Constituency : Scarborough 1880-85, Barrow-in-Furness 1886-90 ( Liberal Unionist ) , Bradford East 1892-5, Camborne 1900-03
William took the second Scarborough seat for the Liberals.
William was a metal merchant's son from Cheshire. He was educated privately then went into the family business. He was a Baptist and married his minister's daughter. He then became a leading light in the temperance movement being elected vice-president of the United Kingdom Alliance. He stood for Liverpool unsuccessfully in 1873 and 1874.
Once in Parliament William acquired a reputation as a radical for his temperance views but in 1884 he was made Civil Lord of the Admiralty. He won the resulting by-election but lost a year later.
In 1886 William won a by-election at Barrow-in- Furness. He was opposed by both the Tories and the Irish Nationalists who'd got wind of his opposition to Home Rule .He immediately began organising the Home Rule revolt which led to the nickname "Brand of Caine" for the Liberal Unionists. He was the teller in the crucial debate in 1886. He said of Gladstone after a party meeting at the Foreign Office that he "surrenders the fort & armaments but asks for a cotton pocket handkerchief & some old muskets that he might please the women and children as he marches out".
William held his seat in 1886 and became chief whip for the Liberal Unionists but his views on temperance soon caused problems for the alliance with the Tories. In 1887 he objected to the appointment of William Pearce to the committee on purchase and contract in the navy as he was a "disappointed tenderer". In 1888 he formed the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association with Samuel Smith and went to India to promote it. In 1890 he resigned the whip and fought a by-election as an independent Liberal. He was defeated by a Gladstonian. Chamberlain wrote that he was "grieved and wounded" by William's desertion. William responded that "nine tenths of what I want in politics I must get from the recognized Liberal party... the Tory Alliance has become unbearable and their attack on the whole Temperance movement , which I could never subordinate to anything , gave me emancipation".
Following his defeat William visited India in 1890 and is thought to be the model for the titular character in Kipling's political tract The Enlightenments of Pagett MP. He himself wrote a guidebook Picturesque India.
In 1892 William was elected for Bradford East as a Liberal. He soon became friendly with David Lloyd George. He mounted a one man campaign against the Government of India over their cannabis policy and secured the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893/94. He described cannabis as "the most horrible intoxicant the world has yet produced". He also campaigned against the mutoscope for showing nude figures of women saying young men were being "polluted and degraded " by them.
In 1893 his iron company collapsed which left him poorer. He was defeated in 1895 but came back for Camborne in 1900. His health was failing and after a trip to South America in 1902 he died of heart failure in 1903 aged 60,
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