Downham Rural District was a rural district in Norfolk , England from 1894 to 1974.
101-627: It was formed under the Local Government Act 1894 based on the Downham rural sanitary district . It completely encircled Downham Market Urban District . In 1930 a new parish of Nordelph was created in Downham RD, taking land mostly out of the Marshland RD parish of Upwell . Several changes were made to its boundaries in 1935. In particular, it took in four large (in area terms) parishes from
202-558: A Sinn Féiner ". When asked by Morgan: "And a Republican?" Morley said "No". He liked Winston Churchill and said to Morgan on 22 December 1921: I foresee the day when Birkenhead will be Prime Minister in the Lords with Winston leading the Commons. They will make a formidable pair. Winston tells me Birkenhead has the best brain in England.... But I don't like Winston's habit of writing articles, as
303-855: A capital levy ? It's rank piracy". During a discussion on 6 May 1919, Morley remarked: "I see Lloyd George has invited the Irish republicans to a conference. It's an act of inconceivable folly—he, the King's Prime Minister!" When the House of Lords were debating the Fourth Home Rule Bill , Morley said to Morgan on 6 January 1921: I should have liked to have been there if only to have got up and said, 'If Mr. G 's Home Rule Bill had been passed 30 years ago could Ireland have been worse than now? Would it have not been better?' And then fallen dead like Lord Chatham . On 1 May 1921, Morley said: "If I were an Irishman I should be
404-461: A Minister, on debatable questions of foreign policy in the newspapers. These allocutions of his are contrary to all Cabinet principles. Mr. G. would never have allowed it. In a letter to Sir Francis Webster in 1923, Morley wrote: Present party designations have become empty of all contents... Vastly extended State expenditure, vastly increased demands from the taxpayer who has to provide the money, social reform regardless of expense, cash exacted from
505-399: A chairman and councillors. The councillors were elected for a three-year term in a similar way to councillors in urban districts. They were elected for parishes or groupings of parishes, and were also the representatives for those areas on the board of guardians. In a few cases a parish or handful of parishes were administered by a rural district council in a neighbouring county. In this case
606-425: A chairman at its annual meeting. The parish councils were given the following powers and duties: Parish councils were generally limited to a rate of three pence in the pound, although this could be increased to sixpence in the pound with the permission of the parish meeting. Loans could not be obtained without the permission of both the parish meeting and the county council. Borrowing for certain specified purposes
707-432: A day a man shall or shall not work". Morley told trade unionists that the only right way to limit working hours was through voluntary action from them. His outspokenness against any eight hours bill, rare among politicians, brought him the hostility of labour leaders. In September 1891, two mass meetings saw labour leaders such as John Burns , Keir Hardie and Robert Blatchford all calling for action against Morley. In
808-465: A decentralisation of the administrative government. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman resigned in 1908 and H. H. Asquith became prime minister, Morley retained his post in the new cabinet; but it was thought advisable to relieve him of the burden imposed by a seat in the House of Commons, and he was transferred to the Upper House , being created a peer with the title of Viscount Morley of Blackburn , in
909-502: A decision had been made that all those with a population of 300 or more were to have a parish council. This limit had been chosen as the Local Government Board already possessed powers to group parishes below this population for the election of guardians. There were approximately 6,000 small parishes in this category. Parish councils were to be limited in their expenditure, and were to be confined to charging rates of one penny in
1010-410: A freer voice will be given to the community than it has ever had before. New depths of life will have been stirred in the most neglected portions of our community, and we shall find among the labourers of the fields, as we have found among the artisans of the towns, a resolution that the condition of our people shall, so far as laws can better it, be bettered ... The Earl of Kimberley explained to
1111-515: A meeting in Reading : The Tories cannot conceal from themselves the fact that all over the land – in the towns, in the villages, in the country districts, in the urban districts - there is a resolute determination that Parliament shall put its hand in earnest to the great work of social regeneration ... parish councils may sound dull and mechanical, we know that they will go to the very root of national life, and that when we have achieved these reforms
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#17328585602351212-546: A meeting in Walworth that the party wanted to create: ... a complete hierarchy of councils popularly elected and with full powers belonging to such bodies. The Liberals tried to amend the Agricultural Smallholdings Act 1892 as it passed through parliament, seeking to add clauses creating parish councils which would have the power to buy and sell land in order to increase the number of smallholdings. In rejecting
1313-400: A parish council varied from 5 to 15 members, the number being fixed by order of the county council. The entire council was elected annually on 15 April. To be eligible for election to the council, a person was required to be resident within the parish, or within three miles of it, for at least twelve months prior to the election. The entire council was elected annually. The parish council elected
