Edward Baines (1774–1848)

Edward Baines (1774–1848) was the editor and proprietor of the Leeds Mercury (which, by his efforts, became the leading provincial paper in England), politician, and the author of historical and geographic works of reference.

On his death in 1848, the Leeds Intelligencer (a rival of the Mercury, and its political opponent for over forty years) described his as "one who has earned for himself an indisputable title to be numbered among the notable men of Leeds".

Of his character and physical appearance it remarked: "Mr Baines had great industry and perseverance, as well as patience and resolution; and with those he possessed pleasing manners and address, - that debonair and affable bearing, which conciliated even those who might have felt that they had reason to regard him as an enemy… In person he was of a firm well-built frame, rather above the average stature; his features were regular, his expression of countenance frank and agreeable; and he retained his personal comeliness as well as his vivacity and suavity of manners to the last". and then in the lower school of the grammar school in Preston. but within the year the Mercury was exchanging insults with the Cambridge Intelligencer, which accused the Mercury of dancing to the Government's tune with vague reports of (and editorial comment deploring) nocturnal meetings of the disaffected. In 1805 a new editor of the Leeds Intelligencer attacked the Mercury as "bespattered with ... sedition"; together with Baines' heated response this initiated a long-lasting state of mutual incivility between the two papers which makes each an unreliable source for the other's deeds and motives. According to counsel in an 1820 libel case "When there was a dearth of political news, nothing was more common for one Editor to attack another, and the public appeared to find amusement in their squabbles".

The Mercury sent its own reporters to significant events outside its circulation area, such as York Assizes: a Mercury reporter was present and taking shorthand notes at the giant Reform meeting at Manchester which became the Peterloo massacre. That reporter was Baines' second son Edward, who from 1820 onwards progressively took over the everyday running of the Mercury as his father became more involved in local politics.

"The spy Oliver"

On 14 June 1817, the first edition of the Mercury reported that ten Yorkshire men were held in Wakefield jail accused of planning insurrection. It noted that they had been arrested the previous week at a meeting near Dewsbury between them and a Mr Oliver, who had represented himself as a delegate from a central organising committee in London; its readers would probably infer that 'Oliver' was a spy. Following the arrest of the men, there had been disturbances at Huddersfield and Ossett. The second edition made three further charges, supported by the evidence of respectable named moderate reformers: firstly that 'Oliver' had repeatedly urged one of them a Dewsbury bookseller, to attend the meeting: secondly, that 'Oliver' had been seen by another of them at Wakefield after the arrests, and with no satisfactory explanation why he was still at liberty: thirdly that he had been seen in conversation with a liveried man-servant of General Byng, the army officer responsible for internal security in the North of England, the man-servant later saying that on a previous occasion he had driven Oliver from Byng's house to Wakefield to catch a coach. The Mercury made no charge against Byng, but asked who were the employers of 'this double-distilled traitor' and called upon local magistrates to investigate. "On the 16th the exposure of Oliver in the Leeds Mercury was read in both houses of parliament, by Earl Grey in the lords and Sir Francis Burdett in the commons. A strong sensation was produced; and those members, supported by the body of the opposition condemned in the most indignant language the atrocious proceedings brought to light".

Byng wrote to the Mercury, denying much of the initial report, but Baines printed the letter the following week accompanied by further evidence supporting the Mercury<nowiki>'</nowiki>s account and rebutting Byng's. The report triggered revulsion locally against Oliver and against conviction of those led to crime by government agents. Earl Fitzwilliam, a Whig magnate and Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding, wrote to the Home Office saying that any disturbances in the Riding had been minor and were brought about by Oliver's activities (of which he complained) : the government should not use them to justify a renewed suspension of Habeas Corpus. Fitzwilliam advised the Huddersfield magistrates not to gather evidence against their rioters; that could only come from accomplices and hence be highly objectionable. At York assizes, the judge in his direction to the jury was even harsher than Fitzwilliam on the unreliability of the evidence of accomplices, and no convictions were secured. Whilst the Mercury<nowiki>'</nowiki>s exposure of Oliver prevented the conviction of the Yorkshire prisoners, in Derbyshire the participants in the 'Pentridge rebellion' (also triggered by Oliver) were not so fortunate, having by mischance killed a man before dispersing when faced with the magistrates and twenty dragoons. Thirty-five were tried for high treason and twenty-three convicted; four being executed. Baines could therefore claim to have saved the lives of fellow-Yorkshiremen., and the unmasking of 'Oliver' gave Baines a national reputation.

