1325 John Walton

Constituency : Leeds  South  1892-1908

We  now  look  at  the  Liberal  by-election  victors  of  the  1892-5  Parliament. As  the  largest  party  the  Liberals  formed  a  minority  government  dependent  on  Irish  support. This  was  not  particularly  stable  as  the  Irish  party  had split  in  two  over  Parnell's conduct  in  a  divorce  case  and  that  remained  the  case  even  though  Parnell  had  made  a  helpful  contribution  to  reunification  by  dying  a year  earlier. The  split  also  served  to  weaken  the  case  for  Home  Rule  but  Gladstone, the  textbook  example  of  an  old  man  in  a  hurry  pressed  ahead  with  another  Home  Rule  Bill. This  time  he  got  it  through  the  Commons  but  in  the  Lords   where  he  had  meagre  support  since  the  1886  schism  it  was  crushed. His Cabinet  colleagues  resisted  the  idea  of  a  fresh  election  and  it's  difficult  to  see  how  that  would  have  helped. Gladstone  lingered  on  for  a  few  months, puzzling  everyone, before  finally  accepting  his  day  was  done  and   resigning, ostensibly  over  naval  expenditure  in  March  1894. The  Queen  did  not  ask  his  advice  on  a  successor  but  chose  her  own  favourite , the  charming  aristocratic  Foreign  Secretary  Lord  Rosebery. Neil  Primrose  had  never  sat  in  the  Commons  and  was  a  moderate  , imperialistic  Liberal  with  little  enthusiasm  for  Home  Rule. He  was  a  compelling  public  speaker  but  struggled  to  unite  the  party  after  the  Grand  Old  Man's  departure. Harcourt, his  fiercest  rival's  introduction  of  death  duties  was  the  only  real  achievement  of  his  premiership  which  collapsed  in  disarray  after  little  more  than  a  year.

John  came  in  at  Leeds  South  after  Sir  Lyon  Playfair's  elevation  to  the  peerage. He  won  by  948  votes.

John  was  the  son  of  a  Wesleyan  missionary  in  Ceylon  and  later  South  Africa. He  was  educated  at  the  Merchant Taylor's  Hall, Great  Crosby  and  London  University. He  became  a  successful  barrister  often  in  cases  involving  trade  unions. In  1891  he  was  selected  as  the  Liberal  candidate  for   Battersea  but  felt  obliged  to  make  way  for  John  Burns  and  contested  Central  Leeds  instead  where  he  lost  narrowly.

John  was  a  radical  on  the  House  of  Lords  and  disestablishment  but  tacked  to  the  Liberal  Imperialist  grouping  around  Rosebery  during  the  Boer  War.

In  1904  John  was  a  witness  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  Ecclesistical  Discipline  arguing  for  more  effective  procedures  against   law-breaking  clergy.

John  was  appointed  Attorney- General  and  knighted  by  Campbell-Bannerman  in  1905.  He  was  charged  with  introducing  the  Trade  Disputes  Bill. John's  first  draft  would  have  made  unions  responsible  for  breaches  of  law  by  their  members. The  unions  wanted  immunity  clauses  which  John  rejected  as  "class  privileges. His  position  was  undermined  when  CAmpbell-Bannerman   instructed  him  to  redraft  it with  the  new  immunity  clauses  under  pressure  from  Labour.

John  had  often  suffered  from  ill  health  and  developed  a  chill  after  struggling  through  two  all-night  sittings  on  the  Criminal  Court  Appeals  Bill. It  developed  into  double  pneumonia  and  he  died  in  1908  aged  55.