1414-474: A ramrod into all the delicate and complex machinery of British industry". For example, an Eight Hours Bill for miners would impose on an industry with great diversity in local and natural conditions a universal regulation. He further argued that it would be wrong to "enable the Legislature, which is ignorant of these things, which is biased in these things—to give the Legislature the power of saying how many hours
1515-617: A rare double by-election held after an election petition led to the results of the 1868 general election in Blackburn being voided. He was unsuccessful in Blackburn, and also failed to win a seat when he contested the City of Westminster at the 1880 general election . Morley was then elected as Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne at a by-election in February 1883. Morley
1616-490: A second series of these volumes from 1902 to 1919. The Life of Cobden (1881) is an able defence of that statesman's views rather than a critical biography or a real picture of the period. The Life of Oliver Cromwell (1900) revised Samuel Rawson Gardiner as Gardiner had revised Thomas Carlyle . Morley's contributions to political journalism and to literary, ethical and philosophical criticism were numerous and valuable. They show great individuality of character, and recall
1717-420: A shadow of a civil convulsion". Protectionism was conducive to social distress, political corruption and political unrest. Morley's great speech at Manchester, in 1899, raises him to a special level amongst masters of English rhetoric: You may make thousands of women widows and thousands of children fatherless. It will be wrong. You may add a new province to your empire. It will still be wrong. You may increase
1818-540: A share in the finest field for efficient diplomacy and an armed struggle, that could have been imagined. Unhappily they broke down, or thought they had (1915), and could discover no better way out of their scrape than to seek deliverance (not without a trace of arbitrary proscription) from the opposing party that counted Liberalism, old or new, for dangerous and deluding moonshine. During his retirement, Morley kept an interest in politics. He said to his friend John Morgan on 15 February 1918: I'm sick of Wilson ... He hailed
1919-556: A word of explanation or vindication". In 1880, Morley wrote to Auberon Herbert , an extreme opponent of state intervention, that "I am afraid that I do not agree with you as to paternal government. I am no partisan of a policy of incessant meddling with individual freedom, but I do strongly believe that in so populous a society as ours now is, you may well have a certain protection thrown over classes of men and women who are unable to protect themselves". In 1885, Morley spoke out against those Liberals who believed that all state intervention
2020-399: Is administered is as admirable as it is possible for the ingenuity and humanity of man to devise", and he called on the government to drop the proposals. Sir Charles Dilke , from the government's own benches, was unhappy that county councils would have the power to divide or group parishes. He felt that they were susceptible to influence by local landowners whose wishes might overcome those of
2121-421: Is hardly exaggeration to speculate that, but for the socially unpardonable circumstances surrounding his marriage, Morley might well have become Britain's foreign secretary, possibly even prime minister". After more than 50 years of a quietly secluded personal life, Viscount Morley of Blackburn died of heart failure at his home, Flowermead, Wimbledon Park , south London, on 23 September 1923, aged eighty-four, when
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#17328585602352222-544: Is to be within one county, that the district of every District Council is to be within one county, and that the County Councils shall have the duty of readjusting the existing overlapping areas and divisions. We think the County Council far the best tribunal to undertake this duty. They understand the localities, and how the districts can best be divided. They are to have 12 months in which to discharge their duty; and if at
2323-609: The Archbishop of Canterbury . But take away Scotland Yard !" When asked in 1919 about the Covenant of the League of Nations , Morley said: "I have not read it, and I don't intend to read it. It's not worth the paper it's written on. To the end of time it'll always be a case of 'Thy head or my head'. I've no faith in these schemes". When a prominent Liberal praised someone as "a good European" Morley remarked: "When I lay me down at night or rise in
2424-465: The Charity Commissioners could provide for the parish council to become the trustees. Annual accounts of the charity were to be laid before the parish meeting. A parish council, or one-tenth of the electors of a parish, could apply to the county council for the division of the parish into wards. This was to be done where "the area or population of the parish is so large, or different parts of
2525-559: The Commons on 21 March 1893, Fowler set out the complicated system of local government that was in need of reform. England and Wales were divided into: 62 counties, 302 Municipal Boroughs, 31 Improvement Act Districts, 688 Local Government Districts, 574 Rural Sanitary Districts, 58 Port Sanitary Districts, 2,302 School Board Districts ... 1,052 Burial Board Districts, 648 Poor Law Unions, 13,775 Ecclesiastical Parishes, and nearly 15,000 Civil Parishes. The total number of Authorities which tax