However, critics such as William Cobbett pointed out that it was the suspicions of a linen-draper, rather than any investigation by the editor of the Mercury, that had unmasked Oliver, and objected to Baines's treatment of Joseph Mitchell. Oliver had made a previous tour of the North and Midlands with Mitchell, who knew and introduced him to potential insurrectionists. Mitchell was arrested in early May and Oliver made his second tour alone. After Oliver's exposure, Baines prevented Mitchell speaking at meetings of Yorkshire fellow reformers, alleging that Mitchell was under the gravest suspicion of being a spy too. No evidence (other than 'guilt by association') to support Mitchell being an informer - let alone an agent provocateur - was produced at the time, nor has any been revealed by subsequent investigation in Home Office archives. it put into the mouth of Sir George Strickland a speech in Parliament calling for Sadler's Bill of 1832 to go to a select committee, when Strickland had made no such speech and had called for the bill to be considered by a "Committee of the whole House" and not be delayed by a select committee; when Strickland attended a great county meeting in York on factory reform and disowned the words put in his mouth by the Mercury the Mercury<nowiki>'</nowiki>s report put into Strickland's mouth its explanation of its mistake, avoiding any mention of the Leeds Mercury. The report of the county meeting alleged widespread drunkenness amongst the attendees, a point which had somehow gone unnoticed by other newspapers. Offended by the claims of drunkenness, factory reform supporters subsequently burnt Baines in effigy outside the Mercury offices; the effigy was labelled front and back "The Great Liar of the North", an epithet Cobbett had previously hurled at the Mercury and Baines, Cobbett later wrote more memorably, and more quotably, of

<blockquote>"BROUGHAM's grand puffer, "the GREAT LIAR OF THE NORTH," NED BAINES, publisher of that mass of lies and nonsense called the "Leeds Mercury" … this swelled-up, greedy, and unprincipled puffer, who has been the deluder of Yorkshire for twenty years past."</blockquote>

Authorship

As well as his journalistic output, Baines was the author of a number of histories and gazetteers. His first book - a History of the Wars of the French Revolution - was published in 1817, having first been published as a part-work from 1814 onwards. Its account up to 1801 borrowed extensively (and sometimes verbatim) from another author's earlier work of 1803 on the same topic (A Stephens The History of the Wars Which Arose out of the French Revolution to Which is Prefixed a Review of the Causes of that Event (London 1803)). This went unacknowledged until Baines revised, expanded and retitled the work as a History of the Reign of King George III (1820); his new preface stating "To facilitate ... progress, and at the recommendation of the publisher and proprietor of Mr Alexander Stephens' s History of the Wars published in 1803, nearly half the details of the first volume were abridged from that work." This later led to denunciation of Baines as a plagiarist by one of the editors of the Intelligencer. He also produced history/directory/gazetteers for Yorkshire and for Lancashire, later reworking the latter as a county history, The History of the County Palatine of Lancaster which was continued by other authors.

Political career

Leeds

thumb|Statue of Edward Baines in Leeds City Hall

As proprietor and editor of the Mercury Baines became an important figure in the affairs of Leeds. An obituary in 1848 noted <blockquote>Mr Baines took a part in the formation and support of many, if not most of the public institutions of Leeds. In early youth he was a visitor of the Benevolent, or Strangers' Friend Society, to which he always continued a warm friend. He assisted to establish the House of Recovery, the Dispensary, the Lancasterian School, the Philosophical Society, the Mechanics' Institution, the Literary Society, the New Library, the Tradesman's Benevolent Society, the Leeds and Yorkshire Insurance Company, our Provident institutions, our Waterworks…- in short, nearly all the institutions for public utility and benevolence established in Leeds within the last half century.</blockquote>

He also became an important figure in Leeds politics, although as a Dissenter and a Reformer he was effectively excluded from Leeds Corporation which until the 1830s was a 'closed corporation'; vacancies were filled by election by the existing members of the corporation; they were Tories and generally Anglicans, and hence so were their successors. One area of political life from which Reformers and Dissenters could not be excluded was the vestry meeting of the (Anglican) parish church - all property owners (including Dissenters and other non-conformists) had to pay church rates and rate-payers were entitled to attend and vote. Baines fought a prolonged campaign to impose strict economy on church outgoings, starting in 1819 with a demand that accounts be published, and finally in 1828 managing to secure the election of churchwardens committed to economy. On the Whigs coming to power, Brougham became Lord Chancellor, necessitating a by-election: this time the Whigs of rural Yorkshire forestalled the West Riding and secured a more traditional candidate: Sir John Vanden-Bempde-Johnstone of Harkness Hall, near Scarborough.

Baines was a leading light in reform agitation in Leeds, and was commissioned by Lord John Russell to determine whether qualification in borough constituencies could safely be set as low as £10 (rates paid a year).