
 experience in the administration of the laws. Both 
 brothers held views upon the question which did 
 not exactly fit in with those of the recognised 
 temperance advocates, and William Rathbone in- 
 curred a good deal of disfavour with the temper- 
 ance party in Liverpool by his steady refusal to 
 vote in favour of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Permissive 
 Prohibitory Liquor Bill. He based his refusal on 
 the ground that experience of prohibition in other 
 countries had shown that it never answered in any 
 community where the habit of drinking was widely 
 spread or deeply rooted among the people, and 
 that " when attempts have been made to enforce 
 laws for which the moral sense of the community 
 has not been sufficiently prepared, they have in- 
 variably been disobeyed and evaded, respect for 
 the law has been weakened, illicit drinking and all 
 kinds of fraud and deception increased, and the 
 police demoralised." l What seemed to him to be 
 most needed in the early seventies was not so 
 much more legislation, as a stricter administration 
 of the law as it stood. He maintained that if the 
 justices made a good use of the powers given them 
 under the Acts of 1869 and 1872 to shut up 
 houses doing a disorderly trade, they could 
 enormously diminish the number of public-houses 
 and the amount of drunkenness. He believed it 
 
 1 Speech to his constituents.
 
 vii THE LICENSING LAWS 253 
 
 to be a popular fallacy that a mere reduction in 
 the number of public -houses of itself decreased 
 drunkenness, unless it was brought about by, or 
 at least unless it was accompanied by, closer inspec- 
 tion and more rigorous dealing with publicans who 
 permitted drunkenness. As actually carried out, 
 the policy of restriction of numbers rather, in his 
 belief, hindered than helped strict administration, 
 and thus brought about all the evils of a monopoly 
 without the safeguards which the monopoly was 
 intended to secure. It was this policy that had 
 made possible the close organisation of the trade 
 and its growing power both in national and muni- 
 cipal politics. It had secured to the holders of 
 licenses immense profits, which not only enabled 
 them to add to the attractions of their houses, 
 and to turn the old-fashioned tavern into the 
 magnificent modern gin-palace, but were used by 
 the unscrupulous among them in extensive corrup- 
 tion, in suborning witnesses, and bribing or terror- 
 ising the police. It had thus made convictions 
 much more difficult to obtain, and when obtained, 
 it was almost impossible to get magistrates to 
 endorse them on the license. Knowing the high 
 monopoly value ot the license, the magistrates 
 argued that it was unfair to inflict so heavy a 
 penalty as confiscation, or endorsements leading 
 cumulatively to confiscation, for an offence for 
 which the nominal legal penalty was only a few
 
 254 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 pounds. Again, an endorsement might mean in 
 one case a depreciation of TOO, in another case of 
 500, and the inequality of incidence increased 
 the seeming unfairness. This difficulty was especi- 
 ally felt in the towns, where the licensing magis- 
 trates were frequently the friends and colleagues 
 in the town council of the leading public-house 
 owners. 
 
 These considerations led William Rathbone and 
 his brother to look back with regret to the much- 
 abused system of open licensing, or, as it is some- 
 times called, free trade in licenses, as it had been 
 tried in Liverpool from 1862 to 1866. S. G. 
 Rathbone, who had been on the licensing bench at 
 the time, was then strongly opposed to the experi- 
 ment, and was perhaps the leading spirit in the 
 agitation for its rejection. The disappointing 
 effects of restriction when restored, and his widen- 
 ing experience as a magistrate, had convinced him 
 that he was mistaken, and had made him a decided 
 advocate of open licensing. A letter which 
 appeared in the Times of May 21, 1872, replying 
 to an attack upon the Liverpool experiment, was, 
 I believe, by his pen. At any rate, the arguments 
 and facts it contains coincide very closely with the 
 lines of the evidence given by him before the 
 Lords' Commission on Intemperance in 1877, and 
 it was more than once quoted by his brother 
 William in order to contradict what seemed to be
 
 vii FREE OR OPEN LICENSING 255 
 
 the very erroneous impression which prevailed as 
 to the facts of the experiment and the reasons which 
 had led to its abandonment. As there is reason 
 to think that these impressions are still current, 
 and as the subject has a good deal of intrinsic in- 
 terest, both historical and practical, it has seemed 
 well to give the letter in full : 
 
 To THE EDITOR OF THE " TIMES" 
 
 SIR The Spectator of the nth May contains a state- 
 ment that " free licensing has been tried by the Liverpool 
 magistrates, and has produced results so ghastly that they 
 have recoiled from their own experiment." As this state- 
 ment represents an impression which is very general, 
 though far from accurate, may I trespass upon your space 
 to give some explanation in reference to it ? In the first 
 place, the magistrates who introduced the system of free 
 licensing that is of giving every respectable applicant 
 who had suitably constructed premises a license never 
 recoiled from their experiment. The system was 
 abandoned at a licensing session, when the composition or 
 the bench had, by the retirement of some magistrates 
 and the addition of others, been changed from what it 
 had been when the system had been adopted. None of 
 the magistrates who had favoured open licensing ever 
 gave in their adherence to a return to the restrictive 
 system. In the second place, I know of no evidence 
 which shows that any ghastly results followed the intro- 
 duction of free licensing ; certainly the police statistics 
 do not point to such a conclusion. The free licensing 
 system was adopted at the licensing session held in the
 
 256 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 autumn of 1862, and abandoned in the autumn of 1866. 
 The number of apprehensions for drunkenness during 
 the official police year which closed in autumn, 1862, was 
 12,362, and for the year 1866, 12,494, so that at the end 
 of the free licensing period the apprehensions had not in- 
 creased in proportion to the increase of population. The 
 restrictive system of issuing licenses having been returned 
 to at the licensing session of 1866, and Sir Selwin-Ibbet- 
 son's Beerhouse Act of 1869 having brought the issue of 
 beerhouse licenses under magisterial control, there has 
 been a steady decrease in the number of drinking-houses ; 
 and the number of public-houses and beerhouses, which 
 in 1866 amounted to 2806, is now only 2313. The 
 steady decrease in the number of drinking-houses has 
 been accompanied by an equally steady increase in the 
 number of apprehensions for drunkenness, which for the 
 last year of free licensing, 1866, was 12,494; while for 
 the police year ending in autumn 1871, after five years 
 of restrictive policy, it was 22,947. These figures are, of 
 course, in themselves not conclusive, many causes com- 
 bining to influence the apprehensions for drunkenness ; 
 but, at all events, they show that the police statistics of 
 this town, so much relied upon by the advocates of re- 
 striction, afford no evidence that free licensing injured 
 the morals of the inhabitants. 
 
 There are some other curious figures in reference to 
 this question, from which, perhaps, more reliable conclu- 
 sions can be drawn. In 1862 the number of public-house 
 keepers unable to pay their municipal rates during the 
 first nine months of the year was only 332 ; in 1866 the 
 number had increased to 580. This difference in meet- 
 ing rates was very significant, and appears to me to show 
 that the aggregate profits and sales of liquor did not
 
 vii FREE OR OPEN LICENSING 257 
 
 grow in proportion to the number of houses selling it, 
 and that the new houses, far from living wholly on the 
 new trade they created, lived on the custom they drew 
 from houses which were either worse situated or sold 
 worse liquor. The free licensing, in fact, was followed 
 by a great fall in the monopoly profit?, which licensees 
 had before been able to obtain, and a consequent deprecia- 
 tion in the value of licenses. Magistrates who had voted 
 for free licensing were kept out of the Town Council by 
 the influence of the publicans, and this really had a great 
 deal to do with the reversal of the policy, and I must 
 further point out that free licensing was tried in Liver- 
 pool under most unfavourable circumstances. The prin- 
 ciple was adopted by a vote of the majority of the justices, 
 and it was known to be liable to be abandoned at any 
 time if the constitution of the bench should be altered. 
 Many licensees, therefore, kept houses open in bad situa- 
 tions, in the hope that the free licensing system would be 
 abandoned, and that a return to a restrictive policy might 
 ultimately restore a value to their licenses. 
 
 The effects of free licensing, if secured by law that 
 is to say, the effects of a law which entitled every respect- 
 able man, with suitably constructed premises, to obtain a 
 license on payment of the excise duties would, I firmly 
 believe, be most beneficial. 
 
 1. The competition of the new licensees who would 
 under such a law be from time to time entering the trade, 
 would shut up houses badly situated, or which sold bad 
 liquor. 
 
 2. The disorderly houses would be closed under the 
 police penalties, because the owners, deprived of monopoly 
 profits, would be unable to secure immunity for their 
 offences by bribing the police. To show how ineffectual 
 
 S
 
 258 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the present police is to enforce the law, I will merely state 
 that while in 1871 there were 22,947 apprehensions for 
 drunkenness, there were only 51 publicans and 100 beer- 
 house keepers fined under police informations. Now, as 
 many of these informations were laid for selling at illegal 
 hours, the number fined for serving drunken men with 
 Itquor must have been absolutely insignificant. But, in 
 fact, no one can go to the crowded quarters in any of our 
 large towns without seeing the law in this matter openly 
 violated. It would be a mistake to blame the police 
 authorities. So long as the value of licenses and the scale 
 of profits are kept up by monopoly, so long will the large 
 profits be used as hush-money to protect the licenses from 
 forfeiture, and so long would any attempt to use the 
 general police of a town to enforce the law against publicans 
 and beer-sellers simply end in the corruption and demoralisa- 
 tion of many of the force. It is, therefore, only under 
 very exceptional circumstances that the ordinary police 
 on duty are allowed to enter a public-house. If any of 
 your correspondents think this state of things exceptional 
 and peculiar to Liverpool, perhaps they will furnish you 
 with the exact proportion which the fines inflicted on 
 publicans for serving drunken men bear in their own 
 towns to the number of persons apprehended for drunken- 
 ness. It must further be remembered in examining such 
 figures that only such men are apprehended as are quarrel- 
 ling or are helplessly drunk. Numbers of drunken men 
 never fall into the hands of the police. Yet in the face 
 of such facts peer after peer in the debate on the Govern- 
 ment Liquor Bill declared that the law was efficiently 
 administered. 
 
 3. An open licensing system would deprive the publicans 
 of the monopoly profits by the aid of which they can supply
 
 vii FREE OR OPEN LICENSING 259 
 
 their premises with every kind of adventitious attraction 
 such as no other shopkeeper can afford. Go where you 
 will, the public-house is the best lighted and the most 
 decorated place, and nearly if not quite the only, place 
 where billiards, bagatelle, newspapers, and comforts are 
 brought within the reach of the working man. In these 
 houses the loser generally pays for the use of the billiard 
 table or skittle ground by "standing" liquor for himself 
 and the winner. Now, no one grudges the working 
 man these recreations ; the objectionable thing is that he 
 should be compelled, as at present, to drink his way to 
 them. If the publicans did not supply them as means of 
 selling liquor, they would be supplied by others for a small 
 money payment, and not made, as at present, temptations 
 to drink. 
 
 Last, but not least, if the monopoly were abolished 
 the conduct of our municipal and parliamentary elections, 
 and indeed all our political life, would be elevated. The 
 artificial profits and enormous fortunes now accumulated 
 out of the trade are largely used for the purpose of secur- 
 ing political influence by the aid of which the monopoly 
 may be protected. 
 
 The theory and practice of the present law are that 
 licenses shall be proportioned to the wants of a neighbour- 
 hood. Under this law it is always sufficient for an appli- 
 cant for a license to show that the neighbourhood for 
 which it is sought is without a public-house, to ensure the 
 concession of the license. The Government Licensing: 
 
 o 
 
 Bill does not propose any change in the law in this 
 respect, and while the law thus provides that liquor shall 
 be systematically brought within easy reach of every one, 
 it is idle to maintain that a few public-houses more or 
 less materially increase or diminish the temptations to
 
 260 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 drunkenness. No human ingenuity can devise a law 
 which shall at the same time place liquor within the 
 reach of the sober and keep it out of the reach of the 
 drunken ; yet this is really the impossible aim of all 
 systems of partial restriction. The restrictive system, at 
 least in our large towns, entails all the evils of monopoly 
 without any corresponding advantages. Mr. Henley gave 
 some figures in the debate on the Permissive Bill to show 
 that the relative amount of drunkenness in towns was 
 not at all in proportion to the multitude of public- 
 houses. 
 
 The real solution of the liquor question is, then, to 
 throw the trade open on equal terms to all willing to 
 enter it, and to pay a good high excise license duty, and 
 thus destroy the monopoly out of which many of the moral 
 and all the political evils of the trade now arise. I am, 
 etc., A LIVERPOOL MAN. 
 
 Another experiment in open licensing in which 
 the two brothers took a great interest was that 
 carried out in the Prescot division of Lancashire, 
 a district which included Garston, Woolton, Child- 
 wall, and Hale, and was inhabited by large numbers 
 of navvies and Irish labourers. There, largely by 
 the influence of two of the county magistrates, Mr. 
 Robert Neilson and Mr. Edward Gibbon, the 
 policy was pursued for over fifteen years of grant- 
 ing a license to every respectable man with suitable 
 premises who applied for it, and at the same time 
 administering the laws repressing drunkenness very 
 strictly, with the result that the number of public-
 
 vii THE LICENSING LAWS 261 
 
 houses did not increase at all, while the number 
 of apprehensions for drunkenness decreased very 
 largely. 
 
 The Report which many years later William 
 Rathbone obtained from Mr. Fanshawe, whom he 
 had commissioned to visit the United States to 
 investigate the different systems of licensing, only 
 confirmed his earlier opinion that, upon the whole, 
 the most successful system was that which com- 
 bined a rigid enforcement of the law with the 
 granting of licenses to all who applied for them, 
 subject only to a high licensing fee and to strict 
 inquiries as to the character of the holders and the 
 suitability of the premises. Mr. Bryce, in the notes 
 from which I have already quoted, says of this 
 Report : " It still remains a most useful record and 
 criticism of the various experiments which American 
 State Legislatures have made ; and if the liquor 
 question could have been extricated from the 
 quagmire of party, a reform upon the lines which 
 he had indicated would have been long ago 
 effected." 
 
 As, however, such a policy would have been 
 equally unpopular with the trade and with the 
 bulk of the temperance party, he recognised that 
 it was not in England, for the present at least, 
 within the sphere of practical politics. In the 
 direction of practical reforms he therefore con- 
 tented himself with urging that the endorsement
 
 262 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of convictions on the license should be made com- 
 pulsory, instead of being at the discretion of the 
 magistrate, and with other minor suggestions tend- 
 ing to stricter dealing with offences against the 
 law. 
 
 In working at this question, as at the question 
 of local government and taxation, his energies and 
 what influence he possessed were thrown less into 
 the effort to secure a particular form of remedy, 
 than into the plea for a more scientific and con- 
 scientious way of approaching the whole matter. 
 In dealing with the licensing laws he had no need 
 to complain, as he had done about local govern- 
 ment, that the importance of the question was 
 ignored. The enthusiasm of the reformers and 
 the self-interest of the trade ensured plenty of 
 legislation, of parliamentary inquiries, and of 
 weighty blue-books. But the Parliaments of the 
 seventies and eighties pursued their inquiries, he 
 thought, too much as though they knew of no 
 country but England, and of no times save the 
 present. The appeal to the experience of foreign 
 countries, which the work of a number of sociologists 
 has since made even tediously familiar, was then 
 comparatively seldom heard. For over twenty 
 years he did his best to persuade successive Govern- 
 ments to send a commission to the United States 
 to inquire into the working of the innumerable 
 experiments in methods of licensing that may be
 
 vii LIVERPOOL'S POLITICAL INTERESTS 263 
 
 found there. When, finally, he took the matter 
 into his own hands and dispatched Mr. Fanshawe, 
 he was only doing what he held that Government 
 should have done years before. 
 
 Apart from the questions for which he in- 
 dividually cared the most, the position of repre- 
 sentative of one of the largest constituencies in 
 the country in itself entailed very heavy work. A 
 great port has many special interests, shipowning, 
 mercantile, manufacturing, and the leaders of all 
 these expected their member to understand and 
 interpret to Parliament their views upon any legis- 
 lation which affected or which they deemed likely 
 to affect them. A port like Liverpool, which serves 
 as one of the main gateways through which the 
 population of the United Kingdom streams, deposit- 
 ing in its passage much of its flotsam and jetsam, 
 has social problems of its own, and upon the solu- 
 tion of these it was his duty to know his mind. 
 Perhaps the responsibility was more felt then than 
 it is now, because it was less split up. Each of 
 the three members for Liverpool represented the 
 whole city, and was identified in the House with 
 the name of Liverpool and not with that of any 
 obscure section of it. On all non-party questions 
 they worked harmoniously together and were in 
 frequent communication. Mr. S. R. Graves, the 
 senior member, was as able and suitable a repre- 
 sentative of a great commercial community as it
 
 264 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 could well have found, and his premature death, 
 which occurred early in 1873, deprived William 
 Rathbone of a personal friend as well as of a 
 greatly valued colleague. As Lord Sandon was at 
 first in delicate health and was afterwards absorbed 
 by his duties as a Minister, Mr. Graves's death 
 also threw upon the minority member during the 
 seven years for which he continued to hold the 
 seat by far the greater bulk of the local work. 
 As member for Liverpool he was placed on most 
 of the general committees on the business of the 
 House or on subjects of political importance, and 
 was usually on that account excused from com- 
 mittees on Private Bills. 
 
 Throughout the seventies, the parliamentary 
 question which perhaps touched Liverpool in- 
 terests most nearly was that raised by Mr. 
 Plimsoll's agitation for the better protection 
 of merchant seamen. The strong benevolent 
 instincts of Mr. Plimsoll had been stirred and 
 his excitable temperament set on fire by stories 
 which had come before him of ships sent to sea 
 in an unseaworthy condition by their owners, 
 sometimes from carelessness, sometimes deliber- 
 ately for the sake of the insurance money. He 
 had made the subject his own, and had collected 
 a mass of information upon it, and like most 
 enthusiasts he was disposed to exaggerate his 
 case. His Bill was intended to make such crimes
 
 vii MERCHANT SHIPPING LAWS 265 
 
 for the future impossible, by bringing shipping 
 under inspection and control of Government, 
 and it was strongly opposed by the majority of 
 shipowners. Many of the general arguments they 
 used were of the familiar individualistic type, and 
 would be equally applicable to factory and all 
 other legislation regulating the conditions of em- 
 ployment ; and whether valid or not, it must be 
 admitted that the verdict of the times has gone 
 against them. But the more valuable part of this 
 criticism was directed against the practicability in 
 detail of Mr. Plimsoll's proposals. These were 
 very drastic, including the survey of all ships 
 by Board of Trade officials before leaving port, 
 restriction of deck-loading, and the observance of 
 a legally fixed load-line. William Rathbone 
 agreed with the shipowners in distrusting many 
 of the proposals as impracticable, and in thinking 
 that they went much too far in removing from 
 the shipowners the responsibility of deciding 
 whether a ship was seaworthy a responsibility 
 which, owing to the variety and complicity of 
 the conditions on which seaworthiness depend, 
 could not be exercised as effectively by any one 
 else. 
 
 Socially and physically the life in Parliament 
 suited him very well, especially during those first 
 twelve years when he was young and strong 
 enough to bear its fatigues without strain. The
 
 266 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 very late hours, later then than now, tried him less 
 than most men, for he had the useful faculty of 
 being able to take short naps at will at almost 
 any hour and in almost any conditions, and to 
 wake up refreshed. He did not attempt to come 
 backwards and forwards frequently from Liver- 
 pool, but settled himself with his family for the 
 six months of the session in a house in Princes 
 Gardens, close to Hyde Park, where he took his 
 early morning rides and met other members ; and 
 in the intervals between superlatively vigorous 
 gallops, on which the Park constables soon learned 
 to turn their backs discreetly, he got through a 
 good deal of informal business. When working 
 at or towards any special Bill, he was fond of 
 giving frequent small breakfast and dinner parties, 
 to which members of all political parties and 
 all degrees of notability were invited to meet 
 experts on the question in hand, and general con- 
 versation at table would be followed by an hour or 
 two of hard work. In this way and in the House 
 itself he got through an immense amount of a 
 justifiable and innocent form of lobbying. Personal 
 intercourse gave him an opportunity of kindling 
 in others, perhaps occupying more influential posi- 
 tions or more apt at catching the ear of the House 
 than himself, something of his own glowing sense 
 of the vital and human relations of subjects usually 
 regarded as dry and prosaic ; it was thus his
 
 vii POLITICAL CHARACTERISTICS 267 
 
 favourite and probably his most fruitful method of 
 work. If he could father upon any one an idea, 
 or a possible next step, or an amendment to a Bill, 
 he did not care in the least whether its real pater- 
 nity was ever recognised. Often he rather pre- 
 ferred that others should get the credit of the 
 offspring of his brain in order that he might 
 be the freer to proclaim their merits and push their 
 claims. 
 
 His single-mindedness was so transparent that 
 the most cynical member of the House of 
 Commons could scarcely pretend to doubt it, and 
 there are clear proofs that it gave him a power 
 of private influence out of proportion to his 
 apparent political importance. This was com- 
 paratively more marked in his relations with his 
 political opponents than with his own side. The 
 leaders of a party have a large and difficult team 
 to drive. It is perhaps natural that, other things 
 being equal, consideration and concessions and 
 offers of place should rather be reserved for those 
 whose loyalty needs strengthening than wasted on 
 one who lets it be clearly seen that no amount of 
 these things would secure his support of a policy 
 he thought wrong, and no amount of official 
 neglect alienate it from a policy he thought right. 
 A man's influence with his opponents is not 
 affected by these considerations, and if they listen 
 to him at all, it is for the sake of what he has to
 
 268 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 say. What William Rathbone had to say was 
 usually said in private. He did not often raise 
 his voice in debate, and when he did it was 
 as a rule on some single point about which he con- 
 ceived himself to have special experience or sources 
 of knowledge. In Mr. Bryce's words, " He did 
 not speak often, but he always spoke clear good 
 sense, practical and relevant." 
 
 A few extracts from his letters at this time 
 may illustrate these aspects of his work. 
 
 To HIS WIFE 
 
 1 6 PALL MALL, March 12, 1869. 
 
 I have had a very interesting conversation with the 
 Bishop of Derry to-day. After speaking on the subject 
 I went to see him about, which I will tell you some 
 day, we began about the Irish Church. 1 He does not 
 take a very hopeful view of things, but I think is wisely 
 disposed to make the best of what can be done rather 
 than sit down and cry. He thinks the grievance of the 
 curates very great, and so it seems to me. The poor 
 men, after being brought up to look forward to advance- 
 ment, receive their compensation in such a way that 
 they are bound down for life to ^75 a year. But I. 
 daresay this may be modified if the members of the 
 Church will only wisely set themselves to work to get 
 rid of such real grievances. 
 
 We had another discussion funny enough between a 
 Churchman and a Unitarian in which I ventured to 
 
 1 The Irish Church Bill was passing through the House.
 
 vii LETTERS FROM LONDON 269 
 
 give him my experience of how to raise the winds. I 
 think he was a little encouraged at hearing my sanguine 
 suggestions, which amount to this -to take all the money 
 paid over by Government for endowments, and demand 
 from the Churchmen boldly, and at once, that they should 
 find all the money which the investment of that endow- 
 ment would not find to pay the annual life-interest of 
 the working clergy. This would take advantage of the 
 feeling which now exists before it cools down, and get 
 the Churchmen into the habit of giving, which all 
 dissenters are brought up to. I do not see why the 
 English Church people should not bleed for the Irish as 
 well as the heathen, and Exeter Hall turn its attention t 
 more useful purposes than hitherto. 
 
 1 6 PALL MALL, March 14, 1869. 
 
 If I could do without eating, I think the work would 
 be far less severe than Liverpool. For most things one 
 is not personally and directly responsible, and one feels so 
 powerless in regard to them that the strain is not half so 
 great as seeing such quantities of work wanting doing 
 which one feels one could do if one could find or make 
 time, strength, and means to attend to them. Then the 
 society is so much more lively and refreshing than where 
 all are in cotton and local politics, and talk shop anywhere 
 and everywhere. I think I shall find it by no means an 
 unhealthy life, particularly when I have you to make my 
 rides more of a pleasure and less of a constitutional duty. 
 I have very little doubt I shall like my new life immensely 
 if only I can feel at ease that I am doing the best work 
 that lay before me. I am more satisfied than I was that 
 it was the right course for me to come, but of course it 
 is too soon to be able to judge : people are very kind at
 
 270 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 first, but it takes time for them and for oneself to find 
 out whether one has the ability and the thoroughness of 
 work to fit one for so responsible a position. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, July 22, 1869. 
 
 I must just tell you two jokes of C 's. We were 
 
 talking about Tait's worldly speech in the House to-night, 
 and he said, that being asked what he thought of his 
 previous speech by a man, he said : " Well, Tait is an 
 old friend of mine, and I like him very much, and I 
 don't wish to cant at all, but I should just like the 
 faintest flavour of religion in an Archbishop's speech on 
 a Church question." 
 
 C went on to say that he often went to argue 
 
 questions before the Archbishop at Lambeth, and that 
 his feeling always was that these men would necessarily 
 be damned ex officio it was all far too splendid to be 
 followed by anything else. This was in answer to my 
 saying that my feeling with a merchant was, that when 
 he got over .200,000 he was too rich for the kingdom 
 of heaven. 
 
 14 PRINCES GARDENS, March 13, 1870. 
 
 I had a long talk the other evening with Howell, one 
 of the leaders of the Trades Unions and working men 
 a very good fellow. He says the Liberal Party are losing 
 ground much, for many reasons. Some of their economics 
 are considered harsh and partial ; then he says the same 
 that Ashton told me that everywhere there is less of 
 geniality and bonhomie in the treatment of the working 
 classes by the Liberals than by the Conservatives.
 
 vii LETTERS FROM LONDON 271 
 
 I have been hard at work with Stansfeld and Lowe 
 to show them that their attempt to reduce the Savings 
 Bank interest is founded on a blunder. I think I have 
 shaken them a good deal, and nearly convinced them 
 that instead of losing ^120,000 a year they are not 
 losing one -tenth that sum, and if so, it is really not 
 worth weakening their popularity and consequent power 
 to effect more important reforms. Sir R. Palmer went 
 through my Solicitor and Attorney Bill (a Bill to establish 
 freedom of contract in law, and do away, I hope, with the 
 system of charging by length of document and number 
 of items) with me, and suggested some amendments 
 which I have agreed to, and now I hope he will support 
 the Bill, and that I shall have a chance of carrying it. 
 
 Last night I dined with Mr. Goschen. Dowse, Parker, 
 Sir W. Wedderburn (a Radical Scotch baronet), Dr. 
 Bridges (a new medical Poor Law inspector), and one 
 or two others were there. It was a very pleasant party. 
 Goschen has sent a special commissioner to report on 
 the boarding out of pauper children in Scotland. His 
 report will be out in a few days. It will be very favour- 
 able as to the practical result of the system, but he says 
 it will be impossible to carry it out in England as fully 
 as it is done in Scotland, as they could not sanction such 
 sleeping arrangements as often exist in Scotland. If they 
 did there would be sure to be rows and reaction. 
 
 14 PRINCES GARDENS, April 9, 1870. 
 
 We have had a very heavy week, but I cannot say a 
 very satisfactory one. We have got on very slowly with 
 the Irish Land Bill, and, unfortunately, Gladstone has
 
 272 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 had to put the screw on by treating opposition as a vote 
 of want of confidence rather too often, and people are 
 getting a little sore about it. Plunket, the new member 
 for Dublin University, made a splendid speech the other 
 night on undenominational education in Ireland, and it 
 was evident that if Government had gone against mixed 
 education they would have been left in a hopeless minority, 
 and deserted even by their staunchest followers. But I 
 think Gladstone's speech commits him for the future to 
 no tampering with this question, and so far it was good. 
 I am afraid Gladstone is pushing things a little too far 
 about the higher classes of leases in Ireland, for which a 
 case for interference, to the extent to which he wishes to 
 go, has hardly been made out. Sir Roundel Palmer 
 who occupies a most wonderfully influential position in 
 the House on account of his perfect and transparent 
 integrity and simplicity has almost been at direct issue 
 with the Government, though he is evidently anxious 
 to go with them as far as possible. If the Government 
 force the point again as a question of want of confidence, 
 they may carry it, but it will be at the cost of a great 
 deal of rankling soreness. I hope, however, that during 
 Easter this matter may be arranged, and if so, there may 
 be some hope of the Land Bill getting through. 
 
 I have not got on very fast with my Attorneys' and 
 Solicitors' Bill, though I think I have got over all the 
 really disputed points. There is such an amount of 
 concealed animosity to it on the part of barristers, who 
 think it will interfere with excessive fees to counsel, that 
 I do not feel very sanguine, though it is merely a question 
 of getting the House for half-an-hour to listen, that it 
 may pass through the remaining stages. Trying to get 
 this half-hour involves very hard work and sitting in the
 
 vii LETTERS FROM LONDON 273 
 
 House to the last. Last night we did not leave the House 
 till past three o'clock : we were kept by the religious 
 fight on the inspection of convents and monasteries. 
 . . . The Attorney-General was very complimentary to 
 me yesterday about the Public Prosecutor's Bill, which 
 I have had prepared, and which I have some hope the 
 Government are going to take up, if not absolutely, 
 as the basis of the measure they intend to introduce. 
 But, please, this must not transpire, for it would not do 
 to have it supposed that Government had adopted a Bill 
 of a. private member instead of carrying out one of their 
 own. I consider myself very lucky to have got hold of 
 so very able a draftsman as Mr. Wright, who possesses 
 the confidence of many members of the Government, 
 before he is too busy to be available by private members ; 
 and I intend to make the most of him while I can. He 
 is probably the man whom the Attorney-General would 
 have got to draw the Bill for himself, which gives me a 
 great pull. 
 
 14 PRINCES GARDENS, June 24, 1870. 
 
 I suppose we shall go into Committee upon the 
 
 Education Bill to-day. had a long private talk 
 
 with Gladstone yesterday. The latter was a good deal 
 excited about the Education Bill. He said he had never 
 made a more painful concession to the desire of unity 
 than when he conceded the forbidding the use of the 
 creed and catechisms in rate-aided schools ; that he con- 
 sidered he had carried concession to the furthest point ; 
 
 and 's impression is that he will say when we go 
 
 into Committee that, should he be left in a minority of 
 his own party on any important question, he will with- 
 draw the Bill, as he will not consent to carry his measures 
 
 T
 
 274 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 by a majority composed chiefly of his opponents. I 
 hope he will make no such attempt : I should think it a 
 
 very hazardous one, but thinks it will be successful. 
 
 The Government has certainly given way a great deal ; 
 and the present Education Bill, though very far from 
 perfection, is one that a few years ago we should have 
 accepted with open arms. Nor do I see how our carry- 
 ing it now will prevent our improving it afterwards. 
 On the contrary, I conceive that by so doing schools 
 will be built and the way prepared for improving the 
 system in whatever direction experience may show to 
 be most desirable. 
 
 I rather hope my Attorneys' and Solicitors' Bill may 
 pass the third reading in the House of Lords on Monday 
 without any very serious mutilation. If so, I think it 
 will open the way for great reform in our law system. 
 The Public Prosecutor's Bill is, I fear, in great danger 
 of being shelved for the session on account of the pressure 
 of business and the bitter, though not openly expressed, 
 hostility of the London Bar. We shall see on Tuesday ; 
 if I cannot get into Committee then, I shall be very 
 hopeless. On the whole, I think this session will not 
 have been an empty one, and that a good deal of ground 
 will have been cleared for further good legislation next 
 year. 
 
 14 PRINCES GARDENS, July 3, 1870. 
 
 The Attorneys' and Solicitors' Bill has passed the 
 Lords, weakened a little but not in its most important 
 point. The Public Prosecutor's Bill is down for 
 Tuesday ; if we cannot get it through Committee then, 
 it will have to be among the slaughtered innocents for
 
 vii LETTERS FROM LONDON 275 
 
 this session. I have got a most thorough Corrupt 
 Practices Bill drawn for consultation with Whitbread, 
 Russell Gurney, the Attorney -General, and probably 
 Gathorne Hardy ; and on the 23rd I hope to have a 
 breakfast of about fourteen men of both sides, to con- 
 sider a Registration Bill, and these two measures, with 
 the Government Election Bill, if properly amended, 
 would make a complete code of election law, which I 
 do believe would purify the whole electoral system and 
 diminish expense enormously. I shall try hard to get 
 Government to take them up, and if not, we must try 
 to carry them through as private members' Bills, without 
 the help of Government. It is a bold undertaking, but 
 I am not hopeless of success, and it is worth attempting. 
 If we do nothing more, I think we shall prepare the way 
 and put a good ideal before the nation. Wright is so 
 able a man, that while he is comparatively unknown and 
 at leisure, I want to get as much out of him as I 
 can. It is very pleasant work, as it brings one into 
 intimate working with men on both sides really interested 
 and earnest in such questions. 
 
 14 PRINCES GARDF.NS, April 29, 1871. 
 
 You will see things are not in a very satisfactory state 
 now in politics. The Government have made a great 
 mistake. When peace was declared and all danger of 
 immediate collision was over, they ought at once to have 
 revised their estimates, reducing them so as to avoid impos- 
 ing any fresh taxation. Instead of this they persevered 
 with their estimates, and carried them by the aid of the 
 other side of the House. Now, when the estimates have 
 to be met, the latter turn round, and joining with the
 
 276 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Radicals and economists, try to place the Government in 
 a minority. Mr. Lowe's imprudent speech, in which he 
 said, if he could, he would tax horses used in agriculture, 
 and also would tax much more largely than at present 
 real property, has irritated excessively the county members, 
 who were already sore on account of Mr. Goschen's 
 Bill proposing to transfer half the local taxes from the 
 occupiers to the owners of real estate. Mr. Disraeli's 
 speech the other night showed clearly that he thought 
 there was a chance of the Ministry being thrown out and 
 his party getting into office it was, in fact, an election 
 speech. A conversation I had with one of the leading 
 members of the Conservative Party about Mr. Bruce's 
 Licensing Bill confirmed this view. On the other hand, 
 the advanced Liberals are extremely sore at the great lift 
 given to the denominational schools last year, and still 
 more at the increased expenditure, especially that for 
 augmenting the standing Army. To add to these com- 
 plications, the ten years' clause in the Licensing Bill has 
 frightened dreadfully all people who own or have' mort- 
 gages on public-houses. They are perfectly furious with 
 terror. We did not think it a judicious addition to the 
 Bill, but certainly we had no idea it would have depre- 
 ciated public-house property as much as it has done. It 
 does not please the Permissive Bill men any more than 
 the licensed victuallers. The temperance men say that 
 by giving licenses ten years to run, the Government has 
 recognised vested interests in them, whereas before a 
 license was only granted for the year. The publicans 
 say it renders unnegociable property to which custom has 
 given a vested interest in a license. Under ordinary 
 circumstances the difficulty might easily have been settled 
 by striking out the clause and doing this would rather
 
 vii LETTERS FROM LONDON 277 
 
 improve the Bill than otherwise. But the Tories have 
 resolved to play the licensed victuallers against the 
 Government, and the licensed victuallers consequently 
 are doubly unreasonable. Still I am in great hopes the 
 matter will be settled, and some very experienced members 
 have not a doubt the present crisis will blow over. But 
 it is the most unpleasant thing we have had since I have 
 been in Parliament, for one has constantly to be deciding 
 how to vote on resolutions with the terms of which one 
 can hardly disagree, but with the objects of which, as 
 votes of want of confidence in the Government, one has 
 no sympathy whatever. 
 
 14 PRINCES GARDENS, July 2, 1871. 
 
 I had a very pleasant journey up with Lord D 
 
 and Lord Sandon. I like Sandon very much. D- 
 
 seems to feel as if we were being swept on hopelessly 
 into democracy, and possibly repeal : as if there were no 
 force of conviction in leaders on either side to hope from, 
 and as if all we could do was to go with and try to guide 
 the stream so that it might do as little harm as possible. 
 Repeal he considers wicked, and to be resisted as utter 
 ruin to Ireland. Towards the end of our journey he 
 started the idea that religion was losing its hold on all 
 classes, which both Sandon and I combated, and I was 
 sorry, and so was Sandon, that we were stopped by arrival 
 before we could conclude the argument. To my surprise 
 he seemed unaware how much unbelief of a positive and 
 cynical character pervaded the cultivated part of the upper 
 classes in the eighteenth century how Mandeville, 
 Bolingbroke, and Hume, and a host of powerful writers, 
 furnished the resources from which Voltaire and the 
 French sceptics drew their arguments, and how dead
 
 278 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 religion was even among most of those who did not take 
 the trouble to disbelieve. 
 
 No doubt now there is more of enmity to religion in 
 some of the working classes than there was then, and 
 doubtless there is utter indifference in a very large portion 
 of our working classes ; but there seems to me more 
 vitality in those who do pretend to believe more uneasy 
 consciousness in the upper and middle classes that religion 
 requires exertion and self-sacrifice. I do believe we are as 
 a nation at one of those great crises of our fate, and that 
 if history is not to repeat itself in our decay and probable 
 rapid fall from our high estate, Christianity very different 
 from that of either the last or present century can alone 
 prevent it. And it is not only in moments of depression 
 and weariness, but far more when the mind is clearest, 
 and faith and hope in what might be strongest, that I 
 feel intense discontent with myself and the class of 
 educated men above the pinch of poverty. It seems as 
 if it would be so easy to make this world so different. 
 
 In Elberfeld, 252 visitors in a town of 50,000 have 
 not only checked, but rolled back, the tide of pauperism, 
 by sympathy, and counsel, and example, and carefully 
 discriminated relief; and Chalmers did the same in a 
 parish in Glasgow by the same system, which survived his 
 removal sixteen years. According to this proportion 
 2500 visitors willing to give two hours a week should do 
 it in Liverpool. In Elberfeld it takes only on an average 
 two hours once a fortnight. Surely out of 500,000, 2500 
 such righteous men with common sense could be found, 
 and yet it seems to be supposed ridiculous to hope for this. 
 What a comment on our Christianity ! Nay, every one 
 assumes that the vanity and love of power of philan- 
 thropists and clergymen would almost of itself prove an
 
 vii LETTER FROM BASSENFELL 279 
 
 insuperable obstacle in the way. I don't believe the 
 latter, or indeed the former, but it wants some one or 
 more men of eloquence and moral power to start and 
 carry on such an experiment, till it has become impressed 
 on Englishmen that part of their " regular duty " is to do 
 such wofk. Then I think it would be safe ; for as Lord 
 
 D said, it is that sense of the imperativeness of 
 
 " duty " that makes self-government possible here, while 
 its place being filled with egotistical vanity in French 
 statesmen makes things impossible there. I wish I felt 
 
 that duty was as universal a motive here as D 
 
 thought. I should then have no anxiety for our future. 
 And I hope he exaggerated French vanity, or, alas for poor 
 France ! 
 
 Don't burn this letter : I should like to talk over some 
 of its visions with you. They come back upon me so 
 repeatedly after every discouraging discussion or fact, as 
 things which should be, and therefore ought and can be, 
 that I hope for clearer outlook as to the how coming to 
 me, or still more probably to some one else, while I may 
 live to help, if God will. 
 
 BASSENFELL, August 20, 1871. 
 
 I feel as if there was a constant danger when occupying 
 so responsible a position, and engaged on such engrossing 
 and responsible work, of a very deceptive and dangerous 
 form of selfishness creeping over one as if one had a 
 right to all sorts of rest and self-indulgence to keep one 
 up and refresh one after such a strain. And yet (and this 
 is my second thought, and one which comes back and 
 back upon me) it ought to be just the opposite- 
 rest and wholesome food and cheerful exercise one
 
 28o WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 does require and may richly enjoy, but luxury and 
 self-indulgence will weaken and not strengthen ; and 
 certainly those to whom such intellectual and interesting 
 work is given, ought to require no luxury to fill a life so 
 richly filled, and simplicity and frugality of living and 
 constant self-denial and exertion for others should to them 
 at least be an easy task. 
 
 When I think of my own share of this life I am 
 oppressed with its richness in blessings and my own 
 weakness and self-indulgence and vanity. . . . 
 
 Then, again, if it is difficult to prevent one's wealth 
 doing oneself harm, it is almost as difficult to do good 
 with it so easy to do harm to others. I am inclined to 
 return to my first love in this respect, the Ministry to the 
 Poor. The best men should be sent there instead of 
 those poor, half-educated Scripture readers, who seem so 
 often to go wrong. If we could have one first-rate 
 missionary such as our first was, with real power of sym- 
 pathy and influence, at the head, and a number of first-class 
 young men " working out their titles " under him as 
 curates, by such work I cannot but hope some impression 
 could be made on the mass of unbelief and vice of our 
 large towns. 
 
 ELBERFELD, November 2, 1871.* 
 
 The place seems a very thriving one, with plenty of 
 work, which has saved them so far from some difficulties 
 that lie before them should any long-continued reverse 
 take place. But their system has proved that the one 
 principle under which alone outdoor relief can be suc- 
 cessful is the personal contact with the poor of the 
 
 1 See Chap. X., The Poor Law, Charity and Social Reform.
 
 vii LETTERS FROM LONDON 281 
 
 visitors, and the division of labour to such an extent that 
 ordinary busy men can do the work without serious 
 interference with their own labour, and will therefore go 
 on doing it not a few and for a short time, but a great 
 number and persistently. I am sure the system could be 
 worked in all moderate-sized manufacturing towns. It 
 would be very difficult in Liverpool and London, from 
 the floating population whose work, when they had it, 
 was casual and irregular, and whose earnings and character 
 were therefore difficult to ascertain. But I am convinced 
 that some adaptation of the principle of subdivision of 
 labour and consequent personal influence ought to be 
 applied. Three towns have adopted the system in this 
 neighbourhood two forced by the results at Elberfeld ; 
 and two of the neighbouring towns admit that they must 
 soon adopt it. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 18 PRINCES GARDENS, LONDON, S.W. 
 May i, 1875. 
 
 I do not know what Emily told you of our proceed- 
 ings here. We had Michel Chevalier to dinner, and 
 Gladstone and Bright, Grant Duff, Trevelyan, and Cox 
 to meet him. We had a very amusing evening, as 
 Gladstone was in great force, and rather an amusing 
 incident took place. Apropos of the extremes of 
 economy, I told the story of old Bullen, who, as you 
 may remember, when Maxwell brought him a corn- 
 doctor to relieve his sufferings, when he was eighty 
 years of age, in great misery, and about to leave three 
 millions of money, with no children to leave it to, would 
 not let his corns be operated upon, because the chiropodist 
 wanted to charge 55. a corn for fifteen corns. Bullen
 
 z8z WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 said he had so short a time to live that it was not worth 
 while spending so much money on his feet. Bright 
 capped the story not as to economy, but imposition 
 
 by stating that wanted to charge a lady, a friend of 
 
 his, ^34 for cutting her corns. He got ^fio out of her, 
 but was obliged to disgorge S : IDS. of it by a threat of 
 Bow Street. Gladstone capped this by declaring that a 
 Bank Director, a friend of his, was done in the same way 
 out of ^380, rather than disclose the fact that so great a 
 being as a Bank Director could have corns at all. But 
 his banker, who suspected the fraud, detained the cheques, 
 got him to apply to a lawyer, who, in his turn, went to 
 an analyst, who discovered that the supposed corns were 
 not corns at all, but pig's-bristles, and compelled repayment 
 of the whole. The funniest thing was that Chevalier, 
 who appears to be able to speak English well enough, 
 thought we were talking about a heavy imposition upon 
 corn, and asked, " Qu'est-ce qu'on dit des lois de ble ? " 
 
 Chevalier did not give a very hopeful account of French 
 politics. He thinks very ill of both Gambetta and Thiers, 
 who, he says, have made money by politics. He thinks 
 Bismarck has a game which we cannot yet at all see. 
 He is sure that he is too clever a man to believe in his 
 pretended alarms at an attack from the French, who, he 
 says, it is simply impossible should attack him, and that 
 Bismarck knows this ; and, therefore, his pretended 
 alarm, he is convinced, is intended to cover some other 
 design not against France, from whom he could get 
 nothing more than he has already got. He is most 
 suspicious of his having a design against Holland and 
 possibly Antwerp, though he thinks the almost certain 
 war with England, in case he touches the latter, might 
 prevent him. If he does not mean to attack Holland,
 
 vii LETTERS FROM LONDON 283 
 
 he thinks he might have an eye upon the German sub- 
 jects of Austria. I think some of those present thought 
 it was quite as likely he had lost his temper, feeling that 
 perhaps he had made a mistake in the row he had got 
 into with the Catholics.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LIVERPOOL POLITICS AND ELECTION CONTESTS 
 
 l880 
 
 AT the by-election following the death of Mr. 
 S. R. Graves in 1873, and again at the General 
 Election of 1 874, a great effort was made to capture 
 a second Liverpool seat in the Liberal interest. 
 Mr. W. S. Caine was the candidate in both contests, 
 but the majority of the electors showed them- 
 selves, as usual, obstinately Conservative, and he 
 was twice defeated. William Rathbone remained 
 minority member for the borough until the General 
 Election of 1880, when he declined the renomina- 
 tion that was offered him, and allowed himself 
 to be proposed as a candidate for the South- West 
 division of Lancashire. The reasons which led 
 him thus to sever his political connection with his 
 native town, and to abandon a safe seat in order to 
 contest one which was at its best but a forlorn 
 hope, were the ground of more speculation and 
 more misunderstanding than perhaps any other act 
 of his life. The circumstances in which his 
 
 284
 
 CHAP, vin SOUTH-WEST LANCASHIRE 285 
 
 decision was taken were, in fact, somewhat com- 
 plicated, but the motives which determined it were 
 very definite and simple, and at this distance of 
 time the story in its main features may be told 
 without reservation. 
 
