Sir Edward Baines (28 May 1800 – 2 March 1890), also known as Edward Baines Jr, was a nonconformist English newspaper editor and Member of Parliament (MP).

Biography

Edward Baines, of St Ann's Hill,

Leeds Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the thi ...

, was the second son (and biographer) of Edward Baines (1774–1848), proprietor of the ''

Leeds Mercury The ''Leeds Mercury'' was a newspaper published in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was published from 1718 to 1755 and again from 1767. Initially it consisted of 12 pages and cost three halfpennies. In 1794 it had a circulation of about 3,00 ...

'' and MP for Leeds in the 1830s, and his wife Charlotte Talbot. His elder brother, Matthew Talbot Baines, was also a politician. Edward Baines junior was educated at a Leeds private school and then at a

dissenting academy The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries (often institutions with aspects of all three) run by English Dissenters, that is, those who did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a significant part of England's edu ...

– the Leaf Square grammar school at Pendleton, near Manchester, (the obituary in the ''Leeds Mercury'' is unreliable: for example his views on the educational clauses of the 1843 Factory Bill are "remembered with advantages" to the extent that it is specifically denied that he ever held them.) alongside his lifelong friend John Peele Clapham. From 1815 he worked as a journalist on the ''Leeds Mercury'' (in which capacity he was an eye-witness of the

Peterloo massacre The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Fifteen people died when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliam ...

), becoming a junior editor c 1820 and a partner in the business in 1827. He became sole editor when his father was elected to Parliament in 1834, and, after his father's death in 1848, proprietor of the ''Leeds Mercury''. He served as Liberal MP for

from 1859 to 1874. He was knighted in 1880. A political Liberal, he supported the

1832 Reform Act The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major changes to the elec ...

and the 1834 new poor laws; he was an advocate of repeal of the

corn laws The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They wer ...

and of the separation of church and state. He was an opponent of the factory reform movement and responsible for the ''Mercury''s rejection of

Richard Oastler Richard Oastler (20 December 1789 – 22 August 1861) was a "Tory radical", an active opponent of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform and a lifelong admirer of the Duke of Wellington; but also an abolitionist and prominent in the ...

's letters to it on the subject. A staunch Dissenter, he opposed state-sponsored education (because it was unthinkable that education should be purely secular, but also unconscionable that the state should have any involvement with religious instruction). In 1843 he wrote in the ''Mercury'' that education was something individuals could do for themselves "under the guidance of natural instinct and self-interest, infinitely better than Government could do for them". Hence "''All Government interference to'' COMPEL ''Education is wrong''" and had unacceptable implications: "If Government has a right to compel Education, it has right to ''compel'' RELIGION !" He withdrew his opposition in the 1860s, when he reluctantly conceded the inadequacy of efforts for the voluntary provision of education. In the 1860s he repeatedly introduced bills to widen the franchise; all were defeated. Baines helped to found the Leeds Literary and Philosophical Society. He was also a prominent advocate of working-class adult education, founding Yorkshire Mechanics' Institutes in imitation of

George Birkbeck George Birkbeck FRS (; 10 January 1776 – 1 December 1841) was a British physician, academic, philanthropist, pioneer in adult education and a professor of natural philosophy at the Andersonian Institute. He is the founder of Birkbeck, Univers ...

's London mechanics' institute. Contributions of his on the cotton industry to his father's History of Lancashire were praised by reviewers; at their suggestion his ''History of the Cotton Manufacture'' was published separately with much additional material (1835). He celebrated the natural position and the political advantages of English commerce and manufacturing districts, and especially of the English navy which "held the sovereignty of the ocean, and under its protection the commerce of this country extended beyond all former bounds, and established a firm connexion between the manufacturers of Lancashire and their customers in the most distant lands." Baines also wrote a number of more polemical works; e.g. criticisms of

Owenism Owenism is the utopian socialist philosophy of 19th-century social reformer Robert Owen and his followers and successors, who are known as Owenites. Owenism aimed for radical reform of society and is considered a forerunner of the cooperative m ...

. In 1840 he attended the

World's Anti-Slavery Convention The World Anti-Slavery Convention met for the first time at Exeter Hall in London, on 12–23 June 1840. It was organised by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, largely on the initiative of the English Quaker Joseph Sturge. The exclus ...

where he was captured in a group painting.The Anti-Slavery Society Convention
1840,

Benjamin Robert Haydon Benjamin Robert Haydon (; 26 January 178622 June 1846) was a British painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactles ...

, accessed April 2009 He married Martha Blackburn in 1829. Baines died on 2 March 1890 in Leeds, and was interred in the family vault at

Woodhouse Cemetery The Leeds General Cemetery (also known as Woodhouse Cemetery, Woodhouse Lane Cemetery and, since its closure in 1969, St George's Fields) is a former cemetery in Woodhouse, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is now within the campus of the U ...

Works

* * * * * * *

References

Sources

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baines, Edward 1800 births 1890 deaths Church of England disestablishment Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Politicians from Leeds English newspaper editors English male journalists UK MPs 1859–1865 UK MPs 1865–1868 UK MPs 1868–1874 19th-century British journalists

Biography

Works

See also

References

Sources

External links