2626-567: The County palatine of Lancaster . He was the first peer to turn down a coat of arms , although a wall panel at Lincoln's Inn incorrectly ascribes one to him. In September 1906, Morley wrote favourably for staunch resistance to the railway workers' agitation for higher wages. Failure to do so would damage the Liberal Party with the middle class because "railways are the middle class investment... if anybody thinks we can govern this country against
2727-588: The Encyclopaedists (1878), Burke (1879), and Walpole (1889). Burke as the champion of sound policy in America and of justice in India, Walpole as the pacific minister understanding the true interests of his country, fired his imagination. Burke was Morley's contribution to Macmillan 's " English Men of Letters " series of literary biographies , of which Morley himself was general editor between 1878 and 1892; he edited
2828-682: The Hertfordshire County Council split the parishes of Bushey and Watford into Bushey Urban and Watford Urban parishes in Watford Urban District and Watford Rural and Bushey Rural parishes in the Watford Rural District . The county council could also group small parishes under a joint parish council. The act specified that the first elections to the district councils and reconstituted boards of guardians would take place on 8 November 1894, or such other date that
2929-676: The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts . He was Chancellor of the Victoria University of Manchester from 1908 until 1923, when he resigned. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature eleven times. He received an honorary degree ( LL.D. ) from the University of St Andrews in October 1902. A philosophical Radical of a somewhat mid-19th century type, and highly suspicious of
3030-580: The Russian Revolution six months ago as the new Golden Age, and I said to Page , 'What does he know of Russia?' to which Page replied, 'Nothing'. As for his talk about a union of hearts after the war, the world is not made like that . This led Morgan to ask Morley about the League of Nations : "A mirage, and an old one". Morgan asked: "How are you going to enforce it?", whereupon Morley replied: "How indeed? One may as well talk of London morality being due to
3131-521: The University of Cambridge . When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed his cabinet at the end of 1905, Morley was made Secretary of State for India . He would have preferred to have been Chancellor of the Exchequer . In this position, he was conspicuous in May 1907 and afterwards for his firmness in sanctioning extreme measures for dealing with the outbreak in India of alarming symptoms of sedition . Though he
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3232-551: The a priori unlikelihood of a full appreciation of Gladstone's powerful religious interests from such a quarter (Morley was an agnostic), the whole treatment is characterized by sympathy and judgement. The work was very successful, selling more than 25,000 copies in its first year. Morley was a Trustee of the British Museum from 1894 to 1921, Honorary Professor of Ancient Literature at the Royal Academy of Arts , and member of
3333-650: The pound unless they had the consent of both the parish meeting and the district council. Turning to the government of towns he explained: We shall convert the Improvement Commissioners and Local Boards into Urban District Councils; we shall abolish all plural voting; we shall propose to abolish all qualifications, for we think the only qualification a man ought to possess is the confidence of his constituents; and we propose to make women capable of serving on these District Councils. He then turned to reform of rural authorities: Then as regards rural districts,
3434-464: The Commons completed its consideration of the bill on 8 January 1894. The passage of the bill through the House of Lords was completed on 12 February. The Lords made two amendments to the bill, the first raised the population for forming a parish council back to the original figure of 300, the second amendment provided that parochial charities would only transfer to the administration of a parish council with
3535-613: The Council between 1910 and 1914. Morley was a distinguished political commentator, and biographer of his hero, William Ewart Gladstone . Morley is best known for his writings and for his "reputation as the last of the great nineteenth-century Liberals". He opposed imperialism and the Second Boer War . He supported Home Rule for Ireland. His opposition to British entry into the First World War as an ally of Russia led him to leave
3636-493: The English ratepayers is between 28,000 and 29,000. Not only are we exposed to this multiplicity of authority and this confusion of rating power, but the qualification, tenure, and mode of election of members of these Authorities differ in different cases. He explained that the government had chosen the civil parish as the basic unit of local government in rural areas. He estimated that there were approximately 13,000 rural parishes and
3737-656: The Guardians a popularly elected body, we do not propose to disturb the existing machinery. We take the Rural Sanitary Authority as it now exists, but elected and qualified under new conditions, and we continue that as the Rural District Council. Therefore, the Rural District Council will be the old Rural Sanitary Authority altered, and, I think, very much improved ... Then we propose to abolish all separate Highway Authorities in rural districts and to transfer
3838-401: The House of Lords during most of the session of 1911, in which the reform bill was passed; and it was he who read out to the House on the last night of debate the definite assurance from King George which finally secured the majority of 17: "His Majesty would assent to a creation of peers sufficient in number to guard against any possible combination of the different parties in opposition by which