 Since the defeat of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. 
 Henry Grenfell for South -West Lancashire in 
 1868, the Liberals of the division had not ven- 
 tured to make another attack on the constituency, 
 and had left it in the undisturbed possession of 
 the Conservatives through one general election 
 and two by-elections. In 1879, signs began to 
 multiply all over the country that the tide of 
 Liberalism was again upon the flow, and that the 
 days of Lord Beaconsfield's Government were 
 numbered. In South-West Lancashire the Liberal 
 leaders had one special reason for hopefulness in 
 the defection from the Government of the late 
 Lord Derby, who, as one of the two greatest land- 
 owners of the division, as well as from his personal 
 eminence, was believed to be very influential with 
 the electorate. On the other hand, they had to 
 remember that Mr. Gladstone's defeat had taken 
 place at a time when his principles were triumph- 
 ing everywhere else, and that since then the 
 Liberal organisation of the division had been 
 neglected for twelve years. They were determined 
 if possible to contest both seats, but they felt they 
 could only do so with two strong candidates. For
 
 286 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 one of these they had fixed upon Captain Moly- 
 neux, a brother of Lord Sefton. He was young 
 and without experience in politics, but as a repre- 
 sentative of the second great landowning family of 
 the county he might be expected to attract the 
 rural interest. For the other candidate they 
 required an older man, and one if possible who 
 would be acceptable to the town voters of the 
 constituency, who numbered more than half. It 
 occurred to some of the county leaders that 
 William Rathbone, if he could be induced to 
 stand, fulfilled these conditions better than any 
 one else who was available. He already knew the 
 constituency thoroughly, not only from his experi- 
 ence as chairman of Mr. Gladstone's Committee 
 through two elections, but because, as the only 
 Liberal member in the neighbourhood, he had 
 practically been the representative of its Liberal 
 interests during the past eleven years. In asking 
 him to become their candidate, they indeed relied 
 upon the knowledge of his unselfishness and 
 loyalty to the party which they had gained 
 during those years ; for it was clear to any one 
 who knew him and the circumstances, that he had 
 nothing to gain, and much to lose, by consent- 
 ing. His seat for the borough was practically 
 secure, unless and until minority representation 
 should be abolished by Parliament. The county 
 seat, even in the improbable event of his winning
 
 vin OVERTURES FROM S.-W. LANCASHIRE 287 
 
 it, was certain to be hotly contested at every 
 election. The work in Liverpool had been hard 
 as hard, perhaps, as he was likely to find it in any 
 constituency in England. But so far as it was 
 special to the place, it was mainly concerned with 
 interests and problems with which he had a life- 
 long and hereditary familiarity, and at sixty-one, 
 after eleven years in the House, change and novelty 
 had ceased to have any attraction for him. Above 
 all, his affection for his native town was of a pecu- 
 liarly strong and personal kind. Liverpool was 
 Liverpool, and he felt at the time as though no 
 other constituency could ever be quite the same. 
 
 When the leaders of the County Committee first 
 began to make overtures, he admitted this par- 
 tiality, saying that he both felt bound and preferred 
 to remain in the borough as long as his consti- 
 tuents wished it, but adding that his sole wish was 
 to do whatever was thought best for the party. 
 Encouraged by this saving clause the County Com- 
 mittee continued, severally and together, to press 
 their suggestion upon him. Many of them had their 
 business in Liverpool, and were actively associated 
 with the politics of his own constituency as well as the 
 county. Their proposal was from the first strongly 
 backed by a section of the Liverpool press, and it 
 was evident that the matter was arousing some 
 conflict of opinion among the leaders of the party 
 in the borough. Many of them, including perhaps
 
 288 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 a majority of the older men, the moderate Liberals, 
 and the representatives of families long connected 
 with Liverpool, repudiated almost with vehemence 
 the notion of letting him leave them. They urged 
 that while the county might legitimately wish to 
 secure him as their representative, for his own con- 
 stituents to aid and abet his going was to show a 
 want of appreciation of his services and an un- 
 gracious readiness to sever old ties. There was, 
 however, an active section, including several of 
 those most intimately concerned in running the 
 party machine, who took a different view. They 
 argued that as half of the county voters belonged 
 to the borough, the severance from Liverpool would 
 be more nominal than real. They dwelt upon the 
 importance to the whole party of fighting the 
 county seat with a good candidate, and urged the 
 duty of sacrificing personal interests and preferences 
 to this end. 
 
 Without in the least impugning the genuine- 
 ness and possible validity of these arguments, it 
 must be added that, as was well understood at 
 the time, many of those who used them had their 
 eyes all the more open to the force of the county 
 claim, because they were not altogether sorry that 
 it was so likely to be the occasion of causing 
 a vacancy in the minority seat. None of those, 
 one is glad to believe, who shared this feeling, 
 bore the sitting member any personal ill-will.
 
 viii POLITICAL CHARACTERISTICS 289 
 
 But it must be recognised that he was not as a 
 politician sufficiently pliable, nor possibly suffi- 
 ciently showy, to be a representative entirely after 
 the heart of the average local party agent. His 
 work in Parliament had been of the arduous, 
 thorough, very unostentatious kind which we tried 
 to describe in the previous chapter. Its value 
 was perhaps better known to his fellow-members 
 and to the experts in the subjects at which he 
 worked than to all the leaders and wire-pullers in 
 the constituency, although there were some of these 
 in all ranks, and not least among the working men, 
 who appreciated it fully. 
 
 But it was his want of pliability in certain ways 
 that was probably his chief defect from the point of 
 view of the party managers. Although fully re- 
 cognising the obligations of party, and very loyal 
 to his leaders in Parliament, he held a strong view 
 that members of Parliament should be representa- 
 tives, not delegates, and that while giving full 
 weight to the opinions of constituents, they must 
 in the long-run be free to vote upon their own 
 convictions. Upon this ground he had a rooted 
 objection to giving pledges to vote for or against 
 particular measures or resolutions, unless the issue 
 were very clean cut and very clearly and generally 
 understood. In questions that were at all compli- 
 cated, the exact bearings and scope of proposed 
 measures could seldom, he argued, be known until 
 
 u
 
 290 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 after they had been debated in the House, and 
 members ought not to be debarred from recon- 
 sidering their judgment on them by pledges given 
 in the excitement and under the pressure of an 
 election contest. Nor should such pledges be 
 necessary, if there were between a member and 
 his constituency proper relations of mutual under- 
 standing, sympathy, and trust. 
 
 These views had on one or two occasions during 
 his representation of the borough threatened to 
 bring him into conflict with some sections of his 
 constituents whose enthusiasm for special measures 
 had made it hard for them to concede the freedom 
 he asked for. Thus, as we have already seen, his 
 inability to support Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Permis- 
 sive Prohibition Bill, and his views on temperance 
 questions generally, had been something of a 
 stumbling-block to the extreme temperance party. 
 At the time of the General Election of 1874 there 
 had been rumours that the " Permissive Bill 
 people" were going to plump 1 for the other can- 
 didate, Mr. W. S. Caine. The danger of this, if 
 there ever was any danger, was averted by the 
 loyalty and zeal of Mr. Caine, who showed him- 
 self, then as always, one of his warmest admirers 
 and friends. 
 
 A few years later a more serious difficulty arose. 
 
 1 i.e. to cast only one of their votes. Plumping, in the sense of cumulative 
 voting, was not allowed.
 
 viii RELATIONS TO THE HOME RULERS 291 
 
 The agitation for Home Rule, which may be said 
 to have begun its active political existence in 1872, 
 had been gathering in strength and improving in 
 organisation all through the rest of the seventies. 
 In Liverpool, owing to the presence in the poorer 
 quarters of the town of a very large Irish Roman 
 Catholic population, questions of Irish policy have 
 always excited feeling on both sides nearly as 
 strong as in any town of Ulster, and while the 
 Nationalist party probably commands more votes 
 than in any other town in England, it has always 
 been the object of greater hostility on the part 
 not only of Conservatives but of old-fashioned 
 Whigs. Antagonisms of race and religion make 
 themselves felt in all their force, and it is perhaps 
 scarcely too much to say that it is the number of 
 Irish in Liverpool that keeps the town as a whole 
 so persistently Conservative, and the number of 
 Roman Catholics that makes its Protestantism so 
 aggressively Protestant. 
 
 William Rathbone was far from sharing in 
 
 o 
 
 or approving this prevalent Orange sentiment. 
 His father had always been especially identified 
 with Irish interests by his advocacy of the removal 
 of all Catholic disabilities, his labours in organising 
 and distributing relief at the time of the famine, 
 his friendship with Father Mathew, and most of 
 all perhaps, in the popular mind, by his once 
 taking the chair at a public dinner in Liverpool to
 
 292 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Daniel O'Connell, then one of the most dreaded 
 and hated men in the United Kingdom. 1 
 
 He himself thoroughly approved his father's 
 views on the subject, and he had, besides, a strong 
 instinctive liking and admiration for the Irish type 
 of character, which was in several points its 
 idealism, its tinge of romance, its love of education 
 more naturally congenial to him than that of his 
 own countrymen. But upon the question of the 
 restoration of an Irish Parliament he at that time 
 shared the view, or as one might perhaps more 
 truly call it the assumption, of the great majority 
 of the Liberal party, including all its responsible 
 leaders, that such a demand was impracticable and 
 dangerous. On several occasions he had voted in 
 accordance with this conviction, and in April 1877 
 the Secretaries of the recently formed Home Rule 
 Association opened fire upon him in a letter, 
 of which the following were the important 
 passages : 
 
 The Association represents some ten to eleven thou- 
 sand parliamentary votes, and is extending its organisation, 
 with the determination of procuring a voting power 
 proportionate to the Irish population of the town. . . . 
 
 We are aware that in the past you have most liberally 
 
 1 It is related of this elder William Rathbone that coming home one 
 twelfth of July from the Town Council, seething with indignation at the bigotry 
 and bad taste of some anti-Irish manifestations there, he went to stroll in his 
 garden, and finding it ablaze with orange lilies, ordered them all to be pulled 
 up and burnt.
 
 vin RELATIONS TO THE HOME RULERS 293 
 
 supported questions affecting the religious and social con- 
 ditions of the Irish people in England ; and we therefore 
 more readily appeal to you to give your earnest considera- 
 tion to the great question of Home Rule. We beg of 
 you to give an answer to the following questions, assur- 
 ing you that upon your answer will depend our support 
 of you and the Liberal party, which you represent, or our 
 entire severance from its ranks : 
 
 1. Will you support and vote for Mr. Butt's motion 
 for inquiry into the relations between Ireland and Eng- 
 land since the passing of the Act of Union ? 
 
 2. Will you vote for the release of the political (Irish) 
 
 prisoners 
 
 The threat contained in this letter dispersed its 
 recipient's wonted urbanity, and drew from him a 
 reply very characteristic of his conception of the 
 proper relation between a member and his con- 
 stituents. His answer, after recapitulating the 
 chief points of his correspondent's letter, continues : 
 
 In reply, I must say that I had flattered myself my 
 antecedents would have protected me from a letter all 
 the arguments in which are addressed rather to my fears 
 than to my sense of justice and reason, and which pro- 
 ceeds on the assumption that I shall regulate my votes in 
 the House of Commons with reference rather to the 
 security of my seat than to the nature of my convictions. 
 I must say plainly in reply, that, while I value highly the 
 support of my Irish fellow-townsmen, not only because I 
 appreciate their numerical power, but far more because 
 their support is associated in my mind with the many 
 struggles in which I have been united with them in the
 
 294 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 cause of civil and religious liberty, I feel that, should the 
 time unhappily ever come when they can no longer 
 support me consistently with what they consider to be 
 the interests of the country, it would be as unreasonable 
 for me to expect their votes as it would be dishonourable 
 in them to record them for me. 
 
 In answer to your first question, I will now say that 
 I was not able conscientiously to support the resolution 
 you refer to (originally moved by Mr. Butt, but on 
 Tuesday evening by Mr. Shaw). I should warmly 
 advocate an inquiry into the causes of discontent among 
 a large number of our Irish fellow-countrymen, and I 
 hold strongly that many local Irish questions might with 
 advantage be locally settled. The words of the motion 
 did not, however, simply seek general inquiry, but were 
 so arranged as to be open to the construction that the 
 object of it was to investigate the expediency of establish- 
 ing a separate parliament for Ireland in the ordinary and 
 wide sense of that term. Believing such a proposal to 
 be impracticable, and yet that my vote might be under- 
 stood to mean that 1 might be prepared to support it, 
 I voted against the motion. 
 
 As regards the second question, I am in favour of the 
 release of the political prisoners to which it refers, unless 
 you include in these those concerned in the Clerkenwell 
 explosion. That crime was planned with such a reckless 
 and wicked disregard for the lives of innocent persons 
 that I am not prepared to interfere in any way, even by 
 petition, with the course which the executive may choose 
 to follow with regard to it. With that exception I think 
 that in the case of the political prisoners still remaining 
 in prison the law has now been sufficiently vindicated in 
 regard to the events they were connected with, and on
 
 vin RELATIONS TO THE HOME RULERS 295 
 
 grounds of public policy it is desirable to obliterate, as 
 soon as it can be accomplished with safety, all traces of 
 disaffection and discontent, and to banish the bitter 
 feelings they tend to keep alive. 
 
 In June he received a letter from the Northern 
 Branch of the Association, imperiously calling on 
 him to both speak and vote for the release of the 
 political prisoners, and adding : 
 
 Should you not deem it expedient to reply before next 
 Saturday, the 23rd June, I shall consider myself at liberty 
 to make whatever public use of this letter the branch 
 may authorise me to do, and shall take it for granted that 
 you are opposed to the release of any of the political 
 prisoners, simply because you consider that they have not 
 suffered long enough, nor have they been as harshly dealt 
 with as you would wish in British dungeons or if you 
 prefer it, English bastilles. 
 
 He replied curtly : 
 
 With respect to my opinion as to the political prisoners, 
 I must refer you to my letter of the 28th April in reply 
 to one from the Secretaries of the Liverpool Home Rule 
 Association, to which I have nothing to add. Its perusal 
 will show you that the course you suggest that you 
 are at liberty to take would be neither fair nor honest ; 
 and I cannot suppose, therefore, that any association of 
 my fellow-townsmen would adopt it. 
 
 Shortly afterwards both the Home Rule 
 Association and its Northern Branch wrote to 
 inform the newspapers that it had been decided
 
 296 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 at meetings of their members not to support the 
 candidature of Mr. William Rathbone, M.P., at 
 the next election. 
 
 As the Irish vote was estimated at from 9000 
 to 11,000 strong, the definite loss of their support 
 was of considerable importance, although it had 
 not, in fact, for some time been given heartily to 
 Liberal candidates, either at parliamentary or 
 municipal elections. The priests, whose political 
 influence was very powerful, had been alienated 
 by the line taken by the Liberals upon the ques- 
 tion of School Boards and religious education. 
 
 At the municipal elections of 1879 the Liberal 
 organisers, with a general election looming ahead 
 of them, roused themselves for a special effort. 
 The party machinery had been recently recast, 
 three separate Liberal associations having been 
 welded together into one representative body, 
 known as the Nine Hundred. The leaders of 
 this organisation managed somehow to come to 
 terms with the Irish party. To quote the letter 
 of a lively contemporary observer, they " squared 
 the Papist, and sprang the mine of a united 
 Liberalism upon the Capuan Tory, fast asleep." 
 The result was such a series of victories as had not 
 been known for years no less than eleven wards 
 returning Liberals to the Council. The triumph 
 of the party was destined to be very short-lived, 
 and perhaps in the long-run it rather did the Con-
 
 vin LORD RAMSAY'S CANDIDATURE 297 
 
 servatives a service than otherwise, by teaching 
 them their lesson in good time before the parlia- 
 mentary elections. But for the time it raised in 
 the local leaders of the Liberals great hopes of 
 what might be accomplished if the understanding 
 which had apparently brought about such a result 
 could be maintained. In the way of this possi- 
 bility, William Rathbone's disagreement with the 
 Nationalists was undoubtedly a great obstacle. 
 
 In the following January, while the question 
 of the candidature in South- West Lancashire was 
 still under discussion, Liverpool found itself un- 
 expectedly plunged into a by-election by the 
 death of Mr. Torr, one of its two Conservative 
 members. The Conservatives put forward a 
 strong local candidate in Mr. Edward Whitley. 
 The Liberals had some time before, in view of the 
 General Election, selected as their second candidate 
 the eldest son of the Earl of Dalhousie, Lord 
 Ramsay, who, as a convert to Liberalism from a 
 Conservative family of governing tradition, was 
 much sought after by constituencies in search of 
 candidates of promise. He had been brought up 
 in the Navy, and after distinguishing himself as 
 the youngest commander in the fleet, had left it 
 when his father, by the death of several relatives, 
 unexpectedly inherited the earldom. Since then 
 he had acquired Liberal convictions at Balliol, and 
 had succeeded in retaining them while holding an
 
 298 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 appointment at Court. Although he had had no 
 opportunity of nursing the constituency before 
 the by-election, it was plain from his first appear- 
 ance in Liverpool that he was going to be a very 
 popular candidate. Besides possessing the pleasant 
 and genial qualities which might be expected from 
 one of his age, profession, rank, and previous 
 career, he proved a clear and effective speaker, an 
 energetic worker, and an apt pupil in the art of 
 contesting an election in the unfamiliar conditions 
 of a great' provincial town. At the end of the 
 campaign it was said by observers well able to 
 judge, that he had made only one blunder. Un- 
 fortunately it was a serious one. The Irish 
 party had, of course, brought pressure to bear 
 upon him, as they had done upon William Rath- 
 bone, to support Mr. Butt's motion. In his early 
 speeches he had promised to vote for an inquiry 
 into " the nature and extent of the Irish demand 
 for self-government," but had expressly safe- 
 guarded the integrity of the United Kingdom, 
 and disapproved any attempt to restore the old 
 Irish Parliament. This did not satisfy the 
 Nationalists, who issued a manifesto refusing to 
 support his candidature. Negotiations followed, 
 in which the Irish leaders showed some ingenuity 
 in veiling the real issue in a mist of words, and in 
 the very middle of a meeting called to denounce 
 Lord Ramsay's candidature, they were able to
 
 vin LORD RAMSAY'S CANDIDATURE 299 
 
 announce that the differences between them were 
 adjusted and that he had conceded all they 
 asked for. 
 
 A candidate new to politics has to make up 
 opinions as he goes along upon half the questions 
 he is expected to speak on with authority, and he 
 is naturally susceptible to argument and influence. 
 No one who knew him doubted Lord Ramsay's 
 sincerity, but his concession was certainly ill- 
 timed. Coming when it did, it gave the enemy 
 legitimate occasion to accuse him of truckling to 
 threats, and it is fair to say that he realised his 
 mistake as soon as the concession had been made. 
 It had indirectly an unfortunate bearing upon the 
 prospects of the Liberal party in the borough and 
 upon his relations to the minority member, William 
 Rathbone the senior candidate, as the understand- 
 ing then went, in the General Election. If there 
 were to be any hope of gaining a second Liberal seat 
 it was essential that the whole party should hang 
 together, and that there should be no plumping. 
 The candidates and their immediate friends would 
 still, no doubt, do everything possible to secure this 
 result. But when once the junior candidate had 
 conceded what the senior had refused, it became 
 clear that it would be very difficult to prevent the 
 contest from degenerating into a contest between 
 the two Liberals for the minority seat, in which 
 the issue would depend largely on whether the
 
 300 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 concession to the Home Rulers had secured more 
 votes than it had alienated, or alienated more than 
 it secured. 
 
 While the by-election was still in progress, 
 there were a good many who prophesied that 
 such a contest would end in William Rath- 
 bone's defeat. It was an open secret that there 
 were some beside the Home Rulers who would 
 not have been sorry if it had been so, and who, if 
 they could not have both, preferred Lord Ramsay 
 as their representative for one or a combination of 
 a number of reasons such as probably enter, in 
 greater or slighter degree, into most election con- 
 tests. He was young and plastic, and might be 
 expected to be more amenable to influence than a 
 more experienced politician. The prospect of his 
 accession to the Upper House, which could not in 
 the course of nature be delayed many years, would 
 keep up that stir in party waters which political 
 organisers think healthy. His youth, rank, and 
 abilities gave hope that he might reach high office 
 and so confer distinction on the town which had 
 introduced him into politics. His personal quali- 
 ties and those of his wife brought into the sober 
 atmosphere of local politics a waft from a livelier 
 and brighter climate, and serious-minded local 
 politicians showed signs of the exhilarating effects. 
 
 No man in Liverpool was less likely than the 
 minority member to exaggerate the prevalence of
 
 vni LORD RAMSAY'S CANDIDATURE 301 
 
 these motives, and no one could be more sympa- 
 thetic with the two latter of them. Always a great 
 believer in youth, and also in the special oppor- 
 tunities for usefulness which, under the conditions 
 of English society, high position gives to any one 
 capable of using them, he caught much of the 
 prevailing infection, and threw himself with an 
 unmistakably whole-hearted zeal into the cause 
 of the young candidate whom nearly every one 
 in Liverpool except himself was beginning to 
 look upon as something like his rival. At one 
 meeting of electors he dwelt with pride upon all 
 the incidents of Lord Ramsay's career, his success 
 in the Navy, his studies at Balliol, his carefully 
 formed Liberal convictions, and the sense of 
 responsibility for his position and gifts which 
 underlay them, and then told the audience that 
 when he had first heard of these things from the 
 Liberal agent, he had said to him : " If Lord 
 Ramsay is all that you say, he is a just perfect 
 candidate for Liverpool." Another meeting 
 was assured by him that the then House of 
 Commons was the oldest, richest, and most in- 
 efficient that had sat in his day, and that while 
 it had any quantity of age and experience, it 
 was lamentably deficient in youth and energy. 
 He went on to describe the need of the Liberal 
 party for young men of ability, capable of being 
 trained up as the great statesmen of the future,
 
 302 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and after enlarging upon the exceptional advan- 
 tages which the varied interests of Liverpool gave 
 it as a training-ground for these young states- 
 men, he finished by exhorting his hearers, if they 
 wished to do honour to themselves and service to 
 their country, " to send to Parliament a young, 
 vigorous, determined, honest man like Lord 
 Ramsay, and not another old gentleman, how- 
 ever respectable he may be." 
 
 Speakers on a candidate's platform are bound 
 to find reasons why he is a better man than his 
 opponent, but it would have been quite easy to 
 have kept to general political ground. Under 
 the special circumstances of the case, these par- 
 ticular reasons had a significance which was quickly 
 appreciated by the rank and file of the electors, 
 among whom the speaker's popularity was great, 
 and who would have been quick to note any in- 
 dication that he felt himself aggrieved. 
 
 Unfortunately for the Liberals, the other side 
 too had a popular candidate and strong supporters. 
 The event showed that however it might be with 
 the rest of the country, the majority in Liverpool 
 at least was as Conservative as ever it had been. 
 Mr. Whitley was elected by 2200 votes upon a 
 poll of 50,000. 
 
 This Liberal reverse, coming close upon another 
 at Southwark, was thought by some to have pre- 
 cipitated the intention of the Conservative Govern-
 
 vin THE DISSOLUTION 303 
 
 ment to dissolve Parliament. They took it, it was 
 said, as a sign that the Opposition had fallen into 
 disfavour with the country by coquetting with the 
 Home Rulers. However that may be, after they 
 had set out on the work of the session with every 
 appearance of an intention to carry it through, the 
 dissolution was on April 7 suddenly announced, 
 and Lord Beaconsfield, in a letter to the Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Ireland which was in effect an 
 election manifesto, tried to make the integrity 
 of the United Kingdom the issue of the 
 election. 
 
 The mere fact of defeat in a town so steadily 
 Conservative as Liverpool, was not in reality 
 of much significance ; but that the Conservative 
 majority should have suffered scarcely any reduc- 
 tion in its proportion to the poll since Liberal 
 fortunes were at the very low ebb of 1873, this 
 seemed a bad omen, and it was very generally 
 attributed to Lord Ramsay's concession to the 
 Home Rulers. This explanation received con- 
 firmation by three defeats occurring in quick 
 succession at by - elections in municipal wards. 
 It seemed as though the electors, as soon as they 
 realised that the November victories had been won 
 by the united action of Liberals and Nationalists, 
 were eager to disavow the alliance. As the matter 
 was put by the lively correspondent whose letter 
 we quoted before :
 
 304 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Hughes of Everton, as Hughes, beat Vining by 15. 
 Hughes, Home Rule candidate, after Everton knew it, 
 was beaten by 1500. Matheson, 100 better than Evans, 
 is beaten by 170 more than Evans, when South Toxteth 
 knew he was the Radical and Home Rule candidate. 
 
 From these and other facts this keen observer 
 concludes " that the Tories when roused are a 
 true majority," and that " if Liverpool had been 
 less excited by Lady Ramsay's beauty, by Lord 
 Ramsay's ability, and by your ridiculous loyalty, 
 we should have been beaten by 3500, instead 
 of 2 200," and goes on to prophesy that when 
 Liverpool had had time to think, she would re- 
 pudiate those who had bowed the knee to Baal 
 by 5000 instead of 2200 votes. 
 
 Whatever might be the value of this estimate, 
 it was pretty clear that Lord Ramsay's concession 
 had alienated more votes than it conciliated a 
 conclusion not of course in itself any condemna- 
 tion of his action. All hope of gaining a second 
 Liberal seat for the borough was now dispelled, 
 and it became clear that if Lord Ramsay was to 
 begin his political career as a member for Liver- 
 pool, it would have to be in the place, and not as 
 the colleague, of the member in possession. 
 
 Meantime the negotiations with the representa- 
 tives of the county were still going on. William 
 Rathbone regarded the questions of the representa- 
 tion of the county and the representation of the
 
 vin THE COUNTY v. THE BOROUGH 305 
 
 borough as quite distinct, and he was determined 
 that they should be kept so. In a private letter 
 to the leaders of the Liberal party in Liverpool, 
 written shortly after Lord Ramsay's defeat, he 
 told them that in discussing the representation 
 of the borough he hoped they would consider 
 the question of his personal position as of ab- 
 solutely no importance ; but that should they 
 come to the conclusion that they had found a 
 man who could represent them more truly or 
 more efficiently than he had done, they must not 
 expect him to fight the county merely to save 
 them from the unpleasantness of saying so plainly. 
 There were some of his friends who feared that 
 his humility would lead him too hastily to infer 
 that the conclusion he spoke of had been reached. 
 Thus the correspondent whom we have quoted so 
 often, wrote to him in terms in which irritation at 
 his impracticability evidently struggles with affec- 
 tionate pride : 
 
 One thing is clear : that you should keep your 
 powder dry and say and do nothing to compromise the 
 position. So too in your ridiculous self-abnegation and 
 exaggerated loyalty, do not forget this : a public man 
 does not belong to himself alone ; nor has he any right, 
 in his morbid desire to do right in his own sight, to 
 sacrifice the equally sacied rights of those whom he re- 
 presents. If, as it well may be, you exactly represent 
 some 14,000 earnest, zealous Liberals, here, you have no 
 right to sell them to any other man, because in an unfair 
 
 x
 
 3 o6 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 estimate of yourself, or in a fit of romantic folly, you 
 imagine that some younger and more popular person 
 would more exactly represent them. In all this you 
 must think of others rather than of yourself, and even be 
 which will be hard to you selfish for yourself, if it be 
 best for them. These are general remarks. 
 
 Probably this caution was not actually necessary. 
 Anxious as William Rathbone might be to see Lord 
 Ramsay in Parliament, he could not be ignorant 
 that his entry there did not depend on Liverpool. 
 He knew the weak points of his own position well ; 
 but he had held the position too long not to know 
 its strong points also ; and however modest, he 
 was neither timid nor excessively thin-skinned. 
 The question of the South- West Lancashire elec- 
 tion was the one upon which his eyes were mainly 
 fixed, and it was upon that that his final decision 
 was based. The importance of recovering the seat 
 was obvious, and there was a very general agree- 
 ment that he was the most likely candidate to do it. 
 Had he felt confident or even hopeful about the 
 result of the contest he would not have felt free 
 to hesitate any longer. But he had always, from 
 his early thorough knowledge of the constituency, 
 taken a much Jess sanguine view than most of his 
 advisers ; and since the contest in Liverpool had 
 stirred up the anti- Irish feeling of the con- 
 stituency, he felt more hopeless than ever. 
 Defeat might be risked, but an overwhelming
 
 vin THE COUNTY v. THE BOROUGH 307 
 
 defeat would, he thought, do much more harm 
 than good. 
 
 The more hopeful view of some of the local 
 men was, however, backed up by Mr. Adam, the 
 chief Liberal Whip. Lord Sefton also was eager 
 for the contest, but would not sanction his 
 brother's standing unless William Rathbone or 
 some other experienced politician stood with him. 
 
 In the face of these opinions, William Rathbone 
 was unwilling to take the responsibility of decid- 
 ing in accordance with his own forebodings. He 
 resolved to refer the matter to the two respon- 
 sible leaders of the party, Lord Granville and 
 Lord Hartington. He sought out Lord Hart- 
 ington, who, as member for a Lancashire con- 
 stituency, knew the circumstances of the county 
 well, and asked him whether he thought it would 
 be to the advantage of the party to contest South- 
 West Lancashire against Mr. Cross, with the 
 strong probability of a defeat. Lord Hartington 
 seemed reluctant to give an opinion, and turned 
 away, saying shortly, " You ought not to have 
 been asked." William Rathbone told him that 
 was no answer to his question. He had asked 
 him whether his standing would be to the in- 
 terests of the party, and that, Lord Hartington 
 must agree, was the only point that he or those on 
 the spot had a right to consider. Thus pressed, 
 he admitted that if those on the spot were certain
 
 308 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 that they could make a good fight, it would be 
 well worth while to make the attempt. The same 
 question put to Lord Granville drew out sub- 
 stantially the same reply. 
 
 On March 17 a meeting of the Liberal Nine 
 Hundred was held in Liverpool, at which two 
 resolutions were passed. The first, " gratefully 
 recognising the long and eminent services of Mr. 
 Rathbone in Parliament," requested him to allow 
 himself to be nominated for the borough. The 
 second, in somewhat lengthy and involved terms, 
 significant of the doubts and difficulties of which it 
 was the outcome, after declaring the meeting's 
 " profound conviction of the importance of Mr. 
 Rathbone's continued connection with Liverpool 
 in the coming Parliament," signified its willingness 
 to accept the decision of the leaders of the Liberal 
 party. 1 
 
 These resolutions were at once telegraphed to 
 William Rathbone in London. They were pre- 
 ceded and followed by a shower of telegrams and 
 letters from prominent Liverpool Liberals urging 
 him not to leave the borough. But by this time 
 he had practically made up his mind. He made 
 one condition : that Lord Derby should come out 
 openly on the Liberal side and give Captain 
 Molyneux and himself his support. This he found 
 Lord Derby was quite prepared to do, and on 
 
 1 i.e. of Lord Hartington and Lord Granville.
 
 vin HIS DECISION 309 
 
 March 15 he addressed to his friend, Mr. R. D. 
 Holt, then chairman of the Liberal party in Liver- 
 pool, a letter announcing his intention to accept 
 the invitation of the county. He began by reciting 
 the facts of the negotiations with the County Com- 
 mittee as I have given them above. He described 
 the overtures made him in the autumn by the 
 County Association, and his first rejection of them 
 upon the plea that he felt bound and preferred to 
 remain in his old constituency. He spoke of the 
 further pressure put upon him on the ground of his 
 former acquaintance with the constituency and or 
 the opinion expressed to him by Lord Granville 
 and Lord Hartington as to the importance of 
 contesting the county seat, and concluded : 
 
 Under these circumstances I have decided to accept 
 the joint nomination of the County Committee, and I 
 trust I shall have the approval of every true Liberal in the 
 course which I have felt it my duty to take. 
 
 In thus severing my direct connection with the 
 borough, I am glad to know that if I am elected it will 
 still form the largest part of my constituency, and I need 
 not assure my many friends in Liverpool that I shall 
 continue to attend to their municipal and commercial 
 interests, with which my family have been so closely 
 identified for generations. It is also a satisfaction to me 
 to know that Lord Ramsay will be one of the candidates 
 for the borough, as I feel convinced that in him Liver- 
 pool will find a most able and popular representative. 
 
 I am deeply grateful to my fellow-townsmen for the
 
 310 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 constant confidence and kindness which I have experienced 
 at their hands, and I shall endeavour later to express this 
 to them directly and more satisfactorily than I can within 
 the limits of this letter. I will only say now that I hope 
 any of my friends who may be disposed to blame me for 
 giving up that which has always been the greatest object 
 of my ambition the representation of my native town 
 will consider the circumstances in which my decision was 
 taken. The Liberal party, both in the town and in the 
 county, were decided that South- West Lancashire ought 
 to be fought, and could be won, and I was told ofF by the 
 Liberal leaders as one who ought to fight it. This being 
 the case, I am sure my friends will agree with me that I 
 could not hesitate for one moment to leave my position 
 of safety to take up the duty thus offered to me. 
 
 To you personally I am indebted for the consideration 
 and friendship you have always shown me, alike in our 
 private and official relations. 
 
 Lord Ramsay was then nominated, and neither 
 party in the borough having a mind for another 
 contest, he was returned with Lord Sandon and 
 Mr. Whitley unopposed. Lord Ramsay had been 
 full of scruples at the notion of stepping into 
 another man's seat, and had frequently come to 
 the house in Princes Gardens to discuss the matter 
 with William Rathbone, who made light of his 
 doubts, telling him that they were both privates in 
 an army, and must go where they were bid. At 
 the least encouragement from the older man, he 
 would have telegraphed to accept one of the other 
 nominations that had been offered to him. When
 
 vin S.-W. LANCASHIRE ELECTION 311 
 
 the inevitable defeat in South- West Lancashire 
 came, he took it far more to heart than the de- 
 teated candidate, who promptly wrote him " two 
 kind letters," of which Lord Ramsay says, " they 
 are very like yourself, and as cheering as anything 
 can be under the circumstances." 
 
 Relieved that the time of indecision and anxiety 
 was over, William Rathbone threw himself into 
 the campaign with even more than his usual energy. 
 It began with a meeting at Southport, and in the 
 ensuing fortnight he made not Jess than forty 
 speeches, many of them in the open air. Nearly 
 all the meetings were in suburbs and outlying 
 towns within a few miles from Liverpool. Most 
 of them were marked by great enthusiasm, much 
 of it evidently personal to himself. The sacrifice 
 he had made to his party, and still more perhaps 
 what was visible of the spirit in which it had been 
 made, had gone home to the rank and file of 
 Liberal electors, and they showed their feeling 
 with Lancashire heartiness. The Tory press did 
 its best to discount his popularity by discrediting 
 his own account of his candidature, and by re- 
 presenting him as forcibly turned out of Liverpool 
 to please the Home Rulers, and as disingenuously 
 making a virtue out of his necessity. To all 
 questions and comments on the subject he replied 
 by repeating in brief the facts he had dwelt on in 
 his letter to Mr. Holt, and to one such explanation
 
 3i2 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 he added : " That is the whole truth, and I fancy 
 there is not one single man in Liverpool, whether 
 he be opponent or supporter, who will doubt my 
 word." 
 
 The ingenious London correspondent of one 
 paper professed to discover that he had been 
 promised a baronetcy if defeated, and urged his 
 friends not to deprive him of the honour by giving 
 him their votes. He retorted by telling the story 
 of Coke of Norfolk. Coke was so troublesome in 
 presenting petitions in favour of Liberal reform 
 to the King, that His Majesty, who had been very 
 intimate with him in his irresponsible days before 
 the Regency, at length said : "Confound you, Coke ! 
 if you ever present one of those petitions again, 
 by Heaven ! I'll knight you." The old gentle- 
 man never appeared at Court with a petition again. 
 " I can only say," he went on, " that if Lord 
 Hartington had held out any such threat as a 
 baronetcy to me, the effect would have been much 
 the same. I feel strongly that an English merchant 
 may well be so proud of his order that he need 
 not seek higher distinction, unless indeed it be the 
 honour which I have enjoyed, and which I again 
 seek at your hands, of being one of its repre- 
 sentatives in Parliament. Gentlemen, whatever 
 may be my lot in this present contest, you may be 
 assured of one thing I shall die, as I have lived, 
 bearing the simple name by which the head of
 
 via S.-W. LANCASHIRE ELECTION 3 ! 3 
 
 my family has been known in Lancashire for 
 generations." 
 
 The largest meeting of all was among his old 
 constituents, in the familiar surroundings of 
 Hengler's Circus. He had a great reception, and 
 he closed his speech with the words : 
 
 My voice is failing me, but I should like you to hear 
 my last words, and they shall be very few and brief. We 
 shall not meet again until South-West Lancashire has 
 delivered its important verdict. I shall accept that verdict 
 cheerfully, and so will my friend Captain Molyneux, 
 whatever the verdict may be. The ties which bind me 
 to my native town and my native county cannot be 
 severed. They have been gathering strength during a 
 long lifetime of active work among you for forty years, ten 
 of them as your representative. Every year of that long 
 period has been full of fresh obligation to my native town. 
 Every year has made me feel deeper and deeper gratitude 
 and affection, as fervent as it is possible for any man to 
 feel. In some capacity, be it proud or be it humble, I 
 must serve you, and I will serve you whilst life and 
 strength remain. It is for you, my fellow-townsmen and 
 my neighbours and friends in the county, to say whether I 
 shall be enabled to continue to serve you in the proud 
 capacity of your representative. 
 
 The feelings with which he looked back at 
 the events of the past two weeks were shown 
 by a letter which he wrote to his cousin, 
 Mr. George Melly, on the night before the poll. 
 Mr. Melly, on whose keen instinct in political
 
 3H WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 matters he placed much reliance, had, after 
 some hesitation, finally advised his going to the 
 county : * 
 
 I do hope you will sleep peacefully to-night I am sure 
 you ought to j for you must be satisfied now, if you ever 
 doubted, that you and Sam l never did an act of truer or 
 wiser friendship in the many you have done than when 
 you advised me to accept the proposal that I should 
 go to South -West Lancashire. Nothing that can 
 happen to - morrow can change this ; everything that 
 has happened since has confirmed the wisdom of the 
 decision. I could never have held up my head again 
 had I walked over for Liverpool, and South -West 
 Lancashire not been fought. I should have been a 
 disgraced man in my own eyes and the eyes of those whose 
 opinion I value you, Sam, and others, and most of all 
 Emily, 2 who has not had a doubt. And now suppose 
 even a severe defeat : why, I have had such kindness, such 
 friendship, I may almost say attachment, shown to me, 
 and more still to my father's memory, it would repay fifty 
 elections or fifty defeats, or a lifetime of effort and self- 
 sacrifice. I really cannot understand why I should be so 
 overpowered with that love and friendship which outweigh 
 all other earthly blessings. 
 
 And do not, my dear George, suppose I am so dense or 
 forgetful as to be unaware how much I owe of my par- 
 liamentary career, and indeed that I ever was in Parliament 
 at all, to your too partial overestimate of me which 
 your blind affection has formed and bitten other people 
 with. I know and feel it all, and have neither forgotten 
 nor ever can forget it. 
 
 1 S. G. Rathbone, W. R.'s brother. 2 His wife.
 
 vni S.-W. LANCASHIRE ELECTION 315 
 
 The campaign had seemed to be going so well, 
 that even those who, like William Rathbone him- 
 self, had had very little real hope of success, began 
 to believe that he at least would be returned. 
 " The whole tide seemed so completely in our 
 favour," he said, in writing of it afterwards, " that 
 the Conservatives themselves thought we had 
 won ; so much so that one of them said to a friend 
 of mine when the poll was closed : * We should 
 not have minded Mr. Rathbone getting in ; but 
 to lose Mr. Cross would be a great blow to us,' 
 believing that both Liberal candidates were in." 
 But farmers who had voted Tory for generations 
 were not ready to swing round in a moment, even 
 when their landlords set the lead. Lord Derby 
 and Lord Sefton had given their hearty support 
 to the Liberal candidates, but they had rightly 
 brought no pressure to bear, and it was not for 
 Liberals to complain if the result showed that 
 the influence of the great landowners had been 
 over-rated. 
 
 William Rathbone and his colleague got no 
 support from the Irish vote, while they bore the 
 penalty of the anti-Irish feeling of the constituency. 
 The Catholics, in spite of the energetic efforts of 
 Lord Ripon to give them a right lead, could not 
 forgive Mr. Gladstone or his followers for the 
 pamphlet on the Vatican decrees. When the poll 
 was announced the figures stood :
 
 3 i6 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Cross .... 11,420 
 
 Blackburne . . . 10,905 
 
 Rathbone .... 9666 
 
 Molyneux . . . 9207 
 
 William Rathbone was thus defeated by over 
 1 200 votes. In the course of a short speech 
 which he made to his supporters from the windows 
 of the Reform Club, he told them that he had 
 never felt happier in his life, because, though he 
 and his colleague had been defeated, the principles 
 for which they had been contending were every- 
 where successful. He had a more personal cause 
 for happiness in the certainty that, under difficult 
 circumstances, he had taken the right course. The 
 swing in favour of the Liberals at that election had 
 
 o 
 
 been so great, that, had he refused to stand, he felt 
 that every one would have believed that nothing but 
 his selfishness had prevented the seat from being 
 won. Now he was free to work for the object 
 which for the time he was most eager about the 
 founding of the University College in Liverpool. 
 He scarcely, in fact, seemed to need, in the first 
 excitement at least, the condolences which poured in 
 upon him from every quarter, including most of the 
 prominent men on his own side of the House. 
 He had rather to set himself to cheer up the 
 friends and party leaders who had urged him to 
 stand, and who were now many of them bitterly 
 disappointed and not a little mortified by a defeat
 
 via ANOTHER BY-ELECTION 317 
 
 severer than they had thought possible. They 
 had not, he pointed out, done nothing. They had 
 pulled together the party in South- West Lancashire 
 in a way which " made future victory certain." 
 Unfortunately, this prophecy was not fated to be 
 realised. Before the next election the Redis- 
 tribution Bill had recast all divisions and altered 
 them beyond recognition. But all the constitu- 
 encies which cover what was then South -West 
 Lancashire now return Conservatives and have 
 done so ever since, usually without a contest. 
 After the disruption of 1886, Liberal Committees 
 might well think it hopeless to attack strongholds 
 which had repelled them so decisively in their 
 hour of triumph. 
 
 Two months after the General Election another 
 blow fell upon the Liberals of Liverpool. The 
 Earl of Dalhousie died rather suddenly, at the age 
 of seventy-four, and Lord Ramsay passed into the 
 Upper House. The possibility must have been 
 weighed, but it was an irony of fate that it should 
 have come to pass so soon. At by-elections in 
 three-cornered constituencies the minority clause 
 of course ceased to operate. There being but one 
 vacancy and each elector having one vote, the party 
 in a majority could control the seat. The Liberal 
 press tried to argue that the Tories, who shortly 
 before had been disposed to represent William 
 Rathbone, as he said himself, as " a sort of dis-
 
 3 i8 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 carded archangel, whose virtues his own party had 
 been unworthy to appreciate," could now do no 
 less than allow him peaceably to return to his old 
 seat. But it is one thing to praise a political 
 opponent, when by doing so you at once gratify 
 your kindly feelings and convey a rebuke to the 
 other side. It is quite another to let him walk 
 over into a seat which it is in your power to 
 secure for one of your own men. The Tories 
 were scarcely to blame if they refused to see the 
 obligation, especially as the Liberals had set them 
 no such example of magnanimity in the case of by- 
 elections in other three-cornered constituencies. 
 Lord Claud Hamilton was put forward as the 
 Conservative candidate. The Liberals pressed the 
 nomination on William Rathbone, but he did not 
 believe that he could carry the seat, and with the 
 Irish and other extreme elements on his own side 
 still against him, he was not willing to make the 
 attempt. They eventually secured a candidate 
 in Mr. Plimsoll, the champion of the merchant 
 seamen, who would, it was thought, attract the 
 seafaring vote. He was beaten, but by a smaller 
 majority than was expected ; probably because the 
 Conservatives were over-confident and did not put 
 forth their full strength. Two years later, in 
 1882, there was another by-election upon the 
 elevation* of Lord Sandon to the peerage. The 
 Liberals tried again, and to the general surprise
 
 vni OUT OF PARLIAMENT 319 
 
 their candidate, Mr. Samuel Smith, was elected. 
 The Redistribution Act of 1885 divided the city 
 into nine parliamentary divisions. Eight of these 
 are held by Conservatives and one by an Irish 
 Home Ruler, and, except for a short time in the 
 Exchange Division, no English Liberal has since 
 sat for any part of Liverpool. 
 
