MORE MONEY-MAKING M.P.’S.
LET me, in this chapter, give the first place to Samuel Plimsoll, a man
who, if he made money, spent it nobly, and deserved the peerage far more
than many who have been elected to that honour—at any rate, from the time
the Earl of Beaconsfield became Premier. He was down very low in the
social scale, and it is thus he writes of his noble poverty and of his
companions in misfortune, in that appeal on behalf of our seamen, which
stirred up the community as with the voice of a trumpet, and actually
forced parliament to legislate. “I don’t wish,” he writes, “to disparage
the rich; but I think it may reasonably be doubted whether these
qualities are so fully developed in them” (he had been writing of the
honesty, of the strong aversion to idleness, of the generosity to one
another in adversity, and of the splendid courage of the working
classes); “for notwithstanding that not a few of them are not
unacquainted with the claims, reasonable and unreasonable, of poor
relations, these qualities are not in such constant exercise, and riches
seem, in so many cases, to smother the manliness of their possessors,
that their sympathies become not so much narrowed as, so to speak,
stratified; they are reserved for the sufferings of their own class, and
also the woes of those above them. They seldom tend downwards much, and
they are far more likely to admire an act of high courage, like that of
the engine-driver who saved his passengers lately from an awful collision
by cool courage, than to admire the constantly-exercised fortitude and
the tenderness which are the daily characteristics of a British workman’s
life.
“You may doubt this. I should once have done so myself; but I have
shared their lot; I have lived with them. For months and months I lived
in one of the model lodging-houses, established mainly by the efforts of
Lord Shaftesbury. There is one in Fetter Lane, another in Hatton Garden;
and, indeed, they are scattered all over London. I went there simply
because I could not afford a better lodging. I have had to make seven
shillings and ninepence halfpenny (three shillings of which I paid for my
lodging) last me a whole week, and did it. It is astonishing how little
you can live on when you divest yourself of all fancied needs. I had
plenty of good wheaten bread to eat all the week, and the half of a
herring for a relish (less will do if you can’t afford half, for it is a
splendid fish), and good coffee to drink; and I know how much, or rather
how little, roast shoulder-of-mutton you can get for twopence for your
Sunday’s dinner. Don’t suppose I went there from choice; I went from
stern necessity (and this was promotion too), and I went with strong
shrinking, with a sense of suffering great humiliation, regarding my
being there as a thing to be kept carefully secret from all my old
friends. In a word, I considered it only less degrading than spunging
upon my friends, or borrowing what I saw no chance of ever being able to
pay.
“Now, what did I see there? I found the workmen considerate for each
other. I found that they would go out (those who were out of
employment), day after day, and patiently trudge miles and miles seeking
employment, returning, night after night, unsuccessful and dispirited.
They would walk incredibly long distances to places where they heard of a
job of work, and this not for a few days, but for very many days. And I
have seen such a man sit down wearily by the fire (we had a common room
for sitting, and cooking, and everything), with a hungry despondent
look—he had not tasted food all day—and accosted by another scarcely less
poor than himself, with—‘Here, mate, get this into thee,’ handing him, at
the same time, a piece of bread and some cold meat, and afterwards some
coffee; and adding, ‘Better luck to-morrow—keep up your pecker;’ and all
this without any idea that they were practising the most splendid
patience, fortitude, courage, and generosity I had ever seen. You would
hear them talk of absent wife and children sometimes—there in a distant
workhouse—trade was very bad then—with expressions of affection, and the
hope of seeing them again, although the one was irreverently alluded to
as my old woman, and the latter as the kids. I very soon got rid of
miserable self-pity there, and came to reflect that Dr. Livingstone would
probably be thankful for good wheaten bread; and if the bed was of flock
and hay, and the sheets of cotton, that better men than I in the Crimea
(the war was then going on) would think themselves very lucky to have as
good; and then, too, I began to reflect, that when you come to think of
it, such as these men were, so were the vast majority of the working
classes; that the idle and the drunken we see about public-houses, are
but a small minority of them made to appear more—because public-houses
are all put in such places; that the great bulk are at home; for the man
who has to be up at six in the morning can’t stay up at night; he is in
bed early, and is as I found my fellow inmates. * * * Well, it was
impossible to indulge in self-pity in circumstances like these; and
emulous of the genuine manhood all around me, I set to work again; for
what might not be done with youth and health; and simply by preparing
myself rather more thoroughly for my business than had previously been
considered necessary, I was soon strong enough to live more in accordance
with my previous life, and am now able to speak a true word for the
genuine men I left behind, simply because my dear parents had given me
greater advantages than these men had.” In this confession we see the
secrets of Mr. Plimsoll’s ultimate success—the better education his
parents had given him, and the courage infused into him by the example of
men lower down in the social scale. Under these circumstances he again
went to work, and the result was fame and fortune.
