723 Henry James

Constituency : Taunton  1869-85, Bury  1885-95  ( from  1886  Liberal  Unionist )

Henry  didn't  actually  have  to  fight  a  by-election. He  challenged  the  result  in  Taunton  and  after  a  scrutiny  of  the  votes  in  March  1969  he  was  declared  a  winner. ( His  Liberal  colleague  William  Price's  position  was  unaffected. )

Henry  was  a  doctor's  son  from  Hereford. He  was  educated  at  Cheltenham  College  and
became  a  barrister. In  his  legal  career  he  utilised  the  talents  of  the  young  Asquith.

Henry  made  his  parliamentary  mark  in  1872  with  his  contributions  to  the  debates  on  the  Judicature  Act.  He  crticised  Gladstone  for  his  lukewarm  support  for  removing  Women's  Disabilities.  Nevertheless,  in  1873  Gladstone  made  Henry  Solicitor-General  and  knighted  him. Just  before  the  1874  election  he  was  made  Attorney-General. He  was  re-appointed  to  this  post  in  1880  and  steered  the  Corrupt  Practices  Act  of  1883  through  Parliament.  Roy  Jenkins  wrote  that  Henry  was  Gladstone's  favourite  law  officer  and  described  him  as  an  "agreeable, urbane, hedonistic  Whig".   In  1885 he  switched  seats  to  Bury  when  Taunton  was  reduced  to  a  single  member  constituency.

In  1886  Henry  represented  Charles  Dilke  in  the  Crawford  divorce  case  and  he  was  responsible  for  the  disastrous  advice  which  led  Dilke  to  reopen  the  case  and  ensure  his  own  downfall.

When  Gladstone  formed  his  third  ministry  he  offered  Henry  the  Lord  Chancellorship  but  Henry  was  implacably  opposed  to  Home  Rule  and  declined. This  sacrifice  made  him  a  prominent  Liberal  Unionist.  He  told  his  Bury  electors  " I  am  going  to  take  up  abode  in  no  cave. The  climate  of  a  cave  would  not  suit  me ",   The  local  Liberal  caucus  disowned  him  but  he  held  the  seat  which  had  no  significant  Irish  population. He  understood  the  local  Liberals'  anger : "they  had  won  the  seat  in  1885  for  me  and  now  a  year  afterwards  they  saw  me  holding  it  for  those  we  had  defeated".

In  1888  Henry  represented  The  Times  in  the  Parnell  Commission  investigating  the  allegation  made  by  the  paper  that  Parnell  condoned  the  Phoenix  Park  murders.

Henry  joined  Salisbury's  government  in  1895  as  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster. He  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  James. He  opposed  Chamberlain's  Tariff  Reform   plans.

He  died  in  1911  aged  82.