William Harris (Birmingham Liberal)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

William Harris (1826 – 25 March 1911) was a Liberal politician and strategist in Birmingham, England, in an era of dramatic municipal reform. On his death, he was described by one obituary-writer as "one of the founders of modern Birmingham".
J. L. Garvin James Louis Garvin CH (12 April 1868 – 23 January 1947) was a British journalist, editor, and author. In 1908, Garvin agreed to take over the editorship of the Sunday newspaper ''The Observer'', revolutionising Sunday journalism and restori ...
called him "the Abbé Sieyès of Birmingham" (in allusion to one of the chief political theorists of the French Revolutionary era); and
Asa Briggs Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (7 May 1921 – 15 March 2016) was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his lon ...
"a most active and intelligent wire-puller behind the scenes". He was dubbed the "father of the
Caucus A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures. The term originated in the United States, where it can refer to a meeting ...
", the highly organised and controversial Liberal party machine that had its origins in Birmingham, but was afterwards introduced at national level to the National Liberal Federation. He served as the first Chairman of the National Liberal Federation from 1877 to 1882. By profession he was an architect and surveyor; and he was also a prolific journalist and author.


Early life

William Harris was born in 1826 in Cheadle, Staffordshire, the son of Joseph Harris and his wife Elizabeth, Swindell. His parents' liaison had met with the disapproval of their families, and they had
eloped Elopement is a term that is used in reference to a marriage which is conducted in a sudden and secretive fashion, usually involving a hurried flight away from one's place of residence together with one's beloved with the intention of getting ma ...
together in 1822, to be married at Gretna Green. William moved to Birmingham when young, and was educated at Rose Hill School, Handsworth.


Architectural career

Harris was articled to a Birmingham architect, Isaac Newey, at the age of 15. On completion of his articles in 1847, he established his own architectural practice. He was the first architect in Birmingham to practise as a quantity surveyor, and came to specialise in this branch of the profession.Anon. 1911, pp. 62–3. In the late 1850s, he entered into a professional partnership with John Henry Chamberlain: it was short-lived, but the two remained friends, and in later life Harris would marry (as his second wife) Chamberlain's widow. In 1876 he began a partnership with Henry Martin, and in 1879 these two were joined by Harris's son, Arnold Elsmere Harris (1854–1929), the firm subsequently practising as Harris, Martin and Harris.Anon. 1911, p. 63. Notable commissions included: in 1878–79, 24 Priory Road, Edgbaston, a house for J. T. Bunce; in 1888, the Rolfe Street public baths,
Smethwick Smethwick () is an industrial town in Sandwell, West Midlands, England. It lies west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire. In 2019, the ward of Smethwick had an estimated population of 15,246, while the wider bu ...
, now re-erected at the Black Country Living Museum; in 1881–84, an extension to the headquarters building of the
Birmingham Banking Company The Birmingham Banking Company was a bank that operated in Birmingham, West Midlands from 1829 to 1889, and as The Metropolitan and Birmingham Bank from 1889 to 1892, the Metropolitan, Birmingham and South Wales Bank from 1892 to 1893, and the Me ...
in
Bennetts Hill Bennetts Hill is a street in the Core area of Birmingham City Centre, United Kingdom. It runs from New Street, uphill to Colmore Row, crossing Waterloo Street in the process. It is within the Colmore Row conservation area. History Bennetts ...
, Birmingham; and, for the same company in 1883, the "Old Bank" (now a branch of
HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...
) in
Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
, which was decorated with 15 terracotta panels of Shakespearean scenes by Samuel Barfield (1830–1887) of Leicester. The Old Bank is described by Chris Pickford for the Pevsner Architectural Guides as "Stratford's best Victorian building". Martin left the partnership in 1889, and William Harris retired in 1895. Combining his professional expertise with his enthusiasm for municipal reform, Harris served from 1877 to 1908 as clerk to the Birmingham, Tame and Rea District Drainage Board, at a time of major investment and improvement in the infrastructure of drainage and sewage disposal in Birmingham. He was a founder-member of the Birmingham Architectural Society in 1850, and was afterwards active in its affairs. File:24 Priory Rd 1.jpg, 24 Priory Road, Edgbaston, built 1878–79 File:Birm Banking Co extension.jpg, Extension to the
Birmingham Banking Company The Birmingham Banking Company was a bank that operated in Birmingham, West Midlands from 1829 to 1889, and as The Metropolitan and Birmingham Bank from 1889 to 1892, the Metropolitan, Birmingham and South Wales Bank from 1892 to 1893, and the Me ...
building,
Bennetts Hill Bennetts Hill is a street in the Core area of Birmingham City Centre, United Kingdom. It runs from New Street, uphill to Colmore Row, crossing Waterloo Street in the process. It is within the Colmore Row conservation area. History Bennetts ...
, Birmingham, built 1881–84 File:Old Bank Stratford.jpg, The "Old Bank",
Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
, built 1883 File:Rolfe St baths BCLM 1.jpg, Rolfe Street public baths,
Smethwick Smethwick () is an industrial town in Sandwell, West Midlands, England. It lies west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire. In 2019, the ward of Smethwick had an estimated population of 15,246, while the wider bu ...
, built 1888: now re-erected at the Black Country Living Museum