The great railway king, Mr. G. Hudson, was, for a time, a money-making
M.P., who rose from the linendraper’s shop at York, to be the observed of
all observers, the lion of the day, to whom, while his money lasted, the
oldest and the proudest aristocracy in the world stood cap in hand.
Alas! however, he outlived his wealth. It took to itself wings, and flew
away.
The mother of Joseph Hume, M.P., kept a small crockery shop at Montrose;
and yet her son went out to India, made a large fortune, and came back to
his native land to be a distinguished member of parliament, and a leader
in political and economical reform.
Mr. I. Holden, when M.P. for the eastern division of the West Riding of
Yorkshire, told a large meeting of the electors at Leeds about his
earlier years. “I began life,” he said, “as an operative. I was a
worker in a cotton-mill, and when I had worked fourteen hours a-day, I
spent two in the evening school. I educated myself by that means till I
was able to continue my education by assisting in the education of
others; and I sometimes remember with intense emotion, entering, upon a
stage-coach, the town of Leeds, unknown, and a perfect stranger, at
twenty years of age, in order to be the mathematical master in one of the
first schools then in Yorkshire, and almost one of the first in England.
I spent many happy months in the town of Leeds.” When he began to take
an interest in politics, he watched the course of the two great parties
on the subject of Catholic emancipation and the emancipation of the
slaves, and became a Liberal.
Edward Baines, who became M.P. for Leeds, and the proprietor of one of
the most valuable newspaper properties in the kingdom, the _Leeds
Mercury_, set off to make his fortune in 1793. His son writes:—“There
was at that time no public conveyance on the direct route from Preston to
Leeds, and the journey by coach, through Manchester, would have occupied
two days. The frugal apprentice, stout of heart and limb, performed the
journey on foot, with his bundle on his arm. A friend accompanied him to
Clithero; but he crossed the hill into Yorkshire with no companion but
his staff, and all his worldly wealth in his pocket. Wayworn he entered
the town of Leeds, and, finding the shop of Messrs. Binns and Brown, he
inquired if they had room for an apprentice to finish his time. The
stranger was carelessly referred to the foreman; and, as he entered the
_Mercury_ office, he internally resolved that, if he should obtain
admission there, he would never leave it.” And he kept his word. A man
does what he wills. To succeed in life—to be even a rich man or an
M.P.—is mainly the result of the effort of the indomitable will of a
resolute and persevering man.
