Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/150

 street, &hellip; and twenty boroughs selected him to represent them in parliament.' Cobbett, in the 'Political Register,' styled him 'King Tom.'

On 7 June 1832 the reform bill received the royal assent. On 12 Dec. Attwood and Joshua Scholefield [see under Scholefield, William] were returned to parliament unopposed for the new borough of Birmingham. In the House of Commons, like other popular leaders, he failed to maintain the reputation he had acquired outside. His vehemence of manner, his violence of expression, his incessant advocacy of his views on the currency, and, above all, his disregard for party interests disqualified him for success. On 12 Feb. 1833 he made a strong attack on Lord Grey's Irish policy in his maiden speech, and expressed his sympathy with Daniel O'Connell, a course of action which alienated protestant feeling. A motion which he brought forward on 21 March 'that a general committee be appointed to inquire into the causes of the general distress existing among the industrious classes of the United Kingdom, and into the most effectual means of its relief,' was defeated, it being universally understood that it aimed at rectifying the currency. On 20 May a meeting of two hundred thousand men at Newhall Hill petitioned the king to dismiss the ministry: but it was clear that many middle-class supporters had been alienated by Attwood's support of O'Connell. On 18 Jan. 1836, at a meeting at the Birmingham Town Hall, Attwood threatened the opponents of reform with the wrath of twenty millions of men. This extravagance caused Benjamin Disraeli to address to Attwood the third of his 'Letters of Runnymede,' a vapid rebuke of a ridiculous boast. The Political Union, which had fallen into abeyance on the passage of the reform bill, was revived in May 1837 as the Reform Association, a title which was soon abandoned for the older designation.

Year by year Attwood became more democratic in his political principles, and he allied himself with the chartists. The growth of the chartist movement alienated many of the moderate advocates of reform and compelled the remainder to take a more extreme position. Liberals of birth, rank, or wealth gradually disappeared from the ranks of his supporters. The Birmingham Political Union, which already had proclaimed themselves in favour of universal suffrage, the ballot, and annual parliaments, were easily brought to give a formal adhesion to the charter. Attwood gave his enthusiastic support to the great chartist petition. But, though his own language had not formerly been free from menace, he recoiled from the violence of the more advanced chartists, and constantly deprecated their threats of appeal to physical force. In March 1839 the Birmingham delegates withdrew from the National Convention, protesting against an appeal to arms. On 14 June 1839 he presented the chartists' monster national petition to the House of Commons. It demanded universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, the payment of members of parliament, and the abolition of the property qualification for members. On 12 July he moved that the house form itself into a committee for the purpose of considering the petition, but his motion was rejected by a large majority.

Attwood found that he had lost popularity by his tardy repudiation of physical force, and the riots which broke out in Birmingham itself in July 1839 showed that his influence was gone. Many chartists also denounced his pet scheme of a paper currency. Mortified by his position, he determined to retire from public life, and in December 1839 he published a somewhat querulous farewell address to his constituents, and for two years sought at St. Heliers to recruit his health, which had been impaired by his labours. In 1843 he was requested by sixteen thousand inhabitants of Birmingham to re-enter political life, and he attempted without success to organise a 'National Union,' which was to hold 'the ministers of the crown legally responsible for the welfare of the people.' He died on 6 March 1856 at Ellerlie, Great Malvern, the house of the physician Walter Johnson, and was buried in Hanley churchyard, near Upton-on-Severn. On 7 July 1859 a statue of him by John Thomas was unveiled in Stephenson Place, New Street, Birmingham. Attwood was twice married. On 12 May 1806, at Harbourne church, he married his first wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of William Carless (d. 24 June 1787) of the Ravenhurst, Harbourne, and aunt of [q. v. Suppl.] By her Attwood had four sons and two daughters. The eldest daughter, Angela (d. 30 Nov. 1870), married Daniel Bell Wakefield of New Zealand, and was mother of Charles Marcus Wakefield, Attwood's biographer. Attwood married, secondly, on 30 June 1845, Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Grice of Handsworth Hall, Staffordshire; she died without issue on 26 June 1886. [Wakefield's Life of Attwood, 1885 (with portraits), printed for private circulation; Jaffray's Hints tor a History of Birmingham, published in the Birmingham Journal, Dec. 1855 to June 1856; Runnymede Letters, ed. Hitchman, 1885; Langford's Century of Birmingham Life, 1868,