3939-585: The Irish vote in Newcastle rallied to Morley and he comfortably kept his seat. After a vote on an Eight Hours Bill in the Commons in March 1892, Morley wrote: "That has taken place which I apprehended. The Labour party—that is, the most headstrong and unscrupulous and shallow of those who speak for labour—has captured the Liberal party. Even worse—the Liberal party, on our bench at any rate, has surrendered sans phrase , without
4040-650: The Liberal leadership in December 1898. He lost his seat in the 1895 general election but soon found another in Scotland , when he was elected at a by-election in February 1896 for the Montrose Burghs . From 1889 onwards, Morley resisted the pressure from labour leaders in Newcastle to support a maximum working day of eight hours enforced by law. Morley objected to this because it would interfere in natural economic processes. It would be "thrusting an Act of Parliament like
4141-615: The Local Government Board should fix. In the event, the electoral register was not complete until late November, and elections did not take place until December. Over 729,000 women were now eligible to vote in local elections in England and Wales (some of whom could already vote in local elections under the Municipal Franchise Act 1869 ). John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn , OM , PC , FRS , FBA (24 December 1838 – 23 September 1923),
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4242-604: The Ministry as Lord President of the Council , and was one of the four counsellors of state to administer the kingdom during George V 's visit to India for the Delhi Durbar in the winter of 1911–1912. As a member of the House of Lords, Lord Morley of Blackburn helped assure the passage of the Parliament Act 1911 , which eliminated the Lords' power to veto bills. Owing to the temporary failure of Lord Crewe 's health, Morley led
4343-787: The Parliament bill might be exposed a second time to defeat." He not only took charge of the India Office during Lord Crewe's illness, and of the Foreign Office in Sir Edward Grey 's short holidays, but he was an outstanding figure in the Home Rule debates of 1913 and 1914. In moving the second reading of the Amending bill on 1 July 1914, he said that the National Volunteers had dispelled
4444-510: The United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London . The act followed the reforms carried out at county level under the Local Government Act 1888 ( 51 & 52 Vict. c. 41). The 1894 legislation introduced elected councils at district and parish level. The principal effects of the act were: The new district councils were based on the existing urban and rural sanitary districts . Many of
4545-463: The act was 692. All but three of 118 additional districts were caused by the breaking up of cross-county rural sanitary districts (for example Monks Kirby Rural District was the part of Lutterworth RSD that was in Warwickshire , with the rest forming Lutterworth Rural District .) Where new rural districts were created due to boundary changes the county council were to provide names. In some areas
4646-516: The act was the fact that all electors had a single vote, and thus county councillors were popularly elected. The members of other local bodies were elected by a system of weighted voting, with those owning more property having multiple votes. The original Local Government Bill of 1888 had included provisions for creating district as well as county councils. However the President of the Local Government Board , Charles Ritchie , had some difficulty in having
4747-571: The administrative county, and to ensure that no parish or district extended into another county. Also parishes that crossed district boundaries were to be divided. Hundreds of orders were made by county councils, and it was not until 1898 that the process was complete. Many county councils took the opportunity to "tidy up" their boundaries with neighbouring authorities, and it was not uncommon for blocks of parishes to be exchanged. The division of parishes led to many ancient parishes being split into "urban" and "rural" portions. As an example, an order of
4848-548: The amendments, Henry Chaplin , President of the Board of Agriculture , claimed the government intended: ... on a proper and fitting occasion, when opportunity arises, to deal not only with the question of District Councils, but the question also of parochial reform. Parliament was dissolved in June 1892, and a general election called. The Liberals made the introduction of district and parish councils part of their programme. Following
4949-621: The approval of the Charity Commissioners . Both were agreed to. The act received the royal assent on 5 March 1894. In 1893 there were 688 urban Sanitary districts outside boroughs. These had various titles such as Local Government District or Local Board of Health District or Improvement Commissioners' District . Each of these variously titled entities became urban districts in 1894/5. Urban districts continued to be formed, and by 1927 there were 785. Municipal boroughs , while being classified as urban districts, had neither their titles nor constitutions altered. The governing body of
5050-432: The area was the urban district council. All councillors were popularly elected for a three-year term. There were to be no ex officio or appointed members as had existed in some of the predecessor bodies. In order to be eligible for election, a candidate was required to be on the electoral register, and to have resided in the district for twelve months prior to the election. Women were permitted to be councillors. One-third of