Mr. Baines succeeded because his maxim was, that what was worth doing,
was worth doing well. “He laid the foundations of future success,”
writes his son, “as a master, in the thorough knowledge and performance
of the duties of a workman. Whilst still receiving weekly wages, he
practised a prudent economy. He was anxious to improve his condition,
and he took the only effectual means to do it by saving as much as he
could of the fruits of his industry. His tastes were simple, his habits
strictly temperate, and his companionships virtuous. Always maintaining
respectability of appearance, he was superior to personal display. He
lodged with a worthy family; but on a scale of expense suited to his
circumstances.” An early marriage seems to have increased his business
energy. “At five o’clock in the morning, and, when occasion required, at
four or three, was the young printer out of bed; and whatever neighbour
rose early was sure to find him in his office. He was above no kind of
work that belonged to his trade. He not only directed others, but worked
himself at case and press. He kept his own books, and they still remain
to attest the regularity and neatness with which he kept them, though he
had no training in that department. Not a penny went or came but had its
record, either in his office or his domestic account-books. In
consequence, he always knew the exact position of his affairs. His
customers and friends steadily increased; for it was found that he was to
be depended upon for whatever he undertook. With a spirit that stooped
to no meanness, but with a nature that cheerfully yielded all respect and
courtesy; with a temper as steady as it was sanguine and happy; with
constant prudence and unfailing attention to duty, he won the confidence
of every one that knew him. His punctuality and method were exemplary;
he conducted his business, in all respects, in the best way. He not only
took any employment for his press, however humble, that came, but he
devised and suggested publications, and joined others in executing them.
But,” adds the son, “it was necessary that energy in business should be
seconded by economy at home. He began by laying down the rule that he
would not spend more than half his income; and he acted upon it. Great
was his resolution, and many the contrivances to carry out his purpose;
but husband and wife being of the same mind, assiduous and equally
prudent, the thing was done. For some time they kept but one servant. A
main secret of his frugality was, that he created no artificial wants.
He always drank water. He never smoked, justly thinking it a waste of
time and money to gratify a taste which does not exist naturally, but has
to be formed. He took no snuff. Neither tavern nor theatre saw his
face. The circle of his visiting acquaintance was small and select. Yet
he was not an earth-worm. He took an active part in the Benevolent or
Strangers’ Friend Society, and was a man of public spirit. The pure joys
of domestic life, the pleasures of industry, and the satisfaction of
doing good, combined to make him as happy as he was useful.”
Thus it will be seen that the foundation of Mr. Baines’s success in life,
and of his eminent usefulness, was laid in those homely virtues which are
too often despised by the young and ardent, but which are of incomparably
greater value than the most shining qualities—in integrity, industry,
perseverance, prudence, frugality, temperance, self-denial, and courtesy.
The young man who would use his harvest must plough with his heifer.
If there is a passage in all his life of which his descendants are and
ought to be most proud, it is that lowly commencement, when virtuous
habits were formed; when the temptations of youth were resisted; when
life-long friendships were won; when domestic life began in love, and
piety, and prudence; when a venerable neighbour, Mr. Abraham Dickinson,
used to remark, “Those young people are sure to get on, they are so
industrious;” and when the same good man said to a young friend at his
elbow—“C—, thou seest an example in thy neighbour Edward.”
“All’s well that ends well,” says the proverb. It is true; yet it is
also of immense importance to begin well. Mr. Baines, some years since,
was watching an apprentice, whose habits were not steady, fold up a
newspaper. At the first fold there was a wrinkle, and at every
succeeding fold the wrinkle grew worse, and more unmanageable. Mr.
Baines said significantly to the lad—“Jim, its a bad thing to begin
wrongly.” The poor fellow found it so; for he soon fell a victim to his
vices. His master had begun right, and every succeeding fold in life was
easy and straight. The lesson is worth remembering.
Another illustration of money-making is to be found in the case of
William James Chaplin, a native of Rochester, in Kent, whose history
affords a remarkable example of the way in which a man rises from the
humblest ranks, by talent and energy, to a place amongst the most
influential and wealthy men of the day. Before railways were in
operation, Mr. Chaplin had succeeded in becoming one of the largest coach
proprietors in the kingdom. His establishment grew from small
beginnings, until, just before the opening of the London and
North-Western Railway, he was proprietor of sixty-four stage-coaches,
worked by 1,500 horses, and returning yearly more than a million
sterling. A man who could build up such a business was not likely to let
it sink under him; and, accordingly, we find that he moved his large
capital from four-horse coaches into railway shares, and entered largely
in foreign railways, especially in France and Holland. His greatest
stake, however, was invested in the London and South-Western, of which he
became director, and afterwards chairman. In 1845, he was Sheriff of
London, when he took some pains to promote prison reform; and, in 1847,
was elected M.P. for Salisbury, as a supporter of free trade and the
ballot. He was also a deputy-lieutenant of the county of Hants.
