Charles Leach
Encyclopedia
Rev.
Charles Leach (1 March 1847 – 24 November 1919) was a Congregationalist
Minister and Liberal Party
politician in the United Kingdom
. He is notable as the only Member of Parliament
to be deprived of his seat after being declared of unsound mind.
, near Halifax
, but moved to the town and grew up in a slum called Ratten Row, where his mother died when he was five. He entered a worsted mill at eight which meant that he also had three hours elementary schooling per day. At fourteen he became apprenticed as a clog and patten maker and then trained as a shoe and boot
maker,. At nineteen he set up in that trade and on the strength of that got married to Mary Jane Fox. Moving to Elland
near Halifax he built up a successful boot and shoe business, by 1871 employing three men, one woman and two boys.
Church and in Elland became a local preacher for them. Feeling a call to enter the ministry he worked from four to eight in the morning before opening his shop to reach the required educational level. In 1873 the denomination sent him to Sheffield as a 'preacher on trial', with responsibility for Attercliffe chapel, but at the same time he attended Ranmoor Theological College in the city. After two years in Sheffield
, he was sent to the Ladywood
mission chapel in Birmingham
.
split the party he sided with Gladstone
which left him in a difficult position in Liberal Unionist dominated Birmingham.
The upshot was that he left and went to Queen's Park in London, to a church that was still meeting in a hall. In the next few years he raised all the money and got the proper chapel built. In 1888, Leach, who was living in Brondesbury Road, Kilburn, stood as a Progressive candidate in Chelsea division for the London School Board
. He placed ninth, where there were five seats available. In 1889 he went on a preaching tour to Canada and America where he collected an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Ohio University. Always interested in education he was instrumental in setting up the Queen's Park Institute which used the chapel's school buildings. In 1892 he was elected to Chelsea Vestry. By 1894 he was despairing of the Liberal Party
and joined Keir Hardie
's recently founded Independent Labour Party
. In 1894 after the new act, everyone had to be re-elected to the Vestry and he stood under his new colours. This was too much for his chapel and he was forced to resign and withdraw before the poll.
In 1897 he received a call to go to Cavendish Street where there was a huge chapel just off Oxford Road in Manchester
. Here they wanted him because they were seeing declining numbers as their congregation moved to the suburbs. He had built a reputation as being able to attract members of the working classes to his services. In Manchester he was much involved with Passive Resistance the movement protesting about the 1902 Education Act and the requirement for ratepayers to support Anglican and Catholic schools. By 1904 it had all become to much for him and he resigned and took up what he thought would be a less onerous pastorate at Harecourt Chapel, in Islington
, London. Here he remained until early 1908.
As an adjunct to his work within the temperance movement he was one of the founding directors of the Abstainers and General Insurance Company and later became its Vice Chairman. After leaving the ministry he became a member of the London Chamber of Commerce
.
Over around 30 years he delivery some 500 -600 Sundary afternoon lectures. He also found time to write some 20 books including "Old, Yet Ever New", "Is My Bible True?" and "Sermons to Working Men". He also edited a paper called the Factory Herald for some years.
Not content with that he became a guide for Thomas Cook and Son leading parties to the Holy Land. He was to visit the country some eleven times and the trips were always timed to bring the groups to Jerusalem in time for Easter.
He had not been so fortunate in his private life, and he lost his two sons, Herbert and Harry, in infancy, and two of his four daughters, Ada and Dora, to TB, both at the age of 24. Only the first born, Elizabeth, and the last, Mabel, survived him.
as a Liberal Party
candidate. A former member of the Independent Labour Party
, he described himself as an "evolutionary socialist
". He was described by The Times
as a weak candidate, but one who stood to inherit the strong Colne Valley Liberal vote, and at the January 1910 general election, he defeated the Independent
MP Victor Grayson
.
He made his maiden speech on 11 April 1910 supporting one of the resolutions that led up to the Parliament Act
. He was re-elected in December 1910, when he only faced a Conservative
opponent. Leach supported women's suffrage
, but registered his opposition to the actions of the suffragette
s. He also supported the Government in passing the National Insurance Act. In February 1911 he introduced his private members Trade Union Bill to try to overcome the problems caused by the Osborne judgment, but it was to disappear into the parliamentary timetable. Despite this he was a very active backbencher asking numerous questions of ministers.
