THE WILLEY SQUIRE MEMBER FOR WENLOCK.
The Willey Squire recognises the Duties of his Position, and becomes
Member for Wenlock—Addison’s View of Whig Jockeys and Tory
Fox-hunters—State of Parties—Pitt in Power—“Fiddle-Faddle”—Local
Improvements—The Squire Mayor of Wenlock—The Mace now carried before the
Chief Magistrate.
THERE is an old English maxim that “too much of anything is good for
nothing;” the obvious meaning being that a man should not addict himself
over much to any one pursuit; and it is only justice to the Willey Squire
that it should be fully understood that whilst passionately fond of the
pleasures of the chase, he was not unmindful of the duties of his
position. Willey was the centre of the sporting country we have
described; but it was also contiguous to a district remarkable for its
manufacturing activity—for its iron works, its pot works, and its brick
works, the proprietors of which, no less than the agricultural portion of
the population, felt that they had an interest in questions of
legislation. Mr. Forester considered that whatever concerned his
neighbourhood and his country concerned him, and his influence and
popularity in the borough led to his taking upon himself the duty of
representing it in Parliament. There was about the temper of the times
something more suited to the temperament of a country gentleman than at
present, and a member of Parliament was less bound to his constituents.
His duties as a representative sat much more lightly, whilst the
pugnacious elements of the nation generally were such that when Mr.
Forester entered upon public life there was nearly as much excitement in
the House of Commons—and not unlike in kind—as was to be found in the
cockpit or the hunting-field.
As long as Mr. Forester could remember, parties had been as sharply
defined as at present, and men were as industriously taught to believe
that whatever ranged itself under one form of faith was praiseworthy,
whilst everything on the other side was to be condemned. Addison, in his
usually happy style, had already described this state of things in the
_Spectator_, where he says:—
“This humour fills the country with several periodical meetings of
Whig jockeys and Tory fox-hunters; not to mention the innumerable
curses, frowns, and whispers it produces at a quarter sessions. . . .
In all our journey from London to this house we did not so much as
bait at a Whig inn; or if by chance the coachman stopped at a wrong
place, one of Sir Roger’s servants would ride up to his master full
speed, and whisper to him that the master of the house was against
such an one in the last election. This often betrayed us into hard
beds and bad cheer, for we were not so inquisitive about the inn as
the innkeeper; and, provided our landlord’s principles were sound,
did not take any notice of the staleness of the provisions.”
So that Whig and Tory had even then long been names representing those
principles by which the Constitution was balanced, names representing
those popular and monarchical ingredients which it was supposed assured
liberty and order, progress and stability. But about the commencement of
Mr. Forester’s parliamentary career parties had been in a great measure
broken up into sections, if not into factions—into Pelhamites,
Cobhamites, Foxites, Pittites, and Wilkites—the questions uppermost being
place, power, and distinction, ministry and opposition—the Ins and the
Outs. The Ins, when Whigs, pretty much as now, adopted Tory principles,
and Tories in opposition appealed to popular favour for support; indeed
from the fall of Walpole to the American war, as now, there were few
statesmen who were not by turns the colleagues and the adversaries, the
friends and the foes of their contemporaries. The general pulse, it is
true, beat more feverishly, and men went to Parliament or into battle as
readily as to the hunting-field—for the excitement of the thing. To
epitomise, mighty armies, such as Europe had not seen since the days of
Marlborough, were moving in every direction. Four hundred and fifty-two
thousand men were gathering to crush the Prince of a German state, with
one hundred and fifty thousand men in the field to encounter them. The
English and Hanoverian army, under the Duke of Cumberland, was relied
upon to prevent the French attacking Prussia, with whom we had formed an
alliance. England felt an intense interest in the struggle, and bets
were made as to the result. Mr. Forester was returned to the new
Parliament, which met in December, 1757, in time, we believe, to vote for
the subsidy of £670,000 asked for by the king for his “good brother and
ally,” the King of Prussia. A minister like Pitt, who was then inspiring
the people with his spirit, and raising the martial ardour of the nation
to a pitch it had never known before, who drew such pictures of England’s
power and pluck as to cause the French envoy to jump out of the window,
was a man after the Squire’s own heart, and he gave him his hearty “aye,”
to subsidy after subsidy. As a contemporary satirist wrote:—
“No more they make a fiddle-faddle
About a Hessian horse or saddle.
No more of continental measures;
No more of wasting British treasures.
Ten millions, and a vote of credit.
’Tis right. He can’t be wrong who did it.”
Mr. Forester gave way to Cecil Forester, a few months prior to the
marriage of the King to the Princess Charlotte; but was returned again,
in 1768, with Sir Henry Bridgeman, and sat till 1774, during what has
been called the “Unreported Parliament.” He was returned in October of
the same year with the same gentleman. He was also returned to the new
Parliament in 1780, succeeding Mr. Whitmore, who, having been returned
for Wenlock and Bridgnorth, elected to sit for the latter; and he sat
till 1784. Sir H. Bridgeman and John Simpson, Esq., were then returned,
and sat till the following year; when Mr. Simpson accepted the Chiltern
Hundreds, and Mr. Forester, being again solicited to represent the
interests of the borough, was returned, and continued to sit until the
sixteenth Parliament of Great Britain, having nearly completed its full
term of seven years, was dissolved, soon after its prorogation in June,
1790.
[Picture: The First Iron Bridge]
It is not our intention to comment upon the votes given by the Squire in
his place in Parliament during the thirty years he sat in the House;
suffice it to say, that we believe he gave an honest support to measures
which came before the country, and that he was neither bought nor bribed,
as many members of that period were. He was active in getting the
sanction of Parliament for local improvements, for the construction of a
towing-path along the Severn, and for the present handsome iron
bridge—the first of its kind—over it, to connect the districts of
Broseley and Madeley. On retiring from the office of chief magistrate of
the borough, which he filled for some years, he presented to the
corporation the handsome mace now in use, which bears the following
inscription:—
“The gift of George Forester of Willey, Esq., to the Bailiff,
Burgesses, and Commonalty of the Borough of Wenlock, as a token of
his high esteem and regard for the attachment and respect they
manifested towards him during the many years he represented the
borough in Parliament, and served the office of Chief Magistrate and
Justice thereof.”