5151-452: The area was too small to become a separate rural district, which was required by the act to have at least five councillors. These areas were to "be temporarily administered by the district council of an adjoining district in another county with which it was united before the appointed day" . The councillors elected for these areas were entitled to sit and act as members of the rural district council, although separate accounts were to be kept for
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#17328585602355252-542: The area. These arrangements were usually ended within a few years of the act's coming into force, with the areas being transferred by alteration in either county or rural district boundaries. Some persisted until the 1930s, however, when county districts were reorganised under the Local Government Act 1929 . Exceptionally, the parish of Pennal , Merionethshire, was administered by Machynlleth Rural District in Montgomeryshire until 1955. Rural district councils inherited
5353-417: The bill dealt with poor law guardians and district councils. Among its provisions were that: The third part of the bill detailed the duties of the county council in dealing with divided areas and small parishes. The county council had the power to name divided parishes and to combine areas. The fourth and fifth parts of the bill dealt with the first election of councils and transitory provisions. Speaking in
5454-512: The bill on a number of grounds. He defended the ex-officio guardians who had "proved themselves the most efficient and the most useful members of the Board ;... you will find that the most regular attendants have been the ex officios, and that they have made the best Chairmen and the best members." He believed the reform of boards of guardians was unwarranted as "the system under which the Poor Law
5555-444: The control of any statesman, Government, or community". Morley also opposed the state providing benefits for sections or classes of the community as the government should not be used as a tool for sectional or class interests. The Unionist government had proposed to help farmers by assuming some of their rates and wanted to subsidise West Indian sugar producers. Morley viewed these as dangerous precedents of "distributing public money for
5656-451: The council was elected on 15 April each year. UDCs could, by a resolution passed with a two-thirds majority, change to a system of elections of the whole council every three years. The council elected a chairman at their annual meeting, who was, during their term of office, a justice of the peace for the county. There were 574 rural sanitary districts in 1893, many of them crossing county boundaries. The number of rural districts formed by
5757-721: The country" as "the most formidable of our standing problems". In 1909, the UK Parliament passed the Indian Councils Act 1909 , also known as the Minto–Morley Reforms. Named after Viceroy Lord Minto and Morley, the act introduced elections to legislative councils and admitted Indians to councils of the Secretary of State for India, the viceroy, and to the executive councils of Bombay Presidency and Madras Presidency . Muslims were granted separate electorates according to
5858-480: The county boundaries were so complicated that rural districts were in more than one administrative county. For example, Gloucestershire , Warwickshire and Worcestershire had many outlying detached parishes surrounded by other counties. Accordingly, the rural districts of Shipston on Stour , Stow on the Wold , Tewkesbury and Winchcombe included parishes in two or three counties. Rural district councils consisted of
5959-592: The demands of the All-India Muslim League . The Act was introduced to introduce communal representation in Indian politics, with the aim of countering the growing nationalism by dividing the common Indian population along communal lines. This ultimately resulted in the partition of the country along religious lines. Morley continued to hold the seals of the India Office until November 1910, when he resigned them, as he himself revealed subsequently, "partly because I
6060-596: The disbanded Thetford Rural District . In 1974, the district was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972 , and became part of the West Norfolk district, renamed King's Lynn and West Norfolk in 1981. Welney Rural District was (at least nominally) a short-lived entity created in 1894 containing the only parish, West Welney , which had been in Downham RSD but lay in the Isle of Ely rather than Norfolk . Its population at
6161-624: The election of 1892, Morley did not face a labour candidate but the Eight Hours League and the Social Democratic Federation supported the Unionist candidate. Morley kept his seat but came second to the Unionist candidate. When Morley was appointed to the government and the necessary by-election ensued, Hardie and other socialists advised working men to vote for the Unionist candidate (who supported an Eight Hours Bill for miners), but
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#17328585602356262-680: The election the Liberals under William Ewart Gladstone formed an administration with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party . The Local Government Bill (also referred to as the Parish Councils Bill) was published by H. H. Fowler , the President of the Local Government Board, on 26 March 1893. The bill consisted of 71 clauses arranged in five parts. The first part dealt with rural parishes, and provided that: The second part of
6363-470: The end of that period they have not made this readjustment, it will devolve upon the Local Government Board to interfere and carry the matter out. The bill returned, in amended form, for a second reading in November 1893. In reintroducing the bill to the Commons, Fowler outlined the objections that had been made, and the government's response. Walter Long , the opposition spokesman on local government attacked