Leach continued to preach occasionally while a Member of Parliament; he also travelled widely including to the near East, Canada and the USA.
to the Armed Forces, 4th class, during the First World War
, his duty was to visit the wounded in the London Military Hospitals. In 1915 the strain of this and his parliamentary duties became too much and he dropped out of public life. It was reported that he had suffered a nervous breakdown, and had to move to a nursing home in London. In reality it was much starker and he had been committed to Northumberland House, Green Lanes, a private lunatic asylum. He was declared to be suffering from an unsound mind, brain deterioration and loss of memory. This would appear to have some physical cause and may well have been vascular dementia cause by small strokes or similar. Some eight months later he was found still to be of unsound mind and his seat was declared vacant under the Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act
— the only MP ever disqualified under that Act. Probably this was due to Parliament having already been prolonged and it being impossible to hold a general election while the war persisted. Normally MPs are just allowed to retire quietly at the next election. At the resulting by-election
on 25 August 1916, the Liberal Frederick Mallalieu
was elected unopposed to succeed him.
Leach died in 1919, aged 72.
The Reverend
The Reverend is a style most often used as a prefix to the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style but is often and in some dictionaries called a...
Charles Leach (1 March 1847 – 24 November 1919) was a Congregationalist
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
Minister and Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
politician in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. He is notable as the only Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
to be deprived of his seat after being declared of unsound mind.
Early life
Leach was born in IllingworthIllingworth, West Yorkshire
Illingworth is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, in West Yorkshire, England.It is situated north-west of Halifax.The village of Illingworth has competitive sports teams within the area including Crossleys Juniors , Illingworth C.C. and Illingworth A.R.L.F.C...
, near Halifax
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
, but moved to the town and grew up in a slum called Ratten Row, where his mother died when he was five. He entered a worsted mill at eight which meant that he also had three hours elementary schooling per day. At fourteen he became apprenticed as a clog and patten maker and then trained as a shoe and boot
Boot
A boot is a type of footwear but they are not shoes. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece....
maker,. At nineteen he set up in that trade and on the strength of that got married to Mary Jane Fox. Moving to Elland
Elland
Elland is a market town in Calderdale, in the county of West Yorkshire, England, south of Halifax, by the River Calder and the Calder and Hebble Navigation. The area of Elland was called Elant in the Domesday Book...
near Halifax he built up a successful boot and shoe business, by 1871 employing three men, one woman and two boys.
Religious training
In Halifax he had become involved with the Methodist New ConnexionMethodist New Connexion
Methodist New Connexion was a Protestant nonconformist church, also known as the Kilhamite Methodists. It was formed in 1797 by secession from the Wesleyan Methodists, and merged in 1907 with the Bible Christian Church and the United Methodist Free Churches to form the United Methodist...
Church and in Elland became a local preacher for them. Feeling a call to enter the ministry he worked from four to eight in the morning before opening his shop to reach the required educational level. In 1873 the denomination sent him to Sheffield as a 'preacher on trial', with responsibility for Attercliffe chapel, but at the same time he attended Ranmoor Theological College in the city. After two years in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, he was sent to the Ladywood
Ladywood
Ladywood is an inner-city area in Birmingham, England. It is a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Ladywood ward and the wards of Aston, Nechells and Soho. In June 2004, Birmingham City Council conducted a city-wide "Ward Boundary...
mission chapel in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
.
Professional life
In Birmingham he began his Sunday afternoon lectures which were so popular that after a couple of years he was forced to use the Town Hall as the numbers had become so great. They were at time said to have reached 4000 people. He was ordained into the Methodist New Connexion in 1877. After four years at Ladywood the Methodist New Connexion wanted to send him to London, but a committee was set up to use the redundant Highbury chapel in Graham St and he was invited to be the pastor and hence he became an Independent or Congregational minister. He ran a very successful chapel for seven years and also became a regular speaker for, and officer in, the Liberal party. In 1884 he was elected to the Birmingham School Board. However in 1886, when Joseph ChamberlainJoseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British politician and statesman. Unlike most major politicians of the time, he was a self-made businessman and had not attended Oxford or Cambridge University....
split the party he sided with Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
which left him in a difficult position in Liberal Unionist dominated Birmingham.
The upshot was that he left and went to Queen's Park in London, to a church that was still meeting in a hall. In the next few years he raised all the money and got the proper chapel built. In 1888, Leach, who was living in Brondesbury Road, Kilburn, stood as a Progressive candidate in Chelsea division for the London School Board
London School Board
The School Board for London was an institution of local government and the first directly elected body covering the whole of London....
. He placed ninth, where there were five seats available. In 1889 he went on a preaching tour to Canada and America where he collected an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Ohio University. Always interested in education he was instrumental in setting up the Queen's Park Institute which used the chapel's school buildings. In 1892 he was elected to Chelsea Vestry. By 1894 he was despairing of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
and joined Keir Hardie
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
's recently founded Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
. In 1894 after the new act, everyone had to be re-elected to the Vestry and he stood under his new colours. This was too much for his chapel and he was forced to resign and withdraw before the poll.
