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John Deakin Heaton and the ‘elusive civic pride of the Victorian middle class’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2017

SIMON MORGAN Open the ORCID record for SIMON MORGAN [Opens in a new window]
SIMON MORGAN*
Affiliation:
School of Cultural Studies and Humanities, Leeds Beckett University, Broadcasting Place BP A 214, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9EN, UK
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Abstract:

Civic pride is rarely studied at the individual level. The journals of Dr John Deakin Heaton provide a unique insight into the motivations of a man linked to many institutions and civic sites of Leeds, celebrated by historians as a progenitor of its famous town hall and the city's first university. This article uses those journals to investigate the matrix of family honour, Anglicanism and professional identity, tempered by self-interest, underpinning Heaton's desire to improve his native town. Its conclusions further justify the recent historiographical emphasis on associational culture and ritual in the study of urban governance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 595 - 615
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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21 Morgan, A Victorian Woman's Place.

22 Heaton's obituary in the British Medical Journal listed many of the positions he held at or shortly before his death: member of the Council of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society; chairman of the Yorkshire Board of Education; member of the first School Board; justice of the peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire; trustee of the Pious Uses Trust; member of the Board of Management of Leeds Church Extension Society; honorary physician to the Tradesman's Benevolent Institution, the Unmarried Women's Benevolent Institution and the Leeds Town Mission; trustee of the patronage of the livings of St George's, St Andrew's and St Michael's Buslingthorpe; honorary secretary of the Leeds Improvement Society; chair of the Council of the Yorkshire College: British Medical Journal, 10 Apr. 1880, 570.

23 www.heatonmap.mobi. This project was undertaken in conjunction with the Yorkshire Archaeological Society and the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield, with the sponsorship of the Centre for Culture and the Arts, Leeds Beckett University.

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26 Heaton journals, vol. 1, fol. 107.

27 Reid, Heaton, 54–6.

28 Ibid., 57, 59. This attempt was ultimately stymied by the smoke of the works proliferating along the river Aire further west: Beresford, Maurice, East End, West End: The Face of Leeds during Urbanisation 1684–1842 (Leeds, 1988), 286–303Google Scholar.

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31 Preston Guardian, 23 Jul. 1852.

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34 Heaton journals, vol. 2, fols. 50–2. The church was rebuilt again in 1974 and the window lost.

35 Ibid., vol. 2, fol. 146.

36 Ibid., vol. 4, 3 July 1875.

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38 Will of Fanny Heaton, proved 7 Dec. 1893.

39 ‘Former high sheriff’, Surrey Advertiser, 8 Jun. 1940; will of Beresford Rimington Heaton, proved 21 Aug. 1940, clause 28. This still exists as the John Deakin Heaton Scholarship for Applied Health. He also left money to the Leeds Infirmary, the Leeds Unmarried Women's Benevolent Society and the Meanwood Convalescent Home, the latter two charities in memory of his mother.

40 Heaton journals, vol. 5, 28 Jan. 1878; Leeds Mercury, 30 Jan. 1878; minutes of the Yorkshire School of Cookery, Leeds Branch, fols. 146–7, West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS), Leeds, WYL 5045/28.

41 For Fanny's public activities, see Morgan, A Victorian Woman's Place, 191–6.

42 Heaton journals, vol. 5, 22 Jan. 1877, vol. 6 [n.d.] Dec. 1878.

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45 In the last decade of Heaton's life, the family toured Italy in 1872 (Heaton journals, vol. 3, fols. 277ff), Germany in 1876 (vol. 5, to 19 May 1876), Brittany in 1877 (vol. 5, Jul.–Sept.), Germany and Switzerland in 1878 (vol. 6, to 12 June) and the Italian Lakes in 1879 (vol. 6, Mar.–May).

46 Gunn, Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class, 26–7.

47 Exerpted in Reid, Heaton, 145–9.

48 Heaton journals, vol. 1, fol. 84; Reid, Heaton, 105–10.

49 Heaton journals, vol. 1, fols. 95–7; Briggs, Victorian Cities, 160.

50 Morris, Class, Sect and Party, ch. 9; Gunn, Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class, 89–91.

51 The other four-time president was Rev. William Sinclair.

52 See Bermeo, N. and Nord, P. (eds.), Civil Society before Democracy: Lessons from Nineteenth-Century Europe (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; Morton, G., de Vries, B. and Morris, R.J. (eds.), Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places: Class, Nation and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot, 2006)Google Scholar, including an essay by Sven Beckert on America.

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55 For Victorian attitudes to smoke pollution and its amelioration, see Mosley, Stephen, The Chimney of the World: A History of Smoke Pollution in Victorian and Edwardian Manchester (London, 2008)Google Scholar.

56 See n. 28 above.

57 For the history of Claremont and Woodhouse Square, Beresford, East End, West End, 307–8, 312–13, 316–19, 323–4, 330–1, 334–6, 338; B. and Payne, D., Claremont, Leeds (Leeds, 1980)Google Scholar.