6464-460: The founding father of Pakistan. The Austrian-born classical liberal theorist Friedrich Hayek , writing in 1944, as a British citizen, wrote about Morley's reputation: It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the more typically English a writer on political or social problems then appeared to the world, the more he is to-day forgotten in his own country. Men like Lord Morley or Henry Sidgwick , Lord Acton or A. V. Dicey , who were then admired in
6565-495: The government in August 1914. Morley was born in Blackburn , Lancashire , the son of Jonathan Morley, a surgeon, and of Priscilla Mary (née Donkin). He attended Cheltenham College . While at Oxford, he quarrelled with his father over religion, and had to leave the university early without an honours degree ; his father had wanted him to become a clergyman. He wrote, in obvious allusion to this rift, On Compromise (1874). Morley
6666-446: The illusion that the masses of the South and West of Ireland had lost their care for Home Rule. In the lead-up to Great Britain's entry into World War I, on 2 August 1914 the Liberal cabinet declared its intention to defend the French coast against the German Imperial Navy . In opposition to this commitment, Morley resigned along with John Burns . Unlike other Liberals, he was not alarmed by Germany's invasion of Belgium. However, he
6767-440: The increasing expenditure needed to fund it would lead to a reconstruction of the income tax and in turn would lead to taxing some people more heavily than others, something which was against the "maxims of public equity". Morley now regretted Gladstone's budget of 1853 (where the income tax was set "on its legs") because it gave the Chancellor of the Exchequer "a reservoir out of which he could draw with ease and certainty whatever
6868-407: The later opportunistic reaction (in all its forms) against Cobdenite principles, he yet retained the respect of the majority whom it was his usual fate to find against him in British politics by the indomitable consistency of his principles and by sheer force of character and honesty of conviction and utterance. His legacy was a purely moral one; although in May 1870 he married Mrs. Rose Mary Ayling,
6969-418: The latter had lain in more than one ancient county, whereas the new rural districts were to be in a single administrative county . The act also reorganised civil parishes , so that none of them lay in more than one district and hence did not cross administrative boundaries. Although the act made no provision to abolish the hundreds , which had previously been the only widely used administrative unit between
7070-506: The left, and sponsored working men candidates on his retirement from the seat, showing favour to the local Tory candidate, Charles Hamond . Morley, with Watson's machine, withstood the Cowen challenge until the 1895 general election , when the tactics caused the ejection of Morley and the loss of Newcastle to the Tories. In February 1886, he was sworn to the Privy Council and made Chief Secretary for Ireland , only to be turned out when Gladstone's government fell over Home Rule in July of
7171-399: The legislation passed by Parliament, and dropped the district council clauses for fear that the entire bill might be lost due to opposition from the government's own backbenchers. The Liberal opposition berated the government for failing to create district councils. At the same time they put forward proposals for establishing councils at parish level. John Morley , MP for Newcastle , told
7272-430: The mid-1890s, Morley adopted a doctrinaire opposition to state intervention in social and economic matters. He repeatedly expressed his hope that social reform would not become a party issue and warned voters to "Beware of any State action which artificially disturbs the basis of work and wages". Politicians could not "insure steady work and good wages" because of "great economic tides and currents flowing which were beyond
7373-550: The middle class, he is wrong". In 1909 the Liberal Chancellor David Lloyd George increased taxes in his budget (the " People's Budget ") to pay for increased armaments and social reform. Morley said that behind the budget "hangs the spectre of Tariff Reform" because the public " may say that, if this is the best that can be done under Free Trade, they'll try something else". Morley viewed "the Expenditure of
7474-609: The morning I do not ask myself if I am a good European". Towards the close of 1919 he was worried about Britain's guarantee to France: Surely a permanent commitment like that is contrary to all our foreign policy. What do the words 'unprovoked attack' by Germany mean? They are dangerously vague. I've been discussing them with Rosebery and he is as uneasy as I am. He wrote a letter to the Press about it, and The Times refused to publish it. He often criticised Labour Party policies and said to Morgan: "Have you read Henderson 's speech about
7575-564: The number of elected Guardians, but there is required to be one Guardian for every constituent parish. There is a property qualification and plural voting, and voting by proxy. We could not ask the House to continue the existing powers in, much less to confer new powers upon, an authority so constituted and so irresponsible ... We therefore propose to abolish, firstly, all ex officio or non-elective Guardians ... there shall be no plural voting, no proxy voting , and no voting papers, but voting by Ballot and One Man One Vote ... Having made
