Liberals hold Harborough (112 years ago)

Thanks to Liberal History for pointing out on Twitter that today is the 112th anniversary of a by-election in the Harborough constituency:

17th June 1904 

The Liberals hold the Harborough by-election 

The Hon. Philip Stanhope, the younger son of the 5th Earl, wins the Harborough by-election in Leicestershire following the resignation of the sitting Liberal MP, J.W. Logan, increasing the Liberal majority by over 400 votes. Stanhope had previously been Liberal MP for Wednesbury (1886-92) and Burnley (1893-1900). 

He was strongly anti war, opposing British participation in the Boer War and was sometime president of the National Peace League. He was also vocally against woman’s suffrage and in 1914 was attacked by a suffragette at Euston Station who mistook him for Asquith. He was raised to the peerage in 1906 as Baron Weardale.

The fact that Harborough chose a candidate who had lost his previous seat because of his opposition to the Boer War suggests the local Liberals were good radicals in those days, even if Stanhope was not sound on women's suffrage.

J.W. Logan was to return as MP for Harborough at the general election of December 1910 and represent the seat until he resigned for a second time in 1916.

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The blue bricks of East Langton

The other day I was wondering around East Langton, the village where this blog's hero J.W. Logan lived for many years.

As well as the cottages named for his daughters, the village hall he built and the former cottage home for the children of men injured on his works, I noticed a surprising quantity of industrial blue brick used to repair walls in the village.

I suspect that is what happens when a settlement enjoys the patronage of a major railway contractor.

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J.W. Logan's grave at Church Langton

I was in the Langtons this afternoon, so I visited the grave of my hero J.W. Logan. You can find it in the churchyard at St Peter's, Church Langton.

His son Hugh, who died from pneumonia in a casualty clearing station in Belgium in 1919, is remembered on the war memorial there.

Note that, like many such memorials, it gives the dates of the First World War as 1914-19. This is because an Allied expeditionary force intervened on the anti-Bolshevik side in the Russian Civil War.

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Mr Gladstone's orphanage at Hawarden

Embed from Getty Images

Lord Bonkers has his Home for Well-Behave Orphans, but then it seems at one time every self-respecting Liberal politician had his own orphanage.

Caroline's Miscellany writes of William Ewart Gladstone and his wife Catherine:

As a regular visitor to the London Hospital, Whitechapel, Catherine saw at first hand the effects of the 1860s cholera epidemics on the East End poor. 

She founded an orphanage for the children of cholera victims, in a large house in Clapton. It also took in convalescent patients, and the convalescent home later moved to Woodford Hall, Essex, in 1866. Adults and children were sent here from the London Hospital in the East End to recover from illness or surgery. The home moved to Mitcham in 1900, eventually closing in 1940. 

As for the orphaned boys, Catherine sent them from Clapton to a new orphanage in the Gladstones' home village of Hawarden. Initially, she took a dozen boys from London to the village and accommodated them in a former coach house; Gladstone paid for their keep. (The couple also accommodated unemployed Lancashire mill girls and elderly women on their estate.) 

The orphanage continued for many years, and seems to have taken in other children in need of a home. A guide to the village of 1890 describes it as housing twenty to thirty boys and being 'hard by the Castle [the Gladstones' home] and across the yard'.

And this blog's hero J.W. Logan had a home in East Langton for the children of men killed on his works.

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Liberal Democrats hold Market Harborough Logan ward

Many congratulations to Barbara Johnson and everyone who helped her for a great result in today's by-election.

Market Harborough Logan Ward

Lib Dems          402    45.2%  (+9.0)

Conservative     303    34.0%  (-1.3)

Labour                82     9.2%  (-5.9)

Green                 56     6.3%  (-7.1)

Ukip                   47     5.3%  (+5.3)

Lib Dem Hold

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