 His defeat in South -West Lancashire was 
 followed by a respite of nine months in William 
 Rathbone's political activity. 
 
 Vacancies at Leeds, Chester, and the Denbigh 
 Boroughs were all talked of for him, but all for 
 one reason or another fell through. Still, the 
 party Whips were pledged to find him a safe seat 
 at an early opportunity, and he was not sorry for 
 a session's holiday. He spent a good deal of it 
 in collecting funds for the projected University 
 College, and had secured, in sums of ^1000 and 
 upwards, endowments of ^10,000 apiece for six 
 chairs, before going abroad for his summer holiday. 
 
 This holiday was one of the longest he ever 
 took. Accompanied by his wife and two children, 
 a boy and girl of twelve and fourteen, he went for 
 some weeks to the Tyrol. Then, having dispatched 
 the boy home to school, they took steamer at 
 Trieste and went through the Greek Islands and 
 crossed the Isthmus to Athens. There they were 
 joined by Mr. James Bryce, who went with them 
 on a tour through Central Greece. They took
 
 320 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 steamer to Nauplia and thence rode to Corinth ; 
 then took steamer down the Gulf to Salona, and 
 rode by Delphi and Thebes back to Athens, stop- 
 ping at many places on the way. Greece was then 
 very little visited by travellers, and the two or three 
 hotels were very rough and dirty. In most places 
 they slept in the houses of the principal inhabitants, 
 at Delphi in the Museum, and at Nemea in a barn. 
 The food consisted of turkeys, very lean and 
 tough, some bread, and wine strongly flavoured 
 with turpentine. As English and as followers of 
 Mr. Gladstone they were everywhere received 
 with hospitality and great attention, and the 
 Government insisted on providing them, much 
 against their wills, with an escort of soldiers to 
 protect them from brigands. 
 
 From Greece they went to Cannes, where they 
 had taken a villa for the winter. They had been 
 there only four days when William Rathbone was 
 summoned back to England by a telegram con- 
 veying a unanimous invitation from the Liberals of 
 Carnarvonshire to contest the vacancy left by the 
 elevation of Mr. Watkin Williams to the Bench. 
 As Mr. Williams had been returned in April by 
 noo votes, the seat was considered secure. 
 
 The circumstances of the campaign must have 
 offered a strong contrast to those of the last which 
 William Rathbone had fought. Instead of flat, 
 green fields, sprinkled so thickly with factory
 
 vni CONTEST IN CARNARVONSHIRE 321 
 
 towns and ports that the space between seems 
 all suburbs, and there is scarcely room for a 
 strip of clear sky between one smoke-cloud and 
 another, the new scene lay among the mountains 
 and along the seashore. The large meetings 
 were in pretty watering-places, the smaller and 
 they were many in the Nonconformist chapels 
 and school -rooms of villages among the hills. 
 At these meetings three-fourths of the population 
 seemed to attend farmers and quarrymen with 
 their wives and children all listening in breath- 
 less silence to speeches in what was to not 
 a few of them an unknown tongue, and then 
 breaking out into eager responsiveness when the 
 minister or schoolmaster repeated what had been 
 said, bit by bit, in Welsh. The people were keen 
 politicians of a robust Liberal faith, very strong 
 on disestablishment, education, and temperance. 
 Apart from political argument, William Rathbone's 
 opponents relied much upon two charges : that he 
 was not a Welshman, and that he was a man of no 
 religion. Upon the first count he pleaded that he 
 was at least a citizen, and had been for eleven years 
 the representative of a city containing more Welsh- 
 men than any constituency in Wales, so that he 
 might be supposed to know something of the 
 nation. To the second charge he replied briefly 
 once, and then left it alone : 
 
 I value the Bible and the Christian religion which it 
 
 Y
 
 322 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 reveals as the most precious treasure of mankind. I 
 have been brought up to look to it as the rule for my 
 conduct in life, and my consolation in sorrow and death ; 
 and I revere it too much to drag its doctrines into election 
 contests. 
 
 The conclusion was foregone from the first, 
 though a Liverpool Liberal is too schooled to 
 defeat to let himself be confident easily. He had 
 a majority of 1029 votes. 
 
 In looking back at the events described in this 
 chapter, his friends used sometimes to wonder 
 whether the change of constituency had been in 
 the long-run to the advantage or disadvantage of 
 his usefulness. It was, of course, an idle specula- 
 tion, like all attempts to measure what is, against 
 what might have been. There seemed some waste 
 of effort, and of natural and acquired fitness, in 
 splitting up his interests between his native town 
 and a strange place. Yet undoubtedly the change 
 had certain points of advantage. The work con- 
 nected with the special interests of the locality was 
 much less hard. He had a freer hand, and his 
 words and acts had no longer to be weighed and 
 measured and pared down to please half-a-dozen 
 cautious friends and critics, who feared lest this 
 might offend the Roman Catholics, or that be too 
 much for the Whigs. The temperament of his 
 new constituents was, in many ways, peculiarly 
 congenial to him. He delighted in their vigorous
 
 vin HIS POLITICAL POSITION 323 
 
 Nonconformity, their frugal and temperate ways, 
 their zeal for education and readiness to make sacri- 
 fices to secure it for their children ; in their warmth 
 and demonstrativeness, their voluble and pleasant 
 tongues. It would have been difficult to persuade 
 him that he could have found, even in Liverpool, 
 any work within his power that would have been 
 better worth doing, than securing a thorough system 
 of intermediate and higher education for a people 
 so eager and able to profit by it. 
 
 From a selfish point of view, his labours in 
 South-West Lancashire had not been fruitless. The 
 circumstances of the contest, Mr. Gladstone's 
 and Lord Derby's connection with the con- 
 stituency, and not least his own sacrifice of his 
 Liverpool seat, had attracted much interest and 
 sympathy, and when he returned to the House 
 after a session's absence, he found himself, although 
 representing a less important constituency, in a 
 position which gave him greater influence than 
 before. 
 
 Upon a few of the friends and fellow-citizens 
 who knew all the circumstances, the affair seems 
 to have produced a deeper impression. As they 
 watched his bearing while he passed through the 
 tangle of negotiations which we have tried to 
 describe, without suffering himself to glance for an 
 instant at any other consideration than the public 
 good, without carrying away a bitter feeling about
 
 3 2 4 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, vm 
 
 any one, or once imputing an unworthy motive, 
 they realised what it meant to apply the principles 
 of Christianity in all simplicity to the affairs of an 
 election contest, and felt that, as one of them ex- 
 pressed it, it would be thenceforward harder for 
 them ever, either by persuasion of others or decep- 
 tion of themselves, to choose a pusillanimous or 
 self-seeking course in public affairs.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WORK FOR EDUCATION 
 
 AT the declaration of the poll after the South- 
 West Lancashire election described in the last 
 chapter, William Rathbone's reception of the 
 figures was characteristic. For a moment his face 
 clouded, then turning to Mr. W. S. Caine, who 
 stood near him, he said, " Now we'll have the 
 College." 
 
 The movement for establishing a University 
 College in Liverpool was just then at a critical 
 stage. It had been set on foot some two and a 
 half years before by a group of men, most of 
 whom were connected with one or other of the 
 learned professions. The desire for such a College 
 was of much older date. For many years past 
 the lack of facilities in Liverpool for advanced 
 study in all subjects, but especially in science, 
 had often been discussed among the more ambi- 
 tious and enlightened citizens, and more than one 
 abortive attempt had been made to supply the 
 
 325
 
 326 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 need. The institution known as Queen's College 
 
 <^ O 
 
 had been established with this aim, on the basis 
 of the old Mechanics Institute, and had conducted 
 for many years evening classes of the character of 
 University Extension lectures ; but it had never 
 flourished and was an almost acknowledged 
 failure, mainly, no doubt, because it had no 
 endowment. Its Council, influenced by the pre- 
 valent individualism of the time, seem to have 
 thought that education, like other commodities, 
 only needed an open market, and attempted to 
 make the instruction they offered self-supporting. 
 In 1870 a serious effort was made to establish 
 a College of Science, and some preliminary steps 
 were taken. But there were differences of opinion 
 between the promoters as to the kind and scope 
 of College that was needed. Some thought that 
 trade was not good enough just then to make it 
 possible to secure adequate endowments. Others, 
 from whom support might have been expected, 
 doubted whether there was in Liverpool enough 
 interest in high scientific teaching to justify the 
 attempt, and feared that, even if established, the 
 College, left without sufficient students or funds, 
 would never really thrive. An eminent man of 
 science in Manchester, when consulted on the 
 scheme, replied with a deluge of cold water. In 
 his own town, he pointed out, they were in the 
 midst of a population applying scientific principles
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 327 
 
 to manufacture, and as compared with Liverpool, 
 the more general interest in scientific study was 
 shown by the much larger proportion of successes 
 at the Science and Art examinations, as well as by 
 the city's longer roll of eminent scientific names. 
 Yet even there the Owens College had had to 
 work for twelve years " without either encourage- 
 ment from the inhabitants or increase in our 
 numbers." In Liverpool he anticipated a much 
 more uphill struggle. In fact it was evident that 
 Liverpool was, in his view, hopelessly unscientific 
 and likely to remain so. The enthusiasm of the 
 promoters was not sufficient to overbear all these ob- 
 jections, and for the time the proposal was dropped. 
 In 1876 some alterations in the requirements 
 of the University of London for their medical 
 degrees obliged the Council of the Liverpool 
 School of Medicine to consider afresh the need 
 for greater facilities for scientific study. The 
 result, in the winter of 1877-78, was a joint 
 Committee, representing the Council of the Medical 
 School and the Association for the Promotion 
 of Higher Education, which met under the presi- 
 dency of the Rev. Charles Beard, 1 and formulated 
 its own preliminary proposals for the foundation 
 of a University College. 
 
 1 The other members were : the Rev. J. Sephton, the Rev. W. Cunning- 
 ham, Dr. Carter, Dr. Mitchell Banks, Dr. Caton, Dr. Campbell Brown, 
 Mr. Christopher Bushell, Mr. A. Billson, and Mr. J. W. Davidson.
 
 328 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 In the meantime the idea was being actively 
 canvassed in the town among men of very various 
 opinions and interests. It soon became evident 
 that it had taken very strong hold, and it was 
 finally resolved to call a Town's Meeting. This 
 meeting, held on the 24th May 1878, was marked 
 by real enthusiasm. Even speakers not usually 
 noted for oratorical power rose to the level of 
 their theme. One of the principal resolutions 
 was moved by one of the most eloquent men 
 whom Liverpool ever adopted as a citizen, the 
 Rev. Charles Beard. Resolutions were passed, a 
 Committee appointed " to draw up a scheme for 
 the proposed College," and the meeting was 
 adjourned till this should have been accomplished. 
 Six months were passed in diligent inquiry and 
 discussion, and on 6th November the adjourned 
 Town's Meeting met again, received the Com- 
 mittee's report, and appointed a General Committee 
 to collect funds. 1 
 
 The winter of 1878-79 was not a propitious 
 time for appealing for large subscriptions in 
 Liverpool. Most of the prominent members of 
 the Church of England were interested in an 
 endeavour to raise 100,000 to endow a Bishopric. 
 Some of the more ardent promoters of the College 
 
 1 These particulars, as well as most of those in the foregoing sketch, 
 are taken from a pamphlet called "The First Page of the History of 
 University College, Liverpool, by one of the Honorary Secretaries."
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 329 
 
 saw in the latter fact the best argument for haste 
 in urging the claims of their own scheme. If the 
 Church party succeeded in raising so large a sum, 
 the flow of public liberality would, they argued, 
 be exhausted for a year or two at least. They 
 were very impatient to make a beginning, and 
 talked of starting work when 15,000 had been 
 secured. 
 
 Although William Rathbone had on several 
 public occasions in past years spoken strongly of 
 the need in Liverpool for a College like Owens, 
 he had not up till then taken much active part in 
 the movement. He had been prevented by other 
 business from coming to Liverpool to attend either 
 of the Town's Meetings, although he had sent to both 
 letters of warm approval and encouragement. But 
 his skill in collecting funds for public objects was 
 well known, and he came forward at this juncture. 
 He told the promoters plainly that it was courting 
 failure to establish a College with the sum they had 
 named. It would be a poor, struggling institution. 
 No one would be proud of it, or contribute to it 
 largely. His advice was not to hasten with a 
 general canvass, but to wait till the Church party 
 had collected their funds, and till the impending 
 General Election was over. If run simultaneously, 
 the two schemes might divert attention from and 
 injure each other. But giving to public objects 
 was both a contagion and a habit : the effect of the
 
 330 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Bishopric fund might be to inculcate the habit in 
 some of those who had hitherto shown least evidence 
 of it; there were many others who would under 
 no circumstances contribute to both funds. In the 
 meantime he recommended that the early and 
 active promoters of the scheme, who were for the 
 most part men of not very large means, should 
 put down their names for such sums as they were 
 themselves prepared to give. This would be the 
 best evidence of their earnestness, and would 
 stimulate the wealthier commercial class into doing 
 their share. This suggestion was adopted, and a 
 special list raised of subscriptions from those 
 "interested in or connected with" any branch of 
 literature, science, or art. 
 
 On January 16, 1879, the annual address at 
 the prize-giving of the Liverpool Council of 
 Education was delivered by Canon Lightfoot. 1 
 After speaking at length on the work of the 
 Council and on the projected University College, 
 he concluded with the following peroration : 
 
 Let me therefore invite you to accompany me for a 
 few minutes on a visit to Dreamland. We will dip into 
 the future, and see the glories that shall be. 
 
 I was in a great seaport city, bristling with masts. 
 The exact year I cannot remember ; but the twentieth 
 century was still young. I stood before a stately pile of 
 
 1 Rev. Canon Lightfoot, D.D. (1828-89), made Bishop of Durham 
 in 1879.
 
 ix CANON LIGHTFOOT'S DREAM 331 
 
 buildings, graceful in character and harmonious in propor- 
 tions. The style was new to me, but it seemed as if it 
 might have been suggested to some creative genius out 
 of the various reproductions and imitations of ancient 
 buildings which I remember to have seen in my waking 
 hours, the motley architecture of the Victorian era. 
 "This central pile," said my guide, "is University 
 College. The buildings which were first erected were 
 soon found to be too small to meet our requirements, 
 and too mean to satisfy our tastes. They were therefore 
 pulled down, and the edifice which you see was raised in 
 their place." He then called my attention to other build- 
 ings of a more domestic character, which were grouped 
 about the central edifice at various distances. " These," 
 he continued, " are private Hostels or Colleges, in which 
 students are housed, who live together under special super- 
 intendence. The bond of union is the pursuit of some 
 special line of study, or the membership in some par- 
 ticular religious body. The building to your right is the 
 Bishop's Theological College, where his candidates for 
 the ministry are trained." 
 
 "But is he not afraid," I asked, " to allow his candi- 
 dates for the ministry to mix with students of all classes 
 and opinions ? " " Not at all," he replied ; " you see there 
 is no interference with the domestic arrangements, or 
 with the religious education which is given within the 
 walls of his own building ; and this satisfies him. He 
 finds that intercourse with others only tempers the rancour 
 of religious controversy, without quenching the fervour 
 of religious zeal. Meanwhile, a great and paramount 
 advantage is secured to his students. They have such 
 opportunities of a liberal education, at a small cost, as 
 they could not find elsewhere ; and thus they are saved
 
 332 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 from that intellectual narrowness which the too exclusive 
 training of an ordinary theological college is said to 
 foster." 
 
 I then entered the central building with my guide, and 
 passed through long suites of museums, libraries, and 
 lecture rooms, all well arranged and suitably furnished. 
 
 And seeing room after room assigned to some different 
 professor, I could not refrain from asking another 
 question, " How, in addition to all these museums and 
 laboratories, of which the maintenance must be so costly, 
 do you find salaries for such a numerous professoriate ? " 
 " There is no difficulty about that," replied my guide. 
 " Several of the Chairs are endowed by public subscriptions. 
 These bear the names of famous men who have been 
 natives of the place or otherwise connected with it. This 
 room, you observe, belongs to the Roscoe Professor of the 
 Romance Languages and Literature ; the next to the 
 Gibson Professor of Fine Arts. On the door beyond you 
 will see the name of the Canning Professor of English 
 History ; and on the other side of the corridor that of the 
 Huskisson Professor of_Political Economy. But not a 
 few of the professorships are endowed by the munificence 
 of individual benefactors, whose names they bear. The 
 inhabitants of a seaport," he continued, "are naturally 
 given to liberality. They contract something of the 
 open-handedness which is characteristic of sailors. Our 
 wealthy men here are not careful to amass larger fortunes 
 than they can employ with advantage. Experience has 
 taught them that, after reasonable provision has been 
 made for their families, the further accumulation of wealth 
 does not increase the store of happiness either for themselves 
 or for their children. All the citizens are proud of Uni- 
 versity College. Along with their shipping, they regard it
 
 ix CANON LIGHTFOOT'S DREAM 333 
 
 as the great glory of the place. Accordingly, when a 
 wealthy merchant, or shipowner, or banker has had an 
 exceptionally prosperous year, almost his first thought is 
 how he may increase the efficiency of this institution. 
 Hence, when any new branch of study springs up, or 
 when in any old branch the classes become too numerous 
 for a single*professor, the Academic Council has made it 
 a rule to give the preference to those who in some way or 
 other have rendered services to the cause of education, 
 and that citizen is selected whose services, in their 
 opinion, have been the greatest. The competition has 
 thus been reduced, and the honour enhanced. No dis- 
 tinction is more coveted by a man himself, or more 
 valued by his family, than a place on the roll of bene- 
 factors." 
 
 While I was musing on what I had heard, the scene 
 gradually faded as in a dissolving view j and I found 
 myself once again in the hall where I had stood when 
 my dream came upon me. I was still, however, in 
 Dreamland. It was the twentieth century as before. 
 The Council of Education was holding its fortieth 
 annual meeting, if I remember rightly. The chairman 
 was addressing the assemblage. His main theme was 
 the influence of University College in raising the 
 character of elementary education throughout the city. 
 He read a long roll containing names of pupils who, 
 having received their earliest lessons in the elementary 
 schools, had distinguished themselves during the past 
 year in the several professorial classes. They had been 
 assisted by scholarships granted under the scheme of the 
 Council, and thus they had risen step by step. The 
 result, he said, had more than justified the hopes of the 
 first founders of University College. It had sent new
 
 334 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 pulses of life throbbing through the whole educational 
 system of the place to its extremities. The President 
 sat down, and the Treasurer rose to speak. The state of 
 the finances, he said, was somewhat embarrassing. In 
 the earlier days of the Association they had found a 
 difficulty in making both ends meet. The efforts of the 
 Association had not met with that cordial response which 
 they might have expected. But several years before the 
 end of the last century the citizens suddenly awoke to 
 the fact that a great and beneficent educational work was 
 going on under the direction of the Council. From that 
 time forward subscriptions poured in. The balance was 
 increasing annually, although all the legitimate objects of 
 
 the Association were provided for 
 
 And here I awoke. An actual audience real flesh 
 and blood sat before me, wondering whether the address 
 ever would come to an end. 
 
 The question of funds was just then the main 
 preoccupation of the promoters of the College. 
 On hearing this speech, William Rathbone said to 
 himself, " The thing is done. He has shown us 
 the lines on which to raise the money." As soon 
 as the election of 1880 was over, he gladly shook 
 his mind free from politics and set out to realise 
 part of the Canon's dream. He began by agree- 
 ing with his two brothers to found a King Alfred 
 Chair of Modern Literature and English Language, 
 in memory of one of the earliest English educa- 
 tionalists. Then, going only to those from whom 
 large contributions might be expected, he and
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 335 
 
 those who worked with him secured the founda- 
 tion of a number of Chairs, each by an individual 
 or by a group of men linked together by some 
 common bond of interest or circumstance. Thus 
 the Gladstone Chair of Greek was endowed by 
 three admirers of Liverpool's greatest citizen, 
 Colonel A. H. Brown, Mr. William Crosfield, 
 and Mr. Barrow ; the Chair of Mental and Moral 
 Philosophy, subjects especially cultivated in Scottish 
 Universities, by a number of Scottish merchants, 
 headed by Mr. Alexander Balfour and Mr. Samuel 
 Smith ; the Roscoe Chair of Art by persons 
 interested in perpetuating the name of one who 
 had done much to foster the literary and artistic 
 life of the city. The late Lord Derby, whose 
 father had given a Natural History Museum to 
 the town, completed the gift by a Chair of Natural 
 History. Mr. Edward Whitley, who was plied 
 with the argument that the credit of founding 
 a University College must not be entirely left 
 to Radicals and heretics, provided funds out of 
 the Roger Lyon Jones Trust to endow a Chair 
 of Mathematics and Physics. The Chair of 
 Chemistry was endowed by Mrs. Grant, and the 
 Chemical Laboratories by a body of manufacturers 
 and tradesmen whose business owed much to 
 the science which they thus helped to cultivate. 
 In these and such ways the sum of 80,000 was 
 raised in the space of about six weeks, and
 
 336 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 announced at a Town's Meeting held on 22nd 
 July 1880. 
 
 The next eighteen months were spent by the 
 Special Committee appointed for the purpose in 
 securing a site, drawing out a constitution, drafting 
 a Charter, and filling up the offices of Principal and 
 professors. Most of the work was done by small 
 sub-committees, in which, among five or six equally 
 active members, the Rev. Charles Beard was per- 
 haps the leading spirit. William Rathbone was 
 a member both of the General and Special Com- 
 mittees, but owing to the parliamentary work of 
 his new constituency he was not able to take much 
 share in the details of organisation, though upon 
 all large questions of policy, as well as upon 
 matters of finance, he was in frequent consultation, 
 and his views had full weight. The principles for 
 which he chiefly cared, and as to which he seems 
 to have been in accord with most of those who 
 took a leading part in the foundation of University 
 College, may be worth briefly noting. 
 
 Most of his colleagues were men who, like 
 himself, had never been members of any English 
 University, and as merchants, manufacturers, or 
 shipowners they belonged to a class which is some- 
 times accused, especially by those who have never 
 lived in a great commercial city, of measuring 
 everything by money. Yet the spirit in which 
 they approached their task showed not a trace of
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 337 
 
 the vulgar Transatlantic megalomania from which 
 even strictly academic circles do not always appear 
 free, which measures the greatness of a College and 
 the value of its work by the magnificence of its 
 buildings, the value of its endowments, and the 
 number of professors and lecturers in each Faculty. 
 Thus the first rule they laid down was that, as 
 William Rathbone put it, living stones were more 
 important than dead ones, and that not an un- 
 necessary penny should be spent upon buildings 
 until a sufficient initial staff of professors and 
 lecturers had been adequately endowed. In this 
 spirit they resisted the wish of some of the friends 
 of the College to begin by erecting stately buildings 
 upon a conspicuous and dignified but inconvenient 
 site, and insisted on being content with the modest 
 accommodation afforded by a disused lunatic asylum 
 in a poor but central quarter of the city. " Get the 
 right men and let them prove their worth, and 
 then plenty of Liverpool citizens will come forward 
 to provide them with all the equipment they want," 
 was the maxim on which they acted, and when the 
 time was rjpe they themselves took good care that 
 the assurance they had given should be fulfilled. 
 William Rathbone used to tell with pride how, 
 when this later stage was reached and he took a 
 possible benefactor to see the professor for whom 
 he hoped to induce him to erect a laboratory, they 
 found the learned man instructing his class in a 
 
 z
 
 338 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 room so small that he had to climb over the table 
 to greet his visitors. So far from being ashamed of 
 these small beginnings, they believed that a College 
 thus arising out of " the conviction of a community," 
 and built up by slow degrees by the efforts and 
 sacrifices of the citizens, was a healthier and likely 
 to be in the end a more powerful institution than 
 one created by the stroke of a millionaire's pen. 
 
 Upon this ground these early founders did not 
 desire, although of course they could not have 
 refused, had it unfortunately been offered, any 
 single endowment so large as to do away with the 
 necessity for further effort. Their ambition was 
 to obtain, beside a large number of endowments 
 for special purposes, a general sustentation fund, 
 composed of a great number of yearly subscriptions 
 from all classes of the citizens. This ambition 
 was never adequately realised ; but perhaps the 
 city grant now received achieves, in a more modern 
 form, somewhat the same end, in giving all the 
 citizens an interest in and a responsibility for the 
 University. 
 
 But although they were content to develop by 
 degrees, they were yet determined that the begin- 
 nings that were made should be on the highest 
 possible level, and on a scale that would make the 
 College from the first worthy of the greatness of the 
 city. William Rathbone, in this as in all his work, 
 was foremost in deprecating a false economy, and
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 339 
 
 in insisting that whatever expenditure was neces- 
 sary to the efficiency of the work must be boldly 
 risked, without a close scrutiny of ways and means, 
 in the confidence that funds would be forthcoming 
 to meet it. Experience fully justified his faith in 
 the generosity of his fellow-citizens, and the daring 
 financial policy which his colleagues and he in- 
 augurated has been so well maintained, that in the 
 year of its becoming a University, in spite of total 
 benefactions exceeding half a million, the annual 
 excess of the expenditure of the College over its 
 income was about ^5000, and its accumulated 
 deficit nearly ^20,000. This boldness in incur- 
 ring debt was justified by the consideration that 
 the majority of those responsible for it were men 
 of great experience in business, themselves pos- 
 sessed of large means, and together easily capable 
 at an extremity of making good a deficiency much 
 larger than they risked. 
 
 It was no doubt partly with a view to financial 
 security that in framing the constitution of the 
 College they insisted that upon its Council, as the 
 body responsible for the conduct of its external 
 affairs, the decision of all large questions of policy, 
 and the choice of its staff, the lay element should 
 predominate over the professorial. To the Senate 
 they gave full control of internal administration, 
 and they showed no desire to intermeddle with 
 purely educational questions. But without com-
 
 340 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 mitting themselves to the view of the business 
 capacities of College dons so baldly expressed in the 
 will of the late Cecil Rhodes, they yet felt that in 
 the organisation of a great civic University College 
 or University, there was plenty of room for the 
 help of men who possessed a wide experience of 
 affairs, an understanding of local conditions, and 
 also a freedom, due to their more occasional con- 
 nection with the College, from the personal com- 
 plications that are apt to embarrass the action of 
 bodies exclusively composed of fellow -members 
 of the same staff. 
 
 Another point upon which these founders laid 
 great stress was, that the subjects included in the 
 Arts Faculty and the pure Sciences should be pro- 
 vided for before the technical and more strictly 
 utilitarian side of the University curriculum was 
 developed. William Rathbone's own interests and 
 sympathies, and probably those of many of his 
 colleagues, were upon the whole more with the 
 latter side than with the cultivation, at any rate of 
 the classical languages, and upon the importance 
 of technical education to industry they felt very 
 strongly. But they argued that in a great com- 
 mercial centre these considerations were in no 
 danger of being overlooked, and that while 
 enthusiasm for the College was strong and its 
 character undecided, the more strictly educational 
 and less remunerative studies should be first
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 341 
 
 provided for. It thus came about that the very 
 first Chair fully endowed was that of Modern 
 Literature, a subject which was at that time 
 practically untaught either at Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 At the same time, they were anxious that the 
 range of studies should meet the practical needs 
 of students of all classes and pursuits. William 
 Rathbone was especially interested in the problem 
 of how youths intended for business might be 
 enabled to take advantage of the University course. 
 He did not at all share the opinion commonly 
 expressed that higher studies unfitted young men 
 for business. On the contrary, he held that such 
 studies ought to make them more intelligent in 
 their work, as well as to be a source of happiness 
 in their lives. But he was very doubtful whether 
 any large number of such men either would or 
 could spare the three years usually necessary for 
 taking a degree. On this ground he was a strong 
 supporter of the proposal once brought forward in 
 Victoria University, that men who had passed a special 
 preliminary examination should be allowed to enter 
 for the degree examination after only two years' 
 attendance at classes. This proposal was not 
 carried, but arrangements were later made in Uni- 
 versity College for a special two years' course, with 
 a leaving certificate, for men intended for business. 
 This course became especially associated in William
 
 342 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Rathbone's mind with the memory of his son 
 Edward, who just before his untimely death in 
 1886 had been keenly interested in the arrange- 
 ments for it. 
 
 Another favourite plan of his, which the 
 memories of his own years at Heidelberg so com- 
 mended to him that he perhaps preferred it to 
 any other, was that youths should go for two or 
 three years into an office upon leaving school and 
 then, when old enough to appreciate opportunities 
 of study, and to know the subjects upon which 
 they desired knowledge, should spend a year or 
 more either at a University or, if better suited to 
 the bent of their minds, in foreign travel. Of the 
 two old Universities he had a curiously strong 
 distrust : sometimes it seemed almost a prejudice. 
 He thought their atmosphere mentally and 
 morally enervating, at least for average men and 
 those who had no special stimulus to work. For 
 those who were clever, ambitious, and poor, he had 
 less fear, and several such men and women owed 
 their careers at Oxford or Cambridge wholly or 
 partly to him. 
 
 The task of selecting the Principal and profes- 
 sors who were to guide the first steps of the infant 
 College, and to whom, in the event, so much of its 
 great success was due, occupied several of the 
 summer months of 1881. The Council or, at 
 any rate, William Rathbone and some of those most
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 343 
 
 actively concerned in the choice started with a 
 declared preference for youth, thinking that young 
 men would be less wedded to the traditions of the 
 old Universities and more interested in working 
 out a new type, suited to the conditions of the 
 city. With this intention they filled the office of 
 Principal and of the first five professorships with 
 men none of whom was much above thirty years 
 of age. 1 
 
 One incident of these early days is so character- 
 istic of William Rathbone, and of the naive though 
 effective strategy which he sometimes practised, 
 that I cannot refrain, with the narrator's permission, 
 from quoting it : 
 
 In our College affairs [writes my informant] it was 
 never Mr. Rathbone's role to be in opposition. Indeed, 
 in the harmonious progress of the College there was 
 small occasion for anybody to oppose anything. Yet my 
 very first experience was the occasion of furnishing a 
 proof of his determined hostility to anything that savoured 
 of the introduction of tests. There could be no mistake 
 about this. When I was a candidate for the Chair which 
 I hold, I was invited to come up to Liverpool and to stay 
 at Greenbank, so that the electors might see me. In 
 
 1 The office of Principal and Professor of Classics was filled by Mr. G. 
 Rendall, now headmaster of Charterhouse 5 the other four Chairs by 
 Mr. Lodge, now Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of Birmingham Univer- 
 sity ; Mr. Herdman, now Professor of Natural History in Liverpool 
 University ; Mr. A. C. Bradley, now Professor of Poetry in Oxford 
 University ; and Mr. J. MacCunn, now Professor of Philosophy in Liverpool 
 University.
 
 344 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 order to meet some members of Council it was necessary 
 to go down to the city, and Mr. Rathbone asked me a 
 little, I own, to my surprise if I would do him the 
 favour of coming back to Greenbank at once, as soon as 
 the necessary interviews were over. I suppose he felt 
 that some explanation of this request was expected, or at 
 least needful. At any rate, he said that some person or 
 persons (I forget if he suggested there was more than 
 one, but I think he did) seemed to be desirous of intro- 
 ducing considerations as to religious beliefs into the 
 election j and he added that he was " determined " that 
 they should not have an opportunity of doing so. No 
 one ever carried out a purpose with more vigilance. He 
 first took me to a club, where I met several members of 
 the College Council at luncheon, and thereafter accom- 
 panied me to the office of another. These interviews 
 over, and no opportunity given to any one privately to 
 diagnose my faith or lack of faith, he parted with me 
 (I rather think he put me in a cab), with careful injunc- 
 tions to return direct to Greenbank, where, I need not 
 say, I was sufficiently safe against all inappropriate in- 
 quisitions. I don't think these precautions were by any 
 means unnecessary. Indeed I have good reason to think, 
 from a comparison of my own with other experiences, 
 that questions of an inquisitive character might have 
 been forthcoming. But whether this be so or not, the 
 circumstances are worth mentioning. They bring out a 
 trait in Mr. Rathbone of which I daresay those who knew 
 him well were well aware I mean that firmness, and 
 instinct of resistance, which I think were sometimes 
 hidden by his tolerance and geniality from those who 
 knew him only in part. And his vigilance in the present 
 instance was the more justifiable because the Charter of
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIVERPOOL 345 
 
 the College was so drawn as stringently (too stringently 
 perhaps) to secularise the institution. 
 
 His attitude on this question, and also on the whole 
 question of religious teaching in our Colleges, is of 
 peculiar interest because he was so far from being a 
 " secularist " in his sympathies. I have heard him express, 
 with deep conviction, his sense of the importance of the 
 consolations and support of religion in life ; and every one 
 knows how ready he was to recognise the work of all 
 religious denominations and to co-operate with them. 
 He never seemed to me to have the least tincture of the 
 suspicion which some Nonconformist liberals have of 
 Church influence. And I have always supposed that 
 the very stringent clause in University College Charter 
 in the framing of which he must of course have been 
 consulted represents only what he thought was a basis 
 of common action, and not the ideal relation between a 
 college and theological study. This, however, is but 
 conjecture. 
 
 The article in the Charter referred to is certainly 
 definite enough, and it is not likely that there was 
 upon the part of any one a deliberate intention of 
 violating it, though honest zeal might occasionally 
 be over-anxious in the scrutiny of credentials : 
 
 It is a fundamental condition of the constitution of 
 the College that no student, professor, teacher, or other 
 officer or person connected with the College shall be 
 required to make any declaration as to his religious 
 opinions, or submit to any test whatsoever thereof ; and 
 that no gift or endowment for theological or religious
 
 346 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 purposes, or having any theological condition attached 
 thereto, shall be accepted on behalf of the College. 
 
 The University College of Liverpool began 
 active work in January 1882. It had barely been 
 afloat a year, and was still making large demands 
 upon the time and thoughts of its founders, when 
 William Rathbone, by that time member of Par- 
 liament for Carnarvonshire, found himself in the 
 thick of a movement for establishing a like College 
 for North Wales. The Report published in 1 8 8 1 
 of the Departmental Inquiry into Intermediate 
 and Higher Education in Wales 1 had recom- 
 mended that two Colleges of University rank 
 should be instituted, one in the north and one in 
 the south of the Principality, and that each should 
 receive a grant of ^4000 a year. The Govern- 
 ment, yielding to the instance of Lord Aberdare, 
 Mr. Mundella, and other friends of Wales, agreed 
 to make this grant on condition that the Colleges 
 were established within a certain time. There was 
 among the Welsh people no lack of eagerness to 
 take advantage of this offer. Next to religion, as 
 William Rathbone often remarked, education was 
 the topic in which his constituents were most deeply 
 interested. Unfortunately the religious interest, 
 which took precedence, was apt to assume the form 
 of sectarian jealousy, and this threatened to prevent 
 all common action in the foundation of the College. 
 
 1 See Chapter XI.
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES 347 
 
 Another obstacle to union was the difficulty of 
 selecting a suitable locality. There was in North 
 Wales no town of acknowledged pre-eminence or 
 large size, and this had been represented by the 
 academic experts, who are always ready to throw 
 cold water on the educational aspirations of what 
 they are pleased to consider insignificant places or 
 people, as an insuperable obstacle to the whole 
 project. 1 North Wales herself did not take this 
 view, but no less than nine of her towns were 
 competing for the honour of receiving the College, 
 and none of them would subscribe anything until 
 its home was fixed. A further claim was put in 
 by the Council of the University College estab- 
 lished some years before at Aberystwyth, to be 
 recognised as meeting the wants of North Wales and 
 so secure the Government grant. On January 23, 
 1883, a Conference was held at Chester to arrange 
 a plan of action. A representative Committee was 
 appointed to decide the question of the site of the 
 College, but their choice was limited to the six 
 northern counties, thus tacitly excluding Aberyst- 
 wyth. This exclusion, which William Rathbone 
 always deplored, gave great offence, and injuriously 
 
 1 Thus, Professor Marshall of Cambridge, when asked before the Depart- 
 mental Committee, " Suppose a College were to be established away from any 
 large centre of population, do you think it would be able to hold its own?" 
 replied : " It would be utterly impossible to support a good College away from 
 a centre of population without an enormous expenditure on scholarships." 
 The actual expenditure of the North Wales College on scholarships is 
 modest enough.
 
 34B WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 affected the educational movement for several years. 
 William Rathbone, who had been abroad at the 
 time of this meeting, was on his return appointed 
 Honorary Secretary of the Sites Committee, and 
 soon became, according to the generous estimate 
 of one of his fellow-workers, " the pivot of the 
 whole movement." Whether that be so or not 
 (and he would never have admitted it), he certainly 
 found in the work plenty of scope for his energies, 
 as well as for his undeniable faculty for reconciling 
 divergent views and getting people of conflicting 
 political and religious opinions to work harmoniously 
 together. 
 
 The Sites Committee were soon convinced that, 
 as many of them represented towns that were 
 competing for the College, and were thus in the 
 position of advocates as well as judges, it was 
 impossible for them to fulfil the duty entrusted to 
 them with any hope of a general concurrence in 
 their decision. At William Rathbone's suggestion 
 they accordingly passed a sort of self-denying 
 ordinance, and agreed to waive the question of the 
 place of the College until after funds had been 
 raised, and then to refer it to arbitrators, with the 
 understanding that in making the award, some 
 regard should be paid to the amount of support 
 offered by the competing towns, as being a test of 
 their interest in education and the number of 
 students likely to be expected from them. Having
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES 349 
 
 thus ingeniously provided themselves with a 
 powerful argument to stimulate local generosity, 
 they formed their more active members into an 
 organising committee, and having secured the 
 services of Mr. Cadwaladr Davies as secretary, 
 began a campaign of meetings and canvassing for 
 subscriptions. At a second Conference at Chester 
 in July, they were able to announce that over 
 ^28,000 had been promised ; arbitrators were 
 appointed, and in August, by their unanimous 
 award, Bangor was selected as the site for the new 
 College. The remainder of the year was spent in 
 drawing up a constitution and Charter. Mr. 
 Henry Jones, then a lecturer at Aberystwyth 
 College, now Professor of Moral Philosophy at 
 the University of Glasgow, was asked by William 
 Rathbone to draw up a draft Charter as a basis to 
 work upon, and this, after much discussion and 
 amendment, was accepted in its main lines. 
 
 The Court of Governors met in February 
 1884, an d elected the Council by a double ballot, 
 William Rathbone's name heading both ballots. 
 The task of selecting a Principal and professors 
 followed, and in October 1884 the University 
 College of North Wales began its first session. 
 In order that the College might have from the 
 first a nucleus of comparatively advanced students, 
 William Rathbone induced some friends to join 
 him in starting a number of valuable entrance
 
 350 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 scholarships with the condition that they should 
 only be awarded to students of unusual merit. 
 This proved a great stimulus to its development. 
 
 Some further incidents in the movement which 
 led to this end are related in a letter written by 
 William Rathbone many years later to Professor 
 Henry Jones. 
 
 It appears accurate in its main facts, and 
 although, as he says, it was not written for the 
 public eye, there is nothing in it that seems likely, 
 after the lapse of twenty years, to wound any 
 legitimate susceptibilities. 
 
 GREENBANK, July 27, 1899. 
 
 I have sometimes thought it might be interesting to 
 keep a record of our joint experience in the origin and 
 organisation of University College, North Wales, but 
 my memory is so defective. Moreover, there are some 
 experiences which, though rather amusing to remember, 
 might not be exactly suited to the public eye. I there- 
 fore thought I would put my remembrances down just as 
 they came into my head, and you would perhaps tell me 
 where I had been wrong. 
 
 It was a singular beginning, to organise a University 
 College when Wales was so fearfully behindhand all 
 round. Her Elementary Education defective beyond 
 Scotland, or even England ; perhaps even Ireland. Her 
 High Schools very few, and those there were, not those 
 most necessary for the practical wants of Wales, and 
 certainly not sufficient to provide material for a College 
 in either principles or quality of training, and our educa-
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES 351 
 
 tional friends, with Mr. Bruce, and other members of the 
 Commission, and Mr. Mundella at their head, were bold 
 in commencing to build the educational fabric from its 
 apex instead of from its foundation. They did it, of 
 course, because the Government could do this without a 
 Bill, and they could not so attack Intermediate Educa- 
 tion ; and you know how heartily the matter was taken 
 up in Wales ; and, strange to say, the result has justified 
 them in thus beginning at the top. 
 
 My first remembrance of the matter was the mistake 
 made at a meeting in London, from which many of us 
 were away, in excluding Aberystwyth from the places to 
 be considered for the North Wales one of the two 
 Colleges. At the first meeting on my return I protested 
 most strongly against this slight on Aberystwyth. I did 
 not believe that the Commissioners could, or would, 
 accept Aberystwyth as the North Wales College, but it 
 seemed most ungracious thus to refuse even to consider 
 our pioneer in the Welsh College work. I was out- 
 voted, and it ended in the three Colleges. I believe the 
 other arrangement would have ended in transferring 
 Aberystwyth to Bangor. I do not know whether this 
 has been, in the end, a disadvantage or not. But, 
 however, as member for Carnarvonshire, I saw Mr. 
 Richard Davies, John Roberts, and one or two others, 
 and suggested that we should approach Lord Penrhyn as 
 the best means of uniting all parties and sects in the 
 work ; and we each agreed that, if he would take his 
 natural position at the head of the movement, we would 
 join in each giving 1000 to start with. He wrote to 
 me most cordially, saying that he would at once do so if 
 religious and political differences were kept out of our 
 action. This was most fortunate, as it choked off a
 
 352 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 great many difficulties and differences ; for, as you will 
 remember, mutual distrust and jealousies ran rather high 
 both in political and religious matters just at that time. 
 
 I remember that capital fellow and true educationalist, 
 the Dean of Bangor a hot Churchman and politician 
 coming to see me in the Lobby, full of fight, and 
 convinced that we were going to try to monopolise it as 
 a Nonconformist institution, and using all manner of 
 threats to destroy us. I told him, in the most friendly 
 and cheerful manner, that we had not the slightest wish 
 or intention of thought of making it a Nonconformist 
 College. For it to become so would be a great mis- 
 fortune, as it ought to unite all Wales on a question on 
 which parties political and religious ought to be able to 
 unite, and perhaps the only great question on which they 
 could cordially unite ; but that though he and his friends 
 could make this impossible, they could not smash the 
 College, as the effect of their attack would be to rouse 
 everything that was patriotic and everything that was 
 combative in the Welsh nature, and he knew well enough 
 what Welshmen would do when thus roused. It might 
 make the temporary success even more rapid than by the 
 union of the parties. He then threatened me with setting 
 Lord Penrhyn against us ; I was able to tell him that 
 Lord Penrhyn had already taken his line, which was that 
 of union, on condition of political and religious discord 
 being excluded, and that he, as a patriotic Welshman, 
 would I hoped join heartily with us ; which, as you know, 
 he did j for he was hearty in both capacities. 
 
 The next difficulty that loomed ahead was very 
 curious the Charter. As you know, we took immense 
 trouble to make it as representative of Wales and Welsh- 
 men, and every section, as was possible ; and in this you
 
 ix UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES 353 
 
 were, in the main, our adviser and draftsman, as far as 
 political and religious matters were concerned. In fact, 
 you very largely drafted that part of it. But when it 
 came out, our strong Nonconformist friends all fell upon 
 me, whom they accused of having thrown the whole 
 power into the hands of the Conservative and Church 
 and Landlord party ; and I believe had my election come 
 on then, I should have been ignominiously expelled. I 
 could really hardly take the thing seriously, but I told 
 my friends very plainly that if it proved Conservative 
 and Church it must be because Welshmen were so, or 
 were so slavishly dependent as to knock under to wealth 
 and position, for I asserted, that not only the instructions, 
 but the carrying out of them by the draftsman of the 
 Charter were such as to make it absolutely representative 
 of Wales and Welshmen. Well, I think they were, 
 when they came to look into it and think it over, a 
 little ashamed of their suspicions ; but the result was 
 phenomenal. 
 