7676-445: The parish and the county in size, the reorganisation displaced their remaining functions. Several ancient hundred names lived on in the names of the districts that superseded them. The Local Government Act 1888 ( 51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) had introduced elected county councils. The passing of the act had been part of the price for Liberal Unionist support for Lord Salisbury's minority Conservative administration. An innovation in
7777-493: The parishioners. The bill then entered the committee stage. Arguments over the population at which parish councils should be established continued to be made, with amendments proposing limits of 100, 200, 500, 600 and 1,000. The figure finally reverted to the government figure of 200. Major Leonard Darwin , Liberal Unionist MP for Lichfield unsuccessfully introduced an amendment to create parish councils in urban districts containing more than one parish. After 34 days of debate,
7878-498: The personality of John Stuart Mill , with whose mode of thought he had many affinities. After the death of Gladstone, Morley was principally engaged in his biography, until it was published in 1903. Representing as it does so competent a writer's sifting of a mass of material, the Life of Gladstone was a masterly account of the career of the great Liberal statesman; traces of Liberal bias were inevitable but are rarely manifest; and in spite of
7979-539: The population so situated, as to make a single parish meeting for the election of councillors impracticable or inconvenient, or that it is desirable for any reason that certain parts of the parish should be separately represented on the council" . Separate elections of councillors for each ward would then be held. The responsibility for defining the areas of the districts was given to the county councils established in 1888 . County councils were supposed to have regard to areas of existing sanitary districts and parishes in
8080-558: The power of the state. The increase in state expenditure due to the Boer War (1899–1902) disturbed him because it might lead to the state's revenue-raising power being used to implement great changes in the social and economic structure of the country. Francis Hirst recorded in October 1899 about Morley: "He is depressed about national expenditure. He fears, when bad times come, that we shall have not retrenchment, but 'nefarious attacks on property and reversions to Fair Trade'." Imperialism and
8181-560: The powers of both the rural sanitary authority they replaced and any highway board in their area. In all rural parishes with a population of 300 or more, a parish council had to be elected. In parishes with more than 100 but less than 300 population, the parish meeting could request the county council to make an order to establish a parish council. Urban parishes (those within an urban district) were not given separate parish councils, but were directly administered by their urban district council or municipal borough council. The membership of
8282-446: The purposes of a single class" and he asked voters: "How far are you going to allow this to take you? ... If you are going to give grants to help profits, how are you off from giving grants in favour of aiding wages?" The end of this process, Morley warned, would see "national workshops to which anybody has a right to go and receive money out of your pockets". Morley viewed imperialism and an interventionist foreign policy as increasing
8383-442: The right one? We can only trust to the growth of responsibility; we may look to circumstances and events to teach their lesson. Morley devoted a considerable amount of time to literature, his anti-Imperial views being practically swamped by the overwhelming predominance of Unionism and Imperialism. His position as a leading British writer had early been determined by his monographs on Voltaire (1872), Rousseau (1873), Diderot and
8484-480: The same year and Lord Salisbury became prime minister . After the severe defeat of the Gladstonian party at the 1886 general election , Morley divided his life between politics and letters until Gladstone's return to power at the 1892 general election , when he resumed as Chief Secretary for Ireland. He had during the interval taken a leading part in parliament, but his tenure of the chief secretaryship of Ireland
8585-517: The shares of Mr Rhodes and his Chartereds beyond the dreams of avarice. Yea, and it will still be wrong! Morley was among the original recipients of the Order of Merit in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902, and received the order from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 8 August 1902. In July 1902, he was presented by Andrew Carnegie with the late Lord Acton 's valuable library, which, on 20 October, he in turn gave to
8686-413: The taxpayer already at his wits' end—when were the problems of plus and minus more desperate? How are we to measure the use and abuse of industrial organization? Powerful orators find "Liberty" the true keyword, but then I remember hearing from a learned student that of "liberty" he knew well over two hundred definitions. Can we be sure that the "haves" and the "have-nots" will agree in their selection of
8787-467: The time was about 500. In 1895 the parish was transferred to Norfolk, and Welney RD was absorbed by Downham RD. There does not appear to be any evidence that it ever actually functioned. 52°35′N 0°26′E / 52.58°N 0.44°E / 52.58; 0.44 Local Government Act 1894 The Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an act of the Parliament of
8888-400: The union is the administrative area with which we have to deal. Except in 25 cases, in which, if I may use the expression, the union consists of a single parish, the union is an aggregation of parishes. There are 648 unions altogether. There are 137 in two counties and 32 in three counties. The Guardians by whom the union is administered are elected or ex officio. The Local Government Board fixes