Politics

As a young man, Harris was greatly impressed by the charismatic nonconformist minister,
George Dawson George Dawson may refer to: Politicians * George Dawson (Northern Ireland politician) (1961–2007), Northern Ireland politician * George Walker Wesley Dawson (1858–1936), Canadian politician * George Oscar Dawson (1825–1865), Georgia politic ...
, who preached the doctrine of social improvement and enlightened municipal reform subsequently known as the "
Civic Gospel The Civic Gospel was a philosophy of municipal activism and improvement that emerged in Birmingham, England, in the mid-19th century. Tracing its origins to the teaching of independent nonconformist preacher George Dawson, who declared that "a to ...
". He became a founder-member of Dawson's non-denominational chapel, the Church of the Saviour, in 1847, where fellow-members included George Dixon, J. T. Bunce, J. A. Langford,
Robert Martineau Robert Arnold Schürhoff Martineau (22 August 1913 – 28 June 1999) was a British bishop who was the first Bishop of Huntingdon and who was later translated to Blackburn. Born in Birmingham and educated at King Edward's School ''Who Was Who ...
,
Samuel Timmins Samuel Timmins (27 February 1826 – 12 November 1902) was a British Shakespearean scholar and antiquarian. He was invariably known as Sam Timmins, and signed himself "Sam: Timmins", using a colon for abbreviation in early modern style. He ...
,
A. Follett Osler Abraham Follett Osler (22 March 1808 – 26 April 1903), known as A. Follett Osler, was a pioneer in the measurement of meteorological and chronological data in Birmingham, England. Early life He attended Hazelwood School on Hagley Road, Bi ...
, and Joseph Chamberlain. With many of these same individuals, he honed his political and reformist ideas at meetings of the Birmingham and Edgbaston Debating Society, of which he served as President in 1864–5.Anon. 1911, p. 69. He spoke publicly in support of
Lajos Kossuth Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (, hu, udvardi és kossuthfalvi Kossuth Lajos, sk, Ľudovít Košút, anglicised as Louis Kossuth; 19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, poli ...
and the nationalist cause in Hungary, Garibaldi's republican struggle in Italy, and the liberation movement in Poland; and in criticism of the British government's conduct of the Crimean War. In 1865 he became a founder-member of the Birmingham Liberal Association. After George Dixon, the first secretary, was elected to parliament in a by-election in 1867, Harris succeeded him as secretary in 1868, and oversaw the Association's reorganisation in preparation for the general election of that year. He remained secretary until 1873, when he was succeeded in turn by Francis Schnadhorst. He subsequently held office as the Association's Vice-President and President, finally retiring from the latter position, for reasons of ill-health, in 1882. Also in 1865, he was himself elected to
Birmingham Town Council Birmingham City Council is the local government body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local council area in the United Kingdom (e ...
, representing the united wards of Deritend and Bordesley. In the autumn of 1869 he headed the deputation that persuaded Joseph Chamberlain to stand for the Council, so launching the latter on a stellar political career. However, in 1871, when addressing a Council meeting, Harris suffered a minor paralytic stroke. Although he made a full recovery, he was sufficiently concerned about his health to stand down as a councillor, and his own political career thereafter tended to be more that of a backstage manager and strategist. The '' Yorkshire Post'' described him in 1884 as "of so modest and retiring a temperament that he is never seen or heard, and uninitiated people 'do not believe that there is any such person as Mr Harris', although he is the chief wire-puller". He was an ardent campaigner – again, alongside Dawson, Chamberlain, Dixon and others – for a system of free, compulsory, and non-sectarian elementary education. He was joint honorary secretary of the Birmingham branch of the National Public School Association, established in 1850 but short-lived; sat on the committee of the Birmingham Education Society established in 1867; and, when this evolved in 1869 into the
National Education League The National Education League was a political movement in England and Wales which promoted elementary education for all children, free from religious control. The National Education League, founded 1869, developed from the Birmingham Education Lea ...
, continued to be a committee-member and a significant participant until 1877, when the League was wound up and absorbed unto the National Liberal Federation. He tried to adapt his "Vote as you're told" scheme (see The Caucus below) to elections to school boards in 1870; but here the complexity of the voting system defeated him, and his strategies met with only limited success. He was a member of the Arts Club, which existed from 1873 to 1880 for the purpose "of facilitating the daily social intercourse of gentlemen professing Liberal opinions, who are engaged or interested in the public life of Birmingham".


