Hamer Stansfeld

Hamer Stansfeld (17 February 1797 – 1865) was a British merchant associated with Leeds, where he was an alderman, and mayor in 1843. He was known in his time as a justice of the peace in West Yorkshire; as a Liberal radical, prominent in the Anti-Corn Law League and as a proponent of the extension of the electoral franchise and of state funded education. He was also known for a dispute played out in the local press with Walter Hook, vicar of Leeds and a High Churchman and Tractarian; and for his writings on currency and money supply.

Stansfeld led the development of the Ben Rhydding Hydro, the first custom-built hydropathic hotel established in 1844.

Biography
Hamer Stansfeld was born on 17 February 1797, the ninth son and thirteenth child of David Stansfeld, of Leeds, merchant, and his wife Sarah; and grandson of David Stansfeld of Hope Hall in Halifax.

Stansfeld is described as "one of the leading mercantile men" in Leeds, and one who took an active part in many of the public affairs of the borough. His background was described as a member of a very old Yorkshire family, which had for many generations held a position of influence in the county. He is noted as being "in Prussia selling cloth" in c.1839-40.

Stansfeld was an alderman of Leeds Corporation from about 1835, after the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act, rising to the position of mayor in 1843. He was a member of the commission for the peace of the borough of Leeds, described as one of the most active of the borough magistrates. He was also a Justice of the Peace for West Yorkshire.

Stansfeld was a Liberal radical, a strong advocate of the principles of free trade, and leading member of the Anti-Corn Law League, who corresponded with Richard Cobden and John Bright, and lobbied in London for the interests of the town. He was a supporter of household suffrage for the elective franchise, and in 1837 became president of the Leeds Household Suffrage Association. He was a zealous advocate of state-assisted education and an opponent of Edward Baines who argued for voluntaryism in the provision of education. He was one of the sponsors of the establishment, in April 1844, of the Leeds Friendly Loan Society, which was in part designed to make loans to wage-earners who wished to establish their own small businesses. The Leeds Intelligencer of August 1840 notes a number of other platforms on which Stansfeld stood: the entire separation of church and state; expulsion of bishops from the House of Lords; vote by ballot; shortening the duration of parliaments; abolition of church rates; and the reform of ecclesiastical courts.

Stansfeld's opposition to church rates placed him against Walter Hook, vicar of Leeds, and Leeds Tories, who supported their reimposition. The Tories made a political issue of the dispute, and in April 1840 launched a personal attack on Stansfeld, alleging his position constituted a breach of the oath he had taken as Alderman, to ...never exercise any power authority or influence which I may possess by virtue of the office of Alderman to injure or weaken the Protestant Church.... The Tories first made an indirect and oblique criticism of Stansfeld within the Council chamber; later, they organised an unsuccessful petition to the Home Secretary calling for Standsfeld's removal as Alderman. Stansfeld defended himself by drawing the distinction between actions taken as Alderman, and those of a private individual. As was normal for the times, the dispute played out through correspondence in local newspapers.

In 1843 Stansfeld became embroiled in a theological controversy when Walter Hook publicly challenged an assertion Stansfeld had made in a speech, that a tract taking a Puseyite stance on matrimony had been published in Leeds. The incident played out via letters republished in local newspapers, and reflected a concern held in the town as to whether Hook, given his High Church views, could be considered a Protestant.

Stansfeld was one of the first and principal shareholders in the establishment of the Ben Rhydding Hydro, which opened in 1844. Stansfeld had travelled in Europe in 1843, where he was introduced to and persuaded of the benefits of hydrotherapy as practiced by Vincenz Priessnitz in Gräfenberg, Austrian Silesia.

The question of whether educational provision should be voluntary or state supported proved to be a key issue in Leeds, and in 1847 caused a split in Liberal ranks during the parliamentary election which returned (perhaps against expectations) William Beckett, a Conservative; and James Garth Marshall, a Liberal whose election committee was chaired by Stansfeld. Edward Baines's favoured candidate, the Radical Joseph Sturge, was not elected. Though Baines lost this contest, the "Bainesocracy" in municipal Leeds achieved a measure of payback when Stansfeld failed to be relected to the Leeds Corporation later in 1847.

Stansfeld held strong notions on currency, and was a great advocate of paper money, issued by private banks, as a medium of exchange; he found great fault with the Bank Charter Act 1844 which he saw as the cause of the commercial and banking crisis known as the panic of 1847. He repeatedly put forward his ideas on these subjects in letters to newspapers and journals and in pamphlets which he distributed widely.

Stansfeld was a Unitarian, and he laid the foundation stone of the 1848 Mill Hill Chapel in City Square, Leeds.

Stansfeld married Ellen, daughter of Matthew Towgood, in 1845. The Stansfelds resided at Headingley Lodge, Headingley and in 1849 bought The Grange at Burley in Wharfedale. Stansfeld retired from public life in about the late 1850s, and resided at Highfield in Windermere, Cumbria. He died on 9 June 1865 in Ilkley, and was buried in Westmoreland.

Samuel Smiles, who had worked with Stansfeld on radical causes and counted him as a friend, was unstinting in his praise: "Mr Stansfeld was a man for whom I had the greatest esteem. He was frank, free, and open, in all that he did. He possessed the courtesy of the true gentleman ; and withal he was intelligent, enlightened, and firm to his purpose. He was full of industry, integrity, and excellence. In a word, his character was sterling. As was said of some one — he had the whitest soul that ever I knew."

Smiles's assessment is matched by an 1845 anecdote in The Spectator, citing the Leeds Mercury: "Several years since, the firm of Stansfeld, Briggs, and Stansfeld, of which Mr. Hamer Stansfeld was a junior partner, became unfortunate. Ever since that period, this gentleman has contemplated the payment, if Providence should prosper him, of his share of the debts owing by the above firm; and just previous to his marriage, which took place a few weeks since, he sent round a circular to all his former creditors, accompanied by 20s. in the pound on his proportion of every debt. Such instances of mercantile honour as this should be widely known, in order that they may be both admired and imitated."