8989-520: The union produced no heirs. Mrs. Ayling was already married when she met John Morley and the couple waited to marry until her first husband died several years later (another similarity to John Stuart Mill). She was never received into polite society, and many of his colleagues, including Asquith, never met her. Morley had three siblings, Edward Sword Morley (1828–1901), William Wheelhouse Morley (1840 – c. 1870), and Grace Hannah Morley (1842–1925). According to historian Stanley Wolpert in his 1967 book: "It
9090-411: The viscountcy became extinct. After cremation at Golders Green Crematorium , his ashes were buried at Putney Vale Cemetery . He was followed in death several months later by Rose. Morley's estate was valued for probate at £59,765, a surprising sum for a self-made man who devoted his life to writing and politics. Morley inspired many leading figures of the 20th century, including Mahomed Ali Jinnah ,
9191-513: The whole powers of the Highway Board or the highway parish to the Rural District Council. Finally he described how the boundaries of the districts and parishes were to be arrived at: At present we have rural sanitary districts, partly within and partly without the county, and we have parishes partly within and partly without rural sanitary districts. We have 174 rural sanitary districts and some 800 parishes so situate. We propose that every parish
9292-408: Was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1873, before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. He later described his decision to abandon the law "my long enduring regret". He edited the newly Radical -Liberal Pall Mall Gazette from 1880 to 1883, with W. T. Stead as his assistant editor before going into politics. Morley first stood for Parliament at the 1869 Blackburn by-election ,
9393-547: Was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor. Initially a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-leaning Pall Mall Gazette from 1880 to 1883, he was elected a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Liberal Party in 1883. He was Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1886 and between 1892 and 1895; Secretary of State for India between 1905 and 1910 and again in 1911; and Lord President of
9494-584: Was a prominent Gladstonian Liberal. In Newcastle, his constituency association chairman was the effective Robert Spence Watson , a leader of the National Liberal Federation and its chairman from 1890 to 1902. Newcastle, however, was a dual member constituency and Morley's parliamentary colleague, Joseph Cowen , was a radical in perpetual conflict with the Liberal Party, who owned the Newcastle Daily Chronicle . Cowen attacked Morley from
9595-550: Was asked for". Gladstone had "furnished not only the means, but a direct incentive to that policy of expenditure which it was the great object of his life to check". After Joseph Chamberlain came out in favour of Tariff Reform in 1903, Morley defended Free trade . Morley claimed that it was no coincidence that since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, Britain was the only great country in Western Europe not to experience "even
9696-453: Was especially hostile to Russia and felt he could not be a part of a war alongside Russia against Germany. In 1917, Lord Morley of Blackburn published his two volumes of memoirs, Recollections . In it, he contrasted old and new Liberalism: The theory of new Liberalism did not seem much more piquant or fertile than the respectable old. As it happened, in the fulness of time our distinguished apostles of Efficiency came into supreme power, with
9797-466: Was hardly a success. The Irish gentry made things as difficult for him as possible, and the path of an avowed Home Ruler installed in office at Dublin Castle was beset with pitfalls. In the internecine disputes that agitated the Liberal party during Lord Rosebery 's administration and afterwards, Morley sided with Sir William Harcourt and was the recipient and practically co-signatory of his letter resigning
9898-570: Was strongly opposed by some of the more extreme members of the Radical party, on the grounds of belying his democratic principles in dealing with the British Raj , his action was generally recognised as combining statesmanship with patience. While firmly opposing revolutionary propaganda, he showed his popular sympathies by appointing two distinguished native Indians to the Council of India and taking steps for
9999-403: Was subject to the approval of the Local Government Board. No right of way could be extinguished or diverted without the permission of both the parish and rural district council. Parish councils could take over the maintenance of public footpaths within their parish, other than those along the edge of highways. Where a charitable trust (other than an ecclesiastical charity) existed in a parish,
10100-423: Was tired, partly from a feeling that a new viceroy would have fairer openings with a new secretary of state; partly, too, that I might have a farewell chance of literary self-collection." One of his last important official acts had been to resist the appointment of Lord Kitchener to the viceroyalty, pressed strongly upon him by King Edward just before his death. Until the outbreak of World War I , Morley remained in
10201-594: Was wrong and proclaimed: "I am not prepared to allow that the Liberty and the Property Defence League are the only people with a real grasp of Liberal principles, that Lord Bramwell and the Earl of Wemyss are the only Abdiels of the Liberal Party". Later that year Morley defined his politics: "I am a cautious Whig by temperament, I am a Liberal by training, and I am a thorough Radical by observation and experience". By
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