The Caucus

Harris is particularly remembered as the architect of the "Liberal
Caucus A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures. The term originated in the United States, where it can refer to a meeting ...
". Under the
1867 Reform Act The Representation of the People Act 1867, 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102 (known as the Reform Act 1867 or the Second Reform Act) was a piece of British legislation that enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the first ...
, Birmingham had been allocated three seats in the House of Commons, while each elector had two votes to cast. From a party perspective, there was a danger of votes being "wasted" by being cast in unnecessarily large numbers for a single popular candidate (specifically, at this time, John Bright), and of less popular candidates losing out. For the 1868 general election, Harris therefore introduced a new four-tier organisational structure – of ward committees, General Committee, Executive Committee, and Management Committee – by means of which Liberal supporters in different wards could be marshalled to vote for candidates in different combinations, so ensuring an even spread.Cawood 2019–20. The plan – derided by its opponents as "Vote as you're told" – was wholly successful, and all three Liberal candidates were returned to Parliament with little significant difference in their polling figures. The strategy's mathematical basis was analysed in 1884–5 by Charles Dodgson (" Lewis Carroll") in a booklet, ''The Principles of Parliamentary Representation''. Harris himself justified his reforms on democratic grounds, arguing that the party structure "should not only be a reflex of popular opinion, but should be so manifestly a reflex of that opinion that none could doubt it". In recognition of his contribution to the Liberal cause, a subscription list was prepared, and a gift of £240 presented to him in May 1869. In 1877, this local model of organisational control was transferred, in a form modified by Harris, to the newly established National Liberal Federation. Joseph Chamberlain acknowledged that "The whole credit of having initiated and carried out this new machinery belongs to my friend, Mr Harris." At the meeting in Birmingham on 31 May 1877 at which the Federation was launched, Harris delivered a "fiery harangue", again extolling the democratic foundations of the new structure, and arguing that it would henceforth be impossible for the government to ignore the popular will on such topical issues as the " Eastern Question". He was elected the Federation's first Chairman (with Chamberlain as President, and Schnadhorst as Secretary), and held office until 1882, when he stood down for health reasons. It was this rigorously disciplined party machine, further consolidated and emulated elsewhere, that became known to both detractors and supporters as the "Caucus"; and Harris was named the "father of the Caucus".


Liberal Party split

In 1886, Joseph Chamberlain resigned from the Liberal government over
William Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
's proposals for Irish Home Rule. The Birmingham Liberal Association, with the notable exception of Schnadhorst, stood behind Chamberlain. Harris was also among Chamberlain's supporters, but attempted to broker a compromise: he put a resolution to the National Liberal Federation which accepted the principle of a legislative assembly for Ireland, while at the same time asking Gladstone to maintain Irish representation at Westminster. This was defeated, and, with other Birmingham Liberals, Harris resigned from the General Committee of the Federation. However, early in 1888 he transferred his allegiance to the Gladstone camp, and was reinstated. He eventually retired from the committee in 1895.


