Daniel Whittle Harvey (10 January 1786 – 24 February 1863) was a Radical English politician who founded

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

newspaper and was the first Commissioner of the City of London Police. Harvey trained as a lawyer, and became a Fellow of the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and ...

in 1818, but was twice refused admission to the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

. He first stood for Parliament in 1812 as Radical candidate for

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

, and was defeated, but secured election for the same borough in 1818. At the 1820 election he was deprived of victory when his qualification proved defective, but he was re-elected in 1826 and for several elections thereafter; he subsequently also represented Southwark. He was a gifted orator and consistently took a moderate radical line, advocating limited reform both of Parliament and of the

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, and was at times bitterly at odds with the Whig government. In 1839 he was one of the MPs who took part in the conference with

William Lovett William Lovett (8 May 1800 – 8 August 1877) was a British activist and leader of the Chartist political movement. He was one of the leading London-based artisan radicals of his generation. A proponent of the idea that political rights could ...

's London Working Men's Association from which the

Chartists Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, ...

emerged. In 1821, Harvey founded a Sunday newspaper, ''The New Observer'', which the following year adopted its present title, ''

''. On one occasion he was imprisoned when the paper libelled the King,

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

. In 1839, he was appointed Registrar of the Metropolitan Public Carriages, becoming the chief regulator of the

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choic ...

trade in London. Later the same year, the City of London Police was re-organised, and Harvey relinquished his seat in Parliament to become its first Commissioner; he retained the post until 1863.

References

* Concise Dictionary of National Biography * F W S Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885" (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
Victoria County History of Essex, online at www.british-history.ac.uk
*

External links

* * 1786 births 1863 deaths Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies UK MPs 1818–1820 UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1830–1831 UK MPs 1831–1832 UK MPs 1832–1835 UK MPs 1835–1837 UK MPs 1837–1841 Commissioners of the City of London Police {{England-UK-MP-stub