Sir William Henry Hornby, 1st Baronet, (29 August 1841 – 22 October 1928), usually known as Harry Hornby, was an English industrialist and

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

politician from

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

in Lancashire. He sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

from 1886 to 1910 but is notable for never speaking, or attempting to speak, in Parliament throughout his 24-year career there.

Family and early life

Hornby was the fourth son of William Henry Hornby, who had been Mayor of

and also served as Member of Parliament for the town; his younger brother was 'Monkey' Hornby, the Lancashire and England cricket captain. He had little interest himself in a political career but was proud of his family's record and noted the affection many in the local community felt for them. He was persuaded to enter politics as a member of the School Board when selected by the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

in 1871, and was subsequently voted chairman unanimously. In 1873 he was elected to the Town Council with a majority of one vote, prompting the Church to ring its bells. The year 1876 was 25th anniversary of Blackburn's incorporation and Hornby, as the son of the first Mayor, was persuaded to accept the office to mark the occasion. He resigned from the council in 1880 when his lack of electioneering was questioned.

Parliament

At the 1886 general election, Hornby was selected as the Conservative candidate without formality and with his confession that he had not wished to stand. Nevertheless, he was elected. Hornby was acutely aware that he was no good at making speeches, and was reluctant even to speak in Blackburn even though the townsfolk understood and accepted his difficulty. He was re-elected in subsequent general elections, winning more votes than his running-mate in the two-member constituency. In November 1896 Hornby wrote to the Conservative leader in Blackburn offering his resignation; as a result a delegation was organised to persuade him to change his mind. Some suspected that the fact that the other Blackburn MP

William Coddington William Coddington (c. 1601 – 1 November 1678) was an early magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He served as the judge of Portsmouth and Newport, governor of Portsmouth ...

had recently been awarded a

Baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

cy may have influenced Hornby's decision, and pressure was put on the Prime Minister to follow up. In the New Year's Honours list of 1899, Hornby was himself created a Baronet; flags were hung around the town's public buildings to mark the award. In November 1901 Hornby was also elected Mayor of Blackburn for the following year. He was elected a

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(FZS) in July 1902.

1906 election

During the split in the Unionists over Tariff Reform, Hornby was among the minority in being a strong supporter of Free Trade although he belonged to no Free Trade organisation. For the first time at the 1906 general election, Hornby's record came under sustained criticism for the first time in his life. He responded by uncharacteristically making speeches vigorously defending himself; unfamiliar as he was, he took to offering large sums of money in challenges to rebut personal attacks on him. Against Hornby and another Conservative Free Trader stood the future Chancellor of the Exchequer

Philip Snowden Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden, PC (; 18 July 1864 – 15 May 1937) was a British politician. A strong speaker, he became popular in trade union circles for his denunciation of capitalism as unethical and his promise of a socialist utop ...

as a Labour candidate, and Edwin Hamer as a Liberal, running in effect a joint campaign. The election was very close but the fact that 822 voters used their two votes for Hornby and Snowden, while 624 voted for Hornby and Hamer, ensured that Hornby was again returned at the head of the poll. Snowden took the second seat. Hornby definitely announced in 1908 that he would not stand again because he was becoming deaf, and felt depressed by life in the House of Commons where many of his old friends had lost their seats.P. F. Clarke, "British Politics and Blackburn Politics, 1900–1910", ''Historical Journal'', vol 12 no 2 (1969) pp. 317.

References

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hornby, Harry 1841 births 1928 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Deputy Lieutenants of Lancashire UK MPs 1886–1892 UK MPs 1892–1895 UK MPs 1895–1900 UK MPs 1900–1906 UK MPs 1906–1910 Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Politics of Blackburn with Darwen