John Passmore Edwards | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of John Passmore Edwards byGeorge Frederic Watts, 1894 | |
| Born | (1823-03-24)24 March 1823 Blackwater,Cornwall, England |
| Died | 22 April 1911(1911-04-22) (aged 88) |
| Occupation(s) | journalist andphilanthropist |
| Title | Member of Parliament forSalisbury |
| Term | 1880–1885 |
John Passmore Edwards (24 March 1823 – 22 April 1911)[1][2] was a Britishjournalist, newspaper owner, andphilanthropist who briefly served as aLiberal PartyMember of Parliament.
According to his autobiography[3] Passmore Edwards was born inBlackwater, a small village betweenRedruth andTruro inCornwall, England. He had three brothers, William, Richard and James. His father was aCornishman, abrewer by trade. His mother's maiden name was Passmore, and she had been born inNewton Abbot,Devon.[4]
He reported that in his youth there were few books available to him, and they were mostly theological in nature. At age twelve, the first book he managed to purchase for himself wasNewton'sOpticks, and he declared that he "was just as wise at the end as I was at the beginning of reading it".[3]
He became theManchester representative of the LondonSentinel, a weekly newspaper opposed to theCorn Law, in 1844 but the paper failed within a year. By 1845 he settled in London, supporting himself by freelance writing and lecturing in the cause of social reform.[1]
His initial publishing ventures, including the widely readPublic Good, were failures, bringing him to bankruptcy in 1853, but his 1862 purchase ofThe Building News and Engineering Journal (founded in 1854 asThe Building News) led to profitability; this was followed by the twopenny weeklyEnglish Mechanic (subtitledand Mirror of Science and Art) and shareholding in the leading London newspaperThe Echo,[when?] which he purchased in 1876. He eventually sold two-thirds of his share inThe Echo toAndrew Carnegie to follow a political and social agenda. However, they disagreed and he bought it back and restored his editor in 1886. The paper closed in 1905.[1] Ebeneezer J. Kibblewhite was longtime editor[5] ofThe Building News and Architectural Journal.
In 1893Francis Hughes-Hallett (a former MP who had defeated Passmore Edwards atRochester in1885) filed a lawsuit against Passmore Edwards and Kibblewhite, as proprietor and editor/printer ofThe Weekly Times and Echo, over an article in the paper that poked fun at his widely reportedadultery. The article, published in the issue of 29 May 1892, included the lines
It is reported that Colonel Hughes-Hallett, formerly M.P. for Rochester, is going to honour the new Parliament with his presence if he can get returned. He should stand withSir Charles Dilke for somedouble-barrelled constituency, where the electors are not particular, and then we should have a suitable champion of purity on each side of the House, in view of eventualities, Hallett and Dilke!Sodom and Gomorrah might have been proud of such a distinguished pair of representatives.
Hughes-Hallett claimed that the comparison of him to disgraced former MP Sir Charles Dilke and to say that the two should run together for the constituency of "Sodom and Gomorrah" constitutedlibel driven by personal malice. The defendants argued that since the press had already covered Hughes-Hallett's affairs extensively, they were not doing additional harm to his reputation. The jury found for the defendants.[6]
He was a delegate to theInternational Peace Congresses inBrussels,Paris andFrankfurt (from 1848 to 1850). He stood as aLiberal candidate forTruro in thegeneral election of 1868 but was not elected. In the1880 general election he gained a parliamentary seat in the two-memberSalisbury constituency as a Liberal.[7] Salisbury was reduced to one MP by theRedistribution of Seats Act 1885 and in the1885 general election he stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal inRochester.
He became somewhat sceptical about the quality of professional politics and the inability of politicians to effectively represent the interests of their constituents, and his opposition to theSecond Boer War lost him some popularity.
He twice refused a knighthood.[8][9]
A lifelong champion of the working classes, Passmore Edwards is remembered as a generousbenefactor. Over the space of 14 years, 70 major buildings were established as a direct result of hisbequests. These included hospitals, 11 drinking fountains, 32 marble busts, 24 libraries,[1] schools, convalescence homes and art galleries and the Passmore Edwards Settlement (later called theMary Ward Centre), which was originally located atMary Ward House onTavistock Place. He was also a generous donor to theWorkers' Educational Association.[1] Many of Passmore Edwards' buildings were designed by the architectMaurice Bingham Adams, who was also the editor of one of his journals,Building News.[10]
In 1898 Passmore Edwards donated substantially to the Essex Local and Educational Museum of Natural History, which was later named thePassmore Edwards Museum.[11]
He also gave money to many hospitals including thePassmore Edwards District Cottage Hospital, next toTilbury Dock, Essex, where he built a ward which was named after him. Wards in Wembley Cottage Hospital and Willesden General were also named after him. He also donated his earnings to a fountain inHoxton Square,[12] Shoreditch, London. This fountain is regularly frequented by the local community and is considered a historical landmark in an area that finds itself becoming detached from its history.
Passmore Edwards was a leadingFreemason, and a founder in 1906 of the Standard Chapter of Improvement, which sought to simplify and unify the incoherent rituals of theHoly Royal Arch degree. He was ateetotaller andvegetarian.[13][14]
Many of the buildings that he paid for are still in use for their original purpose. A bust of Passmore Edwards by SirGeorge Frampton was rescued from the basement ofHoxton Library and unveiled in May 2007 at the Passmore Edwards Library inSt Ives, Cornwall.[15]
As well as London libraries such as atEast Dulwich andEdmonton, he gave the public library buildings in Devon at Newton Abbot and in Cornwall atBodmin,Camborne,Falmouth,Launceston,Liskeard,Penzance,Redruth,St Ives andTruro.[16]
ThePassmore Edwards Public Library inShepherd's Bush, London, is now the home of theBush Theatre, which moved there in October 2011.[17]
The Passmore Edwards Public Library in Borough Road, London, has been refurbished byLondon South Bank University and houses the university's apprenticeships and a coffee shop.
TheEpilepsy Society's main administrative office is sited at Passmore Edwards House, a Grade II listed building inChalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire.[18]
ThePassmore Edwards Centre in Newton Abbot was erected 1902-1904 in memory of Passmore Edwards' mother.[19]
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Distant, William Lucas (June 1899)."Editorial Gleanings".The Zoologist. 4th series, vol. 3 (696): 288.
Media related toJohn Passmore Edwards at Wikimedia Commons| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSalisbury 1880–1885 With:William Grenfell (1880–1882) Coleridge Kennard (1882–1885) | Succeeded by |