 If I remember aright, there were only two or three 
 Conservatives or Churchmen on the governing body, 
 and of course the whole Church party would have broken 
 off ; but the very men who had asserted that the effect of 
 it would be to throw the power into the hands of the 
 Church and Conservatives came to me and asked me to 
 write to the Universities and to Government and beg 
 them to supply the deficiency by nominating the principal 
 Conservative and Church educationalists as their nominees. 
 This was done, and all was harmony again. I ought to 
 mention here, that while some of our Conservative and 
 Church friends were furious, and disposed to throw up 
 altogether, the Dean of Bangor, who had been the 
 hottest at first, saw at once it was not an intentional 
 
 2 A
 
 354 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 mistake, and wrote to his friends to use the powers that 
 remained to rectify it, which accordingly was done. We 
 got a thoroughly good Council, with the phenomenal 
 result that with a majority of Liberals and Nonconformists 
 on the Council, and an overwhelming one on the Court, 
 our first President selected was the Earl of Powis a 
 strong Conservative, Church landowner ; our first Chair- 
 man of Council, the hottest Tory and Churchman in the 
 county ; and our first Principal, the son of an Irish 
 Bishop, himself a strong Conservative and Churchman. 
 All chosen, of course, not because of, but in spite of their 
 religious and political opinions : because the first was a 
 literary man of great eminence ; the second, a strong 
 educationalist and good Churchman and man of business ; 
 and the third, a man of whom the next in turn of the 
 candidates said to me when we had done, that we had 
 chosen a man head and shoulders above all the candidates, 
 which, of course, included himself. And we succeeded 
 in obtaining a set of young men as professors, who have 
 raised the College to be in the very first rank of 
 University Colleges. . . . 
 
 When the row about the Charter was on, I told them 
 that our principal adviser therein had been a Welshman 
 of the Welsh and a Nonconformist of the Nonconformists, 
 but I did not feel it right to give up your name, as it 
 would have been " throwing you to the wolves " had their 
 sentiments remained as they were. I think the Charter 
 was a great success, and I may say so without taking 
 to myself any credit whatever, because though I, as 
 member for Carnarvonshire, was the medium to a great 
 extent, you and Cadwaladr Davies were the authors of 
 the lines upon which the Charter was drawn. And I am 
 often reminded with great pleasure of our work together.
 
 ix RELATIONS WITH BOTH COLLEGES 355 
 
 when you two, and Richard Davies, and W. A. Darbi- 
 shire, 1 were my instructors in Welsh ideas and Welshmen. 
 I only hope you have been as successful and beneficial to 
 Glasgow University and Scotland as you were to Bangor 
 and Wales. W. RATHBONE. 
 
 With both the Colleges that he had thus helped 
 to the birth, William Rathbone remained in very 
 close connection for the rest of his working life. 
 Up to the year 1892, when he was made President 
 of the North Wales College, he held the same 
 position that of Vice-President in both Councils. 
 As time went on, the College in Liverpool and 
 probably also that in Bangor won new friends, 
 such as the late Mr. George Holt, who were able 
 to be more continuously in touch with their affairs 
 than he could be, and whose generosity needed no 
 stimulating. But at every crisis in the affairs of 
 either, and at many times when there was no crisis, 
 he was to be found to the front. The subsequent 
 progress cannot be described here, the speedy 
 admission of Liverpool into the Victoria University, 
 the creation of a University of Wales with three 
 constituent Colleges, the development in both of 
 department after department, and the erection of a 
 seemingly endless series of buildings and labora- 
 tories ; finally, the transmutation, which he did not 
 live to see consummated, of Liverpool University 
 
 1 In a subsequent letter, he added the name of Mr. R. A. Jones of Liver- 
 pool to this list,
 
 356 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 College into the University of Liverpool. In all 
 these, except the last, he took an active part. 
 
 His interest was not at all diminished by being 
 shared between the two Universities, nor was it 
 limited to their outward organisation. 
 
 The gain of Wales [says Professor MacCunn] was 
 never the loss of Liverpool. How else can we read the 
 fact that, as often as our College has made some large 
 stride in it's swift progress, this has usually happened, by 
 a coincidence not difficult to explain, when Mr. Rathbone 
 was back amongst us. ... Never, since colleges were 
 built, have teachers found a man more ready and eager to 
 give them sympathy without stint, and encouragement 
 that never failed, or to repose in them a more generous 
 and enheartening confidence. It was not that he set any 
 special store upon himself as an authority in education. 
 " You know I am only an outsider in these matters," this 
 is what many a time he used to say. And yet few men 
 have had occasion seriously to converse with him about 
 education, or to mark the passion for the spread of know- 
 ledge which possessed him, without taking with them as 
 result a deepened conviction that Education was one of 
 the great causes worth living for, and, one may hope, an 
 invigorated resolve to make it something more like what 
 Mr. Rathbone wished it to become. 
 
 A colleague in North Wales, writing of him 
 after his death, in the College Magazine, strikes 
 somewhat the same note : 
 
 He identified himself so completely with the College 
 and its work that we had come to regard him almost as a
 
 part of it ; and it was always his pride to speak of his 
 connection with the College not as that of an external 
 administrator of its affairs, but as that of one who 
 belonged to it, and to whom all its interests and 
 activities were intimate and vital. In losing him we 
 have, as it were, lost one of our own household. 
 
 The words reveal the personal feeling of the 
 writers, and it was in fact the relations of friend- 
 ship that grew up between him and the men who 
 were doing the actual work of the Colleges, that 
 made it possible for him, in spite of prolonged 
 absences and other engrossing claims, to sustain the 
 vivid interest and the intimate knowledge to 
 which they testify. 
 
 University education, though circumstances 
 made it the branch of education with which he had 
 most to do, was not the only branch in which he 
 was interested, nor, in fact, the one which in his 
 opinion stood in most urgent need of extension 
 and improvement. The points in which his work 
 touched elementary, intermediate, and technical 
 education can be only briefly noted. 
 
 In 1869 he joined Mr. George Melly in 
 establishing scholarships, to be called after the name 
 of Mr. Forster, from the elementary schools to the 
 Liverpool Institute. These were the beginning of 
 the scholarships given by the Council of Education, 
 of which there are now more than fifty. In the 
 discussions of Mr. Forster's Act of the following
 
 358 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 year he spoke in favour of Mr. Dixon's proposal 
 to entrust the management of the State schools to 
 the Town Councils rather than to bodies elected 
 ad hoc. He did not join with Mr. Dixon and the 
 Birmingham league in their attacks on the religious 
 compromise of the Act. The attack made by the 
 league on Mr. Gladstone drew from him a protest 
 against "the application of the joint-stock limited 
 liability principle to the consciences of the Liberal 
 party." Caring himself a great deal for the ethical 
 and spiritual side of religious teaching, and very 
 little for questions of doctrine, he utterly failed to 
 foresee the dark future of sectarian controversy 
 and intrigue which that unfortunate compromise 
 was to bring upon the country. 
 
 After the passing of the Act, some of the best 
 inspectors were withdrawn from their work in 
 order to ascertain the needs of localities for 
 additional schools. William Rathbone urged upon 
 Mr. Forster that more and not less efficient 
 inspection was needed, but as he could not move 
 him to fresh appointments he offered himself to 
 find and provide the salary of a highly qualified 
 inspector in Liverpool, who should follow the 
 Government inspector, reporting only on the 
 training given in the schools to the pupil-teachers 
 and on their care of the more advanced pupils. 
 Premiums were to be given to the masters and 
 mistresses of schools which obtained a favourable
 
 ix WELSH INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION 359 
 
 report, as an inducement to submit to this inspec- 
 tion. The offer was accepted, and the Rev. John 
 Diggle (now Bishop of Carlisle) undertook the 
 work of inspection. The result showed that in 
 nearly every case the schools which gave most 
 attention to the training of the pupil-teachers, and 
 to the teaching of subjects which did not bear 
 directly on the grants, were also those which 
 obtained the highest grants, thus indicating that 
 the higher the tone of the school, the better the 
 mere mechanical results. 
 
 But it was only towards the end of his active 
 life that he had much to do with the organisation 
 of school education. His share in securing for 
 Wales the Intermediate Education Act of 1889 
 will be noticed in a later chapter. It happened 
 that in the autumn following the Act he was 
 consulted, by his friend, Mr. Tate, 1 as to the 
 disposal of a very large sum of money which 
 Mr. Tate proposed devoting to public objects. 
 The correspondence between them ended not only 
 in large benefactions to district nursing, but in the 
 formation of a trust for the promotion of inter- 
 mediate and technical education in Liverpool and 
 North Wales. William Rathbone was one of 
 several trustees. He had himself laid aside a 
 considerable sum for helping to carry out the 
 Act, especially in the quarry districts. This he 
 
 1 Sir Henry Tate, Bart. (1819-1899).
 
 360 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 regarded as a way of paying what he called the 
 debt owed by the friends of Wales to the quarry- 
 men for the lead they had given in founding the 
 College at Aberystwyth. The principles upon 
 which the funds drawn from both these sources 
 were expended were very characteristic of his 
 ideas as to public benefactions of all kinds. 
 Knowing the danger lest large contributions from 
 one or two donors should simply relieve the 
 pockets of others, who perhaps were or ought to 
 be more directly interested in the localities, he 
 laid it down that nothing should be given to any 
 school until the whole sum required by the 
 County Governing Body to qualify it for assist- 
 ance under the Act had been raised by the locality. 
 Not content with this, he usually made the con- 
 tribution, which Sir Henry Tate and he were 
 prepared to make, the excuse for bringing all his 
 powers of moral suasion to bear on the well-to-do 
 residents to induce large gifts. His letters upon 
 such occasions usually observed the precept which 
 he was fond of commending to others who had to 
 " beg " for public objects, viz. to be very definite 
 in their petitions, and to model them upon that of 
 the clergyman who prayed every night : " Give 
 me, O Lord, a moderate competence ; I mean, O 
 Lord, j8oo a year, payable quarterly." The 
 mixture of outspokenness with rather transparent 
 diplomacy in some of these letters must have often
 
 ix WELSH INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION 361 
 
 amused, and occasionally no doubt irritated their re- 
 cipients ; but very frequently the real wisdom of his 
 arguments, as well as the enthusiasm they revealed, 
 brought a generous response. Substantial aid was 
 thus given to the building and equipment of 
 workshops and laboratories, or to the salary of 
 the masters, and in this way a large number of 
 schools were helped, and an amount of local effort 
 stimulated or called into being far in excess of the 
 expenditure. One instance may illustrate the kind 
 of co-operation thus induced. At Bethesda, as 
 one of the three great centres of the quarry 
 districts, it was decided to establish an inter- 
 mediate and technical school that might serve as a 
 
 o 
 
 model for other localities. Lord Penrhyn, feeling 
 an anxiety, which later events in which he bore 
 part has justified, as to what would be the fate 
 of the population in the quarry districts of Car- 
 narvonshire if anything should occur to mar the 
 slate industry, provided a site, ^200, and heating 
 apparatus costing _^2OO more. Over 1000 was 
 raised by the other residents, and of this nearly 
 800 came from the pockets of the quarry men 
 themselves, who also volunteered to lay out the 
 playground in their leisure hours. The remaining 
 sum of about 1200 was jointly contributed by 
 Sir Henry Tate and William Rathbone. 
 
 William Rathbone's work was not confined to 
 providing funds. To the planning of buildings,
 
 362 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, ix 
 
 to the appointment of masters, to all questions that 
 concerned the type of school that should be estab- 
 lished, he gave close attention, and he was in 
 correspondence with most of the men on the spot, 
 as well as with educational experts of all kinds 
 elsewhere. His main anxiety was that the sort of 
 education offered in the new schools should be 
 from the first of a thoroughly practical kind. 
 The ambition of the clever boys and girls in 
 Wales, as elsewhere, had been too much directed 
 to clerical work, and to the learned professions 
 that were already overstocked. It should be the 
 function of the schools to make the pupils realise 
 the skill required and the scientific principles 
 involved in agriculture, mining, and in skilled 
 handicrafts. Above all, his influence was invalu- 
 able in getting all sections and classes to work 
 together. In this task it could probably be said 
 with as much truth as of the foundation of the 
 College, that " his fairness of mind, breadth of 
 view, and absolute disinterestedness, commanded 
 the confidence of both parties, enabling him to 
 perform feats of reconciliation that were impossible 
 to any one else." l 
 
 1 Principal Reichel, North Wales College Magazine, May 1 902.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE POOR LAW, CHARITY AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 " The faith I believe in is the faith that whatever ought to be done 
 can be done." "Success": Address by W. R. to the Liverpool 
 Institute. 
 
 IT is difficult to find the proper place for this 
 chapter, for the work it covers was scattered over 
 the last thirty-five years of William Rathbone's 
 life. He had been made a member of the Select 
 Vestry, as we have seen, in 1867, in order that he 
 might help in the management of the system of 
 trained nursing which, acting from a distance and 
 through others, he had already succeeded in intro- 
 ducing there ; and he remained a member till his 
 death. During the three or four winter months 
 which were all that he was able while in Parliament 
 to spend in Liverpool, he used regularly to attend 
 the meetings of the Vestry, as well as of the 
 Central Relief Society and the other philanthropic 
 and educational bodies to which he belonged. 
 
 He periodically offered his colleagues on the 
 Vestry to retire if they thought his attendance 
 
 363
 
 364 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 insufficient, but they always generously pressed 
 him to remain, and seeing that so much of his 
 attention in Parliament was being given to 
 questions of local, and especially of Poor Law 
 administration, it was well worth his while to keep 
 in touch with the practical working of the law. 
 Apart from this motive, it would have been a hard 
 wrench for him voluntarily to have relinquished 
 the title of Guardian of the Poor. The problem 
 of poverty had begun to weigh upon him as a 
 youth, and his mind turned to it again and again. 
 His uneasiness about it lay at the root of his 
 anxiety for a better system of local government 
 and taxation, for the spread of education, for 
 workhouse and district nursing. All these were 
 means of modifying the causes or of alleviating 
 the effects of poverty ; the Poor Law and voluntary 
 charity grappled with the thing itself. It was the 
 principal penalty that he paid for going into 
 Parliament that it took him away from Liverpool 
 too early and returned him thither too late to 
 attempt to work out to his own satisfaction some 
 of the reforms in administration which he felt to be 
 needed and made several partial efforts to formulate. 
 In 1867, the year before his return to Parlia- 
 ment, he published a modest little book which 
 gives his ideas on these subjects so far as he had 
 then got. It bore the somewhat repelling title of 
 Social Duties : considered in Reference to the
 
 x "SOCIAL DUTIES" 365 
 
 Organisation of Effort in Works of Benevolence and 
 Public Utility ; by a Man of Business? and was, in 
 more modern phrase, simply a plea for the organisa- 
 tion of charity. The ideas it contains were begin- 
 ning to be in many people's minds, as was illustrated 
 some years ago by the rather unedifying dispute 
 which took place in the columns of the Times 
 between several gentlemen who all claimed the 
 credit of being the founders of the London Charity 
 Organisation Society, started in 1869. Now that 
 these ideas are all familiar in theory and more or 
 less imperfectly realised in practice in most large 
 towns, the only interest of such books lies in seeing 
 how far the event has justified the hopes of the 
 early begetters of the movement. 
 
 The first chapter of Social Duties describes at 
 length how the growth of large industries and 
 the increasing segregation of different classes in 
 different districts had broken down the old 
 personal relations between employer and employed, 
 and between rich and poor neighbours. This 
 process has gone on at an accelerated pace ever 
 since, but the means of communication have at the 
 same time been so much improved, that the mere 
 physical difficulties of bridging the gulf do not seem 
 now quite so great as they are represented in these 
 
 1 The name was pressed on him by a literary friend. He would have 
 done better to stick to his own title, " Method versus Muddle and Waste 
 in Charitable Work,"
 
 366 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 pages. It is no longer necessary for " the carriage 
 to be ordered and the time spared for a drive of 
 five or six miles into the town," before the wife of 
 the rich employer can visit the sick employee ; and 
 the prosaic invention of trams and bicycles has 
 perhaps done as much as organised charity to make 
 possible the " bringing the two classes once more 
 into relations of personal kindness and friendly 
 intercourse, by services rendered without patronage 
 and accepted without degradation." Under the 
 heading " Charities Done and Undone," he passed 
 in cursory review some of the principal defects and 
 gaps in the existing mass of charities system of 
 charities it was his main point that they could not 
 rightly be called. The gaps he mentions have 
 been mostly more or less filled up. For example, 
 the provision of convalescent homes for patients 
 discharged from hospitals is noted as an almost 
 untouched need. On the other hand, there is 
 unfortunately nothing obsolete, even in towns 
 where the movement for the organisation of charity 
 has made most way, in the complaints he vents as 
 to " the desultory nature of so much of our 
 charity ; the stimulus it requires from fancy-balls 
 and bazaars ; the greater facility with which a new 
 institution obtains subscriptions for want of which 
 an old one, equally meritorious, languishes ; the 
 amount of time and energy which the managers of 
 a charity are so often forced to consume in drum.-
 
 x "SOCIAL DUTIES" 367 
 
 ming together the funds required for its support." 
 It is as true as ever that " people give less in 
 obedience to principle than under a sudden impulse 
 of feeling ; less to fulfil an obligation than to relieve 
 themselves of an uneasy though vague sensation of 
 compunction." 
 
 After dilating on the incompleteness, imperfect 
 adaptation to its functions, and caprice of existing 
 charity, he went on to consider its possible substitutes 
 or supplements. The Poor Law alone was not 
 enough. It had done inestimable service in rescuing 
 the nation from the demoralisation brought about 
 by the old Poor Law, but 
 
 As a system of public charity it fails altogether. It is 
 beyond the omnipotence of Parliament to meet the con- 
 flicting claims of justice to the community, severity to 
 the idle and vicious, and mercy to those stricken down 
 into penury by the visitation of God. . . . 
 
 On the other hand, a system of voluntary charity 
 administered entirely or mainly by paid officers 
 tends to reproduce just the effects of the Poor Law. 
 
 Like the Poor Law machinery, it has to work by 
 rule . . . and its rules must be framed to defeat and 
 discourage imposture, on pain of doing much more harm 
 than good. But it is scarcely practicable to frame a code 
 of tests and regulations to exclude impostors which shall 
 not tend to repel, disgust, and dishearten innocent and 
 undeserved poverty. And even if a large discretion were 
 allowed to the officers of the charity, these officers them-
 
 368 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 selves, as the inevitable result of their position and the 
 fruit of their experience, lean towards the very same error 
 or defect which is characteristic of the rules which that 
 experience forces upon their superiors. They find them- 
 selves in constant collision with vicious and shameless 
 imposture : they find much of imposture and vice involved 
 in cases of real distress ; and they acquire insensibly and 
 in their own despite, and while remaining most kind in 
 heart and act, a suspicious, hard, and vigilant manner, a 
 sharpness of tone, which repels the best sort of applicants, 
 whose sensitive pride revolts at questions, tests, and 
 precautions which, devised against imposture, seem to 
 presuppose imposture in every application. . . . Where 
 good is to be done to individual men, it should come 
 from the free-will of fellow-men ; the machinery, if 
 machinery there be, should be in the background, and 
 the voluntary benefactor should come into personal 
 contact with his suffering brother ; whereas in all 
 endeavours to do good through mechanical organisation, 
 it is the machinery alone which is seen by the poor ; the 
 givers, whose personal kindness and freewill-offering they 
 might feel and acknowledge, remain invisible and un- 
 known. 
 
 The difficulty then was to devise a system of 
 dealing with cases of distress that should be 
 thorough and systematic and cover the whole 
 ground, and yet should at the same time retain 
 the spontaneity and kindliness and " naturalness " 
 of individual personal charity. The plan he 
 suggests is simply an organisation of volunteer 
 effort of the kind that is now attempted with
 
 x "SOCIAL DUTIES" 369 
 
 greater or less success by the Chanty Organisation 
 Societies of various towns. There was to be a 
 central representative committee, with a paid 
 official of high competence at its head. Under 
 this there were to be a number of committees 
 charged with different provinces of work, and also 
 a system of district committees, composed of those 
 working in each district and charged with the 
 administration of relief in the district as well as 
 with the care of those needs that could best be 
 dealt with locally and did not come within the pro- 
 vince of any of the centrally organised committees. 
 The central committee, besides directing and 
 advising the work of volunteers, was to act as a 
 bureau for the collection and dissemination of 
 information regarding all the chanties of the town, 
 and the more important of these were to be repre- 
 sented upon it. It was put forth as one of the 
 principal merits of the scheme that it would set the 
 clergy altogether free from the necessity of relief 
 work, and would thus withdraw from the poor " all 
 temptation to an affectation of religious earnest- 
 ness." Unfortunately experience has shown that 
 few of the clergy have the inclination or the courage 
 to accept this dispensation now that it is offered 
 them. 
 
 The details of the scheme are not very fully 
 worked out. It is evident that on many points the 
 writer himself was doubtful how uniformity and 
 
 2 B
 
 370 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 control were to be secured without sacrificing the 
 freshness and spontaneity of volunteer help and 
 the personal relation between giver and recipient 
 on which he laid so much stress. 
 
 A year or two after writing this little book, his 
 attention was first drawn to the system of poor 
 relief established in Elberfeld on the Rhine, which 
 seemed to him just what he had been groping after. 
 He persuaded the President of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board, then his old friend and school-fellow, 
 Mr. James Stansfeld, to take the very unusual step 
 of sending a Poor Law inspector, Mr. Doyle, to 
 report on this system, and he himself met Mr. 
 Doyle at Elberfeld in November 1871. The 
 system, though established by the municipality 
 and maintained by public money, has many 
 characteristics which according to English ideas 
 seem proper rather to voluntary charity than to 
 legal poor relief. There is no workhouse in 
 the English sense, the only corresponding in- 
 stitution being a place of compulsory detention 
 for the idle and dissolute, and the relief given 
 is all what we should call outdoor relief. At 
 the time of this visit the town, with a population 
 of about 82,000, was divided into eighteen districts, 
 and each district into fourteen sections. Each 
 section was in charge of a Visitor, and the whole 
 district was under an Overseer. There were thus 
 eighteen Overseers and two hundred and fifty-two
 
 x ELBERFELD SYSTEM OF POOR RELIEF 371 
 
 Visitors, all of whom were unpaid and were legally 
 obliged to serve, being nominated by the citizens 
 of their respective districts and appointed by the 
 Municipal Council. The Visitors of each section 
 met fortnightly under their Overseers to discuss the 
 cases and decide upon the relief. Each Visitor 
 undertook the charge of the cases which arose in 
 his section, but he was not, as a rule, allowed to 
 have more than four cases under his charge at a 
 time. The general principles of relief were laid 
 down and the whole controlled by a body known 
 as the " Town Administration of the Poor," con- 
 sisting of a President, four members of the 
 Municipal Council, and four citizens, usually 
 selected from among the wealthy and more dis- 
 tinguished inhabitants. The most striking features 
 of the system were the dignity and importance 
 attached to the office of Visitor and the great sub- 
 division of the work. The offices of Overseer and 
 Visitor were described in the instructions to Over- 
 seers as " the most important of civic honorary 
 offices, requiring in the persons who fill them a 
 large measure of human kindness and an earnest 
 sense of duty." As there were always plenty of 
 suitable men willing and anxious to fill the two 
 hundred and seventy posts, the compulsory powers 
 of the law had never been exercised. In 1853, 
 when the system had been first started in Elberfeld, 
 the town had been divided into only sixty sections,
 
 372 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and each Visitor had fifteen or sixteen cases under 
 his charge at once. It was then found very difficult 
 to find as many as sixty men to undertake work so 
 onerous. The cases were left unvisited or were 
 visited by deputy ; the pauperism and expenditure 
 of the town increased. The men with whom the 
 system originated, and those who afterwards carried 
 it out in the spirit in which it had been originated, 
 attributed the increase to the want of sufficient 
 personal intercourse between the administrators and 
 the poor. " Everything can be done by personal 
 intercourse with the poor, nothing without it," the 
 Mayor remarked to the English visitors. 
 
 Seventeen years later, in 1888, hearing that the 
 system had spread to many other large towns in 
 Germany, William Rathbone persuaded the Local 
 Government Board to again send an inspector to 
 report on its further development, and arranged 
 that he should be accompanied by Mr. Loch, of 
 the London Charity Organisation Society, and Mr. 
 Hanewinckel, of the Liverpool Central Relief 
 Society. They found that the methods of adminis- 
 tration were in its main features the same as they 
 had been in 1871, but that the Board were about 
 to increase the number of Visitors, so that in 
 future each would have no more than two cases 
 on hand at once. 
 
 This minute subdivision of work among an 
 army of voluntary visitors was the feature of the
 
 x ELBERFELD SYSTEM OF POOR RELIEF 373 
 
 scheme which William Rathbone would most have 
 liked to see introduced into the administration of 
 poor relief, or failing that, of voluntary'charity. 
 It seemed to him that it would have the double 
 advantage, first, of securing the services of busy 
 and capable men and women who could not spare 
 the time for more onerous duties, and secondly, of 
 avoiding the officialism, the " hard suspicious 
 tone," which those who make a profession of relief 
 work are apt to acquire, as they become inured to 
 the sight of poverty and soured by the recurrence 
 of imposture. This impression was confirmed 
 from information obtained from several of the 
 best-organised societies for the relief of the poor 
 in New York and Boston. In the New York 
 Improvement Society, which at the time of inquiry 
 relied entirely on paid agents, the employment of 
 honorary visitors had been tried ; but it had failed 
 exactly as the first experiment with a small number 
 of visitors at Elberfeld had done, because the 
 visitors, finding the claim on their time too onerous, 
 had fallen into hasty and slovenly methods of doing 
 their work. The Secretary of the New York 
 Charity Organisation Society told him decidedly 
 that no visitor could well care for more than three 
 or four such grave problems : one was enough for 
 most of them. 
 
 For a long time after the publication of Mr. 
 Doyle's Report in 1874, nothing practical came of
 
 374 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 it, and William Rathbone was too much occupied 
 with political work to give much thought to the 
 subject* But in the winter of 1886 several events 
 combined to recall it to his mind. On the 9th of 
 October of that year, his fourth son, Edward, was 
 drowned in a boating accident on the lake of 
 Derwentwater, at the age of twenty-six. Edward 
 was generally thought to be the one of his children 
 who most resembled him. Without his father's 
 exceptional strength of constitution, he had yet 
 much of his buoyant and abundant vitality, his 
 geniality and sweetness of temper. He was a 
 partner in the firm of Messrs. Ross T. Smyth, of 
 which his father was senior partner, and he had 
 already shown himself a keen and promising man 
 of business. But his principal interest was in 
 social and educational questions. Among the 
 professors of the newly founded University College 
 he had formed several strong friendships with men 
 rather older than himself, and at the time of his 
 death he was eagerly pushing forward and pressing 
 upon the attention of his fellow-merchants a scheme 
 for a special two years' course at the College, in- 
 tended for men who were going into business and 
 could not spare the three years necessary for taking 
 a degree. He was full of plans for encouraging 
 thrift among the labourers employed by his firm ; 
 for putting their work on a more regular footing ; 
 for improving the conditions of the people in the
 
 x CHARITY ORGANISATION IN LIVERPOOL 375 
 
 very poor parish of St. Thomas, Toxteth, where 
 he was Treasurer of a local society which did 
 much good in its day. 
 
 His son's interest in these matters called William 
 Rathbone's attention again to the question of the 
 administration of charity, and as the winter of 
 1887 which followed Edward's death proved a bad 
 one, which threw a strain on the resources of the 
 Central Relief Society, he persuaded its Committee 
 to reorganise their work somewhat after the model 
 of the Elberfeld system. 
 
 The Liverpool Central Relief Society, formed 
 in 1 846 by the amalgamation of three older relief- 
 giving societies, is now the only Society working 
 over the whole town which investigates claims on 
 the charitable and gives systematic relief in cases 
 of distress. Up till 1887 it had done its work 
 almost entirely by means of paid agents, although 
 in two districts of the town it had a few years 
 before begun making some use of the services of 
 independent committees of volunteers. It was 
 now decided to divide the whole town into districts, 
 and the districts into sections, and to place each 
 district under a committee of " Friendly Visitors." 
 The preliminary inquiries on each case were made 
 as before by the official agents of the Society, one 
 of whom was always present at the meetings of the 
 District Committee. The case was then handed on 
 to the Friendly Visitor for the section in which it
 
 376 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 occurred, who dealt with it under the direction of 
 the Committee. It was intended so to divide the 
 sections that each visitor might have not more than 
 four cases at once, but it has been found in practice 
 difficult to keep to this, as visitors themselves some- 
 times desire more, sometimes fewer cases, and the 
 number of visitors is not easily kept up. This 
 system has probably been, on the whole, a decided 
 improvement upon that which went before it. 
 There is more opportunity for kindly personal 
 intercourse between the Friendly Visitor and his few 
 families than would be possible to an official agent 
 with a long list of cases to visit intercourse which 
 is at any rate very good for the visitor and not 
 seldom, it may be hoped, of real benefit to the 
 visited. The sectional arrangement is especially 
 valuable, enabling each visitor thoroughly to know 
 and become known to the inhabitants of a few 
 streets, and the local knowledge thus obtained soon 
 becomes very useful in estimating the merits of 
 cases. 
 
 If no permanent effects upon the poverty of the 
 city comparable to those of Elberfeld have been 
 attained, it must be remembered, first, that the 
 conditions in the two cities are widely different, 
 and secondly, that the resemblance between the two 
 systems is confined to the points that have been 
 mentioned. Elberfeld is a thriving manufacturing 
 city, in the character of its industry and the habits
 
 x CHARITY ORGANISATION IN LIVERPOOL 377 
 
 of its people not unlike the district round Bradford. 
 The majority of the labouring population are em- 
 ployed in factories of varied kinds ; they have thus a 
 settled occupation and their character and earnings 
 are comparatively easily investigated. In Liver- 
 pool, with a population about four times as large 
 as that of Elberfeld, the work connected with the 
 carrying trade of the port occupies a larger number 
 of adult males than any other employment. Most 
 of this work is casual and unskilled, and it is 
 among the families of those who are or have been 
 engaged in it dock and warehouse labourers and 
 contractors' labourers of all kinds that the greatest 
 number of cases of distress arise. Employed here 
 to-day and there to-morrow, their needs, earnings, 
 and characters are difficult to ascertain ; and as 
 many of them are chronically unemployed or 
 intermittently employed, the help given by volun- 
 tary charity is only a drop in the ocean of their 
 needs. 
 
 The machinery of the English organisation is 
 as much weaker as its task is harder. The over- 
 seers and visitors of Elberfeld have the power 
 of the law behind them, and public funds to draw 
 upon for everything they need for the purpose 
 both of organisation and relier". All their methods 
 show the German respect for detail and genius for 
 taking pains. They have an elaborate system of 
 inquiry into the characters and resources of those
 
 378 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 whom they visit. They use to the full the large 
 legal powers they possess of obliging relatives to 
 give help according to their means, and are said to 
 be far more successful in exacting these contribu- 
 tions than any English Board of Guardians. When, 
 in default of, or to eke out other resources, relief 
 is necessary, the amount granted is calculated so as 
 to bring up the family income to an amount 
 sufficient to keep the family in health, according 
 to a scale drawn up by the Central Board. The 
 Liverpool Society has, of course, no legal status, 
 and is dependent for funds on public generosity. 
 Its system of investigation is less thorough than 
 is thought necessary at Elberfeld. Its help is, in 
 the great majority of instances, confined to assist- 
 ing families to tide over periods of temporary or 
 recurrent distress by weekly grants of food and 
 fuel to the value of from two to eight or rarely 
 ten shillings a week. Relief is sometimes given in 
 other ways : by sending patients to convalescent 
 homes, by granting small pensions to old people, 
 and occasionally by small grants to meet special 
 needs. It has also a labour yard for able-bodied 
 men. 
 
 Owing to William Rathbone's absorption in 
 other work and absence from Liverpool, he was 
 able to take little part in the direction of the 
 methods of the Society. In addition to the intro- 
 duction of the District Committees' system, there
 
 x CHARITY ORGANISATION IN LIVERPOOL 379 
 
 were, however, two very successful features in its 
 work in which he took a prominent share and a 
 never-failing interest. 
 
 In 1871 he became acquainted with a gentle- 
 man named Andrew, who for a year past had been 
 quietly making the experiment of sending families 
 in which there were a large number of boys and 
 girls, especially girls of thirteen and upwards, to 
 the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, where 
 there was at the time a great demand for their 
 services, and where as workers in the mills they 
 were able to earn good wages. The Central Relief 
 Society took this scheme up, and in the first four 
 years arranged for the migration of 995 persons. 
 Its correspondents in the various manufacturing 
 towns guaranteed employment for those sent, and 
 found them house-room. Fares were advanced by 
 the Society, and were almost invariably repaid in 
 full. William Rathbone induced the Select Vestry 
 to press migration under the scheme upon widows 
 with suitable families who applied for outdoor relief, 
 and if it was refused without reasonable cause, to 
 offer the Workhouse. The first result was a con- 
 siderable saving to the rates. Thus in one year, 
 1875, it is stated in the Report of the Society that 
 in spite of a diminished demand for labour in the 
 factories, they had been able to send away 174 
 persons. Out of these, thirteen families had been 
 actually in receipt of relief to the amount of ^4 : I2s.
 
 380 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 a week, or 240 a year ; many of the remainder 
 would inevitably have become chargeable had they 
 stayed in Liverpool. In their new homes they were 
 all almost from the first entirely and amply self- 
 supporting. 
 
 The Parish and the Central Relief Society were 
 brought into close relations over this work, and 
 in 1874 it was arranged, at William Rathbone's 
 suggestion, that an agent from the Central Relief 
 Society should be present three times a week at the 
 Relief Quorums of the Select Vestry, for the pur- 
 pose of taking over any cases of applicants which 
 seemed more suitable for voluntary charity than for 
 out-door relief. In this way a great number of 
 respectable families, plunged into temporary dis- 
 tress by sickness or some other cause, were prevented 
 from making that first acquaintance with parish 
 relief which so often seems to lead to a permanent 
 loss of self-respect and recurrent pauperism. 
 
 He would himself have liked to go much 
 further, to abandon outdoor relief altogether, to 
 hand over to the care of voluntary charity all 
 distress that might be described as accidental and 
 due to unpreventable misfortune, and to deal with 
 the remainder in the Workhouse. This rule would, 
 of course, leave room for endless diversity of opinion 
 as to what constitutes unpreventable misfortune. 
 The number of families who would be reduced by 
 sickness or untoward circumstances to actual desti-
 
 x THE POOR LAW 381 
 
 tution if all the adult members were everything 
 that they might be in the way of enterprise, 
 industry, temperance, thrift, good management, 
 etc., is probably exceedingly small. Some Poor Law 
 reformers seem compelled by their principles to 
 allow the poor to suffer the utmost penalty of the 
 deficiency, if they have fallen short of a standard 
 in all these respects far higher than their censors 
 ever dream of imposing on themselves. If William 
 Rathbone had been born a poor man himself, it is 
 easy to imagine with what care and sagacity he 
 would have husbanded his resources and made the 
 utmost of his chances. But in dealing with applica- 
 tions either for charity or poor relief he always 
 inclined to take a lenient view, and to give the 
 applicant the benefit of every reasonable doubt. 
 
 He was never, in fact, called upon to formulate 
 in detail his views as to the abolition of outdoor 
 relief, for he felt that opinion in Liverpool was not 
 ripe for such a step, and as usual he preferred to 
 work for what he thought immediately practicable. 
 He therefore contented himself in the Relief 
 Quorum with throwing what influence he possessed 
 always on the side of more thorough investigation 
 of cases and of making relief more adequate when 
 it was given at all. 
 
 In 1 88 1, thinking that in the growth of 
 humanitarian, not to say sentimental feeling, the 
 stern lessons taught the country by the utter failure
 
 382 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of the old Poor Law were being forgotten, he 
 procured the republication of the famous Report of 
 the Poor Law Commissioners of 1834. 
 
 For permanent improvement in the condition of 
 the poorer classes he looked more to the changes in 
 their habits and aspirations, which a better educa- 
 tion and civil freedom were bringing about, than to 
 any system, good or bad, of philanthropy or Poor 
 Law. All the movements originating with the 
 working people themselves for improving the con- 
 ditions of their labour, or for giving them a fairer 
 share in the prosperity of the capitalist classes, 
 enlisted his eager sympathies. In the early seventies 
 he had been greatly struck with the success of an 
 Edinburgh Building Society, which received money 
 at 4 per cent and lent it out on their working- 
 men's cottages at 5 per cent, repayable in instalments. 
 He often exhorted working-class audiences to save 
 and invest their savings in similar societies. In order 
 to facilitate this, he felt that there was urgent need 
 for a reform in the land-transfer laws, which would 
 make it as easy to transfer or borrow money upon 
 a house as upon a railway share. It was in the 
 hope of smoothing the way to such a reform, by 
 conciliating the powerful legal interest, that he 
 introduced and carried through the House his 
 Attorneys' and Solicitors' Remuneration Act, which 
 abolished the rule that lawyers must charge for 
 their services according to the length of their docu-
 
 x THRIFT 383 
 
 ments and the number of steps taken, and allowed 
 them to make a bargain with their clients. While 
 this Bill was in passage through the House, he 
 received a letter from a respectable working 
 upholsterer, earning 313. 6d. a week. The man 
 told him that having saved ^200, he had invested 
 it in cottage property which seemed to him cheap. 
 He made a bargain with a solicitor to carry out 
 the transfer for him at little more than half the 
 usual rate. But when the solicitor refused to keep 
 to his bargain, he found that he could not legally 
 compel him to do so, but was obliged to pay the 
 full legal charges. These amounted to ^30, or 15 
 per cent on the investment of ^200. 
 
 The small amount of savings invested by the 
 working classes either in land and houses or in 
 Government stock, as compared with France and 
 other foreign countries, and the smallness of their 
 savings altogether, seemed to him a serious national 
 danger. In 1877, in the midst of the series of 
 bad years that culminated in 1879-80, he read to 
 an audience of working men a paper containing 
 careful calculations and comparisons with other 
 countries upon this point. He pointed out that 
 instead of economising in the bad times that were 
 come upon them, and which were certain to grow 
 worse, the country was consuming far more of 
 everything, and especially of wine and spirits, 
 and that the excess of imports over exports was
 
 384 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 increasing by leaps and bounds. In a letter to the 
 Economist, called " Waste not, Want not," which 
 attracted so much attention that it had to be 
 reprinted in a special supplement, he dwelt on the 
 same theme in a less popular form. It seemed to 
 him one of the principal defects of the Anglo- 
 Saxon character that it had so little capacity for 
 sacrificing the present to the future, and material 
 things to the attainment of an ideal. On coming 
 into a little money, he said once, an Irishman's 
 first idea is to become the owner of a bit of land, 
 a Welshman's to give his children a better educa- 
 tion, but an Englishman's to eat a better dinner. 
 On the whole, this rough generalisation repre- 
 sented a very strong feeling of his. It was what 
 he considered their greater idealism and faith in 
 immaterial things that endeared his Welsh con- 
 stituents to him, and he was never tired of praising 
 this trait in their character. 
 
 Perhaps it must be confessed that a Liverpool 
 man sees the thriftlessness and materialism of his 
 fellow-countrymen at its worst. In Liverpool, 
 Building Societies, Friendly Societies, Co-operative 
 Stores, and all such agencies flourish less than they 
 do in the other great northern cities. That it is 
 so is undoubtedly due to the great amount of 
 casual labour, employed in doing the work of the 
 port under conditions which make thrift, like every 
 other manifestation of an orderly and self-respect-
 
 x CASUAL LABOUR IN LIVERPOOL 385 
 
 ing life, not indeed impossible, but as difficult as 
 it can well be made. The bulk of the work of 
 loading and unloading ships, and handling goods 
 on the quays and in the warehouses, requires 
 strength and knack, but it makes very slight call 
 on the intellect. The labourers are engaged and 
 paid by the day or half-day, so that they are under 
 no obligation to turn up regularly. The actual 
 amount of work to be done fluctuates consider- 
 ably at different seasons of the year, causing some 
 necessary irregularity of employment ; but this is 
 made many times greater than it need be owing to 
 the entire lack of system in distributing the labour. 
 Men are engaged at " stands " held simultaneously, 
 close to the ship or by the warehouse where the 
 work is to be done, and as there are thus great 
 numbers of stands, and the men have no means of 
 ascertaining with any exactness the number that 
 will be required at each, there is a huge waste of 
 labour, employers being frequently short of men 
 at one dock while at another not far off hundreds 
 are being turned away idle. Much of the work, 
 especially that on the ships, has to be done at high 
 pressure, and this is met by a great amount of 
 overtime and night- work paid at increased rates. 
 Men frequently work all day and all night too ; 
 and periods of two days and two nights consecu- 
 tively are not uncommon when a ship has to be 
 " turned round " in a short time. Sums of two, 
 
 2 c
 
 3 86 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 three, and even four pounds in a week can thus be 
 occasionally earned by the pick of the men. It 
 may be doubted if these high earnings do much 
 good even to the individuals who make them. 
 The fame of them, spreading to the country dis- 
 tricts, draws in a steady stream of men to press 
 upon the already overcrowded labour-market. 
 Busy weeks are apt to be followed by weeks of 
 comparative idleness, either compulsory or volun- 
 tary, and the standard of living, as measured by 
 the money given to the wife for rent, clothes, and 
 housekeeping, tends to fall to the amount earned 
 in the least busy weeks, the balance being spent by 
 the men on drinking, smoking, and betting. The 
 strain which these intermittent spells of unnaturally 
 hard and prolonged work, followed by bouts of 
 idleness and dissipation, impose on the constitutions 
 of the men, wears them out prematurely. Dock 
 labourers are said to be old at forty-five or fifty, 
 and the death-rate and the rate of insanity are both 
 very high among them. In addition to these 
 young men who get the cream of the work, there 
 are great numbers, probably a majority of the 
 whole, who scarcely ever get a full week's work, 
 and whose earnings are equally irregular, but at a 
 much lower level, varying from nothing to fifteen 
 or twenty shillings. 
 
 In a town where such conditions prevail in the 
 industry which employs a larger number of adult
 
 x CASUAL LABOUR IN LIVERPOOL 387 
 
 men than any two or three other industries, it is 
 natural that agencies for encouraging thrift, as well 
 as all the other usual panaceas of social reformers, 
 should have a hard struggle. The evils of the 
 system spread to other industries. The belief that 
 there are always the docks to fall back upon, and 
 that at the docks neither character, nor intelligence, 
 nor education, nor steady industry, are asked for or 
 needed, smooths the downward course of boys and 
 men in every walk of life. 
 
 The above explanation of the conditions which 
 prevail may serve to make clear the allusions in 
 the following letter, written by William Rathbone 
 to his son Ashton in 1883. He had then recently 
 been reading a little book by Mr. Sedley Taylor 
 on Profit Sharing, which gives an interesting 
 account of an experiment made by M. Leclaire, 
 the head of a large Parisian firm of painters and 
 decorators : 
 
 1 8 PRINCES GARDENS, LONDON, 
 1883. 
 
 There is one kind of unselfish work which not only 
 can but ought to be done or initiated by men in active 
 business. 
 
 I have never been easy at the relations between mer- 
 chants and shipowners and the men they employ ; and 
 during the strike which took place some time ago in 
 Liverpool of the men who load our ships, and in which 
 (then representing Liverpool) I tried to accommodate 
 matters, I was satisfied it was not a good system for the
 
 3 88 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 employers and a wretched one for the men unnecessary 
 night-work ; excessive work and high wages for the young 
 and strong, all of which combined to make them pre- 
 maturely old ; deficient wages and employment for the 
 men as they grew older, had families, and needed high 
 wages. I don't think the men a bit overpaid, for they 
 work like tigers; but their wages do them no good when 
 high, and fall when they should rise. I talked the matter 
 over with Ismay, and he showed me his wages-list for a 
 steamer ; and I talked with others ; and though there will 
 undoubtedly be difficulties, there always are in doing any- 
 thing worth doing. I am satisfied the state of things 
 could be improved if shipowners and employers would do 
 their duty in the matter. 
 
 I have often thought that if I was beginning life I 
 would see how far combined interests co-operation as it 
 is sometimes called might be made to do more work 
 than it does. A lumpers' company, with the best young 
 master lumper we could find as the managing partner, 
 and the regular men sharing the profits and having a 
 superannuation fund and a sick fund, I am satisfied 
 might be worked if a lot of the shipowners would 
 join in it. 
 