One of the most remarkable careers was that of Mr. Lindsay, M.P., who was
a native of Ayre, in Scotland, where he was born in 1816, and left an
orphan at six. When only fifteen years of age he commenced his career,
leaving home with three shillings and sixpence in his pocket, to push his
way as a sea-boy. He worked his way to Liverpool by trimming coals in
the coal-hole of a steamer. Arrived in that great commercial emporium,
he found himself friendless and destitute, and seven long weeks passed
before he was able to find employment, four of which were spent in such
utter destitution that he was reduced to the necessity of sleeping in the
streets and sheds of Liverpool, often eating nothing but what he begged
for. At length he was fortunate enough to be engaged in the _Isabella_,
a West Indiaman; and such were the hardships to which the cabin-boy of
that day was subjected, that, at times, it might almost be questioned
whether the change was for the better. But William Lindsay was not a lad
to be discouraged by hardships. Pressing steadily onward, in 1834, three
years after he had first joined the ship in the humblest capacity, he was
appointed to the position of second mate; but even when fortune had begun
to smile upon him, her face was not altogether unclouded; for in the same
year he was shipwrecked, and had both legs and one arm broken. The
following year he was promoted to be chief mate; and in 1836, in his
nineteenth year, he was appointed to the command of the _Olive Branch_,
which seems, however, so to have belied her name, that, being in the
Persian Gulf in 1839, in a hostile encounter, her commander was cut down
by a sabre-stroke across the breast, he at the same time killing his
assailant by a pistol-shot. The following year Mr. Lindsay retired from
the sea, and, in 1841, was appointed agent for the Castle-Eden Coal
Company. He was mainly instrumental in getting Hartlepool made an
independent port, and rendered material assistance in the establishment
of its docks and wharves. In 1845, he removed to London, and laid the
foundation of that extensive business which now entitles him to
recognition as one of the “merchant princes” of the metropolis. Nor,
amid all the bustle and occupation of a busy life, did Mr. Lindsay lose
sight of his mental improvement. Devoting his spare evening hours, which
thousands waste in idleness or dissipation, to self-instruction, he
speedily overcame the defects of his early education, and stored his mind
with a variety of sound information, which has been of essential service
to him in his subsequent career. In proof how profitably he employed
these hours of study, it may be stated that he has published various
pamphlets and letters on questions connected with the shipping interest,
in which he himself holds so large a stake; as well as a more important
work, entitled “Our Navigation and Mercantile Marine Laws.” No sooner
was his position as one of the largest shipowners and shipbrokers in the
kingdom achieved, than he resolved to get into parliament. He contested
Monmouth in April, and Dartmouth in July, 1852, in both of which he was
beaten by aristocratic influence, and the unsparing use of other means of
corruption. Undaunted by these defeats, and determined to succeed at
last, even if twenty times defeated, and to succeed, too, by purity and
principle alone, he became a candidate for Tynemouth in March, 1854, and,
after a severe struggle, was elected by a narrow majority of seventeen.
