Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/451

 liquor traffic the great moral and material curse of England; and he devoted all his energies to the attempt to destroy it. From first to last, he was the most disinterested of politicians.

Selections from Lawson's speeches were published under the titles: 'Gay Wisdom,' first series (reprinted from the Liverpool 'Argus'), 1877; 'Wit and Wisdom.' 1886; and 'Wisdom, grave and gay,' chiefly on temperance and prohibition, selected and edited by R. A. Jameson (1889). His verses on political themes were collected with illustrations by Sir F. Carruthers Gould in 'Cartoons in Rhyme and Line' in 1905, 4to. He also issued in 1903 verses entitled 'The Conquest of Camborne, 9 April 1903.'

 LEADER, JOHN TEMPLE (1810–1903), politician and connoisseur, born at his father's country house, Putney Hill Villa, sometimes called Lower House, on 7 May 1810, was younger son (in a family of two sons and four daughters) of William Leader, a wealthy merchant of London (d. 1828), by his wife Mary (1762-1838).

The father, son of a coachmaker of the same names, was engaged in business as coachbuilder, distiller, and glass manufacturer; he sat in the House of Commons from 1812 to 1818 as whig member for Camelford, a pocket borough which he bought of Lord Holland for 8000l. From 1820 to 1826 he represented Winchelsea, a pocket borough of Lord Darlington, afterwards duke of Cleveland, and there he had as colleague Henry, afterwards Lord Brougham, with whom he grew intimate. A patron of art, he commissioned [q. v.] to paint several portrait groups of his children, in one of which (now at Holmwood, Putney Heath) John figures as a boy.

After education at private schools, John entered Charterhouse in 1823, and won a gold medal there, but soon loft to study under a private tutor, the Rev. Patrick Smyth of Menzies, with whom he visited Ireland, Norway, and Franco. The accidental death at Oxford of his older brother William in February 1826 made him heir to the main part of his father's large fortune, which he inherited on his father's death on 13 Jan. 1828. On 12 Feb. following he matriculated as a gentleman commoner from Christ Church, Oxford. Although he was an idle and spendthrift undergraduate, he formed the acquaintance of some serious contemporaries, including James Robert Hope Scott, W. E. Gladstone, and Sir Stephen Glynne. With the last he made archæological excursions which stimulated a lifelong taste. His favourite recreation in youth was swimming, which he practised to extreme old age. In his Oxford vacations he continued his foreign travels. He was in Paris during the revolution of 1830, and there, through the introduction of his father's friend, Brougham, came to know many liberal politicians like Arago, Cuvier, and Armand Carrel. He took no degree at the university, and after leaving Oxford actively engaged in politics. He attached himself to the advanced wing of the liberal party and in that interest was elected M.P. for Bridgwater in January 1835. He at once made a mark in political circles. In the house he generally acted with Grote, Molesworth, and the philosophical radicals, and was among the most thoroughgoing champions of 'The People's (barter' (cf. , Memoirs of a Social Atom, 1903, p. 154). In his first session he seconded Grote's resolution in favour of the ballot. [q. v.] regarded him as a useful politician, but feared his addiction to social amusements. Some of his party friends complained that his political speeches were too violent and bitter. In 1836 he joined the Reform Club, of which he remained a member till his death. In February 1837, as a disciple of Brougham and Grote, he was admitted to the first council of the new London University (''Gent. Mag''. 1837, i. 408), and in the same month he presided at a dinner to Thomas Wakley, which was attended by Daniel O'Connell. Joseph Hume, and moat of the forward radicals.

In May 1837 Leader adventurously accepted the Chiltern hundreds in order to contest Westminster at a bye-election against Sir Francis Burdett. Having abandoned his radical principles, Burdett had resigned the seat, and was challenging his constituents to return him anew as a conservative. Leader was defeated, polling 3052 votes against 3567, but he renewed his candidature at the general election in August, when his opponent was Sir George Murray, and he was elected by 3793 against 2620. He was re-elected in July 1841, and remained the representative of Westminster till the dissolution in 1847. He continued to advocate chartism and radicalism with unabated energy. On 2 May 1842 he