 I send you an account of the most successful co- 
 operative experiment I have heard of. The trade is 
 different and more advantageous for it, but the principles 
 might be adapted. 
 
 Read it and think it over and show it to Ted. I 
 think it might be applied in a warehouse company. We 
 may talk it over when we meet, as I hope we shall 
 soon. 
 
 P. S. I almost think I should have died happier as 
 Leclaire than any man I remember in modern days.
 
 In later years he came to feel strongly that the 
 problem of casual labour stopped the way, and 
 that no great improvement in the condition of the 
 poor in Liverpool was likely, until the system of 
 employing the labourers had been changed. While 
 on his summer holiday in 1895 ne wrote on tne 
 subject to Mr. Thomas Ismay, the late senior partner 
 in the firm of Messrs. Ismay, Imrie, and Co., then 
 owners of the White Star Line : 
 
 DUNVEGAN CASTLE, ISLE OF SKYE, 
 August 20, 1895. 
 
 I have a very vivid and grateful recollection of the 
 information and advice you so kindly gave me some years 
 ago, when, as representing Liverpool, I came down to try 
 and settle the strikes which were going on. 
 
 It is so rare to find men with the pressure of great 
 concerns on their hands who have the faculty and will spare 
 the time to consider labour difficulties from both sides, 
 and who can see the side of the employed as well as their 
 own. Yet they are the only men who can really under- 
 stand and aid in the settlement of these great questions, 
 on which the prosperity of the country and the character 
 and happiness of the people depend ! We have certainly 
 no one in Liverpool with the same capacity and power 
 to grasp and wisely to settle such a question as you have. 
 
 I hope, therefore, you will excuse me if I ask your 
 attention for a short time to some considerations which 
 have been suggested to me, many of which must, I fear, 
 appear to you, and be, crude and unpractical ; for I have 
 now been more than twenty -six years out of actual 
 business, and my experience is therefore much out of date,
 
 390 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 as well as vastly inferior, as are my organising ability and 
 judgment, to yours. But it is possible that out of what 
 I may say some practical plan may suggest itself to your 
 experience and wisdom. 
 
 I fancy we are all agreed that the present casual labour 
 system of Liverpool is a very defective one, troublesome 
 to the employers and very injurious to the men. The 
 high rate of daily wages as compared with some other 
 places, and the power of earning very large wages by 
 night -work, attracts to Liverpool a larger amount of 
 labour than is needed, even when an average amount of 
 work is going on. Young men, often without families, 
 obtain the preference and these high wages just when 
 they need them least ; they waste their strength by over- 
 work and over-indulgence, and then, when prematurely 
 old, with their families needing increased means for edu- 
 cation and maintenance, they are themselves pushed aside 
 by a fresh inroad of youth and vigour, and go to swell 
 the ranks of the insufficiently employed or unemployed. 
 It would be far better for them if they could be paid 
 regular wages in proportion to the work they can do, by 
 a classification of labour, such as Burt tells me they have 
 in their part of the world, where one miner is paid and is 
 worth 8s. a day and another 35. 6d. Of course the young 
 men would appear in the former class, and obtain a higher 
 rate of wages than the older and less capable men ; but 
 the latter would continue to be employed at a lower rate 
 equal to " value received." 
 
 Again, I think I understood you to say that, by a 
 proper organisation of business, a great part of the night- 
 work might be avoided. If the leading employers, who, 
 as far as I know, are men of honour and conscience, could 
 propose a plan for doing this, public reprobation and con-
 
 x CASUAL LABOUR IN LIVERPOOL 391 
 
 tempt might be brought to bear upon those who were 
 destitute of both, so as to make it impossible for them to 
 refuse to unite, where general union would be generally 
 beneficial. 
 
 What is to be aimed at appears to me to be, that the 
 minimum amount of labour required at any part of the 
 year should be registered and paid by weekly wages all the 
 year round, and regulated by the wages of the class of 
 labour which the individual was capable of and engaged 
 on ; that the surplus only occasionally employed should be 
 registered, so that the residents, if they exerted themselves 
 and were satisfactory, should have precedence, so as not 
 to attract outside labour unnecessarily, and the regular 
 staff would probably be recruited from the best workmen 
 among the registered occasional labour. This has often 
 been suggested ; the difficulty is to bring it about. The 
 greatest care would have to be taken that this body did 
 not become a close corporation, and drive work away from 
 the port, as the shipwrights did some years ago ; and 
 that the inducement and stimulus to do the work as 
 quickly and as well as it is now done, should be maintained. 
 I quite see that any such plan would have to guard against 
 dangers and difficulties all round ; but I have no doubt you 
 have found, as I have, that what people say is " impossible " 
 can be done, when those whose duty it is to organise it set 
 about it ; and such assumed impossibilities are often the 
 greatest successes. With Napoleon the First, I have never 
 believed in " that stupid word, impossible" 
 
 The employer would certainly be benefited by a plan 
 which would prevent or greatly diminish the danger of 
 strikes, and would deal with the difficult question of the 
 unemployed or insufficiently employed. It ought to 
 secure for him also a steadier, more reliable set of men,
 
 392 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and give greater security, and enable him to enjoy the 
 fruits of his labour with a good conscience. 
 
 The plan that has suggested itself would be that of 
 an association or company of employers and employed, 
 to undertake the stevedores' and porters' work of the port j 
 to be managed by a board on which employers and 
 employed were represented by equal numbers, with a paid 
 chairman or manager nominated by the committee, or, 
 if the representatives of the two parties could not agree, 
 by, say, Mr. Burt, who has shown himself a conspicuously 
 just and able man, both when leader of the trades-unions 
 and when recently Parliamentary Secretary of the Board 
 of Trade. The constitution would have to be drawn 
 with great care and strictness ; and it would have to have 
 as arbitrator a man of first-rate ability and position, say such 
 a man as Sir R. S. Wright, whose decision that anything 
 was contrary to the constitution must be decisive ; and 
 if disobeyed, require retirement from the company and 
 forfeiture of all its privileges. 
 
 The business of the company would be to undertake 
 the master -porterage, stevedores' work, and general 
 handling of the port work of ships and merchandise of 
 Liverpool. The permanent men would be paid weekly 
 throughout the year, and all the profits of the master- 
 porterage, etc., would be divided between employers and 
 employed on such terms as might be agreed upon. One 
 part of the share coming to the employed would go to 
 form a reserve fund for sickness and old-age pensions. 
 Of course there would be the difficulty of the older men 
 coming in to any such arrangement on terms that would 
 ensure the solvency of the society. But I think it would 
 be wise and right for men, who have benefited and hope 
 to benefit by their connection with the trade of Liverpool,
 
 x CASUAL LABOUR IN LIVERPOOL 393 
 
 to start the fund with a sufficient capital to secure its 
 soundness and safety, and to give a visible inducement to 
 the working men to join. This would prevent unfairness 
 to the younger men, who would then build up a sufficient 
 fund to provide for themselves. Arrangements would 
 have to be made to enable the men to retire on fair terms 
 if they were to leave Liverpool for other fields of labour. 
 
 It would be necessary for such a plan to interest the 
 leaders of labour, the secretaries of the trade-unions, and 
 to argue the matter out face to face with the workmen, 
 and show them their interest in a better system. From 
 my experience with them, however, the most powerful 
 motive with them would be an appeal to their loyalty and 
 duty to their fellow-workmen. We know how powerful 
 a motive that is by the way they will often go on strike, 
 against their own opinion and interest, to support a strike 
 with which they do not agree, and which is not even in 
 their own neighbourhood or their own special department 
 of labour ; and the way in which they always con- 
 tribute in cases of sickness and accident, and often share 
 their last meal with a man poorer than themselves. Of 
 course it would be difficult, but I do not think impossible, 
 to secure at least equal energy and carefulness in work to 
 that which to do them justice I believe Liverpool 
 stevedores and porters now bestow on their work. To 
 judge from experience : where men, whether as clerks or 
 workmen, have an interest in their work, they value and 
 take a pride in it far beyond what the financial gain to 
 them would lead us to expect, and are more intolerant 
 and severe upon idle and scamped work than even their 
 overseers are or can be. 
 
 Many years ago I was very much struck by the 
 wonderful success of the painting, decorating, and
 
 394 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 plumbing business of the Maison Leclaire, Paris. Cir- 
 cumstances, of course, are very different, and much more 
 difficult to deal with in casual and less highly paid labour 
 than the skilled labour employed by the Maison Leclaire ; 
 but since I read the account, many years ago, I have watched 
 many undertakings commenced on the same principle, and 
 have always thought that the principle might be in some 
 degree adapted to deal with the present problem. 
 
 It will, however, undoubtedly require very great care 
 to work out and guard such an undertaking, and I should 
 value most highly your advice respecting it. I could 
 send the account of Leclaire, if you liked and had time 
 to look it over. 
 
 Some correspondence followed with Mr. Ismay 
 and with some other leading shipowners, to whom 
 William Rathbone also wrote on the subject, and 
 on two occasions they met at dinner at Greenbank 
 to discuss it. All, without exception, seemed 
 agreed that the existing system was unsatisfactory 
 to the employers and demoralising to the men, but 
 none seemed to see their way clear to a safe 
 remedy, or willing to make the first move, and as 
 William Rathbone saw clearly that nothing could 
 be done unless the motion came from within the 
 ranks of either employers or employed, the matter 
 fell to the ground. 
 
 Another class of workers with whose lot 
 William Rathbone actively concerned himself were 
 the railway employees. For many years, I believe 
 over twenty, he acted as honorary referee or
 
 x CHARACTERISTICS 395 
 
 arbitrator for the men's Provident and Insurance 
 Club of the London and North-Western Railway, 
 deciding on disputed claims for compensation. 
 The work was both troublesome and costly, for he 
 always took counsel's opinion upon it, and the 
 cases had a way of coming in, as all such inter- 
 mittent tasks are apt to do, just at the times when 
 he could least conveniently attend to them. But 
 they were often full of human interest, and how- 
 ever small the sums involved, he spared neither 
 time nor pains to arrive at a just decision. 
 
 What seems greatly to have struck those who 
 talked with him in his later years about the subjects 
 treated on in this chapter was the freshness and 
 breadth of his way of looking at them. Often, no 
 doubt, he showed himself out of touch with the 
 best-accredited modern opinions, either because he 
 did not agree with them, or, much more often, 
 because his absorption in other work had prevented 
 him from keeping his knowledge up to date. But 
 he never left one with the impression, as so many 
 elderly men do, that his mind was so saturated with 
 the conceptions and opinions acquired in youth that 
 it had become quite incapable of taking in a new 
 idea. On the contrary, it was plain that if any one 
 in whose judgment he had confidence were to bring 
 before him a promising and well-planned scheme 
 on lines altogether different from those he had 
 before conceived, he was quite capable of throwing
 
 396 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, x 
 
 himself into it with all the enthusiasm and hopeful- 
 ness, and perhaps rather less than more than all 
 the caution, of his early manhood. 
 
 It was upon questions of social reform that his 
 public speaking was heard at its best. It has been 
 said before that he was not, on the whole, a good 
 speaker. But sometimes on the modest occasion 
 of the annual meeting of some public charity, or a 
 gathering of penny-bank workers, or the annual 
 dinner of a trade club, occasions when most men 
 give themselves up unashamed to a flow of 
 platitudes, his speaking had all the effect of 
 opening a window and letting in air and sunshine 
 upon a stuffy room. His very appearance on the 
 platform, his eager look, and the ring in his voice, 
 recalled the slumbering audience to a consciousness 
 of the vital human needs that Jay behind the dull 
 mechanism of charity or thrift, as in clear, strong 
 sentences, few and fit, and aglow with the fire of 
 his enthusiasm, he spoke out of the experience of 
 a lifetime of the principles and methods that should 
 guide their work.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY WORK 1 88 I TO 1895 
 
 WHEN William Rathbone returned to the House 
 of Commons after a session's absence, it was with 
 good hopes of being able to get through some sub- 
 stantial work at his favourite subjects before old 
 age obliged him to lay down his tools. He was 
 refreshed by his holiday and encouraged by the 
 warm reception he met with from his friends in 
 the House, as well as from members whom he 
 scarcely knew as friends. Men whom he had 
 hardly spoken to came up and shook him warmly 
 by the hand, and " We are so glad to see you back 
 in your right place again " was, he wrote to his 
 wife, the usual form of greeting. 
 
 There seemed at first sight every reason to 
 expect that the Parliament would be an active one, 
 which would accomplish at last some of the 
 domestic reforms that had been waited for so long. 
 The new House of Commons included an unusual 
 number of men of ability and varied experience. 
 
 397
 
 398 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Sir Erskine May told William Rathbone that he 
 had never known a House that contained so many 
 men of high reputation at the Universities. The 
 Liberal party had a large majority. The Govern- 
 ment was exceptionally able and representative, 
 and above all it had at its head, after an eclipse of 
 seven years, Mr. Gladstone. But the Parliament 
 of 1880 was destined to belie all hopes. From the 
 beginning it was beset by difficulties that were an 
 inheritance from its predecessors, and difficulties 
 that began with itself. Not legislation, nor even 
 the attempt to legislate, occupied its time, so much 
 as the affairs of South Africa, Afghanistan, and 
 Egypt, the Bradlaugh episode, and the obstructions 
 of the Fourth Party and the Irish Party. Yet 
 though very little was accomplished, late hours and 
 all-night sittings put a heavy strain on members 
 who took their duties seriously and obeyed the 
 party Whips. The futility and fruitlessness of the 
 long sittings were very trying to the temper and 
 morale of the House, and gradually broke down 
 its discipline. William Rathbone noted that 
 whereas in former years no member who took an 
 active part in the business of the House would 
 have thought of accepting an invitation to dinner 
 on a Government night, or even on a private mem- 
 bers' night, until he knew what was coming on, in 
 this Parliament no such restrictions were observed. 
 He remained in the House of Commons
 
 xi POSITION OF PRIVATE MEMBERS 399 
 
 throughout this and the three succeeding Parlia- 
 ments. But though in the years of comparative 
 tranquillity that lay between the rejection of the 
 first Home Rule Bill and the introduction of the 
 second, he witnessed some valuable legislation, and 
 took an active part in not a little of it, he never found 
 Parliament again what it had been during his first 
 eleven years there. This may have been partly 
 due to his advancing years. But he accounted for 
 it much more by a real change in the status and 
 opportunities for usefulness open to private mem- 
 bers. The growth of obstruction and the restric- 
 tions on debate introduced to repress it, as well as 
 the congestion of business which it intensified, all 
 contributed to accelerate the process which had 
 begun long before of the encroachment by the 
 Executive on the function, which originally belonged 
 and still belongs in name to the whole House, of 
 initiating legislation. " Government business " now 
 absorbs nearly the whole working time of the 
 House, and under the rules which govern the dis- 
 posal of the remnant, practically no Bill introduced 
 by private members, unless it is afforded special 
 facilities by Government, can ever pass through all 
 its stages and become law. William Rathbone 
 would have cared little for this if there had been 
 a greater abundance of Government measures deal- 
 ing with the questions of administrative reform and 
 social wellbeing which he had so much at heart,
 
 400 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and if he had found that the forms of the House 
 gave him, and others like him, more scope for 
 helping, by diligent work and legitimate influence, 
 to make the provisions of such legislation more 
 effective and better directed. 
 
 As it was, many of the questions which in the 
 seventies had been felt to be so pressing that it 
 seemed scarcely possible that public opinion would 
 allow their solution to be delayed any longer, re- 
 mained for years untouched, and when some of 
 them were at last dealt with by the Conservative 
 Government the scope of their measures, as might 
 have been expected, usually fell short of what 
 Liberals and social reformers like William Rath- 
 bone and his friends desired. Men interested in 
 special measures must accept from their opponents 
 less than they might have hoped to get from their 
 own leaders. Nevertheless, measures such as the 
 Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1893, and 
 the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, 
 though not a perfect fulfilment of hopes long 
 deferred, yet gave much for which to be thankful. 
 There were many other much - desired reforms 
 which, after seeming to come within reach, and 
 even after attaining such prospect of fruition as is 
 implied by inclusion among measures promised in 
 the Queen's Speech, remain to this day unaccom- 
 plished, and, without having been discredited by 
 fresh argument or fact, have ceased to inspire
 
 xi LATER PARLIAMENTARY WORK 401 
 
 enthusiasm, and have even lost their hold upon the 
 public interest. Much of the work of the private 
 member during these weary Parliaments consisted 
 in vain efforts, session after session, to strengthen 
 the force of opinion behind desired reforms by 
 struggling to introduce resolutions and secure 
 debates upon them, or by dragging them, embodied 
 in Bills, a little way up the hill of legislation, in the 
 hope that if this were done persistently and success- 
 fully enough, the Government would at length be 
 induced to hitch them on to their own car, if only 
 for the sake of getting them finally off the road. 
 Although the rules of debate were more than once 
 altered for the purpose of checking obstruction, 
 the machinery of actual legislation the arrange- 
 ments for drafting Bills and the stages through 
 which they have to pass remained in essentials as 
 clumsy and ineffective as it had always been. 1 
 
 His own work during the rest of his parlia- 
 mentary life was to a large extent a continuation 
 of activities begun before. Local government, 
 licensing, bankruptcy reforms, and commercial law 
 generally, continued to absorb a good deal of his 
 attention, and the scope of his views on these has 
 already been sufficiently indicated. Among the 
 fresh subjects which the interests of his Welsh con- 
 stituency had led him to make his own, the most 
 thoroughly congenial was that of Welsh education. 
 
 1 See Chap. VII. pp. 226-230. 
 
 ^ D
 
 4 02 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 In 1880 a Departmental Committee had been 
 appointed, at the suggestion of Sir Hugh Owen, to 
 inquire into the state of intermediate and higher 
 education in Wales, and in 1881, within a year of 
 their appointment, they completed an exhaustive 
 investigation and brought out their Report. More 
 unusual even than this celerity was the fruitfulness 
 of their labours. Unlike the reports of most 
 parliamentary commissions, their main recom- 
 mendations were all in the course of some ten 
 years carried into effect. These amounted to a 
 complete scheme of intermediate and higher educa- 
 tion. There was first to be a system of secondary 
 schools, supported from four sources a county 
 rate not exceeding a halfpenny, a Government 
 grant, voluntary subscriptions, and endowments. 
 The endowments available for educational purposes 
 were pronounced to be, as compared with those of 
 England, very few and of small value. Next, two 
 University Colleges were recommended, one for 
 North and one for South Wales, each to receive an 
 annual grant from Government of ^4000. Lastly, 
 there was to be a University for Wales. All 
 these proposals are now accomplished facts. The 
 history of the Colleges and of the University, as far 
 as William Rathbone was concerned in it, has been 
 told already. In 1883 a Bill for Welsh Intermediate 
 Education was prepared by Mr. Mundella, and in 
 1884 it was named among the measures promised
 
 xi WELSH INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION 403 
 
 in the Queen's Speech. But just as it was about 
 to be introduced, the rejection by the House of 
 Lords of the Franchise Bill put a stop to all further 
 progress. The difficulties of getting any Bill 
 through the Parliaments of the early eighties 
 seemed indeed almost unsurmountable. Another 
 consideration which appears to have discouraged 
 the Welsh members from pushing the matter as 
 energetically as they might otherwise have done 
 was a doubt whether the Welsh people themselves 
 would welcome the Bill when they realised that it 
 involved a rate. How this doubt was dispelled 
 by the enthusiasm of the people is described in a 
 letter written to William Rathbone long afterwards 
 by Professor Henry Jones, then one of the staff of 
 the newly founded North Wales College, and an 
 early and zealous pioneer in the cause of Welsh 
 education : 
 
 ABERGELE, N.W., July 31, 1899. 
 
 Your letter does not touch upon the movement for im- 
 proving the schools in Wales. I have no time at present 
 to enter upon it at any length, but there is one little 
 pleasant fact which I should like to recall to your memory. 
 
 You have not forgotten, I am sure, how long the 
 Intermediate Education Bill remained a mere Bill, 
 how the passing of it into an Act was postponed 
 from year to year, and how some of the less patient 
 outsiders, like myself, could not guess what the reasons 
 were. You revealed them to me one evening at 
 Treborth. You were going to speak for Mr. Richard
 
 404 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 DavieSj I think at Llangefni. And on my asking 
 why you did not take up Intermediate Education, you 
 replied that you were assured by the Welsh M.P.'s 
 that the moment the Welsh people realised that a rate 
 was involved they would reject it ; and that this was the 
 reason why the Bill was held back. I ventured to dis- 
 agree with this opinion ; and after dinner was over you 
 took me into a little room, and we two then discussed 
 the matter thoroughly : I, vouching with all my heart 
 and soul that if the question were frankly put as<between 
 the rate and better education, the Welsh people would 
 choose the rate ; and you, on your part, resolving to put 
 the matter to the test on the morrow. About u P.M. 
 that night, on making this resolve, you turned me out of 
 the room, and began to put together notes for a speech 
 on Intermediate Education, instead of the one you had 
 intended giving on some political topic. 
 
 From the meeting on the morrow you came straight 
 to the College, and I remember yet how your face 
 beamed with joy as you told me on the College stair of 
 the successful meeting. The people surpassed your most 
 ardent expectations then, as they did afterwards in the 
 whole matter. 
 
 The meeting here alluded to was held in 1885. 
 It was followed by a number of meetings held in 
 all parts of the country to demand the Bill. 
 Professor Henry Jones spoke at many of them, 
 and in every one he placed the choice of a rate 
 or no Intermediate Education Bill before the 
 audience, asking for a show of hands. In every 
 case the rate was carried with absolute unanimity
 
 xi WELSH INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION 405 
 
 and almost acclamation. Petitions were showered 
 upon the Government from School Boards, Town 
 Councils, and public bodies and gatherings of all 
 sorts. Towards the end of the session the Bill was 
 introduced, but the dissolution put a stop to its 
 further progress. During Mr. Gladstone's short 
 administration of 1886 nothing was thought of but 
 the Irish question, and when Mr. Mundella went with 
 the rest of the Liberal Government out of office, 
 Welsh education lost its most influential advocate. 
 From the Opposition benches, however, Mr. 
 Mundella continued to work for the Bill and, in 
 common with all the Welsh members without 
 distinction of party, to press it upon the Conserva- 
 tive Government. At length, in 1889, Sir William 
 Hart Dyke yielded to their united representations 
 and consented to adopt, though with considerable 
 modifications, the Bill which had been introduced 
 by the Welsh Liberal members, and to push it 
 forward as a Government measure. The way to 
 this concession had been smoothed by the County 
 Council Act of 1888, which provided a popularly 
 elected body to decide whether a rate should be 
 levied or not, and also " made easy the constitution 
 of governing bodies on which the ratepayers could 
 be adequately represented, without having recourse 
 to the method of direct election, which had been 
 opposed by many as unsuited to the case." l In 
 
 1 Special Reports : Education Department, vol. ii.
 
 406 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 all the negotiations which led to the final success, 
 William Rathbone took an active and, in the 
 opinion of some of those who worked with him, 
 a very influential share. 
 
 The Bill became law in August 1889. Its 
 provisions, although merely permissive, were with 
 extraordinary celerity put into operation all over 
 Wales, and in a few years the country was provided 
 with a system of schools more complete and better 
 co-ordinated than can be found in any other part 
 of the United Kingdom. 
 
 A few other scattered incidents of William 
 Rathbone's parliamentary life during these years 
 may be recorded. 
 
 In 1 88 1 he was asked to move an amend- 
 ment to the motion of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, 
 condemning the Government for restoring the 
 independence of the Transvaal. He had been one 
 of those who held that the Liberal Government, 
 when it came into office, ought to have acted upon 
 its known conviction that annexation had been a 
 mistake, and to have withdrawn at once from the 
 country. He could not therefore defend their 
 first decision to remain, but as a steady believer, 
 like Mr. Bright, in the doctrine that the moral law 
 is intended not only for individuals but for the life 
 and practice of States in their dealings with one 
 another, he could with all his heart uphold their 
 refusal to go to war in defence of an admitted
 
 xi THE TRANSVAAL WAR 407 
 
 wrong. Of his speech he wrote afterwards to his 
 wife : " Lord Kimberley and others were very 
 complimentary about my defence of him." Many 
 years afterwards, in what was to prove almost his 
 last public appearance, he repeated some of the 
 substance of this speech in unveiling a bust of 
 Mr. Gladstone at the Liverpool Reform Club. 
 
 He attributed what he held to be the original 
 blunder of the annexation to the fact that Sir Michael 
 Hicks-Beach had not been long enough at the 
 Colonial Office to have learnt his work, and had 
 thus been too dependent on the information of Sir 
 Bartle Frere and the other men on the spot. This 
 seemed to him a signal instance of a defect in the 
 practical working of the English Cabinet system 
 about which he felt and often spoke strongly. In 
 forming administrations, offices are usually dis- 
 tributed among the men whom it is desired to 
 bring into the Government in the order of their 
 supposed dignity and importance, with little regard 
 to the knowledge or special fitness of each for the 
 work of the department to which he is assigned. 
 That a man should have done well in a particular 
 department, is held to give him some claim to be 
 transferred to one of greater dignity. He has no 
 sooner thoroughly mastered his work than he is 
 moved on, and the whole of the knowledge and 
 experience which he has accumulated are wasted. 
 During the Parliament of 1874 to 1880, Sir
 
 408 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Michael Hicks-Beach, as Chiet Secretary for Ireland, 
 had presided for three years over a Parliamentary 
 Committee to inquire into the local government 
 and taxation of towns in Ireland. The members 
 of the Committee, of whom William Rathbone 
 was one, had been greatly impressed by the 
 ability, impartiality, and devotion to his work 
 which he had then shown, and had confidently 
 expected that the conclusions ot the Committee 
 would be embodied in a liberal measure of local 
 self-government for Ireland. His appointment to 
 the Colonial Office had dashed these hopes to the 
 ground, besides having for South Africa and the 
 Empire far more wide -spreading and disastrous 
 results. I do not know which of the Conservative 
 Cabinet it was who furnished William Rathbone 
 with a favourite story a propos of this practice. 
 The statesman in question was notified that 
 Disraeli wished to move him from the Local 
 Government Board to the Board of Trade. He 
 protested that he was just beginning to understand 
 a little about local government, and knew nothing 
 whatever about trade. Disraeli drawled indiffer- 
 ently : " Well, it doesn't matter. I suppose you 
 
 know as much about trade as " (the First 
 
 Lord of the Admiralty) " does about ships." 
 
 One of the pleasantest parts of his work in the 
 sessions of 1882 to 1884 was that concerned with 
 Mr. James Tuke's scheme of emigration from the
 
 xi THE "TUKE" COMMITTEE 409 
 
 congested districts of the west of Ireland to 
 America. About this work he says : 
 
 The money was first found by private subscription, 
 and managed by a Committee consisting of Mr. W. H. 
 Smith, who was Chairman ; Mr. W. E. Forster, then, 
 I think, Irish Secretary ; Mr. Whitbread, the Duke of 
 Bedford, myself and others ; with Mr. Sydney Buxton 
 and Mr. Howard Hodgkin as Honorary Secretaries and 
 admirable secretaries they were. When the work was 
 thoroughly organised, and we had spent about ^3000, 
 we applied to Government and proposed that they should 
 give a sum per head per emigrant, less than the minimum 
 cost of emigrating any one, and that the Committee should 
 find the remainder, large or small, of the actual cost in 
 each case. This arrangement left the results of economy 
 or extravagance to be borne entirely by the funds which 
 we ourselves found or raised, and gave every inducement 
 for the utmost care. The sum we raised supplementing 
 the Government aid emigrated some 11,000 people, and 
 not only materially relieved the pressure on the districts 
 from which they came, but caused still more material 
 relief from the sums remitted home by the emigrants to 
 bring out their families and friends. 
 
 After sitting for two years, the agitation raised 
 against the work of the Committee by the Nation- 
 alist party and by the Catholic clergy in Ireland 
 caused them to suspend operations. William 
 Rathbone was also a shareholder in Mr. Parnell's 
 rival scheme of " migration," i.e. of transferring 
 families to the more fertile parts of Ireland, and
 
 410 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 establishing them in holdings formed out of lands 
 hitherto held in pasturage. Nothing ever came of 
 thisproposal. The^5O,ooo assigned by Government 
 in aid of it was left untouched, while the ^50,000 
 allotted to the Tuke scheme was spent in full. 
 
 In 1884, on the retirement of Mr. Speaker 
 Brand, William Rathbone was asked to second the 
 nomination of Mr. Peel to fill the Speaker's Chair. 
 I have been told by experienced members that his 
 selection for this duty as well as for that of moving 
 the amendment already alluded to on the question 
 of the Transvaal, marks the position which he 
 had gained as a representative of the best and 
 soberest opinion of the unofficial members of his 
 party. 
 
 During the barren years of this Parliament, 
 when little was to be done in the House except 
 to spend there half the day and nearly all the 
 night, he found time to write a good many articles 
 and pamphlets. Two articles in the Fortnightly 
 were upon the reform of parliamentary business in 
 the Commons and in the Lords. The second was 
 really a scheme for the reform of the House of 
 Lords itself, and was reprinted, at Sir Thomas 
 Acland's suggestion, in 1884. A pamphlet pub- 
 lished in America, and entitled Protection and Com- 
 munism, argued that the tariff system of the States 
 was responsible for the greater inequality of wages 
 there and for the more violent fluctuations in com-
 
 xi PAMPHLETS AND ADDRESSES 411 
 
 mercial prosperity. 1 Two articles in the Nineteenth 
 Century > on Local Government, described the 
 existing chaos and suggested the lines of reform. 2 
 An article on Great Britain and the Suez Canal, in 
 the Fortnightly, was intended to correct the 
 exaggerated popular estimate of the importance to 
 Great Britain of keeping control of the Canal. It 
 showed that the effect of the Canal had not been to 
 increase but to diminish the commercial predomin- 
 ance of England. Before the Canal, England had 
 been the centre from which the products of the 
 East were distributed all over Europe. Now they 
 were carried direct to the ports of the Mediter- 
 ranean. A comparison was also drawn between 
 the Cape route to the East and the route through 
 the Canal, and it was argued that with modern 
 swift transports, the length of the former route 
 was not prohibitive, and in time of war would be 
 more than compensated by its greater safety. 
 
 To an address delivered at the annual prize- 
 giving of the Liverpool Institute in 1884 he gave 
 the not very happy title of " Success." " The 
 moral conditions of efficiency " would be a truer if 
 clumsier description of its purport. It was, in 
 fact, an attempt to set down, in a form suitable for 
 school-boys, the lessons which life had taught him 
 as to the principles of conduct which will enable a 
 man to get the most out of himself and do the 
 
 1 See p. 103. 2 See pp. 234-245.
 
 412 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 most for his generation. This is assumed to be 
 the goal of every one's endeavour : " To leave the 
 world something better than we found it each of 
 us can do that, and that is Success." 
 
 The Redistribution Act of 1 885 divided William 
 Rathbone's constituency into two North Carnar- 
 vonshire or Arfon, and South Carnarvonshire or 
 Eivion. As the member in possession, he had his 
 choice, and he selected Arfon, estimated to be the 
 less safe of the two seats. In neither of them 
 was there, in fact, much danger of defeat, and in 
 the General Election of the following year he 
 defeated his opponent, Colonel Platt, by over 
 1700 votes. 
 
 The announcement of Mr. Gladstone's Home 
 Rule policy soon eclipsed all other issues. William 
 Rathbone was one of those who found it very 
 difficult to make up their minds upon the question 
 so suddenly forced to a practical issue. He had 
 always been in favour of giving a generous measure 
 of local self-government to Ireland, as a remedy 
 for the congestion of public business at West- 
 minster, as well as a concession to national sentiment. 
 But the grant of a separate Parliament seemed to 
 him beset with difficulties and dangers, and he 
 would have preferred not to take so momentous a 
 step till other means of conciliation had first been 
 tried. But the events of 1885 and 1886 had 
 almost or quite destroyed his hopes that lesser
 
 xi HOME RULE 413 
 
 concessions would avail. After the Conservatives 
 had fought a general election in alliance with the 
 Nationalists and had without protest allowed it to 
 be generally thought and said that they were con- 
 templating some form of national Parliament, and 
 after Mr. Gladstone had definitely committed 
 himself to the same policy, it seemed to him useless 
 to expect that the Irish would be content with a 
 mere system of local government with a central 
 board. 
 
 Both in the Government of Ireland Bill and the 
 Land Purchase Bill as first introduced he saw many 
 defects. He specially objected to the financial 
 proposals of the Bill, and in a speech in the House, 
 which attracted a good deal of attention, he pointed 
 out that there was no provision against extravagant 
 expenditure and the contraction of unlimited debt 
 by local authorities. The Irish people were entirely 
 inexperienced in self-government, either local or 
 national, and had formed extravagant expectations 
 of the material benefits which they would derive 
 from the Bill. If, in process of gaining their 
 experience, they were allowed to plunge the country 
 into insolvency, England would not only lose the 
 loans promised in the Land Purchase Bill, but 
 would ultimately have to come to the rescue of the 
 poorer country. After other criticisms, he argued 
 that the whole question was being too much 
 hurried. It had taken America two years to
 
 414 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 frame her constitution, and it was improbable that 
 the best possible constitution for Ireland could be 
 devised in less than two months. 
 
 It was a time when every vote was of import- 
 ance and the utterances of every member, especially 
 of every member who was known to be still 
 undecided, were closely scrutinised. Many of 
 William Rathbone's Unionist acquaintances thought 
 the tenor of his speech so hostile to the Bill, that 
 they confidently expected him to join the band of 
 seceders from the Liberal party, and were pro- 
 portionately bitter when they saw that he had 
 voted for the second reading of the Bill. The 
 most charitable explanation offered for his supposed 
 inconsistency described it as a result of personal 
 devotion to Mr. Gladstone. To desert Mr. Glad- 
 stone's banner would no doubt have given him pain, 
 but he proved seven years later that he could do 
 so when he thought it right. As a matter of fact, 
 there was no inconsistency. He had embodied his 
 objections in a memorandum, with suggestions 
 drawn up in consultation, I believe, with Sir R. S. 
 Wright, and had sent it to the Government. 
 On the morning of the division he received a 
 message from Mr. Gladstone to the effect that he 
 had looked at the memorandum, and that in his 
 speech that night he intended to give an assurance 
 that the Government were willing to consider 
 suggestions on all points not infringing on the
 
 xi HOME RULE 415 
 
 five essential principles laid down by him in intro- 
 ducing the Bill. Mr. Gladstone did give this 
 assurance, and he also stated that the Government 
 intended to withdraw the Bill and introduce a new 
 one. William Rathbone accordingly voted for the 
 second reading as an assertion of the general prin- 
 ciple that a large measure of self-government 
 should be passed for Ireland. The Government 
 were defeated in the division, and the General 
 Election of 1886 laid the question to rest for some 
 years. 
 
 The majority of William Rathbone's con- 
 stituents proved strong Home Rulers. They 
 remained loyal to their member ; but some of the 
 ardent spirits among them were disposed to be 
 discontented that he had not given a more unhesi- 
 tating and unqualified support to the Irish Bill. 
 He took great pains to meet their criticisms and 
 make clear his views, but he was as uncompromis- 
 ing as he had shown himself while member for 
 Liverpool in asserting his position as a representa- 
 tive, not a delegate. At one of his meetings, the 
 feeling of the malcontents was expressed in the 
 baldest form by the question : " Are you prepared 
 to pledge yourself to support Mr. Gladstone and his 
 Government, when it is the desire and wish of 
 the majority of the constituency, and when that is 
 not in harmony with your own opinion ? " He 
 replied :
 
 4 1 6 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 I have valued the representation of this constituency 
 especially because I feel that on all great questions of 
 religious and political liberty, and progress, and the rights 
 of the great mass of the people to legislation affecting 
 their welfare, I am entirely in accord and in agreement 
 with my constituents ; and that, therefore, I can honestly, 
 truly, and efficiently represent you. If, at any time, in 
 your opinion, I have ceased so to represent you, it will be 
 your duty, without any consideration of kindness or 
 friendship for me, to give expression to that opinion in the 
 way pointed out by the Constitution at the polls, and to 
 dismiss me from the honourable position of your repre- 
 sentative. If I cease to represent you thus truly, I could 
 no longer consent to be your representative ; but when I 
 am asked whether I am prepared to vote against my own 
 opinion, or pledge myself as to my vote on measures 
 which I have never seen, at the bidding of any one, I 
 must distinctly and decidedly say Never. 
 
 The year 1888 was probably one of the busiest 
 of his life, and the two or three years which 
 followed it were scarcely less crowded. It was 
 very characteristic of his high courage in facing 
 work that at the beginning of this year, on the 
 eve of the introduction of the Local Government 
 Bill, when he knew that the question which had 
 been the main interest of his political life was at 
 length about to be dealt with in Parliament, he 
 deliberately accepted the duties of honorary secre- 
 tary to the informal Committee, consisting of the 
 three trustees and himself, which prepared the
 
 XT IRISH LAND QUESTION 417 
 
 ground for the foundation of the Queen's Jubilee 
 Institute, and so brought upon himself a mass of 
 work which most men of sixty-nine would have 
 thought more than arduous enough without any 
 other occupation. The work accomplished by this 
 ideal Committee, which never met, has already been 
 described. 1 Family recollections of the two sessions 
 which followed recall an atmosphere of incessant 
 work, when the head of the house was popularly 
 supposed to be practising the art of dictating three 
 letters at once, and was little visible on week-days 
 except at meals, to which he came accompanied by 
 a secretary, a typist or two, and a fellow-enthusiast 
 on nursing matters, with whom he continued to 
 hold eager conference. 
 
 Since the Home Rule Bill of 1885, William 
 Rathbone had paid special attention to the Irish 
 land question. When Mr. Balfour introduced the 
 Irish Land Purchase Bill of 1890-91, he made a 
 great effort to induce him to limit the sales to 
 bona fide peasant holdings. It was generally 
 admitted that he made out a very strong case. 
 He procured and circulated elaborate tables of 
 figures which showed that eight- ninths of the 
 holdings in Ireland were of the yearly value of 
 30 and under. The total number of these 
 smaller holdings could be purchased for a sum 
 considerably smaller than that which would be 
 
 1 See p. 1 80. 
 
 2 E
 
 4 i 8 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 required to purchase the remaining one -ninth. 
 In the sales made under the Ashbourne Acts from 
 1885 to 1890, two-thirds of the money advanced 
 had been spent on purchasing some 3000 of the 
 holdings above 30, while one-third had sufficed 
 to purchase 10,000 of the holdings under 30. 
 This showed that if the larger holdings were to be 
 allowed to share the benefits of the present Act 
 they would swallow up the greater part of the 
 money. And who would benefit, he asked the 
 House ? The result would be that these larger 
 tenants, " as soon as they become owners, will at 
 once want to set up as landlords, and live on the 
 margin between the reduced rents they will have 
 to pay and the excessive rents which the intense 
 greed for the possession of land which exists in 
 Ireland will enable them to exact." And this 
 meant creating, before many years were out, " the 
 greatest curse of Irish landowners the small grind- 
 ing squireen landlord." Mr. Balfour would not 
 consent to exclude the larger tenants altogether 
 from the Bill, but he introduced a clause giving to 
 the smaller holdings some sort of preference. In 
 execution the whole of this Act proved to have 
 been too much hedged round with precautions 
 intended to safeguard the Imperial grants, and it 
 has been little used. 
 
 In the General Election of 1892, William Rath- 
 bone was returned unopposed. When the Home
 
 xi HOME RULE 419 
 
 Rule Bill of 1893 was introduced, he at first liked 
 it much better than he had done the earlier Bill. 
 But he was one of the handful of his party who 
 finally fell away upon the question which proved 
 the crux of this, as of the former Bill the question 
 of the relation of the Irish representatives to the 
 Imperial Parliament. The Bill of 1885 had ex- 
 cluded them altogether. According to the Bill of 
 1892, as first drafted, eighty representatives from 
 Ireland were to be included, but were not to vote 
 on questions affecting exclusively English or Scotch 
 affairs. This plan met with such general disfavour 
 in the House that Mr. Gladstone reluctantly 
 abandoned it, and resorted to the third possible 
 course, their inclusion for all purposes. William 
 Rathbone felt this plan to be unworkable. For 
 the theoretic injustice of permitting the Irish to 
 meddle in our affairs, while we were forbidden to 
 meddle in theirs, he as usual cared comparatively 
 little. But he believed that the plan would im- 
 poverish and stultify the Parliament in Dublin, 
 and would destroy all hope of finality in the settle- 
 ment, by offering the Irish an irresistible temptation 
 to harass British legislation in order to extort fresh 
 concessions. Hearing;; that he intended to with- 
 
 O 
 
 draw his support of the Bill, Mr. Gladstone gave 
 proof of his indefatigable energy and tenacity in 
 keeping hold upon the allegiance of his followers. 
 In the midst of the great strain of the debates in
 
 420 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the Committee stage of the Bill he found time to 
 write him two letters, and finally made an appoint- 
 ment with him, and argued the point for more 
 than an hour. His main contention was that 
 as the inclusion of the Irish representatives had 
 been granted solely to satisfy the House of 
 Commons, and had never been asked for by the 
 Irish representatives themselves, it would be cruel 
 and unjust to deny self-government to the country 
 on the ground of that single objection. William 
 Rathbone had been a follower of Mr. Gladstone 
 in Parliament for twenty-three years, and in that 
 time had only twice voted against him on measures 
 of first-class importance. It was painful to him 
 to resist pressure like this. But Mr. Gladstone's 
 arguments did not convince his judgment, and he 
 had no real hesitation. He would not vote against 
 the third reading ; but he could neither vote nor 
 pair in favour of it. He remained in the country 
 with his family to make his defection less marked. 
 In 1895, his last session in the House, he was 
 one of a good many Liberals, some of them like 
 himself specially interested in temperance, who did 
 their best to prevent the ill-timed and futile intro- 
 duction of Sir William Harcourt's Local Veto Bill. 
 In an interview with one of the principal leaders of 
 the temperance party he summed up the probable 
 effects of introducing the Bill in a prophecy every 
 part of which has come true : " Public opinion,"
 
 xi LOCAL OPTION 421 
 
 he said, " is not ready for the Bill. If you insist 
 on bringing it forward you will bring about a 
 reaction all over the country. If the Bill gets 
 through the Commons it is certain to be rejected 
 in the Lords. At the General Election you will 
 have the trade solid against you, and the majority 
 of the public will side with the trade. The defeat 
 of the party will be more certain than it is already, 
 and it will be severer than it would otherwise be. 
 Sir William Harcourt will lose his seat, and you 
 will have put back the cause of temperance for 
 years." The temperance leader admitted that his 
 people had no hope of being able to pass the Bill, 
 but said that they were pledged to their followers 
 to bring it in. " Then," said William Rathbone 
 in an unusual outburst, " if you do what you 
 know will harm your cause to please your followers, 
 you are greater cowards than I took you for." 
 
 For more than a year before the dissolution of 
 June 1895 ne had resolved not to seek election in 
 another Parliament, and when the time came to 
 carry out his decision he felt no disposition to 
 regret it. Parliamentary work had long been 
 unsatisfactory to him, and during his last two 
 sessions his dissatisfaction had increased. Although 
 he was on friendly terms with his colleagues the 
 Welsh Liberal members there was, in his belief, 
 an increasing tendency among them to pursue a 
 policy of which he thoroughly disapproved the
 
 422 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 policy of forming into a group or cave, and trying 
 to extort the measures they desired for Wales from 
 the Liberal leaders by the continual menace of 
 rebellion. This tendency seemed to him likely, if 
 persisted in, to destroy all that was best and most 
 characteristic in the British parliamentary system, 
 and to bring about the evils associated with the 
 " group system " in France. He uttered his 
 protest ; but he was now seventy-six, and he felt 
 that the fortunes of the future were with younger 
 men. His relations with his constituents had never 
 been more cordial than during the later years of 
 his representation of Arfon ; and had he chosen 
 to stand again, he was assured that he would be 
 returned unopposed. He had come there a 
 stranger, unable to base a claim to connection with 
 the Principality on nationality, or language, or 
 even, as so many of his fellow -townsmen could 
 have done, upon the possession of a country house 
 within its bounds. During the fourteen years of 
 his representation the strong national feeling of the 
 Welsh had been growing, if not stronger, more 
 articulate and even aggressive in its expression. 
 The cry of Wales for the Welsh was heard with 
 increasing frequency, and with ever new applica- 
 tions Welsh members for Welsh constituencies, 
 Welsh professors and scholars for Welsh colleges, 
 special parliamentary treatment, without regard 
 to the " predominant partner," for every Welsh
 
 xi RETIREMENT FROM PARLIAMENT 423 
 
 problem. Yet William Rathbone's typically Welsh 
 constituency, of country gentry, quarrymen, and 
 farmers and small townspeople, had treated him 
 from the first with kindness and cordiality, and 
 as time went on with, perhaps one may say, 
 growing confidence and affection. Of this they 
 gave the best proof by allowing him the freedom 
 he asked for to vote and speak, not uninfluenced 
 by their wishes, but unfettered by election pledges, 
 and in the last event according to his own conscience 
 and judgment. He was grateful to them for their 
 forbearance, and in his last address to them he 
 ventured now that it could not be thought that 
 he had any personal interest to serve to appeal to 
 them more than once to extend to other aliens the 
 same tolerance that they had shown to him, and to 
 press into the service of their politics, their educa- 
 tion, and every other department of their national 
 life, the best men that they could find, irrespective 
 of class, nationality, or creed. 
 