58 LM, 16 Dec. 1865; see also correspondence in LM, 18, 20, 26, 27 Jan. 1866.

59 Heaton journals, vol. 2, fol. 122.

60 Ibid.

61 See the LM report of meeting on 8 Feb.

62 Heaton journals, vol. 2, fols. 125–32.

63 Fully printed in LM, 24 Feb. 1866.

64 Newspaper cutting, Heaton journals, vol. 2, fols. 199–200.

65 Ryan, Civic Wars, 106.

66 Hennock, Fit and Proper Persons.

67 Briggs, Victorian Cities, 161, 164–5; see also Clark, E. Kitson, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society: History of One Hundred Years (Leeds, 1924), 65Google Scholar.

68 Heaton journals, vol. 1, fol. 119; Leeds Intelligencer, 7 Jan. 1854; LM, 7 Jan. 1854.

69 LM supplement, 11 Feb. 1854.

70 Reid, Heaton, 147.

71 The letter is reproduced in Heaton journals, vol. 4, 10 Apr. 1876; printed LM, 11 Apr. 1876.

72 Heaton journals, vol. 4, 10 Apr. 1876

73 Ibid., vol. 6, [n.d.] Mar. 1879.

74 For instance, R. Rodger, ‘The “common good” and civic promotion: Edinburgh 1860–1914’, in Colls and Rodger (eds.), Cities of Ideas, 144–77.

75 Heaton journals, vol. 5, Feb. 1877; Leeds Library minute book, 1800–79, esp. 4 Jun. 1877, 28 May 1879; minutes of committees, Jun. 1874–Mar. 1879: all minute books held by the Leeds Library; Beckwith, F., The Leeds Library, 1768–1968, 2nd edn (orig. edn 1968; Leeds, 1994), 59–69Google Scholar.

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77 Heaton journals, vol. 6, Feb. 1879.

78 Leeds School Board minutes, 13 Mar. 1873; WYAS, Leeds, LTT6/1/1/1/1/1, fols. 372–3. Heaton was unsuccessful, though Corson later went on to design the Board's premises on Calverley Street.

79 Heaton journals, vol. 3, fol. 116, vol. 4, fol. 88; Hennock, Fit and Proper Persons, 213.

80 Heaton journals, vol. 3, fol. 250.

81 Report of a conference held by the Ladies Council in Leeds Town Hall, taken from the LM, 13 Nov. 1872; copy of the report appended to the minutes of the Yorkshire Ladies Council of Education, 12 Nov. 1872. WYAS Leeds, WYL5045/8.

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86 ‘Yorkshire College of Science’, LM, 1 May 1874. For Derby's comments, Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 17 Jan. 1874.

87 W.B. Stephens, ‘The curriculum’, in Gosden and Taylor (eds.), History of a University, 247–310, at 249–52.

88 Heaton journals, vol. 5, Dec. 1877. For further details, F.T. Mattison, ‘Government’, in Gosden and Taylor (eds.), History of a University, 191–7; Thompson, J., The Owens College: Its Foundation and Growth; and its Connection with the Victoria University, Manchester (Manchester, 1886), ch. XXIIIGoogle Scholar.

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90 J.D. Heaton, ‘The university question discussed by a member of the Yorkshire College’, Proceedings of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (1878), 357–67, at 366–7.

91 Yorkshire College, council minutes, 11 Aug. 1877, fol. 280.

92 Heaton journals, vol. 5, May 1878.

93 Thorpe, Roscoe, 80.

94 Heaton journals, vol. 6.

95 Yorkshire College, council minutes, vol. 1, 23 Nov. 1877, fol. 309.

96 For Rücker's frustration with his father-in-law at this time, see his letter to William Fison, 2 Dec. 1878, in Mattison, ‘Government’, 195.

97 Heaton journals, vol. 6, [n.d.] Dec. 1878.

98 Yorkshire College, council minute book 2, 1878–88, 13 Dec. 1878, fol. 15.

99 Yorkshire College, council committee minutes, 1878–84, 30 Nov. 1878, fol. 18.

100 For Heaton's satisfaction: Heaton journals, vol. 6, Feb. 1879; for the accusation of his personal involvement: Mattison, ‘Government’, 196; Thompson, The Owens College, 538–9.

101 Heaton journals, vol. 5, 8 May 1879. There was concern on both sides of the Pennines that Heaton would write directly to the president of the council on the issue, but according to another member of the university sub-committee, this communication was never sent: Thorpe, Roscoe, 85–6.

102 Butler, S., ‘A transformation in training: the formation of university medical faculties in Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool, 1870–84’, Medical History, 30 (1986), 115–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anning and Walls, Leeds School of Medicine, ch. 6.

103 There is a certain irony that the University of Manchester has now revived the title of ‘Victoria University’, originally forced upon it by the jealousy of its northern rivals.

104 Mattison, ‘Government’, 196, 200–2.

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106 The controversy can be traced in the press: LM, 25 Oct., 8, 10–12, 14–19, 21–6 and 28–30 Nov. 1870.

107 Heaton journals, vol. 3, fol. 138.

108 Ibid., vol. 4, fols. 196, 200–2.

109 Ibid., vol. 5, 3 Mar. 1877.

110 Ibid., vol. 3, fol. 254.

111 Ibid., vol. 4, fols. 176–8.

112 Hennock, Fit and Proper Persons, 141–3.

113 For Heaton's pessimistic personality: Thorpe, Roscoe, 84.

114 For example, Jan. 1870: Heaton journals, vol. 3, fol. 2.

115 Ibid., vol. 3, fol. 254.