Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/144

 Erskine [q. v.] and William Johnson Neale [q. v.], are noticed separately.

Neale, who was fellow of the Linnean Society, published, besides the works mentioned: 1. ‘The Spanish Campaign of 1808,’ contributed to vol. xxvii. of ‘Constable's Miscellany,’ 18mo, Edinburgh, 1828, which is entitled ‘Memorials of the late War,’ 2 parts. 2. ‘Researches respecting the Natural History, Chemical Analysis, and Medicinal Virtues of the Spur or Ergot of Rye when administered as a Remedy in certain States of the Uterus,’ 8vo, London, 1828. 3. ‘Researches to establish the Truth of the Linnæan Doctrine of Animal Contagions,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1831. He also translated from the French of Paolo Assalini ‘Observations on … the Plague, the Dysentery, the Ophthalmy of Egypt,’ &c., 12mo, London, 1804.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, iii. 37–8; Gent. Mag. 1833 i. 191; Cat. of Advocates' Library at Edinburgh.] 

NEALE, EDWARD VANSITTART (1810–1892), Christian socialist and co-operator, of Bisham Abbey, Berkshire, and of Allesley Park, Warwickshire, was the only son of Edward Vansittart, LL.B., rector of Taplow, Buckinghamshire, by his second wife, Anne, second surviving daughter of Isaac Spooner of Elmdon, near Birmingham. The father took the surname Neale under the will of Mary, widow of Colonel John Neale of Allesley Park, his kinsman. George Vansittart of Bisham Abbey was Neale's paternal grandfather. Born at Bath in the house of his maternal grandfather, Isaac Spooner, on 2 April 1810, he was educated at home until he matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, on 14 Dec. 1827. After graduating B.A. in 1831, he made a long tour, principally on foot, through France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and thoroughly mastered the languages of those countries. He proceeded M.A. in 1836, entered at Lincoln's Inn in 1837, and was called to the bar. ‘But he was too subtle for the judges, and wearied them by taking abstruse points which they could not or did not choose to follow’ (, Economic Journal, December 1892, p. 753).

Keenly interested in social reform, Neale had obtained a firm grasp of the theoretical bases of the systems of Fourier, St. Simon, and other writers. In 1850 his attention was attracted by the Working Tailors' Association, which was started in February of that year by the Society for Promoting Working Men's Associations. He became acquainted with the work of the Christian socialists, and, on the invitation of F. D. Maurice, joined the council of promoters, ‘ready to expend capital in the cause, and with many new ideas on the subject’ (Life of F. D. Maurice, ii. 75). The efforts of the promoters had hitherto been directed to the establishment of self-governing workshops on the lines of the Paris Associations Ouvrières. Neale's accession to their ranks immediately had an important influence on the movement. He desired to try experiments in co-operation on a larger scale, and his wealth enabled him to realise his wish. He founded the first London co-operative stores in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, and advanced the capital for two builders' associations, both of which ended disastrously, although the first of them began with a profit of 250l. on their contract for Neale's own house in Hill Street. So far there had been no marked divergence between Neale's views and those of the other members of the council. In 1851, however, on his own initiative, and without the direct sanction of the council, (Hughes in the Economic Review, January 1893, p. 41), he established the Central Co-operative Agency, which, so far as the state of the law at that time admitted, anticipated the Co-operative Wholesale Society. Some of the promoters strongly disapproved of this experiment. The publication of an address to the trade societies of London and the United Kingdom, inviting them to support the agency as ‘a legal and financial institution for aiding the formation of stores and associations, for buying and selling on their behalf, and ultimately for organising credit and exchange between them,’ brought matters to a crisis, and an attempt was made, but checked by Maurice, to exclude from the council both Neale and Hughes, who, without undertaking any pecuniary liability, was associated with him as co-trustee of the agency (ib. p. 42; Co-operative News, 1 Oct. 1892, p. 1103). The promoters and the agency continued to work side by side, on the understanding that the former were in no way pledged to support the latter; but two years later Neale and the agency had acquired the chief influence in the movement (Life of F. D. Maurice, ii. 75, 220).

On the great lock-out of engineers in 1852, Neale not only presided at a meeting of the metropolitan trades, held at St. Martin's Hall on 4 March, in support of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, but gave them pecuniary aid. He also published ‘May I not do what I will with my own? Considerations on the present Contest between the Operative Engineers and their Employers,’ London, 1852. When the men were forced to return to work on the employers' terms, Neale purchased the Atlas