 He had been in the habit of making the 
 annual meeting of the Arfon Liberal Association 
 the occasion for his principal yearly speech to 
 his constituents. In the January following his 
 retirement, he attended this annual meeting for 
 the last time, to receive an address and presentation 
 from the members of the Association. The pre- 
 sentation took the form of a magnificent silver 
 bowl. Mrs. Rathbone received a handsome pearl
 
 424 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 bracelet. The addresses presented and the 
 speeches made upon such occasions are perhaps an 
 equivocal source of biography, but one quotation 
 may be permitted : 
 
 We believe it is due to you and men of a like 
 disinterested character that Wales has held so high a 
 position in Parliament, and has been able to place her 
 claims for special legislation so prominently forward ; and 
 we further believe that had it been possible for you to 
 continue to advocate her cause in the future, as in the 
 past, our best hopes would have the sooner approached 
 realisation. Your services to the cause of education, in 
 which the Principality was very much behindhand when 
 you came amongst us, are so great that they are apt 
 to eclipse all else you have done for and been to us. 
 We are glad therefore of this opportunity of publicly 
 recording how deeply sensible we are of your unswerving 
 loyalty to the great cause of progress generally. Your 
 services to the principles of local self-government in 
 collecting and arranging facts and statistics have been 
 invaluable to the Government and country, and have 
 materially assisted in the success of recent legislation. 
 Your long and intimate association with Ireland, and 
 sympathy and knowledge of Irish character, helped and 
 guided public opinion and Parliament in dealing with 
 the Home Rule Bill, and the other important Bills which 
 have already become the law of the land, and have proved 
 of so much material benefit to the wellbeing of our sister 
 island. . . . But above all that you have done for us, 
 either publicly or privately, which in this humble manner 
 we have so inadequately endeavoured to recognise, you 
 have ever set us the noble example of how truly to live
 
 xi RETIREMENT FROM PARLIAMENT 425 
 
 for others, and how to devote the powers and opportunities 
 God may have endowed us with for the welfare and 
 benefit of those around us. 
 
 This scene brought to a final close his relations 
 with his constituents as such. But the severance 
 was limited to political affairs. In matters educa- 
 tional he was, and remained for the rest of his 
 working life, in as close touch as ever with his 
 many Welsh friends and colleagues. 1 In 1892 he 
 had been made President of the North Wales 
 College, and in 1897 he was re-elected for a further 
 term of five years a term he was not destined 
 to be able to complete. The post was no sinecure, 
 for though his attendances were not regular, he 
 was generally to be found at Bangor when any new 
 step important to the future of the College was in 
 contemplation ; and in the interval he was in fre- 
 quent correspondence with the Principal, Mr. Reichel, 
 and the other friends of the College. He was also a 
 member of the Court of the University of Wales, 
 which held its meetings at Shrewsbury. In addi- 
 tion to this work, his plans for intermediate and 
 technical education, and in especial, the expendi- 
 ture of a sum of money which he and his friend, 
 
 1 Among those colleagues who both before and after his political retire- 
 ment made his work easier by keeping him in touch with local conditions 
 and by constant help and advice, I may perhaps be allowed to mention 
 Mr. Arthur Darbishire, Mr. Charles Darbishire, Mr. D. P. Williams of 
 Llanberis, for long chairman of his election -Committee, Mr. Cadwaladr 
 Davies, and his election agent, Mr. R. D. Williams.
 
 426 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, xi 
 
 Sir Henry Tate, had jointly contributed to help 
 forward the organisation of technical education in 
 Carnarvonshire, involved him in an immense 
 correspondence. Attendance to these various 
 Welsh interests indeed formed a very considerable 
 share of the work of his remaining years.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 RELIGION AND THE AFFAIRS OF RELIGION 
 
 "The work that remains for this and the next generation of 
 Unitarians is to hold up before the world the clear signs of a genuine 
 religious enthusiasm ; to possess spiritual aspirations that rise into 
 toil and sacrifice as their natural sphere ; a practical devotion to God 
 and Christ and the heavenly kingdom upon earth, in combination 
 with a large and reconciling truth, with freedom and with love. 
 This is the work that remains to supplement and to glorify all our 
 controversies." Sermon preached by the Rev. J. H. Thorn to the 
 younger men and women of Renshanv Street Chapel, 1854. 
 
 THE strong influence exercised on William Rath- 
 bone by his brother-in-law and the minister of his 
 chapel, Mr. Thorn, has been mentioned in an 
 earlier chapter. To those who knew them both, 
 the traces of this influence seem visible throughout 
 the whole fabric of the younger man's life and 
 work, in the spirit and methods of his business, 
 politics, and philanthropy, in his habits of life and 
 ways of thought and expression. But these traces 
 are naturally most evident in matters of personal 
 religion and in work connected with the religious 
 body to which he belonged. His doctrinal views, 
 
 427
 
 428 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 so far as he ever defined them, were mainly those 
 of the school of Unitarianism represented by 
 Mr. Thorn and Mr. Channing, 1 but they also 
 contained elements drawn from the Quaker 
 traditions of his family. Except in their broadest 
 aspects, however, and in their bearing on the 
 spiritual life and on character, the problems of 
 theology did not greatly interest him. There 
 were in particular two articles of his faith of which 
 he often spoke in intimate moments to those with 
 whom he had influence. One was the Quaker 
 doctrine of " the inward light," or, as it is 
 sometimes called, of " immediate inspiration." 
 The other was a belief, which those who belong to 
 his denomination are very commonly supposed to 
 deny or ignore in the leadership and sovereignty 
 of Christ. It is often said about Unitarians 
 that they reduce the figure of the Founder of 
 Christianity to a level with that of other great 
 prophets and saints. This may be true of many 
 of the members of a body one of whose chief bonds 
 it is that they object to any dogma or body of 
 dogmas being made the basis of religious fellowship. 
 But of Mr. Thorn, and his leader Channing, and of 
 most of the prominent Unitarians of their day, it is 
 very far indeed from being true. Mr. Thorn had 
 been brought up as an Arian, and although in his 
 maturity he advanced to a position remoter from 
 
 1 The Rev. William E. Channing, of Boston, U.S.A (1780-1842).
 
 xii UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 429 
 
 current orthodoxy than Arianism, and seems tacitly 
 to have rejected the doctrine of the pre-existence 
 of Christ, as well as of his deity, of the miraculous 
 conditions of his coming, and of the juridical 
 aspect of the atonement, it was only to concentrate 
 his gaze with a more passionate intensity upon the 
 vision of him as the archetype of humanity, the 
 manifestation at once of the character of God and 
 of God's standard for man. Christ was to him 
 
 a revelation not of the divine life of angels, but of the 
 divine life in man, of the fulness of the stature of a 
 perfect man, of the harmony of holiness and grace, of 
 tenderness and righteousness, that would be the natural 
 life of human nature if our development was of God, if 
 we were filial and obedient, and suffered the Father to 
 sway us as He wills. 
 
 Or as he puts it in another passage : 
 
 Christ is the perfection of our type of being ; whilst 
 God as source of all is a being the type of whose nature 
 belongs to Himself alone. Christ is related to God as we 
 are related to God, receiving from Him, nourished by 
 Him, reflecting the glory of His love and of His righteous- 
 ness, yet in humility and hope, in faith and patience, 
 in all the attributes and attitudes of receptive vitality, 
 answering to Him not exactly as face answers to face, but 
 with relative graces. 
 
 It was perhaps just because this conception of 
 Christ brought him so much nearer to humanity 
 than the Trinitarian conception, that Mr. Thorn was
 
 430 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 led to centre his preaching so much on the effort to 
 interpret the meaning and lessons of Christ's life. 
 Certainly it would be hard to find any sermons which 
 deviate less than his from the aim indicated in their 
 title, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ. 
 
 In nothing did William Rathbone follow his 
 
 o 
 
 religious leader more closely than in this ; or, as it 
 would possibly be truer to say, it was, above all, 
 this element in Mr. Thorn's teaching which gave it 
 its influence over him. He himself, as he was 
 wont to say of himself, was not a theologian nor a 
 philosopher. One may add that he had not much 
 of the spirit of a mystic either. The influence of 
 religion upon him was the influence of a personality 
 and of a life, and he believed that it was so with the 
 majority of mankind also. In his later years it 
 seemed to him that there was a tendency in the 
 Unitarian body, especially among the younger 
 ministers, who had been most influenced by modern 
 biblical criticism, to belittle or ignore, or at least 
 not to assert authoritatively enough, the sovereignty 
 of Christ, and to deal too much with abstractions. 
 He expressed this feeling on several occasions when 
 speaking at gatherings of the Unitarian body. 
 Thus at the Triennial Conference held in London 
 in 1891 he said : 
 
 It appears to me that we must look for the failure in 
 our churches to make more progress, at a time when there 
 has been so great an advance and growth of more liberal
 
 xii UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 431 
 
 views of Christianity, to causes behind and above all 
 questions of organisation. I am satisfied that it is not 
 in these agencies themselves, but in powers that should 
 create and inspire them, that the causes of our failure 
 are to be sought. 
 
 I cannot speak as a theologian. I cannot speak as a 
 learned man. My life has been occupied with practical 
 work, and with such study only of history and laws as I 
 thought would be necessary, or found to be necessary, for 
 immediate application to the practical affairs of life. But 
 in fifty years of work, of which nearly one-half has been 
 entirely devoted to public work, I have had the oppor- 
 tunity of acting with and under men and women belong- 
 ing to very different and widely divided battalions of the 
 Christian Church. I have been exercised from boyhood 
 upwards with the problem now before us, and I have 
 tried to find out, what were the great powers wielded by 
 those who, in history or in the practical problems of the 
 present day, have influenced great bodies of men, and 
 carried onward to success important movements for their 
 benefit. 
 
 The late Mr. Beard, in his lectures on the " Positive 
 Aspects of Unitarian Christianity," said that, "putting 
 aside all speculative theological considerations and looking 
 at the matter simply from the historical point of view, 
 Christ is the strongest, most enduring, most vivid force 
 that was ever introduced into the world." I believe it is 
 because we have failed to bring home to the people the 
 force that Jesus Christ is to us, and should be to them, 
 the example of what God meant man to be, the revealer 
 of His will, the leader, master, and personal indwelling 
 friend to each and all of us, that we have failed to give 
 to the people that which humanity wants : not an
 
 432 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 abstract principle, but a man and a life, which are that 
 principle and its embodiment. We are but children 
 after all, and we learn far more by object-lessons than by 
 words. Mankind ever needs and will have a leader, and 
 no one can look around on the history of his own time, 
 not in this country alone, but in every country, without 
 seeing that this is as true now as it has ever been ; nay, 
 that the most democratic nations seem to need and 
 submit to a leader most absolutely. 
 
 Men will have leaders that they can understand, love, 
 and follow. It is of no use to argue that men ought to 
 be able to act upon abstract principles. When have they 
 so acted ? When do we so act ? Does not the life of 
 those we see and know influence us far more than any- 
 thing they can say ? Unitarianism was an active and 
 very powerful force in America in Dr. Channing's time ; 
 but then it was far more positive and far less speculative 
 than it is now. I have constantly seen, among those 
 whom I have found most devoted in work, and most 
 powerful in influencing others to unselfish exertions and 
 self-sacrifice, that personal love for and personal gratitude 
 towards Jesus Christ were the moving and sustaining 
 powers of their character and of their work. 
 
 I maintain that it is useless to expect to influence man- 
 kind at large unless we are willing to study what powers 
 and methods do influence them, and what, so far as we 
 have been able to judge, have been God's methods with 
 man, whom He has made. When we talk of religious 
 union on grounds apart from any necessary connection 
 with a unique revelation, I am satisfied we are not talking 
 of a religion, which can or will influence the great body of 
 mankind. We have no right or wish to deny to any one 
 the name of Christian who wishes or professes to call
 
 xii QUAKER INFLUENCE 433 
 
 himself so ; but if we mean our faith to spread and 
 influence humanity we must forcibly declare and prove 
 that by Unitarianism we mean Christianity, and by 
 Christianity we mean the religion of Christ as set forth 
 in his own words, and as embodied in his own person 
 and life. 
 
 ... I believe the main cause of our want of success 
 among the people is that we have failed adequately to realise 
 this law : that we have failed to keep prominently before our 
 minds and theirs our Leader, Christ, as the object of their 
 faith, their imitation, their affection, and their hope. . . . 
 
 Eighteen hundred years ago, Christ said, " Without 
 me ye can do nothing." And during the centuries since, 
 humble followers of his have from age to age arisen and 
 accomplished work for man which was believed to be 
 impossible, and without him was impossible. Have we 
 realised this ? 
 
 The following letter to his friend, Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, though somewhat hastily and roughly com- 
 posed, shows as well as anything I have been able 
 to find in writing the influence of Quaker ideas 
 upon him. He was fond of calling himself a 
 Quaker, and justifying the claim by the saying, 
 " Once a Quaker, always a.Quaker " ; though, seeing 
 that his family ceased attending the Friends' Meeting 
 when he was about four years old, his case seems 
 rather an extreme application of the rule. 
 
 VILLA EMILIA, ALASSIO, January 21, 1894. 
 Many thanks for sending me M. A.'s Revelations. 
 They are indeed very different from those to Mr. Speirs, 
 
 2 F
 
 434 
 
 and my wife says that it was quite worth while to have 
 been so rude to you to get so much interesting subject for 
 consideration. To me, as a Quaker, it is not new to be 
 told that the Spirit of God did not cease His revelations 
 with Christ's death and ascent to his Father ; for it was 
 only after his death that, according to his promise, that 
 Spirit would come down and dwell with us ; and it was 
 only after this, that the narrow, self-seeking, vengeful 
 Hebrew fishermen and peasants became the regenerators 
 of humanity the foolishness that confounds the wisdom, 
 the weakness that was stronger than the strength, of 
 Greece and Rome. We Quakers believe that, just in the 
 measure as we listen and obey, will that Spirit lead directly 
 each human soul. 
 
 M. A. Oxon's creed (pages 69-71) is my creed, except 
 that it is still behind Christ's teaching and my faith : that 
 it is God Himself directly His Spirit that would fain 
 guard and guide and keep me, without requiring the 
 intervention of departed spirits ; though He does use the 
 spirits of His saints on earth to help us on our way, and 
 may do so hereafter. 
 
 One thing I don't like I hope to meet all those I 
 have loved, face to face, and Jesus Christ my Lord and 
 Master, the revelation to me of God's will for man in a 
 way no other human being, however good, has ever 
 approached to ; though, as you know, I detest the idea 
 of a jealous, angry God to be propitiated by innocent 
 suffering. It was not atonement in that sense that Jesus 
 died to accomplish, but reconciliation, by teaching us 
 self-sacrifice of everything ourselves if need be, as indeed 
 it must be in life and death as his disciples. But if we 
 are only to live and work with those on the same moral 
 plane as ourselves, I am afraid myriads of years must pass
 
 xii THE CHURCHES AND THE PEOPLE 435 
 
 before we can again find ourselves united in work on the 
 same plane with those we have loved and revered most, and 
 worked with on earth. However, thank God, it is the 
 God whose goodness to us has so measurelessly exceeded 
 our deserts who decides all this, and He knows and does 
 best. It is an easy thing for me to feel this, who have 
 been so happy ; but how wonderful it is that we often 
 find that faith warmest, firmest, most joyfully hopeful, in 
 those who have suffered most and even sinned sadly. 
 
 But I will go on with M. A. ; only I wanted to send 
 you a line to say that I agreed with you in liking him. 
 
 In the second chapter I mentioned the strong 
 interest which William Rathbone had taken as a 
 boy of seventeen in the founding of the Liverpool 
 Domestic Mission. The idea which had taken 
 so strong a hold of him then, of the responsibility 
 of well - to - do Christian congregations for the 
 neglected spiritual condition of the mass of the 
 poor, never left him ; and in the stress of a busy 
 life devoted mainly to other issues, he found time 
 for several small efforts and more plans for making 
 the work of the churches more effective in this 
 direction. A speech made at the Annual Meeting 
 of the Domestic Mission in 1874, summarises views 
 which he reiterated on several other occasions. 
 After speaking of the work of ministers to the 
 poor, he went on : 
 
 Now I would ask you to consider Is the universal 
 Christian Church, is the Nonconformist body,*js our
 
 436 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 own body in particular, so doing its duty in this direction 
 as to entitle us to consider ourselves Christians in deed as 
 well as in name ? We must remember that, when our 
 Saviour used the word " poor " in that case, he did not 
 use it to designate those sunk in abject misery and poverty, 
 but used it of those who were not rich : of the fishermen, 
 of the carpenter, of the class to which he belonged, and 
 through the agency of whose unweakened and unperverted 
 manhood he intended to sweep away the corrupt and 
 luxurious civilisation of which Rome was the centre. 
 Where are that class now to be seen ? Are they 
 worshipping by our side ? Do we not hear the constant 
 complaint on the part of all churches that they have little 
 influence over the artisan classes of this country ; that the 
 majority of them are out of the pale of any Christian 
 church whatever ? Go and talk to the leaders among the 
 working classes, the men who are striving most earnestly 
 to raise their class. Surely, in this age of thinking 
 democracy, we ought to find in them the apostles of a 
 faith brought into the world by one of themselves : a faith 
 preaching the perfect equality of men and establishing the 
 Carpenter of Galilee, who had not where to lay his head, 
 as the Lord and Master of the whole Christian world. 
 But no ; we find them too often indifferent or an- 
 tagonistic. Go into many of the churches in the lower 
 part of the town, and you will find the clergyman left 
 almost unsupported by the sympathy and assistance of men 
 of his own class and education, and struggling almost 
 hopelessly with the mass of poverty, recklessness, and 
 unbelief around him. If he is a man of energy and 
 ability he will probably as soon as possible move off to 
 some country living or up-town church ; and if he is not, 
 he will probably sink into hopelessness and helplessness, or
 
 xii THE CHURCHES AND THE PEOPLE 437 
 
 harden into a stick ; while if you turn to look for the 
 chapel, you will find it gone altogether. 
 
 I have recently had this very forcibly brought before me 
 by the following circumstances. Several of us have been 
 anxious to see clubs established at which respectable work- 
 ing men could find social intercourse, removed from the 
 temptations and away from the disorders of the public-house, 
 and we have found the most suitable buildings for this 
 purpose in deserted chapels ; and these, I am .sorry to say, 
 chapels of the very sects which have hitherto been most 
 successful in working among the less wealthy classes of the 
 town. The fact is, the prosperity of the country has been so 
 great that men who had character enough to belong to a 
 chapel generally got on in the world ; and, as the density 
 and discomfort of our large towns increased, having no 
 parochial organisation to detain them, congregation, 
 minister, and chapel moved to the less crowded parts of 
 the town together ; and much of the work they did in 
 the deserted districts is now either not done at all or left 
 to be done by readers and town missionaries. Now, I 
 have not a word to say against Scripture readers or town 
 missionaries. They do good work as the rank and file of 
 the Christian army, but, as a rule, they cannot expect to 
 be fit to be its officers ; and Christianity will inevitably 
 lose its hold on the advanced portion of the working 
 classes of this country if we rely mainly on such means. 
 No doubt, what are most wanted are men like Mr. 
 Lockhart : l men of strong heads and strong natures, born 
 with the power of influencing their fellow-men. But 
 such men are rare ; and if we really wish to enlist the 
 thinking and steady portion of the working classes on the 
 
 1 W. P. Lockhart (1835-1893), a Liverpool merchant, well known as an 
 Evangelical preacher.
 
 438 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 side of Christianity, and their leaders as our auxiliaries in 
 this work, we must place in their midst, and to work with 
 them, our best and our most cultivated men. 
 
 There is another side of the question, which I should 
 wish you to consider before suggesting a remedy for this 
 state of things, viz. what is its effect upon us, the more 
 comfortable and educated classes of the country ? Are 
 there no dangers to the manliness and the souls of the 
 rich resulting from this separation of classes, extending 
 even to religion ? No doubt there is the danger that, if 
 the separation between classes continues to widen and to 
 harden, the working man will be narrow in his views and 
 arrogant and violent in asserting them. But will there 
 be no arrogance and narrowness among the rich ? Is not 
 the cold, and perhaps unsuspected, selfishness of the rich 
 man separated from the brotherly sympathy, the duties, 
 and responsibilities, which ought to be inseparable from 
 wealth and leisure, more utterly withering for this world, 
 and hopeless for the next, than violence or even actual 
 sin ? Depend upon it, our religious life, our intellectual 
 life, nay, our very souls, are impoverished by this separa- 
 tion of classes. I appeal to those who have at any time 
 worked really and steadily among the poor and with the 
 labouring classes. Do they not look back on those periods 
 with more satisfaction than on any other ? Did they not 
 find their minds widened and wits sharpened by hearing 
 things viewed differently and from different standpoints 
 from their own, and their hearts and faith strengthened 
 by seeing sufferings nobly borne, and sacrifices and efforts 
 simply and cheerfully made ? If we go to the working 
 man and ask him to join us, we must do so without any 
 feeling of patronage, but with a clear consciousness of the 
 feet, that we have quite as much to gain from him, as he
 
 xii THE CHURCHES AND THE PEOPLE 439 
 
 from us, by his enlistment with us as soldiers in the 
 Christian fight. Why, what are we constantly hearing 
 from the wealthy and aristocratic Church of England, as 
 well as from, I believe, every dissenting sect, and certainly 
 from our own ? Is it not that there is an increasing 
 difficulty in finding men of ability to act as clergymen 
 and ministers of the churches ? Can it be otherwise ? 
 What prospect of usefulness and power of good do you 
 offer a man to induce him to accept the bare maintenance, 
 which is all that most can expect, and more than all can 
 get ? You take a youth who at the best has only just 
 completed a technical education of books and lectures, and 
 you set him up to preach to men who know five times as 
 much of life and men as he can do. You expect from 
 him, too, an amount of mental labour which will leave 
 him little time for practical work ; and you expect the 
 ministry, the greatest and the most difficult of all works, 
 to be carried on without that apprenticeship and direction 
 which you know to be necessary to prepare a man for 
 even the comparatively easy work of an ordinary trade or 
 profession. 
 
 Well, but what is the remedy for all this ? It is far 
 too difficult a question to dogmatise upon ; but I would 
 ask you to consider whether the probable remedy is not 
 to be found in the complete organisation of a system of 
 what I may call associated parishes and curacies on behalf 
 of both the Church and the Nonconformists ; and, for 
 reasons which I will give presently, I conceive that we, 
 as a branch of the latter body, are especially called upon 
 to do our part. 
 
 I will take the Church first, because the parochial 
 system would seem to me to make the change as regards 
 the Church most simple and most easy. Why should
 
 440 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 there not be a power, vested in the bishop and the patrons, 
 to associate, for such time or period as may be fixed, a 
 parish inhabited mainly by the wealthy and well-educated, 
 with a parish or ecclesiastical district, in the middle of a 
 large town, inhabited mainly by the poor ? Such associated 
 parishes would have a senior and a junior rector or vicar, 
 or one vicar with curates, whose duties would lie equally in 
 the two parishes. The curates would be able to preach and 
 to work among the labouring classes, and also to preach 
 to and stimulate the wealthier and educated classes, and 
 thus would be gradually trained up in the practical work of 
 a large town without losing the stimulus to keep up their 
 culture. Can it be for a moment doubted that men 
 preaching to and working with different classes alternately, 
 and holding intimate ministerial relations with them, 
 would bring to each a wider, more varied, and richer 
 experience ; would be more likely to combine practical 
 sense and vigour with wisdom and culture ; would be 
 more capable of enlightening and leading to better 
 things both poor and rich, than when separated as at 
 present ? 
 
 Again, I would have the wealthy Nonconformist con- 
 gregations agree to divide among themselves the work of 
 the poorer parts of the town, and each wealthy chapel 
 should have, in its associated poorer district, another chapel, 
 and the minister should belong equally to, and work 
 equally in both districts. Youth and hopefulness are 
 invaluable, nay, necessary powers, when we have to deal 
 with the difficulties and corruption of a crowded popula- 
 tion and an advanced civilisation j on the other hand, 
 they are apt to do harm instead of good, unless they have 
 some experience to fall back upon for counsel and support. 
 The work of the poorer districts should be done jointly
 
 xii MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIPS 441 
 
 by the church members of both chapels ; and by the work 
 of the district I do not mean almsgiving, for of that there 
 is too much already. The object of the workers should 
 be the instruction and pleasures of the people ; to assist in 
 the management and support of the schools, whether board 
 or voluntary ; to improve the dwellings, to encourage 
 prudent habits, and to promote innocent amusements and 
 intellectual interests, and so on. It does seem to me that 
 an organisation of this sort would not only benefit the 
 cause of religion, but would avert many of the dangers 
 which threaten us from the too great separation of the 
 wealthy and the leisured classes those who do not work 
 at all, or work mainly with their heads, from those who 
 work mainly with their hands. I do think that it would 
 be better policy for the Nonconformists, and for those or 
 them especially who believe as I do, that the voluntary 
 system in religion will best promote the cause of 
 Christianity, to leave the Established Church alone, face 
 to face with its own internal difficulties, and to try, in a 
 generous competition with it in the work of welldoing, 
 to prove what the voluntary system can do, especially in 
 gaining to its side the working classes of this country. 
 
 Several years before making this speech he had 
 begun the experiment of supplying a few individuals 
 with the " apprenticeship and training " for the 
 ministry which he thought they so much needed. 
 As he wrote to a friend long afterwards : " To 
 take a young fellow from a great monastic institu- 
 tion like Oxford or Cambridge, or any of our 
 Nonconformist Colleges, and to set him, knowing 
 very little of mankind and probably nothing at all
 
 442 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of women and children, to preach to men and 
 women who know many times as much of humanity 
 its difficulties and necessities as he does, is not to 
 ensure him the respect of men or of sensible women 
 for his teaching." He accordingly proposed to 
 find a young man who had taken first-class honours 
 at the University, and to offer him ^250 a year to 
 work for three years under an experienced minister 
 in a very poor district. He could not at first find 
 any one suited to his purpose among the very small 
 number of beginners in the ministry of his own 
 denomination. So with characteristic indifference 
 to shades of creed, he chose a Churchman, the Rev. 
 John W. Diggle, and arranged that he should be 
 taken as curate in one of the poorest and most 
 difficult parishes of Liverpool, where, owing to the 
 ill-health of the incumbent, the influence of the 
 Church was in a decaying state. He says of the 
 experiment : " It succeeded admirably. The 
 church, a large one in a district deserted by the 
 wealthy population, built to contain 1500, when I 
 first went there with him had only some forty 
 people in the congregation, and was gloomy and 
 desolate-looking. By the time he had been there 
 two years the congregation had risen to, I think, 
 some 800 ; the place was cleaned up and cheerful. 
 He did admirable service in education in Liverpool, 
 was promoted to one of the best livings here, and 
 I hear is now very successful as Archdeacon of
 
 xii MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIPS 443 
 
 Carlisle." l With Mr. Diggle's help he was able 
 to select five other Churchmen in succession to put 
 through the same apprenticeship, and in every case 
 was well satisfied with the result. He also made 
 several successful ventures of the kind with men 
 of his own denomination, but owing to the small 
 numbers of the Unitarian ministry, and the rapidity 
 with which most of the beginners were pressed into 
 taking sole charge of chapels, he found it much 
 harder to get suitable candidates. To the training 
 and emolument which he offered under this scheme 
 he gave the name of Missionary Fellowships. 
 
 With the clergy and ministers in Liverpool he 
 was brought into very friendly relations by the 
 hospitality which he was able to offer them in two 
 small houses built for the purpose at the neigh- 
 bouring little seaside resort of West Kirby in 
 Cheshire. These he used to lend for holidays of 
 two or three weeks one to clergy of the Established 
 Church, the other to Nonconformist ministers of 
 all denominations. They were practically never 
 empty ; and perhaps none of his various devices 
 for sharing with others the pleasures of country 
 life and scenery, which he himself enjoyed so keenly, 
 were more appreciated than the establishing of these 
 two little houses. 2 
 
 1 Now Bishop of Carlisle. 
 
 2 The house for clergy of the Established Church is now maintained by a 
 Trust under the will of the late T. Mann, Esq., and that for Nonconformist 
 ministers by a Trust established out of funds left by the Rev. J. H. Thorn.
 
 444 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 He received innumerable appeals from clergy 
 of the Established Church for help in their social 
 work. These he seldom refused if the work 
 appealed to him on its merits, although he could 
 not always refrain from comments such as the 
 following : 
 
 DEAR SIR It is a disgrace that a clergyman of the 
 richest Church in Christendom should be compelled to 
 apply to a Nonconformist for help to carry on the work 
 of his parish. I enclose ^5. Yours, etc. 1 
 
 His well-known readiness to co-operate with 
 the Church of England in these ways, and in 
 especial the large extent to which her clergy shared 
 in the benefit of his Missionary Fellowship scheme, 
 led some of his acquaintances to think that he was 
 really more in sympathy with that Church than 
 with his own. This was far from being the case ; 
 but as a practical man he accepted the means of 
 carrying out his aims that lay nearest to his hand, 
 and he knew well that in supplying the spiritual 
 needs of the class to whom he set them to minister, 
 his young Churchmen would find little scope for 
 expounding the subtleties of the Athanasian Creed. 
 But both by belief and sympathies he was a Uni- 
 tarian and a supporter of the voluntary system. 
 What he had seen in America as a young man 
 
 1 This letter was quoted from memory in a sermon preached by Arch- 
 deacon Madden on the Sunday after William Rathbone's death. Its wording 
 may therefore not be quite accurate; but replies to much the same effect 
 rather more suavely worded were sent in response to many such appeals.
 
 xii DISESTABLISHMENT 445 
 
 had convinced him, that a church attained to much 
 more vigorous life when dependent upon the zeal 
 and self-sacrifice of its members, than when it relied 
 upon the State and upon great endowments. In 
 principle, therefore, he was unhesitatingly in favour 
 of Disestablishment at first rather upon the ground 
 that to be disestablished would be good for the 
 Church of England than upon that of an injustice 
 done to other denominations by the State prefer- 
 ence of one form of religion. When he became 
 member for a Welsh constituency, this latter aspect 
 of the question was forced upon his attention in 
 its most convincing form. He found that there 
 the Established Church was the church of a small 
 minority, and that composed chiefly of the middle 
 and upper classes. The mass of the people be- 
 longed to various denominations ; but all were 
 linked together by the bond of a common hostility 
 to what they regarded as a privileged and alien 
 church. They were poor, but they managed to 
 support their own ministers and chapels and Sunday 
 schools ; and they felt it hard that their small 
 farmers^ who in bad seasons could hardly make 
 both ends meet, should have to pay tithes to the 
 clergy of the church to which their wealthy land- 
 lords belonged. They had strong national feeling, 
 and dissent had become so much the religion of 
 the nation, that they believed they had as much 
 claim as Scotland or Ireland to separate treatment
 
 446 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 in this matter. Their sincere piety, and the large 
 place which activities connected with their religion 
 occupied in their lives, made it all the more un- 
 fortunate, that a question closely touching their 
 religious interests should also be the centre of their 
 strongest political feeling, the most telling theme 
 of electioneering appeals, the chief cause of alien- 
 ation and jealousy between classes. An alliance 
 between religion and politics is always a dangerous 
 thing ; for religion embitters the spirit of party, 
 which it should soften and sweeten. Men are 
 tempted unconsciously to exaggerate the strength 
 of their conscientious scruples in order to give 
 greater force to their political demands, and entire 
 sincerity becomes almost impossible. Yet when 
 the majority of a community are firmly convinced 
 that in the outward organisation of its religion 
 there is a vital defect, which only political agitation 
 can remove, then it may be better to incur this 
 danger till their point is gained, rather than to let 
 the defect remain as a permanent hindrance in the 
 way of the full and free development of their 
 religious life. % 
 
 Under the pressure of these facts, William 
 Rathbone gave to Disestablishment, during the 
 remaining fifteen years of his parliamentary life, a 
 prominent place in his speeches and addresses to 
 his constituents, and did his best for it in and out 
 of Parliament. Mr. Dilwyn's motion on Welsh
 
 xii DISESTABLISHMENT 447 
 
 Disestablishment was the first question of great 
 importance on which he ever voted against Mr. 
 Gladstone. It was possibly true, as some of the 
 most zealous Nonconformists of his constituency 
 occasionally hinted, that Disestablishment was not 
 among the questions in which his interest was most 
 spontaneous and vivid. If this was so, the reason 
 for his comparative coolness was certainly not that 
 he had any doubt as to the justice of the measure, 
 or its importance to Wales. It was due rather to 
 a characteristic of his mind which showed itself no 
 less in regard to other matters. There can be no 
 doubt that questions which involved the assertion 
 of the rights of one side against another, the 
 adjustment of rival claims, the vindication of status, 
 were not often among the questions for which he 
 cared the most. Of some men it would be true 
 to say that nearly every evil presents itself to them 
 as a form of injustice ; but his mind was not of 
 this type. Its bent was too strictly practical and 
 objective, its attitude too much determined by a 
 humility partly natural, partly the fruit of his 
 religious faith, which extended itself vicariously to 
 all human claims. To him the important matter 
 seemed to be that the work which had to be done 
 should be done as efficiently and thoroughly as 
 possible, that the conditions of life should be so 
 improved as to weigh less oppressively on the 
 many and lessen temptation to self-indulgence for
 
 448 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 the few, that every one should get, not so much 
 his fair share, whatever that might be, but a chance 
 of making the best of himself. Of the reactions 
 of the work on the workers, of their relative 
 positions, opportunities, and merits, he thought 
 comparatively little, although in specific instances 
 he would have been very ready to admit that others 
 were justified in thinking a good deal. Declarations 
 of right often commanded his assent and practical 
 support, but they did not often proceed spon- 
 taneously from his own mouth, even when they 
 concerned the rights of others, and still less when 
 they concerned his own. His attitude upon ques- 
 tions such as Disestablishment, the various proposed 
 extensions of the franchise, the civil and political 
 position of women, 1 etc., may be taken, I think, as 
 examples of this characteristic of his mind. 
 
 In the work of his own Church his chief interest 
 centred in the Domestic Missions. These, in the 
 course of time, had lost their purely domestic 
 character, and had acquired all the usual apparatus 
 and organisation of modern church work in poor 
 parishes. The change was probably inevitable ; for 
 ministers, brought into such close contact with the 
 very poor, were almost irresistibly impelled to make 
 some effort to supply other of their needs besides 
 
 1 He was indifferent, though not opposed, to the enfranchisement of 
 women, until experience with the Registration of Midwives Bill showed him 
 that women's interests were apt to be neglected because they could not 
 enforce them.
 
 xii PERSONAL RELIGION 449 
 
 that of religious teaching. But William Rathbone, 
 with some of the other early friends of the Missions, 
 was inclined to regret the change a little. Man 
 of affairs and organiser as he was himself, he felt 
 strongly the danger of over-rating what organisation 
 could do, and feared lest the absorbing and more 
 easily fruitful work of providing services, schools, 
 clubs, recreations, and relief might overshadow 
 and spoil the simplicity of the original purpose of 
 the Missions that of bringing Christian ministra- 
 tion directly into the homes of those who attended 
 no church, and of standing to them as the repre- 
 sentatives of purely spiritual things. 
 
 Of what his own religious life meant to him, 
 the reader will, it is hoped, have gathered something 
 as he went along from the preceding narrative of 
 the incidents and work of his life. For it was in 
 these, rather than in words, that he revealed most 
 of himself and of his religious beliefs. He inter- 
 preted his own discipleship of Christ very literally, 
 as something that should not only govern the 
 inward spiritual life, but should condition and 
 direct his activities of every kind. The ultimate 
 implicit aim of all public work, conducted in the 
 right spirit, was in his view, to make the conditions 
 of national or civic or individual life a little less 
 out of harmony with the ideal of a kingdom of 
 God on earth. To keep this end ever before the 
 mind as the sole end ; never to allow considerations 
 
 2G
 
 45 o WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of personal advantage, or ambition, or credit, to in- 
 fluence by a hair's-breadth decisions in work under- 
 taken ostensibly for the public benefit ; never, even 
 for the sake of securing an advantage for the par- 
 ticular cause or object at which he was working, 
 to consent to sacrifice to it wider interests or prin- 
 ciples of right and justice, all this seemed to him 
 implied in his religious profession. It would 
 probably be hardly too much to say that every 
 important decision he had to make presented itself 
 more or less consciously to his mind as a question 
 of right and wrong. 
 
 Even in work which had for its immediate end 
 merely the enrichment of himself and his family, he 
 found plenty of scope for the principles, and plenty 
 of need for the restraints, imposed by Christian 
 ethics. Even when no other principle was involved, 
 there was always the duty of doing thoroughly 
 whatever had to be done, of making the most of 
 his own and the world's opportunities, and of 
 training younger men and subordinates to do the 
 same. 
 
 But although he drew no sharp line between 
 the things of the world and the things of God, 
 but dealt with the one in a spirit drawn from the 
 other, his conception of religion and of religious 
 duty was not bounded by the gospel of St. James. 
 The spiritual relation between God and Man, 
 from which he believed himself to derive whatever
 
 xii PERSONAL RELIGION 451 
 
 in him was good, meant a great deal to him, and 
 he neglected none of the usual aids by which 
 religious men of all communions strive to maintain 
 and strengthen their consciousness of this relation. 
 In this, as in every part of life, he made much use 
 of fixed rules and stated seasons and observances, 
 finding in these not fetters for the will, but a means 
 of setting it free from the worry of innumerable 
 petty decisions. On Sundays he was careful to 
 put aside the work of the week, and as far as 
 possible the week-day subjects of thought, except 
 when there was some clear and urgent need for 
 haste. Even at times when his mind seemed beset 
 and harassed to a painful degree by some difficult 
 question which he had to decide, his friends were 
 sometimes astonished at his power of turning his 
 attention resolutely for that day to other subjects. 
 While his children were young he usually gave up 
 his Sundays after morning service a good deal to 
 them, reading and talking with them, and taking 
 them when possible for long country walks. 
 
 Except to his children, and to those for whom 
 he felt a direct responsibility, he did not speak 
 often or easily on the high theme of religion, 
 although he had none of the unconquerable reticence 
 about it which makes speech almost a physical 
 impossibility to many people. But no one could 
 work with him or live near him long, without 
 feeling the presence of the hidden springs that
 
 452 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP, xn 
 
 were the source of his energy and his strength, 
 and without catching glimpses of the foundations 
 upon which his faith and hope for humanity, and 
 his charity towards men, were based. Many types 
 of goodness are independent of a definite religious 
 faith, and seem to flourish as well without it, but 
 his type was not one of these. It was his belief 
 in the providence of God and in the immortality 
 of man that justified his unfailing optimism ; that 
 made his perennial hopefulness different from the 
 mere buoyancy of high animal spirits, and made 
 the almost universal charity of his judgments 
 different from that which proceeds from a facile 
 and shallow good -nature. The principle upon 
 which he so often insisted, that whatever ought to 
 be done can be done, was to him a necessary 
 deduction from his religious faith, and there can 
 be no doubt that it was his unhesitating reliance 
 upon this principle that enabled him to accomplish 
 so much. It gave him faith in his cause and con- 
 fidence in himself ; and his confidence, visible 
 through the medium of his natural humility, kindled 
 in others who knew nothing t of its source a faith 
 resembling his own.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OLD AGE 1895 TO 1902 
 
 " Ah, yes, Euphranor ! could one by so full apprenticeship of 
 Youth become so thoroughly seasoned with its Spirit, that all the 
 Reason of Manhood, and Politic of Age, and Experience of the 
 World, should serve not to freeze, but to direct the genial current 
 of the Soul, so that 
 
 " Ev'n while the vital Heat retreats below, 
 Ev'n while the hoary head is lost in Snow, 
 The Life is in the leaf, and still between 
 The fits of falling Snow appear the streaky Green 
 
 that Boy's Heart within the Man's never ceasing to throb and 
 tremble even to remotest Age then, indeed, your Senate would 
 need no other Youth than its Elders to vivify their counsel, or 
 could admit the Young without danger of corrupting them by 
 ignoble policy." Euphranor, by Edward FitzGerald. 
 
 IT was one of William Rathbone's favourite 
 maxims, borrowed, I believe, though I have been 
 unable to trace it, from a sermon of Dr. Martineau's, 
 that a good Christian ought never to grow old. 
 If he had really the spirit of Christianity in him, 
 he asserted, it would keep him always young, at 
 least in heart and hope. And in this qualified 
 sense he lived to verify his theory. He was once, 
 
 453
 
 454 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 when past his seventieth year, describing an en- 
 counter he had had with a certain old lady of high 
 rank, who sat on a committee over which he pre- 
 sided. He had been obliged to call her rather 
 decisively to order for some persistent irrelevancies 
 in debate. " She was very nice about it," he 
 said. " It was very good of her to take it so well 
 from a young fellow like me" He caught himself 
 up at once ; and by doing so betrayed that no jest 
 was intended. It was impossible not to laugh ; 
 but it was impossible not to feel that the laugh 
 was really with the man who could prove by such 
 a slip that his strength at least was not yet become 
 labour and sorrow. 
 
 This remained true in some ways to the end of 
 his life. He had inherited from his mother the 
 tenacious and exuberant vitality that belonged to 
 her family, and until actual illness came upon 
 him, the zest of mere living seemed undulled. 
 There was no abatement, almost up to the end, 
 in his enjoyment of books, sunshine, and flowers. 
 Riding and visits to mountainous scenery 
 to complete the list of what were probably his 
 chief pleasures 1 had to be given up only during 
 
 1 Perhaps I should add smoking to the list, but he would have bitterly 
 resented this himself. His enjoyment of tobacco was, however, all the 
 keener for the severe limits which he set to it. He restricted himself to 
 two very small cigars a clay, but always kept a varied stock in hand to offer 
 to his visitors, having a great faith in the emollient virtues of tobacco in 
 difficult negotiations.
 
 xni YOUTH IN AGE 455 
 
 the last eighteen months. For the loss of the few 
 sources of enjoyment which belong only to youth, 
 he found much compensation in the greater 
 security and freedom from responsibility of age. 
 One day when riding in the Row with a friend 
 whom he had known from boyhood, a discussion 
 arose as to which had been the happiest period of 
 their lives. Both agreed that upon the whole 
 their later manhood had been the happiest, and 
 both gave the same reason- that as young men 
 they had been weighed down by a constant sense 
 of anxiety as to what was the next best step to 
 take, and by the fear lest they should make a 
 muddle of their lives. 
 
 William Rathbone's outlook upon the world 
 kept all the characteristics of his youth. His 
 belief in progress in general, and his desire for 
 rapidity of progress in his special pursuits, were as 
 strong as ever. In some matters he even became 
 " an old man in a hurry," not probably so much 
 from a natural desire himself to see results, as 
 from a well-founded consciousness that when he 
 was gone there would be no one left working at 
 that particular task who was his equal in sheer 
 driving power. In spite of this consciousness he 
 habitually assumed that every young man of 
 average ability and physique, and with a firm 
 foothold to start from, had it in him to do for 
 Liverpool, if he but would, at least as much as he
 
 456 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 himself and his brothers and friends who worked 
 with him had done. He may have been right, 
 with the qualification which he admitted. Accord- 
 ing to Charles Lamb, Wordsworth once boasted 
 that he could have written plays as good as Shake- 
 speare's, if he had had the mind^ and the com- 
 pany all allowed the claim. What men like him 
 seldom realise is, that the strong will which has 
 enabled them to do so much is as much a gift 
 of Nature, and as little to be attained save by 
 Nature's gift, as a strong brain. His very belief 
 in the possibilities of every character, and his 
 optimistic attitude towards men in the mass, thus 
 made him often severer than men of more cynical 
 disposition would have been, in his judgment upon 
 individuals who had once decisively disappointed 
 his expectations. But his hopes died hard, or 
 rather they did not die, but transferred themselves 
 to the next comer. After each disappointment 
 he was as ready as ever to believe that the next 
 notorious skinflint would become a generous bene- 
 factor to education, or to nursing, if only the 
 claims of those good causes could be effectively 
 enough laid before him. Perhaps having experi- 
 enced the value of this belief, he more or less con- 
 sciously fostered it, and certainly the persuasiveness 
 it lent to his begging won him some remarkable 
 triumphs. 
 