In 1857, he was again elected without opposition. When engaged in the
contest at Dartmouth, Mr. Lindsay gave the electors an account of his
career and his commercial position, which shows, in a striking light, the
magnitude of the operations of a large mercantile establishment. He
then, it appeared, owned twenty-two large first-class ships; and, as an
underwriter, he had, in his individual capacity, during the past year,
insured risks to the amount of £2,800,000. In the conduct of their
extensive export trade, the firm of W. S. Lindsay and Co., of Austin
Friars, ship and insurance brokers, of which he is the head, had, during
the same year, chartered 700 ships to all parts of the world, but
principally in India and the Mediterranean, and, as contractors, had
shipped 100,000 tons of coals, and 150,000 tons of iron; whilst, as
brokers, during the year of famine, their operations extended to
1,000,000 quarters of grain. Mr. Lindsay took part in the formation of
the Administrative Reform Association; and being present at the
initiatory meeting at the London Tavern, proposed one of the resolutions
in an amusing speech, in which he detailed his experiences connected with
the subject, both at home and abroad. In the hot debates, occasioned by
neglect and maladministration, on the Crimean war, he became quite a man
of mark in the House of Commons. And after his retirement from
parliament, he published a valuable and expensive book on the “History of
Shipping and British Commerce.”
In connection with this subject must also be mentioned the respected name
of Mr. Brotherton, who used often to tell the House of the time when he
himself had been a poor factory lad, but who died wealthy and universally
lamented.
Sir Samuel Morton Peto, the constructor of many of the greatest
engineering works in the country, and who for many years represented
Norwich in parliament, worked for seven years as a bricklayer, carpenter,
and mason, under his uncle, Mr. Henry Peto.
Sir Francis Crossley, M.P., also was born in very humble circumstances,
and acquired the enormous wealth of which he became possessed by his own
energy and enterprise. Halifax, which he represented in parliament, and
where his manufactory was situated, bore witness to his liberality.
Another M.P. who sprung from the ranks was Mr. Joseph Cowen, who
represented—as his son still represents—Newcastle-on-Tyne. Such was his
integrity, and patriotism, and perseverance, that no man was more
respected in parliament or out. Crowned with grey hairs, his tall,
muscular frame, and big head, denoted a more than average amount of
physical and mental strength. As a member of parliament, he was noted
for the regularity of his attendance. In this respect he was unrivalled.
I have already written that the late Mr. Herbert Ingram, M.P., blacked
the shoes of one of his constituents. He was born at Boston, in
Lincolnshire, and was then apprenticed to one of his constituents. After
completing the terms of his indenture, Mr. Ingram moved to Nottingham,
where he carried on business as printer, bookseller, and news-agent.
Whilst a newsvendor, he displayed, in a remarkable degree, that industry
and perseverance for which he became distinguished in after-life. Two
instances of his extraordinary attention to business may be cited. There
was, amongst his customers, a gentleman who wanted his news very early,
and Mr. Ingram, anxious that the gentleman should not be disappointed,
walked five miles, and of course five miles back, to serve a single
customer. On one occasion he got up at five in the morning, and
travelled to London to get some copies of a paper because there was no
post to bring them, and being determined that his customers should have
the news. His industry had its reward, for he sold above 1,000 copies of
that paper in Nottingham; and it was from his experience as a newsvendor,
and in the sale of metropolitan prints, that he thought of the
speculation which was destined to make his fortune. He used to notice
that a very bad wood-cut in an old number of a newspaper would make it
sell; and it occurred to him, that if he had a number of good engravings,
and put them in a paper, they would be likely to make it sell.
Accordingly, in May, 1842, an experiment was resolved on, and the first
number of the _Illustrated News_ made its appearance. His success was
immense; but he had learned the secret of it from his experience in the
humble and laborious calling of a newspaper vendor. Indeed, the very
title of the new journal was suggested by the fact that the most
illiterate of his customers had been in the habit of coming to ask him
for the London news: they did not care what he sold them so long as he
gave them the London news; and he wisely came to the conclusion, as that
name suited the poorest class, it would suit all classes; and thus his
sagacity reaped a rich reward, and he became a famous as well as a
wealthy man. It is thus the House of Commons has become enriched by the
brains of some of the most successful money-makers of their time.