Writing and cultural activities

Harris was a prolific writer in the radical cause. In 1855, with George Dawson, James Freeman, and others, he helped launch, and then became editor of, a local radical daily newspaper, the ''Birmingham Daily Press''. This was well received, but a commercial failure: it merged with the ''Birmingham Mercury'' in 1857, and ceased publication entirely in November 1858. In 1861, again with other members of the Dawson circle, he became one of the founders of, and an anonymous contributor to, a more successful satirical paper, ''The Town Crier''. This sought, through humour, to compare "municipal government as it was – in incompetent hands – with municipal government as it might be", and "in those days wielded considerable influence in the town".Anon. 1911, p. 70. At the monthly ''Town Crier'' dinners Harris is described as being "amusingly epigrammatic". He afterwards became an active (but still anonymous) leader-writer for the '' Birmingham Daily Post'' under the editorship of his friend, J. T. Bunce. In this capacity, he is described by H. R. G. Whates as an "old Radical warhorse". Even after the 1886–8 split in the Liberal Party had distanced him from many of his former associates, he continued to contribute articles to the ''Post'' on foreign affairs and other topics. In 1848, he became one of a group of friends who met regularly at one another’s houses to discuss philosophical, political and social matters. They called themselves the "Inner Circle", and it became their custom to prepare some written presentation in advance. In 1850, three of the members, Harris, J. A. Langford and Henry Latham, published a volume of poems that had emerged from these sessions, entitled ''Thoughts from the Inner Circle''. In 1885, Harris published a substantial ''History of the Radical Party in Parliament''. Robert Spence Watson wrote in 1907 that this work "ought to be known to every Liberal"; and H. R. G. Whates considered it "still not wholly superseded" in 1957. Harris was prominent on the committee that – following a failed attempt in 1852 – persuaded Birmingham Town Council in 1859 to adopt the
Public Libraries Act Public Libraries Act is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom for legislation ("Acts of Parliament") relating to public libraries. List * The Public Libraries Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict c 65) * The Public Libraries (Ireland) Act 1855 (18 & ...
, paving the way for the opening of the city’s Central Lending and Reference Libraries in 1865–6, and other branch libraries.Anon. 1911, p. 66. He subsequently served from 1868 to 1871 as chairman of the Birmingham Free Libraries Committee. In about 1858, he, Dawson,
Samuel Timmins Samuel Timmins (27 February 1826 – 12 November 1902) was a British Shakespearean scholar and antiquarian. He was invariably known as Sam Timmins, and signed himself "Sam: Timmins", using a colon for abbreviation in early modern style. He ...
, Bunce, J. H. Chamberlain, and others in their circle, began to meet irregularly for literary and cultural discussions: by 1860, these meetings had been regularised into a more formal club, which in 1862 was named "Our Shakespeare Club". Whates calls Our Shakespeare Club "the intellectual centre of the community, ndthe nineteenth century equivalent of the famous Lunar Society". It was largely responsible for the establishment of the Shakespeare Memorial Library within the Central Library building in 1864 (the tercentenary year of Shakespeare's birth). Harris published an official ''History'' of the club in 1903. In 1870, along with J. T. Bunce, he was appointed by the Council to oversee the purchase of pictures and objects for the proposed
Birmingham Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...
. He served on the council of the Birmingham and Midland Institute during the secretaryship of J. H. Chamberlain; and was also a member of the Birmingham Philosophical Society.


Later years and death

The split within the Liberal Party in 1886–8 over Irish Home Rule marked the disintegration of what had been a close-knit circle of like-minded reformers. In 1892, the radical preacher Dr Robert Dale, looking back to the 1870s, mused: Harris sat as a
Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...
in Birmingham from 1880 until 1904, when increasing deafness forced his retirement. He died on 25 March 1911, of
heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...
following an attack of bronchitis, and was buried, alongside his first wife, in Key Hill Cemetery, Hockley.


Personal life

In 1848, Harris married Sarah Elsmere (1824–1885), daughter of Richard Elsmere of
High Ercall High Ercall, also known in the past as Ercall Magna, is a village in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. The civil parish is still called Ercall Magna, and had a total population of 1,679 at the 2001 ce ...
, Shropshire. The couple had six children, of whom a girl and three boys died in infancy, leaving two sons to survive to adulthood: Sydney (1852–1903), and Arnold (1854–1929), who joined his father in his architectural practice.Anon. 1889, p. 85. In 1888, Harris married as his second wife Anna Mary Chamberlain ( Abrahams), the widow of his friend and former professional partner,
J. H. Chamberlain John Henry Chamberlain (21 June 1831 – 22 October 1883), generally known professionally as J. H. Chamberlain, was a British nineteenth-century architect based in Birmingham. Working predominantly in the Victorian Gothic style, he was one o ...
. She survived him.


Publications

* (poetry) * *


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * (6 vols) * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, William 1826 births 1911 deaths Liberal Party (UK) politicians 19th-century English architects People from Cheadle, Staffordshire History of Birmingham, West Midlands Burials at Key Hill Cemetery Architects from Staffordshire Architects from Birmingham, West Midlands Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands Councillors in Birmingham, West Midlands Politicians from Staffordshire