 Yet while in these ways he seemed as young as
 
 xin ASHTON RATHBONE 457 
 
 ever, Nature did not leave him without reminders 
 of the passage of time. For some years before he 
 left Parliament his powers of work had visibly 
 declined. He could then and for long afterwards 
 spend nearly the whole day between the desk and 
 the committee-room, but the amount he got 
 through diminished. Mind and body still 
 swung well together, but the motion was slowing 
 down. His powers of expression had always 
 lagged far behind his powers of thought, and as 
 time went on he found an increasing difficulty in 
 putting what he had to say into clear and terse 
 language. He had been for long slightly deaf, 
 and in his later years this infirmity increased so 
 much that general conversation was lost to him, 
 and even dialogue involved a constant slight strain. 
 He found his deafness a serious barrier to his 
 work in the House of Commons, and it destroyed 
 so much of the pleasure of social intercourse there 
 as sensibly to lessen his regret at leaving. 
 
 No one can say good-bye to the place where he 
 has worked for twenty-six years without some 
 emotion, and however severely William Rathbone 
 might criticise the House of Commons as a legis- 
 lative machine, he had thoroughly appreciated it 
 as the " best club in London." But at the time 
 when the break came, he was under the shadow of 
 too great an anxiety to have much thought to give 
 to sentimental regrets. His second son, Ashton,
 
 458 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 had for some months been suffering under a 
 mysterious complaint, which proved at last to be 
 an obscure form of blood-poisoning. All summer 
 he grew gradually worse, and on September 23 he 
 died. He had been for some time the only one 
 of William Rathbone's sons who had seemed per- 
 manently settled in Liverpool, and he was the one 
 upon whose advice and help he had for some years 
 past relied in all matters concerning his Liverpool 
 life and interests. Now that he was returning 
 home to give what years might remain to him 
 to those interests, the clear and sober judgment, 
 the unusual fineness of perception and instinct, 
 upon which he had hoped to lean more and more 
 as his own powers declined, were altogether 
 withdrawn. 
 
 The circle of his older friends was already 
 much diminished, and it continued to narrow fast. 
 His cousin, Mr. George Melly, whose brilliant 
 abilities had always been at the service of his 
 friends after his own too short political career was 
 over, had died in 1894. His brother, S. G. Rath- 
 bone, his closest friend, and next to his wife his 
 most valued adviser in all his work, had fallen into 
 bad health, and soon after retired to live altogether 
 at his country house. During the last twenty 
 years of his active life he had devoted himself 
 almost entirely to the work of the Liverpool 
 School Board, of which he was for eighteen years
 
 xin THE THREE BROTHERS 459 
 
 chairman, and had taken a leading part in all the 
 developments which have given the system of 
 elementary education in Liverpool its high place. 
 The first pupil teachers' centre held in connection 
 with any School Board had been started by him, 
 and for some time maintained at his own expense. 
 He had also originated the system, since become 
 general, of giving regular scientific instruction in 
 the elementary schools by means of visiting 
 teachers, and had had much to do with the founda- 
 tion of the Day Industrial Schools and of the Edge 
 Hill Training College for women. He had 
 become well known among educationalists as an 
 authority on his subject, and had sat upon the 
 Royal Commission appointed in 1885 to inquire 
 into the working of the Elementary Education 
 Acts. 
 
 In November 1895, Philip Rathbone, the 
 youngest of the three brothers, died after a very 
 short illness, at the age of sixty-seven. He had 
 not been a member of the same firm as his two 
 elder brothers, and neither in business nor in the 
 public work of his later life had he been brought 
 into such close intercourse with either of them as 
 they had been with each other. Yet it seemed 
 rather by chance than anything else that the lines of 
 their several activities had crossed so seldom. All 
 three had taken a share in the work of local 
 administration in Liverpool, but each had identified
 
 460 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 himself with a different branch one with Poor 
 Law, the other with the School Board, and Philip 
 Rathbone with the Town Council. 
 
 S. G. Rathbone and Philip Rathbone had indeed 
 been together for five years in the Town Council, 
 but when, in 1873, the elder brother gave up the 
 Council for the School Board, Philip Rathbone 
 remained, and was at the time of his death its 
 senior member. There he was active in several 
 departments, but his principal interest was the 
 work of the Museums and Art Committee. He 
 was a connoisseur in pictures, and took a leading 
 part in the management and selection of pictures 
 for the annual Autumn Exhibition, which had been 
 started chiefly on the initiative of himself and of 
 Alderman Samuelson. For some of the most 
 modern schools of impressionism he had a great 
 admiration, as he had for every development in 
 art which seemed to him to show individuality, 
 spontaneity, and growth. His choice of pictures 
 for the public galleries sometimes tried the faith 
 of his fellow - citizens, though it was generally 
 admitted that he and his colleagues succeeded in 
 making both the permanent and the annual ex- 
 hibitions perhaps the most interesting and repre- 
 sentative in any provincial town. 
 
 He believed in strengthening corporate life and 
 in quickening civic patriotism, by appealing to men 
 through their senses and making the visible city a
 
 xin SLACKENING TIES 461 
 
 place to be proud of. Every institution and pro- 
 ject for fostering its artistic life, or for improving 
 its architecture, or for giving it beauty and dignity 
 in any form, was sure of his sympathy, and gener- 
 ally enlisted him as one of its most active supporters. 
 The idea which guided his own public work, and 
 which he did much to impress upon the conscious- 
 ness of the community, was expressed in a sentence 
 occurring in an address which he gave to the Art 
 Congress at Birmingham : " Let us not be 
 ashamed to cultivate what I venture to call 
 corporate egotism : to strive that the feelings, 
 passions, affections, and aspirations of a generation 
 shall be recorded for future ages in the creations 
 of a truly national art." 
 
 In artistic matters his brothers could not follow 
 him, and he probably regarded them as Philistines. 
 But one interest they all had in common : a strong 
 love for their native city, and a desire to press into 
 its service every one who could contribute anything 
 of value, and could be trusted to serve it with a 
 single eye to the public good. 
 
 Other deaths among William Rathbone's friends 
 and fellow-workers followed in quick succession 
 during the next few years : among them Mr. 
 Edward Gibbon, for twenty-eight years Chairman 
 of the Royal Infirmary, with whom he had worked 
 at the founding and development of the Training 
 School for Nurses ; Mr. Charles Langton, also
 
 462 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 associated with him for forty years in the work of 
 the Training School, and especially of the branch 
 devoted to district nursing ; Mr. Edward Paul, 
 for many years his partner in the firm of Messrs. 
 Ross T. Smyth and Co. ; and Sir Henry Tate, 
 who had made William Rathbone his almoner in 
 many of his magnificent benefactions to nursing, to 
 elementary education, to the Liverpool University 
 College (now the University of Liverpool), and to 
 intermediate education in Liverpool and in Wales. 
 
 All these losses could not but bring home to 
 him how soon, at latest, his own working days 
 must draw to a close. He refused to take up any 
 fresh work, but kept steadily on with all the 
 enterprises with which he was already connected 
 the District Nursing, the Royal Infirmary, the 
 Consumption Hospital and Woolton Convalescent 
 Home, the University Council, and, above all, his 
 Guardianship of the Poor. 
 
 The sum of work accomplished during these 
 seven years was not large. Most of it was merely 
 a carrying on at steadily diminishing pace of the 
 routine of committees and of the daily toll of 
 correspondence about matters long since set in 
 train. Yet it would probably not be an exaggera- 
 tion to say that William Rathbone's influence was 
 greater during these years than it had ever been 
 before. There is often a period after a man's 
 death of which the same thing may be said. Death
 
 xin DE SENECTUTE 463 
 
 fixes the eyes of his world upon him more than 
 anything in his life has done, and at the same time 
 disposes them to think the best of all that they see. 
 The principles that he has upheld, the causes for 
 which he has worked, the virtues which his 
 character embodies, all then make their strongest 
 appeal. But this period is necessarily short. The 
 strange glamour that hangs about the moment of 
 passing soon disperses. Men turn to other things. 
 Before he has been long in the grave he is either 
 forgotten, or is as critically estimated and as much 
 open to attack as the living, and without the power 
 that belongs to the living, of self-defence. 
 
 Under some conditions, old age may do as 
 much as death to set a man's personality upon a 
 hill, and to cast a strong and favourable light upon 
 it. An old man, no longer a possible competitor 
 for power or prizes, excites no one's jealousy. 
 Yet if he continues to work according to his 
 powers, his experience commands every one's 
 respect. Every instinct and tradition assures him 
 an attentive hearing and inclines men to gratify 
 his wishes. To the old, as to children, men are not 
 ashamed of being demonstrative, and the admira- 
 tion and affection which, if centred upon younger 
 men, would be pent up until too late to give 
 pleasure or encouragement, are poured out upon 
 them without stint. Young people are exhorted 
 to imitate their example, and in their case the duty
 
 464 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 of vicarious modesty is perhaps even too much set 
 aside. 
 
 In William Rathbone's circumstances, to say 
 nothing of his character, there were at least two 
 points which made his fellow-citizens even more 
 than usually disposed to give full vent to these 
 generous instincts. The diversity of his public 
 activities won him more general sympathy than he 
 could have secured if all his energies had been 
 concentrated upon a single branch of work, which 
 would inevitably have failed to appeal to some. 
 In labouring by turns in the field of politics, of 
 the Poor Law, of charity, of the organisation of 
 nursing, and of higher and intermediate education, 
 he had been brought into relation with large numbers 
 of men and women of very different opinions and 
 tastes. Of these interests, charity and nursing 
 were no doubt the two that touched the popular 
 imagination the most. The system of district 
 nursing in particular, which had sprung from the 
 humble beginning made in Liverpool forty years 
 before, and had spread all over the country, had 
 benefited innumerable lives, and though few even 
 of his fellow-citizens knew the facts, the instinct 
 of gratitude fastened upon the old man still in 
 their midst, who, next to the nurses themselves, 
 stood to them as the representative of the insti- 
 tution. 
 
 But besides the share which he had won for
 
 xin PUBLIC TRIBUTES 465 
 
 himself in the affections of Liverpool men, there 
 can be no doubt that to some extent he reaped a 
 harvest which had been sown by at least four 
 other men and one woman, who had done in their 
 day good service to the city his grandfather, his 
 father, his mother, and his two brothers. A 
 strength of feeling that had been gathering round 
 his name, his home, and all that they had repre- 
 sented in the life of Liverpool for more than a 
 century, broke in full force upon him. 
 
 It found public and formal expression on a 
 number of occasions some of them designed 
 purposely to do him honour which were scattered 
 over the last ten years of his life. The first of 
 these was the presentation of the honorary freedom 
 of the city to him, and to his friend, Sir Henry 
 Tate, on October 21, 1891. He could boast, like 
 St. Paul, that he was a freeman born, although he 
 had never chosen to pocket the yearly cheque 
 which was until recently the outward and visible 
 sign of those privileges of freemen which his father 
 had done so much to protest against. But his free 
 birth was, of course, no obstacle to his inclusion 
 on the honorary roll, established under the Act 
 of 1885, enabling Municipal Corporations to do 
 honour to persons who have rendered special service 
 to their country or their borough. In his speech of 
 thanks at this ceremony he used some expressions 
 about property being a trust and not a freehold, 
 
 2 H
 
 466 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 which, repeated since on divers occasions in slightly 
 varying form, became more, perhaps, than any other 
 words of his, identified with his name : 
 
 Allusion has been made to my having devoted some 
 part of the wealth gained in Liverpool to the benefit of 
 the town. Here, again, it is I who am the debtor ; it is 
 I, and not my fellow-citizens, from whom gratitude is 
 due. As we all admit, whatever we may possess of wealth, 
 talents, station, and opportunity are not freeholds to be 
 selfishly enjoyed by a man and his family and friends, but 
 sacred trusts to be employed for the welfare of the com- 
 munity. And of all beyond what is necessary for 
 maintenance, education, and moderate provision for his 
 family, an increasing proportion is due as wealth and 
 power increase to the public service, not from generosity, 
 but as the honest payment of debt. Life and experience 
 only bring this more home to me. Which of the sacri- 
 fices which a prosperous man makes can be considered 
 generous when looked at with those which thousands of 
 our men and women make daily and unhesitatingly, in 
 times of distress, illness, or death, when they share with 
 their neighbours the means only too inadequate for the 
 supply of the wants of themselves and their families ? It 
 is easy for the prosperous to be deemed generous, difficult 
 for them to deserve to be so called. 
 
 In May 1895 the Victoria University exercised 
 for the first time its power of conferring honorary 
 degrees. The function took place in Manchester, 
 and William Rathbone was among those admitted 
 to the degree of Doctor of Laws, Had the
 
 xui PUBLIC TRIBUTES 467 
 
 arrangement first made been carried out, the 
 honour would have been conferred at the same 
 time upon his old friend, Mr. Thomas Ashton ; 
 but a bereavement kept Mr. Ashton away. The 
 two friends, who had been fellow -students at 
 St. Domingo House, and again at the University 
 of Heidelberg, had each become one of the prime 
 founders of a University College in his own town. 
 Professor Wilkins, who presented the candidates 
 for degrees, briefly summed up the merits of each. 
 His eulogy of William Rathbone, who must have 
 been personally almost a stranger to him, was very 
 happy, and it covers so much ground in a short 
 space that I venture to quote the bulk of it : 
 
 In this city, my Lord, there stands a statue of one 
 whom this University and the Owens College have lost 
 but recently from their courts and councils. It bears on 
 its base this inscription : " In memory of a life devoted 
 to the public good." The words are simple, but no 
 elaborate eulogy could so well recall to those who knew 
 him the work of Oliver Heywood. Could any fitter 
 words be found to use of him whom I have now to 
 present to your Lordship ? His life has been devoted to 
 the public good. If I may venture to touch for one 
 moment on what is most characteristic in efforts now 
 extending over, half a century, I would say that they give 
 a splendid example of what is best in the methods of 
 modern philanthropy. The patient collection and study 
 of facts have always preceded the proposal of remedial 
 measures. In workhouse nursing, in local government,
 
 468 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 in licensing reform, in primary, in secondary, and in 
 higher education, both in England and in Wales, his 
 work has been abundantly fruitful, because it has been 
 based on that most accurate knowledge, as well as 
 inspired by the deepest sense of the responsibility of those 
 who have wealth and culture. In the House of Commons 
 he has so borne himself for more than a quarter of a 
 century that those whom he has opposed, not less than 
 those whom he has so loyally supported, would feel the 
 great council of the nation the poorer if he should leave 
 it. We need not forget all this because we think to-day 
 more especially of his services to the University, both 
 directly and through one of her Colleges. In our sister 
 city on the Mersey many citizens have shared with 
 splendid liberality in the work of building up the 
 University College. But all would gladly admit that 
 success was due mainly to the energy, the munificence, 
 the unfailing faith in the future of one man. To all 
 these founders and benefactors we desire to do honour in 
 the person of their most prominent and worthy repre- 
 sentative. On behalf of the Court I present to you for 
 the degree of Doctor of Laws, Mr. William Rathbone. 
 
 Later, a bust of him, executed by Mr. Charles 
 Allen, the professor of sculpture at Liverpool 
 University College, was presented to the College 
 by Professor Oliver Lodge. 1 In 1899 a great 
 banquet was held in his honour at the Liverpool 
 Reform Club, and again many noble and ap- 
 preciative things were said by all the speakers. 
 A bust executed by Mr. Hargreaves Bond, and 
 
 1 Now Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of Birmingham University.
 
 xin PUBLIC TRIBUTES 469 
 
 presented to the Club by William Rathbone's 
 old friend and political ally, Mr. Robert D. Holt, 
 was afterwards unveiled. 
 
 This list of honours and ceremonials, which 
 might be extended, was finally crowned by the un- 
 veiling in St. John's Gardens of a bronze portrait 
 statue, the work of Mr. Charles Frampton, R.A. 
 It had been erected by public subscription : a sub- 
 scription to which no contributions were solicited, 
 and to which all classes in the community con- 
 tributed. It is usual to pay this form of tribute 
 to men only after their death. Those who were 
 responsible for carrying through the matter de- 
 liberately decided that they would not follow this 
 custom, but that every proof of their afFection and 
 gratitude should be given while he was yet among 
 them and able to be made happier by it. He was 
 not well enough to be present at the ceremony of 
 unveiling, and probably would not have wished it 
 had he been able, but as he lay in bed he listened 
 to the account of it with a smile of quiet pleasure, 
 not at all lessened by his feeling that he was listen- 
 ing, in a sense, to a part of his own funeral rite. 
 
 Besides and between these more formal occasions 
 of honour, there continued to pour in upon him 
 many private and public testimonies to the strength 
 of the affection and regard that his fellow-citizens 
 bore him. He seldom took part in any meeting 
 or took any action calling for the notice of the
 
 470 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 press that the opportunity was not taken of paying 
 him this sort of homage. 
 
 Those who knew him, and knew how deep- 
 seated and genuine was the modesty so often 
 eulogised in language that seemed to violate what 
 it praised, used sometimes to ask how he himself 
 was affected by all this incense-burning. In public 
 he deprecated it, but he could hardly have done 
 less. What was his real attitude towards it ? He 
 often experienced, of course, the shrinking and 
 impulse to fly, natural to a man who has to sit 
 with the eyes of an audience upon him and listen 
 to his own praises. But he was so free from self- 
 consciousness, and so accustomed to live much in 
 public, that he probably felt this less than many less 
 really humble men would have done. Only when 
 he thought he saw a tendency for the praise of him 
 to become something like a fashion, did he grow 
 rather acutely mindful of the fate of Aristides. 
 At the close of his life, he wrote down his own 
 deliberate estimate of himself, and of the cause of 
 such success as he had attained to in life, in a passage 
 which is given at the end of this Memoir. In 
 this he draws a distinction between the work and 
 the worker, between the amount of a man's visible 
 achievement and the abilities and " efforts and 
 sacrifices " which have enabled him to achieve, and 
 he argues that the two are seldom in proportion 
 the men of genius who formulate great principles
 
 xni ATTITUDE TOWARDS PRAISE 471 
 
 being seldom those who put them to practical 
 application. This was a distinction which, I think, 
 always entered into his retrospect of his own life. 
 Of himself, his abilities, and qualities he thought 
 little, but the work that he had done would have 
 been much less than it was if he had not been 
 intensely convinced that it was well worth doing. 
 Thus the spring of feeling which the praises of his 
 fellow-citizens never failed to call forth seemed to 
 run, as it were, in two channels. So far as their 
 words were personal to himself, he thought they 
 far over-shot the mark, and testified rather to the 
 warmth of the speakers' hearts than to his own 
 merits. As proofs of affection he accepted them 
 with a gratitude tinged by wonder, and with a 
 simple and childlike pleasure. In their references 
 to the substance of his work he took a more 
 critical and a characteristically practical interest. 
 The question for him was then : What effect 
 would the publicity given to his particular share 
 in the causes and enterprises for which he had 
 worked, have upon the future prospects of those 
 enterprises, and upon the public life of the city 
 generally ? Would it make it easier for the 
 fellow-workers whom he must shortly leave, to 
 get recruits ? Would it open the eyes of young 
 men to the possibilities of honour and happiness 
 as well as of usefulness to be found in a life spent 
 in the public service ?
 
 472 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 This last thought was indeed the main pre- 
 occupation of his later years. To him, three lives 
 as long as the one he had lived would scarcely 
 have given him time enough to grapple with the 
 problems that he saw plainly laid out before him 
 in the line of his own activities, in his own city of 
 Liverpool. It filled him with impatience to think 
 that so many young men, as well qualified by 
 nature to do the work, he honestly believed, as 
 himself, were " spending all their fires, wasting 
 their strength in strenuous idleness." If he could 
 not hope to do much more work himself, he would 
 at least do what he could to diminish this worst 
 form of waste. 
 
 In this endeavour he was far from unsuccessful. 
 Many men were led by his persuasions to take up 
 some piece of public work ; some of them con- 
 senting merely because, as they said, " it was im- 
 possible to refuse the dear old man " ; and becoming 
 interested, as he had prophesied, in the work for 
 its own sake, have been led on to other activities. 
 Among older men and women there are not a 
 few it is impossible to say how many, but every 
 year some chance utterance adds to the number 
 who have written or said that the strongest im- 
 pulse that led them to their present immersion in 
 political, civic, or philanthropic work had been 
 given them by William Rathbone. Yet his effect 
 on the standard of citizenship and of social conduct
 
 xin CHARACTERISTICS 473 
 
 in Liverpool cannot be measured by the number 
 of those whom he consciously influenced. More 
 effective than anything he could say was the silent 
 witness of his own character and life. 
 
 It would be useless, at least for the writer, 
 to try to describe as a whole the impression 
 which his personality made upon others, or to 
 describe the process by which he succeeded in 
 pouring some of his own spirit into other spirits, 
 as some men fail to do who are his equals in 
 goodness, and, as he would have insisted upon 
 adding, more than his equals in intellecual power. 
 The impression, of course, varied with the indi- 
 vidual. But besides this, there was something in 
 it which escapes definition. There were certain 
 salient qualities that every one perceived : a strong 
 will, which acted as a magnet on weaker wills ; 
 untiring industry, unrelaxed even in old age, 
 rebuking the indolence of younger men ; an 
 abounding vitality, which upon those susceptible 
 to such influences, had somewhat the bracing 
 effect of a mountain breeze ; an obvious, utter dis- 
 interestedness before which small ambitions and 
 jealousies shrank away ; an infectious confidence 
 that the ends for which he worked were good, 
 and that being good they must, under the pro- 
 vidence of God, be attainable. But whether in 
 addition to or as an outcome of these character- 
 istics, his personality possessed for most people
 
 474 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 (there were no doubt plenty of exceptions) that 
 indefinable and incommunicable quality called 
 charm, which does for character something like 
 what sunshine does for landscape. In his inter- 
 course with individuals it was no doubt often his 
 faith in them that was the beginning both of their 
 liking for him and of his influence over their lives. 
 In what he assumed their characters and wills to 
 be already, they saw the reflection of their own 
 secret knowledge of the best they had it in them 
 to become, and they felt impelled to try to justify 
 his faith. He was not, it seemed, altogether un- 
 conscious of this, and he would probably have 
 justified himself for the use of this means of 
 influence on the ground that the best a man has 
 it in him to become is " his real self." To young 
 people with whom he was brought in contact 
 either by work or by amusements shared together, 
 there was something attractive and flattering in his 
 way of taking them, as it were, into alliance and 
 talking to them if anything happened to start 
 him, and if they showed any sign of intelligent 
 interest about the subjects for which he cared, 
 exactly as he would have talked to his contem- 
 poraries and intimates. Nor did this habit begin 
 only with old age. Mr. W. S. Caine, a friend and 
 political ally much younger than himself, who yet 
 survived him only by a year, once described how, 
 when a youth, he had been introduced to him on
 
 xni FRIENDSHIPS 475 
 
 the New Brighton boat ; and how gratified he 
 had been when William Rathbone, then a busy 
 merchant of forty, much engrossed in local politics 
 and social reform, poured forth to him a stream of 
 talk upon some of his public interests. 
 
 As the number of his contemporaries dwindled, 
 it was fortunate for him that he had this capacity 
 for forming friendships with younger men. Often, 
 indeed, he seemed more at home in their company, 
 more ready to turn to them for social intercourse 
 as well as for advice and sympathy in his public 
 interests, than to the survivors among the " old 
 gang." No doubt his " Boy's heart within the 
 Man's " felt them more really of an age. To these 
 new friends, who gave him all that he asked for, 
 and surrounded him besides with a kind of affec- 
 tionate homage almost filial, those nearest him 
 must be ever grateful. It would be difficult to 
 give a complete list, and invidious to give an 
 incomplete one. If the foundation of Liverpool 
 University l was, as was often said, largely his work, 
 he received for it one very personal form of reward, 
 for several of the men whom it brought to Liver- 
 pool became first his sons' friends and afterwards 
 his own. Among the friendships which had not 
 this origin, one may perhaps be allowed to mention 
 that with Mr. A. F. Warr, who gave him in his 
 private as well as his public affairs invaluable help. 
 
 1 I give it the name it is now known by.
 
 476 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 He was not much away from Liverpool during 
 these years, except for short visits in the spring or 
 autumn to his little villa at Alassio, on the Italian 
 Riviera, and the six weeks' or two months' summer 
 holiday, spent either abroad, or at some house taken 
 for the summer in Scotland or Ireland. During his 
 twenty-six years of parliamentary life he had been 
 seldom at home except for the three months of mid- 
 winter, and he enjoyed renewing his intimacy with 
 his native place. He had oftenrevelled in the flowers 
 of Italy and Switzerland, but the pleasure of watching 
 the slow changes of Nature in his own garden was 
 new to him, and it gave him endless delight. He 
 liked to ride about the suburban parts that lie 
 beyond Greenbank country parts one can hardly 
 call them ; for most of the roads wind between the 
 parks and gardens of wealthy citizens, and these 
 are screened off from the vulgar gaze by walls 
 so preposterously high that to the pedestrian the 
 effect is much like walking in the courtyard of a 
 jail. William Rathbone, it is needless to say, 
 heartily disapproved the walls ; but he knew the 
 names and histories of those who had dwelt behind 
 many of them for the past three-quarters of a 
 century, and his anecdotes and reminiscences 
 sweetened the way. He liked best the road 
 that runs through genuine green fields to the 
 old church of Childwall ; then past Gateacre, 
 where he never failed to point out the dame-school
 
 xni OCCUPATIONS 477 
 
 whither he had been sent as a recalcitrant youth of 
 six ; over Woolton Hill, whence there is a wide 
 view over plain and river to the blue Flintshire 
 Hills ; past the Convalescent Institution with its 
 associations of Cotton Famine days, 1 and so home 
 between the inevitable walls. 
 
 Four times a week he rode into town to the 
 meetings of the Poor Law Guardians. His figure, 
 as he clattered past on his black horse, became very 
 familiar to Liverpool citizens, and possibly survives 
 in more memories than any other personal impres- 
 sion of him. Sitting rather forward and bending 
 over his horse's neck, the pockets of his Inverness 
 cape stuffed out with papers, his whole appearance 
 betokened business and an eagerness to arrive. 
 The horse, a thick-necked Welsh cob with very 
 showy action, nicknamed Pegasus from its likeness 
 to some of Flaxman's illustrations, was as unlike 
 the typical old gentleman's pony as it could well 
 be, and was greatly valued by him on that account. 
 It gave him, he said, more exercise in one hour 
 than any other horse in two ; and he was not a 
 little proud of the fact that none of his sons or 
 daughters could manage it. He had very good 
 hands ; but he seemed to manage this horse largely 
 by issuing his orders to it as though it were a 
 
 1 Woolton Convalescent was built and endowed with the unspent surplus 
 of the Liverpool contribution to the Cotton Famine Relief Fund of 1862, 
 See pp. 187-190.
 
 478 WILLIAM RATH BONE CHAP. 
 
 regiment, and it obeyed him with a rather startling 
 abruptness. 
 
 His eightieth birthday, February 1 1, 1899, was 
 celebrated at Greenbank by a large family gather- 
 ing, attended by some hundred of his kinsfolk, 
 and by a few old friends whose only relation to 
 him was one of friendship. He seemed then hale 
 and well, and very happy in his old age. But he 
 had often said that he did not expect his active 
 life to be prolonged after eighty, and he proved 
 nearly right. In the late autumn he had a virulent 
 attack of eczema, a seemingly trivial but irritating 
 and v/earing complaint, from which he was never 
 afterwards long free. He was for some weeks in 
 bed, but recovered sufficiently to go down to the 
 Reform Club on the afternoon of December 4, to 
 unveil a bust of Mr. Gladstone, and to be present 
 afterwards at the banquet given in his honour. At 
 both ceremonies he made long speeches. It was 
 then the darkest days of the South African war, 
 and in most minds Mr. Gladstone's policy in the 
 winter of 1880 was the first thought suggested by 
 his name. After a few personal reminiscences of 
 his former leader, therefore, William Rathbone 
 occupied the rest of his speech in explaining the 
 grounds for his unaltered conviction that Mr. 
 Gladstone's retrocession of the Transvaal, " de- 
 termined on in circumstances that left no choice 
 open but a choice of dangers, and undertaken on
 
 xni LAST PUBLIC MEETING 479 
 
 the facts which were then known or could be then 
 known," had been not only, as it had been called, a 
 sublime experiment, but " an act dictated by true 
 statesmanship." He admitted that the fear of per- 
 manently embittering and alienating the Cape Dutch 
 had had some influence upon the Government's 
 decision, but he insisted that " the motive, the main 
 motive, which actuated Mr. Gladstone and the 
 Liberal party whom he led, was the fear of shed- 
 ding blood in an unrighteous policy." All that 
 prevented the policy of retrocession having the 
 success it deserved was, he believed, two events 
 which could not possibly have been foreseen the 
 discovery of the gold-fields, and the Jameson Raid. 
 
 v O J / 
 
 With a voice shaken by emotion he declared his 
 anxiety to express, on what would probably be his 
 last occasion for addressing the Liberal party, how 
 deeply he shared the conviction which had been 
 the guiding principle of Mr. Gladstone's life, that 
 in the life of nations as of individuals Right 
 in the longrun is Might, and must prevail. In 
 his evening speech he dwelt principally on his 
 reminiscences of the " grand old guard of Liver- 
 pool Liberals " among whom his youth had been 
 spent. He summed up the legislative triumphs 
 of the last half-century, and then insisted once 
 more on his favourite theme, that to-day " it is 
 not legislation but administration that claims our 
 most determined efforts." He ended by a passionate
 
 480 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 warning to his hearers to beware lest they let 
 corruption enter their public life. 
 
 Let us therefore watch with the utmost vigilance for 
 any sign of a disposition in men to get into Parliament, 
 or into our local councils or boards, not in order to serve 
 the public, but to obtain directorships, or contracts, or 
 some other benefit for themselves, their friends, or their 
 constituents. When you come to make public employ- 
 ment dependent upon politics, you strike at the virtue of 
 the great mass of our population ; you degrade them. Let 
 us shun such men as political lepers, to be sent back to 
 obscurity where they may hide their vileness. For as 
 long as God is God and history is history, it is certain 
 that the fate of an empire is decided when corruption 
 enters into public life, and when prosperity is misused in 
 the interest of selfish luxury, instead of being held with 
 everything that is best, as a sacred and holy trust. 
 
 During the first six months of 1 900 he suffered 
 from frequent outbursts of his troublesome malady ; 
 but he was able in the intervals to attend the 
 meetings of the Vestry and of the College Council, 
 and pursue his work as usual. At Easter he 
 went with his wife and daughter and son- 
 
 o 
 
 in-law to the Italian lakes. He enjoyed the 
 scenery as much as ever, but it was not like 
 other visits. He was compelled for the first time 
 to travel as an invalid, and he was never really at 
 ease. As the weather grew warmer his health im- 
 proved. The family moved to Jnvergloy, a house
 
 xiii ILLNESS 481 
 
 he had taken for July and August by the shores 
 of the Caledonian Canal. He began to ride again, 
 and the roads in the neighbourhood being few, he 
 was as adventurous as ever in scrambling his pony 
 over the rough hillsides. Suddenly he was seized 
 with an attack of jaundice. He grew rapidly 
 worse ; a London specialist was sent for, who pro- 
 nounced him to be suffering from ptomaine poison- 
 ing and congestion of the lungs. For a time his 
 strength wavered, then seemed to sink, and a day 
 came when practically all hope was given up. But 
 the extraordinary tenacity of constitution which he 
 inherited from his mother's family for once proved 
 an unmixed boon to its possessor. As he lay in 
 what seemed the stupor of impending death, those 
 around him noticed a change. His features re- 
 laxed ; he breathed more easily; unconsciousness had 
 passed into sleep. From that time he grew steadily 
 better, though with occasional threatenings of re- 
 lapse. By the beginning of September he was still 
 very weak, but by means of an invalid carriage 
 they were able to bring him home. 1 
 
 The eighteen months of life which remained to 
 
 1 One other fact may be noted for the benefit of those interested in the 
 phenomena of illness. Though Dr. Tunnicliffe, the London specialist 
 alluded to, described his recovery as "little short of a miracle," he himself 
 was convinced all through, and more than once assured his family, that he 
 was not going to die. " I felt there was life still in me," he said afterwards. 
 In what proved really his last illness, it was otherwise. Though the 
 symptoms were at first less alarming, he felt and said that life was slipping 
 away. 
 
 2 f
 
 482 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 him after his return seem to form a chapter by 
 themselves. This illness marks the close of his 
 working days. Those months, which to the 
 friends near him seemed among the most beautiful 
 and certainly not the least happy of his life, were 
 an evening of recollection, possession, and repose. 
 
 There was no sudden change in his habits. 
 After he had got over the fatigues of the journey 
 his strength improved, until he seemed to stand 
 nearly where he had stood before his illness. But the 
 eczema, which for a time had quite disappeared, 
 returned with his returning strength in a worse 
 form than before, and thenceforward he was never 
 free from it. It was not acutely painful, but it 
 was exhausting and very disabling. When each 
 attack was at its worst, he was compelled to lie 
 almost flat, unable to raise himself, unable, owing 
 to the bandages on his hands, even to feed himself. 
 Then he would slowly improve, until he was able to 
 move freely and walk about a little. Then would 
 come the next attack. It was difficult to say whether 
 his incurable hopefulness was a boon or not. At each 
 temporary improvement he was certain that he had 
 vanquished his enemy this time, and the disappoint- 
 ment was the greater when it reappeared. But he 
 seldom allowed himself to complain, and took 
 comfort in the assurance of his doctors, that the 
 malady was a safety-valve, which probably saved 
 him from worse things. Independent in personal
 
 xin EVENING 483 
 
 matters as he had always been, accustomed to a life 
 of almost incessant activity, he submitted to the 
 disabilities of his condition with entire simplicity 
 and without an effort to kick against the pricks. 
 Fortunately he had always been used to dictating 
 his letters to a secretary, and to rely a good deal 
 on his wife's help in the composition of speeches 
 and important letters, and thus he was able even 
 when in bed to get through slowly a good deal of 
 correspondence. 
 
 Upon nursing matters and upon matters con- 
 nected with the Universities, both of Liverpool 
 and of Wales, his advice was still often sought, 
 and his letters on these subjects still showed all 
 their old practical sagacity. On his recovery from 
 his illness he had resigned his presidency of the 
 College of North Wales in a letter on which he 
 bestowed great pains, wishing it to be a sort of 
 declaration of faith in regard to Welsh education. 
 His Guardianship of the Poor he never to the end 
 could bring himself to resign, always clinging to 
 the hope that he might shake off his malady 
 sufficiently to attend the Relief Quorum once more. 
 This hope was never realised, but he accomplished 
 one result more valuable than his occasional 
 presence could have been. The Guardians of the 
 West Derby Board and of the Toxteth Board con- 
 sented, at his suggestion, to adopt a system similar 
 to that which he had introduced into the parish of
 
 484 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 Liverpool twenty - seven years before, of co - 
 operation with the Central Relief Society, passing 
 on to that Society all their first applications from 
 respectable people in temporary distress, in order 
 that they might be more adequately helped and 
 saved from the stigma of pauperism. The open-air 
 cure for consumption was his latest hobby, and he 
 took a keen interest in the arrangements for 
 two new Sanatoria that were in process of being 
 founded : one in Delamere Forest, for patients who 
 could afford to pay part of the cost of treatment ; 
 one at Heswell for pauper patients. 
 
 When other work failed, he dictated fragmentary 
 reminiscences of his life and of people he had 
 known, or memoranda upon the principles which 
 he held of most importance in business or in some 
 of his public activities. He had thrown aside 
 almost entirely the sense of personal responsibility 
 for these things. His work was done. But it 
 seemed a necessity of his nature to have some 
 holiday task on hand which might possibly be of 
 use to some one. Had he only sought occupation, 
 reading would have given him all he wanted, for 
 his interest in books of the kind that suited him 
 was even more vivid and all-absorbing than it had 
 always been. From the time of his illness at 
 Invergloy, it became the custom for the members 
 of his family to read to him in bed for the last 
 hour and a half before he settled for the night.
 
 xiii EVENING 485 
 
 In this reading he took the kind of almost 
 exuberant delight that a child takes in the one 
 great treat of its day. The reader for the night 
 would find him in a shadowy room, the light fall- 
 ing brightly only on the flaming mass of flowers 
 that was always by his bedside ; the figure on 
 the bed lying propped with pillows ; the small, 
 brilliant, brown eyes, that were the life of the whole 
 face, shining through the dusk with anticipated 
 pleasure. 
 
 In the choice of books he was critical. During 
 the weakness of convalescence old-fashioned fiction 
 seemed to suit him best. Sir Walter Scott's novels, 
 Mrs. Gaskell's, some of the earlier stories of Mrs. 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe, better written and Jess 
 sentimental than Uncle Tom's Cabin, were found 
 exciting enough to make the moment of leaving 
 off almost too difficult Nothing pleased him 
 that was not direct, simple, and forcible, both 
 in manner and matter. George Eliot he thought 
 pompous and affected. Anything that savoured 
 of irony and cynicism was repulsive to him, and to 
 have read him a book that " ended badly " would 
 have been an impossible cruelty : he was too 
 ingenuous a novel reader to have become hardened 
 to imaginary griefs. Humorous books usually 
 bored him ; but there were odd exceptions. 
 Over David Harum he laughed till he cried. 
 As he grew stronger, he got tired of novels,
 
 486 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 and developed a great appetite for biography. 
 A good many lives of people he had known 
 were read to him, and he enjoyed the pleasures 
 of reminiscence. Better even than these he 
 liked Up from Slavery, the autobiography of the 
 negro, Booker Washington. But of all the books 
 read to him during these last months, the one 
 that impressed him most was the Life of Dr. Dale 
 of Birmingham, by his son, Mr. A. W. Dale, the 
 Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University. To the 
 whole of this thick and closely written volume, 
 much of it treating in considerable detail of the 
 internal affairs of a denomination and of a city not 
 his own, he listened with an almost breathless 
 interest. It was evidently the personality of Dr. 
 Dale that so attracted him, and perhaps the reason 
 is not difficult to guess. Most men whom he 
 admired satisfied only one side of his nature. They 
 might have, as he had, the driving power of the 
 practical man who knows exactly how much under 
 given circumstances he can get out of himself and 
 others, and is able to put things through ; or they 
 might have, as he had, the idealism which is the ex- 
 pression of a definite religious faith and of a hidden, 
 fervent spiritual life. In Dr. Dale he found both 
 these things combined. As one who knew both 
 men well said of them : they were alike in this, that 
 few men have held St. Paul so fast by one hand, 
 and St. James so fast by the other. Dr. Dale's
 
 xni EVENING 487 
 
 sermons formed the favourite Sunday reading for 
 William Rathbone for the rest of his life. 
 
 One type of book that seemed at first sight 
 suitable had to be carefully eschewed. He could 
 not endure anything that reminded him too 
 forcibly of the work that remained to be done in 
 his own subjects, and that he could no longer hope 
 to do. His daughter once began reading him 
 Men of the Merchant Service , by Charles Bullen. 
 The picturesqueness and charm of Bullen's descrip- 
 tions of sea-life, their healthy tone and simple 
 piety, usually delighted him. But this book is 
 full of suggestions of evils and defects that call 
 for remedy in the conditions of the Service. As a 
 former shipowner, and as one interested in mer- 
 cantile law, all the suggestions struck him as so 
 many personal appeals. After a few pages he 
 stopped the reader with uncontrollable impatience : 
 " What is the use of reading me that ! What 
 can I do, lying here? " He showed the same feel- 
 ing when asked to criticise some investigations that 
 were being made with regard to the conditions of 
 labour at the docks. Of all the problems pre- 
 sented to him by Liverpool life, that was the one 
 with which he would most have liked to grapple. 
 Now it was too late, and though he gave the 
 opinion asked for, he shrank from the whole 
 subject with unmistakable pain. Of the world's 
 " inexhaustible patience of abuses that only tor-
 
 488 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 ment others" he had always only a meagre stock, 
 and now that he could no longer put on his 
 armour, he preferred to keep altogether out of 
 hearing of the fray. 
 
 When able to go out, exercise and sunshine 
 and flowers made him perfectly happy. The 
 summer of 1901 was certainly a very fine one, 
 and the foliage better than usual. But he, who 
 had never had so much leisure to think of the 
 weather or to observe the trees, thought both 
 extraordinarily good. His son-in-law gave him a 
 little invalid carriage, so contrived that it could 
 be either pushed or pulled, and he could either sit 
 or lie. In this, or very rarely on foot, he explored 
 every corner of his garden, and learnt to know 
 every shrub and flower. Whenever he was well 
 enough, the carriage was harnessed to a shaggy 
 little Exmoor pony, and he took a daily drive in 
 Sefton Park. He grew very fond of the park 
 and very proud of its beauties. He liked to watch 
 the football players, and the bicyclists, and the 
 children at their games. Of course his little car- 
 riage, especially when he lay in it at full length, 
 attracted many curious looks. But he never 
 seemed to notice this, or if he did, it certainly did 
 not trouble him. A friend, greatly attached to him, 
 who met him on one of these walks said afterwards, 
 that he found the sight of his entire helplessness so 
 painful that he could hardly keep his composure.
 
 xin THE END 489 
 
 It was impossible for any one who Jived with him 
 to feel this. It was impossible not to be infected 
 with enough of his simplicity to feel that failing 
 strength was natural to great age, and that there 
 was no humiliation in suffering the common lot of 
 humanity. 
 
 He talked frequently of his own death, nearly 
 always in a tone unaffectedly matter of fact. He 
 did not expect that it would be long deferred, 
 and as the autumn advanced it became clear that 
 his strength was failing. A severe winter suc- 
 ceeded the beautiful summer, and he felt much the 
 confinement to the house, though . he did his best 
 to relieve the monotony and obey the doctor's 
 orders to take exercise, by tramping from room to 
 room, examining the pictures and ornaments in 
 each as though it were a museum. All his life he 
 had treated his own house as a laboratory or an 
 office ; now he was realising the possessions that 
 had been insensibly accumulating round him. On 
 Christmas Day he was able to enjoy for the last 
 time a large family gathering. After that he 
 seldom left his bed, and as January wore on he 
 grew increasingly weak. February 6 was his 
 fortieth wedding-day. " What a long life, and, on 
 the whole, what a happy one ! " he said, as he lay 
 gazing at the flowers with which his room was 
 filled, and drinking in their colour with the old 
 fervid delight. On February 1 1, his eighty- third
 
 490 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 birthday, painful symptoms set in, and in a few 
 days it became evident that the power of absorbing 
 nutrition had entirely ceased. Every one thought 
 that the end was very near ; but a flame that burns 
 so strongly is not easily extinguished. He had 
 always had a great dread lest a body so strong as 
 his should survive the mind. This trial he was 
 completely spared, for it was the other way. The 
 strength of heart and brain, said the doctors, 
 alone kept life in him. As long as weakness per- 
 mitted him to speak he seemed clear and conscious. 
 One night he appeared very anxious to say some- 
 thing, but the only words audible were : " Never, 
 never, anything but kindness and generosity from 
 all my friends." Afterwards he Jay in entire 
 speechless exhaustion, until on the evening of 
 March 6 he passed quietly away. 
 
 All his affairs had Jong been set in perfect 
 order, and among his papers were found some 
 directions concerning his funeral, as characteristic 
 as anything that had come from him in life. 
 Believing " that the burial of a large number of 
 persons in the midst of populous districts was 
 endangering the public health," he directed that 
 his body should be cremated. Everything was to 
 be done as simply and inexpensively as was possible 
 without singularity. None of his friends were to 
 attend his funeral at any risk to their health, or to 
 uncover their heads in the open air. The paper
 
 xin THE END 491 
 
 ended : " These are my feelings, but I do not 
 wish to fetter or annoy survivors." 
 
 His wishes were obeyed, and in the presence of 
 a great concourse of his fellow-citizens, and of his 
 kinsmen and friends from far and near, his ashes 
 were laid to rest in the same grave in Toxteth 
 Cemetery in which the bodies of his parents and 
 his first wife were buried. Among the masses of 
 beautiful flowers that surrounded the grave and 
 almost covered the alabaster casket, lay one wreath 
 from his veteran friend, Miss Florence Nightingale, 
 bearing the inscription, " In remembrance and 
 humblest love of one of God's best and greatest 
 sons." 
 