In 1897 he received a call to go to Cavendish Street where there was a huge chapel just off Oxford Road in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. Here they wanted him because they were seeing declining numbers as their congregation moved to the suburbs. He had built a reputation as being able to attract members of the working classes to his services. In Manchester he was much involved with Passive Resistance the movement protesting about the 1902 Education Act and the requirement for ratepayers to support Anglican and Catholic schools. By 1904 it had all become to much for him and he resigned and took up what he thought would be a less onerous pastorate at Harecourt Chapel, in Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, London. Here he remained until early 1908.
As an adjunct to his work within the temperance movement he was one of the founding directors of the Abstainers and General Insurance Company and later became its Vice Chairman. After leaving the ministry he became a member of the London Chamber of Commerce
London Chamber of Commerce & Industry
The London Chamber of Commerce & Industry was established on 25 July 1881 at Mansion House in the City of London with 130 members. The London Chamber represented the London Metropolis and not just the City of London. Many of the original 130 members still play a role in London Chamber today...
.
Over around 30 years he delivery some 500 -600 Sundary afternoon lectures. He also found time to write some 20 books including "Old, Yet Ever New", "Is My Bible True?" and "Sermons to Working Men". He also edited a paper called the Factory Herald for some years.
Not content with that he became a guide for Thomas Cook and Son leading parties to the Holy Land. He was to visit the country some eleven times and the trips were always timed to bring the groups to Jerusalem in time for Easter.
He had not been so fortunate in his private life, and he lost his two sons, Herbert and Harry, in infancy, and two of his four daughters, Ada and Dora, to TB, both at the age of 24. Only the first born, Elizabeth, and the last, Mabel, survived him.
Member of Parliament
In May 1908 Leach was invited to contest the Colne Valley constituencyColne Valley (UK Parliament constituency)
Colne Valley is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election. In the post-war period the seat had the distinction of being one of the few Labour/Liberal marginals,...
as a Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
candidate. A former member of the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
, he described himself as an "evolutionary socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
". He was described by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
as a weak candidate, but one who stood to inherit the strong Colne Valley Liberal vote, and at the January 1910 general election, he defeated the Independent
Independent (politician)
In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...
MP Victor Grayson
Victor Grayson
Albert Victor Grayson was an English socialist politician of the early 20th century. A Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, his sudden and still-unexplained disappearance in 1920 is widely believed to have been the result of his intention to reveal evidence of corruption at the highest levels...
.
He made his maiden speech on 11 April 1910 supporting one of the resolutions that led up to the Parliament Act
Parliament Act
The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that that Act and the Parliament Act 1911 are to be construed as one.The Parliament Act 1911 The...
. He was re-elected in December 1910, when he only faced a Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
opponent. Leach supported women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
, but registered his opposition to the actions of the suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
s. He also supported the Government in passing the National Insurance Act. In February 1911 he introduced his private members Trade Union Bill to try to overcome the problems caused by the Osborne judgment, but it was to disappear into the parliamentary timetable. Despite this he was a very active backbencher asking numerous questions of ministers.
Leach continued to preach occasionally while a Member of Parliament; he also travelled widely including to the near East, Canada and the USA.
Health problem
Appointed as a ChaplainChaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
to the Armed Forces, 4th class, during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, his duty was to visit the wounded in the London Military Hospitals. In 1915 the strain of this and his parliamentary duties became too much and he dropped out of public life. It was reported that he had suffered a nervous breakdown, and had to move to a nursing home in London. In reality it was much starker and he had been committed to Northumberland House, Green Lanes, a private lunatic asylum. He was declared to be suffering from an unsound mind, brain deterioration and loss of memory. This would appear to have some physical cause and may well have been vascular dementia cause by small strokes or similar. Some eight months later he was found still to be of unsound mind and his seat was declared vacant under the Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act
Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act 1886
The Lunacy Act 1886 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided a mechanism for a Member of Parliament who was judged to be of unsound mind to be removed from his seat.-Background:...
— the only MP ever disqualified under that Act. Probably this was due to Parliament having already been prolonged and it being impossible to hold a general election while the war persisted. Normally MPs are just allowed to retire quietly at the next election. At the resulting by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
on 25 August 1916, the Liberal Frederick Mallalieu
Frederick Mallalieu
Frederick William Mallalieu was a Liberal Party politician in the United Kingdom.He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Colne Valley at a by-election in 1916...
was elected unopposed to succeed him.
Leach died in 1919, aged 72.