George Harwood M.P. (1845 - 1912)

Ancestors

Biography

George Harwood was born in 1845, the second son of Richard Harwood who founded a firm of cotton spinners and who was at one time Mayor of Bolton and twice Mayor of Salford, and his wife Alice Cunliffe.

George went to school locally in Lancashire and then entered his father's cotton business while still finding time to continue his education at Owens College, the establishment founded with a bequest left by John Owens, a successful Manchester cotton merchant and first set up in a house in Deansgate, Manchester, once occupied by Richard Cobden. Owens College developed into the Victoria University of Manchester, which later combined with UMIST to become the University of Manchester.

Harwood loved learning and, while still running a cotton mill as his main source of income (he eventually became chairman of Richard Harwood & Son, Ltd, cotton spinners, Bolton), devoted himself to studying the classics and political economy, eventually gaining an MA degree from the University of London. He declined an offer of a professorship of political economy in South Australia to begin a study of theology and combined with others, including Dean Stanley, to found the Church Reform Union which attempted to introduce democratic principles into the Church of England by giving every member of a congregation a share in the government and finance of the church; it also aimed to unite the various denominations of Protestantism. Harwood was active in the British and Foreign Bible Society. Ordained a deacon of the Anglican Church in 1886 by James Moorhouse, Bishop of Manchester he preached regularly across the north of England over the next two years as well as acting as curate of St Ann's Church, Manchester.

Worried that the cotton business might not continue to prosper, Harwood studied law to provide an alternative profession. He read for the Bar and was called to Lincoln's Inn in 1890. Around this time he and his family moved to London, where Harwood began work as a barrister, although he still travelled often to the north to look after his cotton interests.

At the general election of 1895 he stood as the Liberal candidate in Bolton, a two-member seat which had been held by the Conservatives for ten years. Harwood took the second seat from the Unionists and held it until his death. The Liberals won the resulting by-election. In Parliament he took a keen interest in issues do to with the Church and licensing but he was also concerned with working conditions, being a principal supporter of a Bill for the early Saturday closing of textile factories, although this also had to do with the slowing down of the cotton trade. At one time he was treasurer of the National Society for the Prevention of Consumption. During the Boer War, Harwood was a founder member of the Telescope Fund committee which aimed to raise money to provide telescopes to improve the effectiveness of the British Army in South Africa. He published a number of books on theology and politics.

In 1868 he married Alice Marsh of Wigan and they had two sons and a daughter. One of Harwood's sons was Harold Marsh Harwood (1874-1959) who followed into the family cotton business but was also a playwright and theatre manager. Alice died in 1894 and Harwood was re-married in 1904 to Ellen Hopkinson, the daughter of the Vice Chancellor of Manchester University.

After his death at his Knightsbridge home at South Audley St, George Harwood was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
- Wikipedia, consulted 5 Jan 2022 (citing obituary in the Times, 8 November 1912).

George Harwood: Member of the House of Commons. Born in 1845, at Bolton, England. Educated at Charlton High School and Owens College, Manchester. Married, first, 1868, Alice, daughter of James Marsh, of Wigan (she died 1894); 2nd, 1904, Ellen, daughter of Dr. Hopkinson, Vice-Chancellor of Manchester, Univ. Called to the Bar, Lincoln's Inn, 1890; now head of the firm of Richard Harwood & Son, cotton spinners of Bolton. Passed the Oxford and Cambridge exam for ordination, and as an attempt to extend lay help in the church, served as a deacon (unpaid) at St. Anne's Church, Manchester, from 1886 to 1889, by permission of the Bishop. A member of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline from 1904 to 1906. Is author of "Disestablishment," "The Coming Democracy," etc. Has represented Bolton since 1895. an Independent Liberal, in favor of Home Rule; also of the principle of an Established Church, a reformed House of Lords, a diminution of public-houses, but not of local veto. Clubs: Athenaeum, Reform and Brasenose. Address: 70 South Audley St., London W, England. - Who's Who, 1912.

"George Harwood, the second son of Richard, was born in the year 1845. He was, in fact born on the very day on which John Harwood I, the farmer of Heaton, died. “He died the day I was born,” said George Harwood, M.P., many years later, 'there not being room in the world for both of us together.'

"[In the 1860s] the second son, George was taken into partnership in the new firm of Richard Harwood and Son. George Harwood was married in 1868 to a daughter of James Marsh, of Worsley Mesnes, Wigan...

"George Harwood, in addition to helping his father at the Brownlow Fold mills, was having a fine scholastic career. He took his M.A. degree at London University, having attended regularly at business up to the time of the examination. He was a frequent and popular lecturer at the old Mechanics' Institute and elsewhere on a wide variety of subjects.

George Harwood, contrary to the family tradition, joined the Church of England, and took a prominent part in the country as a Liberal Churchman. With Dean Stanley and the author of “Tom Brown's Schooldays”, he founded the Church Reform Union. He believed that the complete separation of the clergy from active business life was a source of weakness and it was owing to this, that he took deacon's orders in the Church, and was unpaid curate of St. Ann's Church, Manchester, for three years. He was a keen opponent of Disestablishment. He was called to the bar, but was too active in other spheres to practise much. In 1895 he was elected Member of Parliament for Bolton, and he remained Member until his death in 1912. He had an orator's instinct and a passion for human betterment which made him one of the most popular platform speakers of his day. In Parliament he was a close confidant of the political leaders, but through it all, he maintained a close touch with the Brownlow Fold Mills, which were converted into a private limited company in 1898.

His first wife had died two years before he was first elected to Parliament and in the year 1904 he married a daughter of Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., principal of Victoria University, Manchester, now Mrs. Harwood Murray, of Exeter. By his second wife, George Harwood had one son and two daughters, of whom the elder, Mrs. Battiscombe has published a volume of verse recently noticed in these columns."

- "Pioneers of the Cotton Trade -- The Harwood Family" (Bolton Journal and Guardian, Friday, June 23, 1933)

Sources

• Wikipedia [1] (citing obituary in the Times, 8 November 1912).
• Who's Who, 1912.
• "Pioneers of the Cotton Trade -- The Harwood Family" (Bolton Journal and Guardian, Friday, June 23, 1933)