 Among scattered memoranda dictated by 
 William Rathbone during the last year of his life, 
 was found the following fragment : 
 
 The retrospect of over eighty years, of which over 
 sixty have been spent in very varied and active occupa- 
 tion, and during which I have been brought into contact 
 with every rank of our people, both at home and through 
 correspondence with the most distant and varied parts of 
 the world, seems to afford some points of experience and 
 observation which may be of interest, at any rate, to my 
 own family and friends, and possibly of use to some outside 
 that circle. 
 
 I cannot point to anything very new in that experi- 
 ence, but the results which I have found to follow from
 
 492 WILLIAM RATHBONE CHAP. 
 
 principles and modes of action which are open to very 
 many, seem to me very encouraging to those who like 
 myself have no claim to genius or brilliancy. 
 
 What strikes me most in the retrospect is the utter 
 disproportion between the outcome and rewards of the 
 work of that long period, and the efforts and sacrifices 
 which it called for. 
 
 It is a very common observation that those great men 
 who have been the first to discover natural laws, and 
 formulate principles to which the world owes most, have 
 rarely been those to make the practically beneficial appli- 
 cation of their discoveries, and have still more rarely 
 themselves received material advantages from them. They 
 do not thereby lose their reward, because the joy and 
 delight of tracking out a great new truth, and at last 
 seeing it unfold before their eyes, must be something which 
 ordinary mortals cannot share in, nor even comprehend. 
 But the men who reap an immediate and material reward 
 for their work are not these great discoverers and brilliant 
 men of genius, but rather those ordinary men whose 
 quick, careful observation, common sense, and industry 
 just place them a few days, months, or years in advance 
 of what is becoming the general knowledge or sentiment. 
 It is these who see what part of the ideas of the thinkers 
 and specialists of the day are capable of immediate, 
 practical application to the circumstances of their time 
 and country, and who put them into execution. And so 
 long as they are careful not to appropriate the credit 
 unduly and selfishly, but insist that both the originators 
 and those who have worked with them in the develop- 
 ment shall get their primary and predominant share of 
 praise and reward, their work benefits alike themselves, 
 the men of genius, and the world.
 
 xin SELF-APPRECIATION 493 
 
 I say this, both because I want to show the injustice 
 and undesirableness of piling on one individual the credit 
 of achievements in which many have been connected, 
 and because I think that if more people realised how 
 considerable and widespread are the results which are 
 often attainable by the use of these qualities of observa- 
 tion, common sense, and industry, they would be inspired 
 with faith and energy to attempt public work which they 
 now believe to require much rarer qualities, and therefore 
 modestly consider to be beyond their power. 
 
 In short, if I were to venture to express what seems to 
 me the lesson of my own life by an adapted proverb, I 
 should say, "Great are the uses of mediocrity." 
 
 For this estimate of William Rathbone I must 
 disclaim all responsibility. Those who have read 
 this Memoir can judge for themselves how far he 
 should be taken at his own valuation. The frag- 
 ment is inserted, partly because it is so charac- 
 teristic ; partly because it expresses in his own 
 words the only motive which would have reconciled 
 him to the notion of his Life being written, however 
 briefly, for publication : the hope that it might 
 encourage others, especially young men and women 
 in his own city, to trace out for themselves more 
 definitely, and to follow more boldly, a career of 
 public usefulness.
 
 NOTE 
 
 AMONG the published writings of Mr. Rathbone alluded 
 to in this volume are the following : 
 
 Social Duties. Macmillan and Co. 1867. 
 
 Increased Earnings of tke Working Classes. Benson and 
 Holme. 1877. 
 
 "Reform of Parliamentary Business- i. House of 
 Commons ; 2. House of Lords," Fortnightly Review, October 
 1881. 
 
 " Great Britain and the Suez Canal," FortJiigbtly Review, 
 August 1882. 
 
 "Local Government and Taxation in England and 
 Wales," Nineteenth Century, February and March 1883. 
 
 Protection and Communism. Putnam's. New York. 1884. 
 
 Local Government and Taxation, by Rathbone, Pell, and 
 Montague. Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 1885. 
 
 History of District Nursing. Macmillan and Co. 1890. 
 
 495
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aberdare, Lord, 346 
 Aberystwyth College, 347, 351, 360 
 Abolition of the African Slave Trade, 8 
 Acland, Sir Henry W. D., 175 
 
 (note) 
 
 Acland, Mrs. Theodore, 180 (note) 
 Acland, Sir Thomas, 410 
 Adam, Mr., 307 
 Adams, Mr., American Minister, 
 
 194, 202 
 Afghanistan, 398 
 Alabama, the, and " Laird's Rams," 
 
 194-204 
 Alassio, Mr. Rathbone's villa at, 
 
 476 
 Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 175 (note), 
 
 1 80 
 
 Allen, Charles, sculptor, 156, 468 
 America 
 
 Civil War, 136, 187-204; Free 
 Trade and Protection, 101-104, 
 410; trade with Liverpool, n; 
 Unitarianism in, 432 ; war 
 with England, 33 ; Mr. Rath- 
 bone's visit to, 95-102, 131-139 
 Amsterdam, trade of, in eighteenth 
 
 century, 4-5 
 Andrew, Mr., 379 
 Antwerp, 282 
 
 Arfon (North Carnarvonshire), Mr. 
 Rathbone member for, 412, 
 422-425 
 
 Arfon Liberal Association, 423-425 
 Argyle, Duke of, 193 
 Arianism, 428-429 
 Art Congress, Birmingham, 461 
 
 Ashbourne Acts, 418 
 
 Ashton, Thomas, at school and 
 
 Heidelberg with Mr. Rathbone, 
 
 60,71,78,91; old friendship, 467 
 Aspinall, Rev. Mr., 48 
 Aspinwall, Mr., 196 
 Assessed Rates Bill, 244 
 Association for the Promotion of 
 
 Higher Education, 327 
 Athens, 319, 320 
 Atlantic cable first laid, 145 
 Attorney-General, 273, 275 
 Attorneys and Solicitors' Act (see 
 
 under Bills) 
 Audubon, 52 
 
 Bache, 76 
 
 Balaclava, 146-147 
 
 Balfour, Alexander, 335 
 
 Balfour, A. J., Irish Land Purchase 
 
 Bill (1890-1891), 417-418 
 Bangor, 349, 351, 425; Dean of, 
 
 352, 353-354 
 Bankruptcy Bill (see Bills) 
 Banks, Dr. Mitchell, 327 (note) 
 Bannatyne, Dugald, 15 
 Baring Brothers, 94, 131 
 Baring, Tom, 192 
 Barrow, Mr., 335 
 Bates, Joshua, 94-98, 99 
 Beach, Sir Michael Hicks-, 406-408 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, 276, 285, 303, 
 
 408 
 Beard, Rev. Charles, 327, 328, 336, 
 
 43 1 
 Bedford, Duke of, 409 
 
 497 
 
 2 K
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 Berlin decree of 1806, 32 
 
 Bethesda, 361 
 
 Bible and Domestic Female Mission, 
 
 177 
 
 Bills- 
 Assessed Rates Bill, 244 
 Attorneys and Solicitors' Remun- 
 eration Act, 233, 27 1, 272, 274, 
 382-383 
 
 Bankruptcy Bill, 225, 230-232 
 Corrupt Practices Bill, 275 
 County Council Act of 1888, 
 
 405 
 
 Disfranchisement, Bill of, 46 
 
 Education Bills and Acts, 273-274; 
 Elementary Education Acts, 
 459; Mr. Forster's Act of 1870, 
 50-51, 357-358 ; Welsh Inter- 
 mediate Act of 1889, 359-361, 
 400, 402-406 
 
 Franchise Bill of 1883, 403 
 
 Government Election Bills, 275 
 
 Ireland : Ashbourne Acts, 418 ; 
 Irish Church Bill, 225, 268 I 
 (note) ; Land Bills, 271-272, ' 
 413-415, 417-418; Govern- 
 ment of Ireland Bill, 413; 
 Home Rule Bills, 417-420 
 
 Licensing : Acts of 1 869 and 1872, 
 252, 256 ; Government Liquor 
 Bill, 258 ; Government Licen- 
 sing Bill, 259 ; Mr. Bruce's 
 Licensing Bill, 276 ; Sir W. 
 Harcourt's Local Veto Bill, 
 420-421 ; Permissive Bill, 260, 
 276, 290 
 
 Local Government : Acts of | 
 1888, 1893, and 1894, 235, 
 236, 400 ; Local Government 
 Bill, 416 
 
 Metropolitan Board of Works Act 
 of 1871, 228 
 
 Municipal Corporation Reform 
 Bill, 46 
 
 Municipal Franchise Bill, 245 
 
 Private Bills, 230, 233 
 
 Public Prosecutor's Bill, 273, 274 
 
 Redistribution Bill, 317 ; Act of 
 1885, 319, 412 
 
 Reform Bill of 1866, 206-210, 
 
 219; Act of 1867, 41, 211 
 215 
 
 Registration Bill, 275 
 
 Registration of Midwives Bill, 
 
 448 (note) 
 
 Billson, A., 327 (note) 
 Birkenhead docks, 145 
 Birley, J., 60 
 Bismarck, 282-283 
 Black preacher, 133-134 
 Blackburne, 316 
 Bolingbroke, 277 
 Bond, Hargreaves, 468 
 Books mentioned, 86,485-487 
 Bootle borough, Liverpool, 241 
 Bradford, 377 
 
 Bradlaugh episode, the, 398 
 Bradley, Prof. A. C., 343 (note) 
 Brand, Mr. Speaker, 214, 410 
 Bridges, Dr., 271 
 Bright, Mr., 190, 193, 281, 406 
 Brougham, Lord, 33, 43 
 Brown, Col. A. H., 335 
 Brown, Dr. Campbell, 327 (note) 
 Brown, Rev. William, 59 
 Brown, Janson, and Co., 119 
 Bruce, Mr., Home Secretary, 234, 
 
 27 6 , 35 x 
 Bryce, James, 236, 261, 268, 319 
 
 Bullen, ., 281-282 
 
 Bull's Run, 192, 193 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 14 
 
 Burke and Hare murders, 56 
 
 Burns, Robert, 13 
 
 Burt, Mr., 390, 392 
 
 Bushell, Christopher, 327 (note) 
 
 Business methods, 114-120 
 
 Busts and statue of Mr. Rathbone, 
 
 468, 469 
 
 Butt, Mr., 293, 294, 298 
 Buxton, Sydney, 409 
 Byron, Lady, 52 
 
 Caine, W. S., 180 (note), 284, 290, 
 
 3*5, 474 
 
 Calcutta trade, 119-120 
 Caledonian Canal, 481 
 Cane, Mr., 167-168 
 Cannes, 320 
 Canning, 43
 
 INDEX 
 
 499 
 
 Canton, 120 
 Cardwell, Edward, 142 
 Carnarvonshire,Mr. Rathbone elected 
 
 for, 320-321 
 Carr, Mr., 167-168 
 Carter, Dr., 327 (note) 
 Carter, Henry Bonham, 175 (note), 
 
 1 80 (note), 183 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 41 
 Casual labour in Liverpool, 384-394 
 Caton, Dr., 327 
 Central Relief Society, Liverpool, 
 
 !29> 3 6 3, 372, 375-38i, 484 
 Chalmers, 278 
 Channing, Rev. W. E., of Boston. 
 
 428 (and note), 432 
 Charity Organisation Society, 129, 
 
 365, 372 
 
 Charleston, 134, 138 
 Cheam, 59 
 Chester, 347, 349 
 Chevalier, Michel, 281, 282 
 Childwall, 260, 476 
 China, 107 
 Chiropodists, anecdotes concerning, 
 
 281-282 
 Chorley, Henry Fothergill, 37 (and 
 
 note)-39 
 
 Churches and the people, 435-441 
 Churches in Liverpool, i, 2-3 
 Clarkson, Rev. Thomas, 8 
 Clerkenwell explosion, 294 
 Coalbrookdale, 1 1 
 Cobden, Richard, 190, 191, 193, 
 
 199 
 
 Collier, Sir Robert, 230-231 
 Combe of Edinburgh, 38 
 Consumption Hospital, Liverpool, 
 
 462 
 
 Consumption, open-air cure, 484 
 Corinth, 320 
 Cornhill, Liverpool, 55 
 Correspondence 
 
 Holt, R. D., 309-310, 311 
 
 Ismay, Thomas, 389-394 
 
 Jones, Prof. Henry, 350-355,403- 
 
 404 
 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 433-435 
 Rathbone family: father, 86-89, 
 
 95-98, 132-134; mother, 76- 
 
 80, 82-86, 134-139, 281-283 j 
 brother, 80-82, 90-91 ; wife, 
 268-281 ; son, 387-388 
 
 Corrupt Practices Bill, 275 
 
 Cotton trade, 2 ; American cotton, 
 ii ; famine in Lancashire, 187 ; 
 relief fund, 188-191 
 
 County Council Act of 1888, 405 
 
 Cox, , 281 
 
 Cox, Col. Ponsonby, 246 
 
 Craven, Mrs. Dacre, 175, 177 (note), 
 1 80 (note) 
 
 Creevey, Thomas, 35-36 
 
 Crimean War, Commissariat and 
 Chelsea Commission, 146-152, 
 245 
 
 Crompton, Henry, 234 
 
 Cropper, John, 166-167, 1 73 
 
 Cropper, Benson, and Co., 64 
 
 Crosfield, William, 335 
 
 Cross, Mr., 307, 315, 316 
 
 Cumloden, Mr. Rathbone's tempor- 
 ary residence in Scotland, 153- 
 
 154 
 
 Cunningham, Rev. W., 327 (note) 
 Currie, Dr. James, 13 
 
 Dale, Dr., Life of, by A. W. Dale, 
 
 486 
 
 Dalhousie, Earl of, 317 
 Dalton, John, 14 
 Darbishire, Arthur and Charles, 426 
 
 (note) 
 
 Darbishire, W. A., 355 
 Darbys of Coalbrookdale, the, 14 
 Davidson, J. W., 327 (note) 
 Da vies, Cadwaladr, 349, 354, 426 
 
 (note) 
 
 Davies, Richard, 351, 355, 403-404 
 Davis, Jefferson, 194 
 Day Industrial Schools, Liverpool, 
 
 459 
 
 Delamere Forest, open - air Sana- 
 torium, 484 
 
 Delphi, 320 
 
 Derby, Lord, 189, 285, 308, 315, 
 
 3 2 3, 335 
 
 Derry, Bishop of, 268 
 Derwentwater, Lake of, 374 
 Dickens, Charles, 38
 
 500 
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 Diggle, Rev. John W., Bishop of 
 
 Carlisle, 359, 442-443 (and 
 
 note i) 
 
 Dilwyn, Mr., 446 
 Disestablishment, 444-448 
 Disraeli (see Beaconsfield, Lord) 
 District Nursing (see Nursing) 
 District Provident Society, 139-141, 
 
 164 
 Dix, Miss Dorothea, 52, 173 (and 
 
 note) 
 
 Dixon, Mr., 358 
 Doblado's Letters, 5 2 
 Doctor of Laws, degree conferred on 
 
 Mr. Rathbone, 466-468 
 Domestic Missions, 69-70, 435, 448- 
 
 449 
 
 Dowse, 271 
 Doyle, Mr., 370, 373 
 Dramatic Line, 64 
 Duff, Grant, 281 
 Durham, Lord, 79-80 
 Dyke, Sir William Hart, 405 
 
 East India Company, 31, 107 
 East London Nursing Society, 177 
 Economist, the, 384 
 Edge Hill Training College for 
 
 Women, 459 
 Education Bills (see Bills) 
 Education, Mr. Rathbone's interest 
 
 and views, 356-362 
 
 Egypt. 39 8 
 
 Eivion (South Carnarvonshire), 412 
 Elberfeld system of poor relief, 278, 
 
 280-281, 370-373, 375-378 
 Electioneering methods, 142-145 
 Elphinstone, Lord, 107 
 Eucles, the, 64 
 Euphranor quoted, 453 
 Evans, William, 192 
 Everton, 59 
 Ewart, J. C., 142 
 Ewart-Denison electic 
 
 ction, 43, 44, 45, 
 
 47 
 
 Expenditure, Mr. Rathbone's views 
 on, 121-130, 466 
 
 Fanshawe, Mr., 261, 263 
 Field, Dudley, 145 
 
 FitzGerald, Edward, Euphrancr 
 
 quoted, 453 
 Forbes, J. M., 192-193, 196-198, 
 
 201, 203-204 
 Forster, W. E., 193, 199 ; Education 
 
 Act of 1870, 50-51, 357-358 ; 
 
 Irish emigration scheme, 409 
 Fortnightly Revieiu, Mr. Rathbone's 
 
 articles in, 229, 410, 411 
 Frampton, Charles, R.A., 469 
 France, Revolution in, 16, 19, 21 ; 
 
 French politics, 282 
 Franchise Bill, 1883, 403 
 Free Trade and Protection, 14, 20, 
 
 101-104 
 
 French politics, 282 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, 407 
 " Friends of Freedom," 12-14, IO ^ 
 Fries, Mr., 76 
 
 Gair, Lucretia Wainwright, marriage 
 to Mr. Rathbone, 131 
 
 Gair, Samuel, 131 
 
 Gambetta, 282 
 
 Garston, Lanes., 260 
 
 Gascoigne, General, 44, 45, 46 
 
 Gateacre, 14, 59, 476 
 
 Gawsworth, I 
 
 General Election of 1886, 415 ; or 
 1892, 418 5 of 1895, 4 21 
 
 Germany, domination of Government 
 in, 73-75 ; German dinner, 81 ; 
 student's burial, 82-83 , Ger- 
 man dancing, 85 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, 159-160, 260; 
 death of, 461 
 
 Giles, Rev. Henry, 66 (note) 
 
 Gilmour, Mrs. H. B., 163 (note) 
 
 Gladstone, W. E. 
 
 Father of, 56 ; Crimean Commis- 
 sion, 148 5 American Civil 
 War, 190, 193-1945 election of 
 
 1865, 205-206 ; Reform Bill of 
 
 1866, 206-2105 election of 
 1868, 213-215 5 rapid treat- 
 ment of amendments to Bills, 
 227 (note) ; Irish Land Bill, 27 1- 
 2725 at dinner, 281, 282 5 elec- 
 tion defeat of 1868, 285 5 pam- 
 phlet on Vatican decrees, 315 ;
 
 INDEX 
 
 501 
 
 estimation of, in Greece, 320 ; 
 S.W. Lanes, contest, 323 ; 
 Education Act, 358 j Prime 
 Minister, 1880, 398 ; bust of, 
 407, 4785 Home Rule, 412- 
 415, 418-4205 Welsh Dis- 
 establishment, 447 
 Glyn, Mr., 314 
 
 Godwin, , 10 
 
 Goschen, Mr., 242, 244, 247, 271, 
 
 276 
 
 Government Election Bill, 275 
 Government of Ireland Bill, 413 
 Government Licensing Bill, 259 
 Government Liquor Bill, 258 
 Government offices, distribution of, 
 
 407-408 
 
 Grant, Mrs., 335 
 
 Granville, Lord, 33, 307-308, 309 
 Graves, S. R., senior member for 
 
 Liverpool, 222, 263-264, 284 
 Great Western, the, 98 
 Greece, 319, 320 
 Greenbank, Mr. Rathbone's home, 
 
 36, 37, 38, 55 
 
 Greg, Elizabeth (see Rathbone, Eliza- 
 beth) 
 
 Greg, Samuel, 39 
 
 Greg, Mrs. Samuel, letter from, 57- 
 
 58 
 
 Grenfell, Mrs. Henry, 180 (note) 
 Grenfell, Henry, 285 
 Guardianship of the Poor, 364, 462, 
 
 483-484 
 
 Guinea-men (slave-ships), 8 
 Guizot, 76 
 Gurney, Russell, 228, 275 
 
 Hagger, Mr., 168, 241-242 
 Hale, Lanes., 260 
 Hamilton, Lord Claud, 318 
 Hannewinckel, Mr., 372 
 Harcourt, Sir William, 420-421 
 Hardy, Gathorne, 275 
 Hartington, Lord, 307, 309 
 Harvey, R. E., 47 
 Hasenflug, 76 
 Hayter, Sir William, 151 
 Heidelberg, Mr. Rathbone's life at, 
 71-91, 342, 467 
 
 Hengler's Circus, Liverpool, 216, 
 
 3 J 3 
 
 Henley, Mr., 260 
 
 Herdman, Professor, 343 (note) 
 
 Heswell, open-air Sanatorium, 484 
 
 Heywood, J. P., 205 
 
 Heywood, Oliver, 467 
 
 Hibbert, Mr., 244-245 
 
 History and Progress of District Nurs- 
 ing, by William Rathbone, 
 158 (note) 
 
 Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Henry, 249 
 (and note) 
 
 Hodgkin, Howard, 409 
 
 Holland, 248, 282 
 
 Holt, Gsorge, 355 
 
 Holt, Mrs. G. and Mrs. R. D., 163 
 (note) 
 
 Holt, R. D., 309-310, 311, 469 
 
 Home Rule question, 291-296, 399, 
 405, 412-415, 418-420 
 
 Hornby, T. D., 204, 211, 212 
 
 Horsman, Mr., 208 
 
 Howell, , 270 
 
 Hume, 277 
 
 Ilbert, Sir Courtenay, 250 
 
 Independence, the, 64 
 
 Invergloy, Mr. Rathbone's illness at, 
 480-481, 484 
 
 Ireland, 22 ; Sir Michael Hicks- 
 Beach's work in, 408 ; Irish 
 Church question, 213, 215, 
 220, 268-269 ; Irish Church 
 Bill, 225, 268 (note) ; educa- 
 tion question, 272 ; Irish 
 national school system, 48, 50 ; 
 emigration scheme, 408-410 ; 
 potato disease, 118; Irish vote 
 in Liverpool, 296 (see also under 
 " Bills " and " Home Rule ") 
 
 Ismay, Thomas, 389-394 
 
 Italian lakes, Mr. Rathbone's last 
 visit to, 480 
 
 Jackson, President, 99 
 
 Jameson Raid, 479 
 
 Janson, Mr., 1 19 
 
 " Jasper Wilson," 13 
 
 Jones, Miss Agnes, 169-173, 210
 
 5 02 
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 Jones, Professor Henry, 349, 350 ; 
 letter to Mr. Rath bone, 403-404 
 Jones, R. A., 355 (note) 
 
 Kaisers werth, 170 
 Kimberley, Lord, 407 
 King's College Hospital, 158 
 
 Labour,, casual, in Liverpool, 384- 
 
 394 
 
 Laird, Messrs., 194 (see also Alabama] 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 456 
 
 Lamport, W. J., 201 
 
 Lancashire Cotton Famine, 187-191 
 
 Land Purchase Bill, Ireland (see 
 Bills) 
 
 Langton, Charles, 163, 164, 461-462 
 
 Langton, Mrs. Charles, 163 (note) 
 
 Laivs of Life after the Mind of 
 Christ, 67, 430 
 
 Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, 290 
 
 Layard, , 199 
 
 Lechmere, Sir Edmund, 174 
 
 Leclaire, M., 387, 388, 394 
 
 Lees, Miss Florence (see Craven, 
 Mrs. Dacre) 
 
 Leyland, Mr., 43 
 
 Licensing Laws, 251-263, 276-277, 
 420-42 1 
 
 Lidderdale, Rt. Hon. Wm., 201 
 (and note) 
 
 Life of Isaac Jenkins, 18 
 
 Lightfoot, Canon, 330-334 
 
 Liverpool 
 
 Growth of, 1-3 ; eighty years ago, 
 56-57 ; confusion of areas and 
 rates in, 241-242 ; Chamber of 
 Commerce, 231 ; casual labour, 
 384-3945 Central Relief Society 
 (see that title) ; Irish political 
 questions, 291 ; politics and 
 election contests, 42-46, 263- 
 265, 284-319; University 
 College (see that title) ; Train- 
 ing School for Nurses (see 
 Nursing); Welshmen in, 321 
 
 " Liverpool Controversy," the, 66 
 
 Llangefni, 404 
 
 Local government and taxation, 234- 
 251, 4U 
 
 Local Veto Bill, 420-421 
 
 Loch, Mr., 372 
 
 Lockhart, W. P., 437 (and note) 
 
 Lodge, Adam, 42 
 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 343 (note), 433- 
 
 435,468 
 
 Lopes, Sir Massey, 244 
 Lords' Commission on Intemperance 
 
 in 1877, 254 
 Louis XVI., 15 
 
 Lowe, , 208, 271, 276 
 
 Lyle, Acheson, 187 
 
 Lyle, Emily, marriage with Mr. 
 
 Rathbone, 187 
 Lyttelton, Lord, 180 (note) 
 
 Maclure, Sir J. W., 189 
 
 MacCunn, Prof. J., 343 (note), 356 
 
 Mackenzie, W. E., 142, 143, 144 
 
 Mackey, Baron (Lord Reay), 248 
 
 M'Neill, Rev. Hugh, 49 
 
 M'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir John, Com- 
 missariat Commission, 146- 
 152 ; head of the Scottish 
 Poor Law Board, 245 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Cotton Famine and Relief Fund, 
 187-191; "Manchester goods,' '2 
 
 Manchester Guardian quoted, 162 
 (note) 
 
 Mandeville, 277 
 
 Mann, T., 443 (note 2) 
 
 Marshall, Prof., quoted, 347 (note) 
 
 Martineau, Dr. James, 66 (note), 
 
 453 
 Massey, Rt. Hon. W. N., 212 (and 
 
 note), 215, 222 
 Mathew, Father, 52, 291 
 Matilda, Queen, 181 
 
 Maxwell, , 281 
 
 May, Sir Erskine, 229, 398 
 Mechanics Institute, Liverpool, 326 
 Melly, Charles, 85, 188 
 Melly, George, 200, 313-314, 357, 
 
 458 
 Members of Parliament, work of a 
 
 private member, 224-226 
 Men of the Merchant Service, 487 
 Merchant Shipping Laws, 264-265 
 Merry weather, Miss, 161
 
 INDEX 
 
 53 
 
 Merry weather, Serjeant, 46 
 Metropolitan Board of Works Act 
 
 of 1871, 228 
 Missionary Fellowships, 441-443, 
 
 444 
 Molyneux, Capt., 286, 308, 311, 
 
 316 
 
 Morley, John, 216, 227 (note) 
 Muncke, 77, 86 
 
 Mundella, Mr., 346, 351, 402, 405 
 Munich, 91 
 Municipal Corporation Reform Bill, 
 
 46 
 Municipal Franchise Bill, 245 
 
 Napoleon, 23-24, 32 
 
 Narrative of Events that have recently 
 
 taken place in Ireland among the 
 
 Society called Quakers, 28-29 
 " National Association for Providing 
 
 Trained Nurses for the Sick 
 
 Poor," 174-179 
 Naturrecht, 71, 79 
 Nauplia, 320 
 Neilson, Robert, 260 
 Nemea, 320 
 
 New Brighton, Cheshire, 139 
 New York, record passage to, by old 
 
 packets, 64 ; Mr. Rathbone's 
 
 business connection with, 120 
 New York Charity Organisation 
 
 Society, 373 
 New York Improvement Society, 
 
 373 
 Nicol, Duckworth, and Co., 61, 63, 
 
 64, 7 1 
 Nightingale, Miss Florence, 159, 
 
 160-161, 167, 178, 183, 491 
 "Nightingale Training School," 158 
 Nine Hundred, the Liberal, 296, 308 
 Nineteenth Century, articles in, by 
 
 Mr. Rathbone, 41 1 
 Norfolk, Va., 137 
 North Wales College, 346-357,403, 
 
 425, 483 
 Nursing 
 
 District nursing, 156-158, 161- 
 
 163, 174-186, 461, 462,464; 
 
 Liverpool Training School and 
 
 Home for Nurses, founded by 
 
 Mr. Rathbone, 156-161, 163; 
 " Nightingale Training School," 
 158 5 Queen's Jubilee Insti- 
 tute, 181-182, 417; St. John's 
 House Nursing Institution, 158 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 292 
 
 Orders in Council, 32-33 
 
 Outline of Local Government and Local 
 
 Taxation in England and Wales, 
 
 249 (note 2) 
 Owen, Sir Hugh, 402 
 Owen, Robert, 38, 52 
 Owens College, Manchester, 327, 
 
 329,467 
 Oxford University, represented by 
 
 Gladstone, 205, 206 
 
 Paget, Sir James, 180 
 
 Paget, John, 149 
 
 Paget, Mrs. 163 (note) 
 
 Paley's Evidences, 25-27 
 
 Palk, Mr., 152 
 
 Palmer, Sir Roundel, 271 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 146, 151 ; 
 
 American Civil War, 193, 199- 
 
 200 
 
 Panmure, Lord, 152 
 Papal Government, 92 
 Parish Infirmary, Liverpool, 165- 
 
 '74 
 
 Parker, , 271 
 
 Parliament 
 
 Work of private member, 224- 
 226 ; parliamentary procedure, 
 226-230 j obstructionists, 398, 
 
 399 
 
 Work of, 1881-1895, compared 
 with previous Sessions, 397- 
 401 (see aho Bills) 
 
 Parnell, Mr., 409 
 
 Paul, Edward, 462 
 
 Pauper children, boarding out of, 
 271 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 410 
 
 " Pegasus," Mr. Rathbone's horse, 
 
 477 
 
 Peile, Rev. Arthur, 181 
 Penrhyn, Lord, 351, 361 
 Pestalozzian system, 59
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 Philadelphia, 101 
 Pitt, William, 21-22, 24, 93 
 Platt, Colonel, 412 
 Plimsoll, Mr., 264-265, 318 
 Plumping, 290 (note) 
 
 Plunket, , 272 
 
 Poor Law, 31 ; Conference of 1877, 
 
 241 ; of 1834, 244, 367-370, 
 
 382 ; special meetings of 
 
 Guardians, 477 
 Port Patrick, 200 
 Porter, Mr., 43 
 " Positive Aspects of Unitarian 
 
 Christianity," 431 
 Potter, Tom, 192 
 Powis, Earl of, 354 
 Protection and Communism, 410 
 Provident and Insurance Club, 
 
 L. and N.W. Railway, 395 
 Public Prosecutor's Bill, 273, 274 
 
 Quakerism, 135-136 ; Quaker prin- 
 ciples of the Rathbone family, 
 5, 10 ; influence on Mr. Rath- 
 bone, 428, 433-435 > expulsion 
 of William Rathbone senior, 
 28-30 
 
 Quarrymen of Wales, 360-361 
 Queen's College, Liverpool, 326 
 " Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute 
 for Nurses," 181-182 (and note), 
 4 1 ? 
 
 Ramsay, Lord, candidature of, 297- 
 302, 304, 306, 309 ; election 
 of, 310-311; to House of 
 Lords, 317 
 
 Rathbone, Ashton, 387-388, 457- 
 45 8 
 
 Rathbone, Edward, 342, 374-375 
 
 Rathbone, Elizabeth (nee Greg), 39, 
 40, 50-51, 210-211 (see also 
 Correspondence) 
 
 Rathbone, Emily (ne'e Lyle), 187, 
 314, 423 
 
 Rathbone, Hannah Mary (ne'e Rey- 
 nolds), n, 36-39, 93,94 
 
 Rathbone, Hannah Mary, marriage 
 to Mr. Thorn, 70 
 
 Rathbone, Lucretia (nee Gair), 131, 
 155 (see also Correspondence) 
 
 Rathbone, Philip, 459-461 
 
 Rathbone, S. G., 59, 62, 86-88, 107- 
 109, 211, 221 ; interest in 
 licensing laws, 251-252, 254- 
 260 ; life work, 458-459 (see 
 also Correspondence) 
 
 Rathbone, William, of Gawsworth, 
 and Martha, his wife, I, 5 
 
 Rathbone, William (1696-1746), 
 founder of the firm, 1-5 
 
 Rathbone, William (1726-1789), 
 
 5-9 
 
 Rathbone, William (1757-1809), 
 9-145 religion and politics, 14- 
 16 ; extracts from correspond- 
 ence, 16-27 5 expulsion from 
 Society of Friends, 28 - 30 5 
 Reform success, 31-32 ; Ameri- 
 can war, 33 ; illness and death, 
 34 ; character, 35-36 
 
 Rathbone, William (1787-1868), 
 marriage, 39 ; severance from 
 Quakers, 41 ; Reform elections, 
 42-47 ; Mayor of Liverpool, 
 48 ; religious instruction in 
 elementary schools, 48-51; 
 illness and death, 52-53, 210, 
 219 ; referred to, 291-292 (and 
 note), 314; character, etc. 
 39, 40, 42, 52 (see also Corre- 
 spondence) 
 
 Rathbone, William (son of pre- 
 ceding) 
 
 Early life, 55-64; at Heidelberg, 
 71-91, 342, 467 ; with Baring 
 Bros., 94-95 ; visits to America, 
 95-102, 131-139 ; in his father's 
 business, 105; business methods, 
 114-120; principles of ex- 
 penditure, 121-130, 466 ; mar- 
 riage to Miss Gair, 131 ; work 
 for District Provident Society, 
 139-141 ; local elections, 142- 
 145 ; Crimean War Commis- 
 sion, 146-152, 245; stay at 
 Cumloden, 153-154; death of 
 his wife, 155 ; second marriage, 
 187; CottonFamineRelief Fund,
 
 INDEX 
 
 505 
 
 188-191 ; American Civil War, 
 views on, 191-193 ; Alabama 
 question, 195, 197-204; part 
 taken in Gladstone's elections, 
 205-206,213-215; correspond- 
 ence with Gladstone on Reform 
 Bill of 1866, 206-210; deaths 
 of father, mother, and child, 
 210-211; parliamentary can- 
 didature and election, 211-213, 
 214-215, 222-223; annual 
 meetings held while M.P., 
 217-222, 225-226; work on 
 local government and taxation, 
 234-251 ; licensing laws, 251- 
 263 ; views on Home Rule, 
 291-296 ; candidature for West 
 Lancashire, 285-288, 304-317, 
 323 - 324 ; holiday on the 
 Continent, 319-320; elected 
 for Carnarvonshire, 320-321 ; 
 work on University College, 
 Liverpool, 325 - 346 ; North 
 Wales College, 346-357 ; views, 
 etc., on education, 356-362 ; 
 Social Duties, 365 - 370 ; 
 charity organisations, 370-384; 
 casual labour, 384-394; parlia- 
 mentary work (1881-1895), 
 377-425 ; member for Arfon, 
 412,422; address and presenta- 
 tion by Welsh constituents, 
 423-425; retirement from 
 Parliament, 425, 457 ; old age, 
 453-465, 478 ; public tributes, 
 465-471 ; degree conferred on, 
 466-468 ; friendships, 475 ; 
 illness in 1900, 480-481; 
 last illness and death, 482-491 ; 
 religious views, 65-70, 135, 
 321, 322, 427-435, 449-452 5 
 character, 109-120, 395-396, 
 466-474 ; political work and 
 characteristics, 264, 265-268, 
 289-290; brief retrospect, 491- 
 493 (see a/so Nursing, Corre- 
 spondence, North Wales Col- 
 lege, etc.) 
 
 Reay, Lord (Baron Mackey), 248 
 Redistribution Bill (see Bills) 
 
 Reform Bill (see Bills) 
 
 Reform Club, Liverpool, 316, 407, 
 468, 478 
 
 Registration Bill (see Bills) 
 
 Reichel, Principal, 362 (note), 425 
 
 Religion and Churches 
 
 Practical Christianity, 277-281; 
 Unitarian Christianity,427-433; 
 Quaker influence, 433-435; 
 churches and the people, 135- 
 J 3^> 435-44 1 ; Missionary 
 Fellowships, 441-443, 444; 
 Disestablishment, 444 - 448 ; 
 Domestic Missions, 435, 448- 
 449 ; personal religion, 449- 
 452 
 
 Rendall, Professor G., 343 (note) 
 
 Reynolds, Hannah Mary, 1 1 
 
 Reynolds, Richard, the philanthro- 
 pist, 1 1 
 
 Rhodes, Cecil, 340 
 
 Richmond, Duke of, 18 
 
 Richmond Hall Liberal Club, 
 236 
 
 Rigge, Mr., 142 
 
 Ripon, Lord, 315 
 
 Rivington Pike scheme, 50 
 
 Roberts, John, 351 
 
 Robinson, Mr., 43 
 
 Robinson, Nurse Mary, 156-158, 
 161 
 
 Roger Lyon Jones Trust, 335 
 
 Rome, 91, 92 
 
 Ronald, Mr., 142 
 
 Roscoe, William, 10, 12-13, 14, 
 19 ; returned to Parliament, 
 
 3I-3 2 , 219 
 
 Rosebery, Lady, 180 (note) 
 Royal Infirmary, Liverpool (see 
 
 Training School under Nursing) 
 Rushton, Edward, 13, 46 
 Russell, Lord, 102, 193, 194, 198- 
 
 199, 202 
 Rutter, Dr., 5-7 
 
 St. Domingo House, 467 
 
 St. John of Jerusalem, Order of, 
 
 74 
 
 St. John's House Nursing Institution, 
 158
 
 506 
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE 
 
 St. Katharine's Royal Hospital, 18 1 
 (and note) 
 
 St. Thomas's Hospital, 158, 170 
 
 Salona, 320 
 
 Samuelson, Alderman, 460 
 
 Sandon, Lord, 222, 223, 264, 277, 
 310, 318 
 
 Savannah, 132-134 
 
 Savings Bank, 271 
 
 Schloesser, C. F., 71 (and note), 74- 
 75, 76, 78, 79, 82, 83-84, 86 
 
 School Board, Liverpool, S. G. Rath- 
 bone's connection with, 458-459 
 
 School of Medicine, Liverpool, 327 
 
 Schools, Irish National School system, 
 48, 50 ; religious instruction in 
 elementary, 48-51 
 
 Scoresby, Mr., 77 
 
 Scottish Poor Law Board, 246 
 
 Sefton, Lord, 286, 307, 315 
 
 Sefton Park, 488 
 
 Select Vestry, Liverpool, 363-364, 
 
 379. 3 8 
 Selwin-Ibbetson's Beerhouse Act of 
 
 1869, 256 
 Semmes, Captain, of the Alabama, 
 
 199 
 
 Sephton, Rev. J., 327 (note) 
 Shackleton, Abraham, 14 
 Shanghai, 120 
 Sharman, Colonel, 18 
 Shaw, Mr., 294 
 Shepherd, Dr., 14 
 Shipping, before steam-ships, 63-64 ; 
 
 Merchant Shipping Laws, 264- 
 
 265 
 
 Shrewsbury, 425 
 
 Shuttleworth, Sir James Kay, 189 
 Sieveking, Dr., 175 (note) 
 Slavery and abolition, 8-9, 27, 32, 
 
 93. 97. J 3 6 > !37-i3 8 > 1 9, 
 
 192 
 
 Smith, J. P. G., 145 
 Smith, Samuel, 319, 335 
 Smith, W. H., 409 
 Smyth and Co., Ross T., 118, 120, 
 
 374,462 
 Social Duties : considered in Reference 
 
 to the Organisation of Effort in 
 
 Worki of Benevolence and Public 
 
 Utility ; by a Man of Business, 
 365 (and note), 370 
 
 Solicitor and Attorney Bill (see Bills) 
 
 Soult, Marshal, 48 
 
 South Africa, 398 ; independence of 
 the Transvaal, 406-408 ; Glad- 
 stone's policy, 478-479 
 
 Southport, 31 1 
 
 South-West Lancashire contest, 285- 
 288, 304-317, 323 
 
 Speculation, Mr. Rathbone's views 
 on, 1 1 6-1 1 8 
 
 Speculative Society, 20 
 
 Stansfeld, Sir James, 60, 175 (note), 
 244, 271, 37 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, 10 
 
 Strangford, Lady, 175 
 
 Stuttgart, 91 
 
 " Success," address by Mr. Rathbone, 
 41 1-412 
 
 Suez Canal, 41 1 
 
 Suffrage, 18-19 
 
 Sumner, Mr., 202-204 
 
 Sussex, confusion of rates and areas 
 in, 242 
 
 Sylvester of Derby, 38 
 
 Tait, Archbishop, 270 
 
 Tate, Sir Henry, 359, 360, 361, 425- 
 
 426, 462, 465 
 Taxation, local, 234-251 
 Taylor, Sedley, 387 
 Thebes, 320 
 j Thiers, M., 76, 282 
 i Thorn, Rev. John Hamilton, religious 
 
 influence of, 65-70 ; marriage 
 
 to Hannah Mary Rathbone, 70 ; 
 
 referred to, 87, 90 ; influence 
 
 on Mr. Rathbone, 427, 430 ; 
 
 doctrinal belief of, 428 - 430 ; 
 
 Trust Fund, 443 (note 2) 
 Thompson, Henry Yates, 205 
 Thornely, Thomas, 10-11 
 Tiedemann, Friedrich, 77 (and note) 
 Times, the, letter to, on licensing, 
 
 255-260 
 
 Tomlinson, Miss, 58 
 Torr, Mr., 297 
 
 Town Council, Liverpool, 460 
 Toxteth, 239, 375 ; Cemetery, 491
 
 INDEX 
 
 507 
 
 Toxteth Park, 241 
 Trade 
 
 Affected by Orders in Council, 
 
 32-335 Eastern, 31; Trades 
 
 Unions, 234 
 Trail, Dr., 77 
 Training School of Nurses (see under 
 
 Nursing) 
 Transvaal, independence of, 406-408, 
 
 410, 478-479 
 Treborth, 403 
 Trevelyan, 281 
 Trieste, 319 
 
 Tuckerman, Dr. Joseph, 62, 69 
 Tugendbund, the, 60 
 Tuke, James, 408-410 
 Tulloch, Sir Alexander M., 146-152 
 Tunnicliffe, Dr., 481 (note) 
 Turner, Charles, 142, 143, 144 
 Tyrol, the, 319 
 
 Unitarian Chapel, Liverpool, 65, 70 
 Unitarianism (see Religion) 
 University College, Liverpool, 316, 
 
 39, 325-346, 355-357, 374, 
 
 462, 468, 475 
 University of London, 327 
 University of Wales (see North Wales 
 
 College) 
 
 Victoria, Queen, personal interest in 
 nursing, 179-182 (see also Queen 
 Victoria Jubilee Institute) 
 
 Victoria University, 341, 355, 466- 
 468 
 
 Vigour, Martha, I 
 
 Voelker, Mr., 59, 60-6 1, 77 
 
 Voltaire, 277 
 
 Voting, mode of, 18-19 
 
 Wales 
 
 Growth of Welsh national feel- 
 
 ing, 422-423 j Disestablishment 
 question, 445-448 ; number of 
 Welshmen in Liverpool, 321 ; 
 Welsh characteristics, 322-323 ; 
 Welsh Intermediate Education 
 Act, 400, 402-406 (see also North 
 Wales College) 
 
 Walton, i 
 
 Warr, A. F., 475 
 
 Washington, Booker, 486 
 
 "Waste not, Want not," 384 
 
 Wealth and expenditure, Mr. Rath- 
 bone's views on, 121-130, 466 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 101 
 
 Wedderburn, Sir W., 271 
 
 Wedgwood, 14 
 
 West Derby Union, 241-242 
 
 West Kirby, 443 (and note 2) 
 
 Westminster, Duke of, 174, 180 
 
 Wetsell, 78, 85 
 
 Whitbread, Samuel, 245, 248, 250, 
 275, 409 
 
 White, Blanco, 52 
 
 Whitewashing (or Chelsea) Com- 
 mission, 148 
 
 Whitley, Edward, 297, 310, 335 
 
 Whittaker, Mr., 119 
 
 Wilkins, Professor, eulogy of Mr. 
 Rathbone, 467-468 
 
 Williams, D. P. and R. D., 426 
 (note) 
 
 Williams, Watkin, 320 
 
 Winter, Mr., 77 
 
 Woodcroft Cottage, 36 
 
 Woolton, 260 j Convalescent Home, 
 462, 477 
 
 Wordsworth quoted, 456 
 
 Workhouse Nursing : the Story of a 
 Successful Experiment, 168 (note) 
 
 Worthington, James, 60, 107 
 
 Wright, Sir R. S., 231, 232-233,234, 
 248-249, 251, 273, 275, 392, 
 414 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
 
 WAN JUN 
 
 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 16:32 
 
 To: ECL4BAT 
 
 Subject: SRLF PAGING REQUEST 
 
 Deliver to : UCSD CENTRAL 
 Shelving tt : A 000 737 716 
 
 Item Information 
 
 Rathbone> Eleanor F. (Eleai 
 William Rathbone : a memoii 
 Item : 
 ORION # : 46568 16MC 
 
 Requester Information 
 Unit : UNKNOWN 
 Terminal : 
 
 User Information 
 
 Name SCULL, ANDREW 
 
 Lib card 
 
 Phone 
 
 Address 
 
 NONE 
 
 ILL - BORROWING
 
 A fin r\ -jni-f '" "'" "" "