Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Baines, Edward (1800-1890)
BAINES, Sir EDWARD (1800–1890), journalist and economist, was born at Leeds on 28 May 1800, being the second son of Edward Baines [q. v.] by his wife Charlotte, daughter of Matthew Talbot, currier, of Leeds. His earliest education was received at a private school at Leeds. Thence he was removed to the protestant dissenters' grammar school at Manchester, known also as the New College, at which the eminent chemist, John Dalton [q, v.], was mathematical master. While at Manchester, in his fifteenth year, he became a Sunday-school teacher in the congregational chapel, and continued to teach in the Sunday-schools of his denomination until his election to parliament in 1859. In 1815 he entered the office of the 'Leeds Mercury' and became a reporter of public meetings. In this capacity; he was present on 16 Aug. 1819 at the 'Peterloo Massacre.' In 1818 he was promoted to the editorship of the paper, and from that time frequently contributed its leading articles. During some years he was actively engaged in self-education, especially in political economy and subjects of social interest. He visited the cotton mills, settlement, and school of David Dale [q. v.] and Robert Owen [q. v.], and attended lectures at the first mechanics' institute founded in London by Dr. George Birkbeck [q. v.] in 1824. Between 1825 and 1830 he frequently lectured in the towns of Yorkshire in favour of an extension of these institutions. He travelled in the north of England, producing in 1829 a 'Companion to the Lakes of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire,' which passed through three editions. He next went abroad, visiting Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and France. A literary memorial of this tour was 'A Yisit to the Vaudois of Piedmont,' published in 1855 (Travellers' Library, vol. vii.) While at Rouen he acquainted himself with the details of the French cotton industry, and published a letter in the 'Leeds Mercury' (13 May 1826) 'To the Unemployed Workmen of Yorkshire and Lancashire on the Present Distress and on Machinery.' The object of this address was to check the destruction of mills and looms which in 1826 was a common crime in the factory districts. Baines pointed out that while English workmen were destroying machinery their French competitors were improving it. The letter was so effective that it was circulated by the magistrates of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
On his return to England Baines threw himself into the various liberal movements of the day. He was one of the early advocates of the repeal of the corn laws, on which he wrote several pamphlets. He supported catholic emancipation (1829), and in 1830 first proposed, in a leading article in the 'Leeds Mercury,' the adoption of Brougham as candidate for Yorkshire [see Brougham, Henry Peter, Baron Brougham and Vaux]. In 1835 he published a 'History of the Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain,' still a standard authority. His activity in connection with mechanics' institutes bore fruit in 1837, when a West Riding Union of Mechanics' Institutes was formed, of which he became president, and which ultimately extended its operations to the whole of Yorkshire. He presided at the jubilee meeting of this organisation held in Leeds in June 1887. He was an advocate of a public education independent of the state, an attitude partly due to his nonconformist sympathies, but welcomed by many of the leading reformers of that day. His views were set forth in a number of pamphlets and in a series of 'Crosby Hall Lectures' on the progress and efficiency of voluntary education in England, published in 1848 (see also Essays upon Educational Subjects, ed. A. Hill, 1857). When the country was definitely committed to the principle of the endowment of elementary education by the state, he opposed the state's direction of religious teaching. In 1867 he succeeded in securing the acceptance of this view by the conservative government. His interest in the subject of education had been recognised in his appointment in 1865 upon the schools inquiry commission.
Although an earnest free-trader, Baines was not a member of the Manchester school of non-intervention in foreign politics. Cobden had been re-elected for the West Riding in 1852, and on 17 Jan. 1855 addressed a meeting in the Cloth Hall yard at Leeds, vindicating his opposition to the war with Russia. An amendment in support of the policy of the government being moved was seconded by Baines in an effective speech which carried the large majority of his audience with him.
From November 1837 Baines had practised total abstinence. His 'Testimony and Appeal on the Effects of Total Abstinence' attained a circulation of 284,000 in 1853. Subsequently he published an 'Appeal to Christians on the National Vice of Intemperance' (1874), being an address at the inaugural meeting of the Congregational Total Abstinence Association.
On 30 April 1859 Baines was returned to the House of Commons for his native borough. One of his earliest speeches was delivered on 8 March 1860 as seconder of the address of thanks to the crown for the commercial treaty with France, which had been negotiated by Cobden. His activity in parliament was chiefly directed towards the reduction of the borough franchise from a 10l. to a 61. occupancy. He introduced bills with this object in the sessions of 1861, 1864, and 1865, but without success. He took a strong part in the various questions which at this period vitally interested nonconformists, such as the abolition of compulsory church rates (1868), the disestablishment of the church of Ireland (1869), and the abolition of university tests (1871). He continued to represent Leeds until the general election of 1874, when he was defeated. On his retirement from parliament he received from Gladstone a letter bearing testimony to 'the single-minded devotion, courage of purpose, perfect integrity, and ability ' with which he had discharged his duties.
Baines now devoted himself to literature and public work. In 1875 he contributed a history of the woollen trade of Yorkshire to a work on that county, entitled 'Yorkshire Past and Present,' published in four volumes by his brother, Thomas Baines (1871-1877) [q. v.] This was an amplification of a paper originally read by him as president of the economic section of the British Association held at Leeds in 1858, 'on the woollen manufacture of England with special reference to the Leeds clothing district.' The paper was published in March 1859 by the London Statistical Society. In the spring of 1880 he was elected chairman of the Yorkshire College at Leeds, an office he filled for seven years. In the following November he received knighthood. A public presentation was made to him in the Albert Hall, Leeds, on the completion of his eightieth year. He maintained his consistent liberalism in matters of public policy and supported Mr. Gladstone's home-rule bill for Ireland in 1886. He died on Sunday, 2 March 1890, at his house, St. Ann's Hill, Burley.
Baines married in 1829 Martha, only daughter of Thomas Blackburn of Liverpool, by whom he had three sons and four daughters. Lady Baines died in 1881. In addition to the literary works already mentioned Baines contributed to the 'Leeds Mercury' of 5 and 12 Aug. 1848 a life of his father, which was separately published in the same year.
Two portraits of him in oil are in the possession of the corporation of Leeds, the one painted in 1874 by Richard Waller, the other in 1884 by Walter Ouless. An engraved portrait from a photograph is in vol. i. of his brother's 'Yorkshire.'
[Leeds Mercury, 3 March 1890 ; Men of the Time, 1884; Annual Register; private information.]