31 Facts About Halley Stewart

Sir Halley Stewart was an English businessman, journalist, philanthropist and Liberal Party politician who sat as a Member of Parliament from 1887 to 1895 and again from 1906 to 1910.

Halley Stewart was born at Barnet in Hertfordshire, the son of the Reverend Alex Stewart, a Congregational minister, one of eleven children, five brothers and five sisters.

Halley Stewart was educated at the schools his father ran, first in Barnet and later in Holloway a little further to the south.

Halley Stewart too was a benefactor of the arts bequeathing many pictures, tapestries, furniture, and objets d'art to the National Trust.

Halley Stewart followed his father in preaching the Christian message, although he was never ordained as a minister.

Halley Stewart started his working life in banking and for some years was employed in a London banking house, Robert Davies and Co.

In 1870, Halley Stewart set up a business venture, Halley Stewart Brothers and Spencer, oil-seed crushers and refiners based in London and Rochester in Kent.

Halley Stewart sold this company in 1900 and transferred his business interests to the manufacture of bricks, first through the firms of B J H Forder Ltd.

In 1923 Halley Stewart merged Forders with the London Brick Company, of which he eventually became the vice-chairman.

Halley Stewart maintained his connections with Hastings and in 1877 founded and became the first editor of the newspaper the Hastings and St Leonards Times.

Halley Stewart's trust donated money to important medical research into asthma, cancer and multiple sclerosis but one of its most important contributions was to sponsor the scientific research of Professor Edward Victor Appleton, of King's College London, whose contributions to the knowledge of the ionosphere led to the crucial wartime innovation of radar.

Halley Stewart gave money to the district council at Harpenden in Hertfordshire towards the purchase of the manorial rights of the common and his residence The Red House with land and cottages to be used by the town as a hospital after his death.

Halley Stewart had a reputation as an advanced Liberal and Radical.

Halley Stewart was a supporter of women's suffrage, land reform, the abolition of the hereditary element from the House of Lords and ending state aid to teaching of religious education in schools, being sometime president of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control, and president of the Secular Education League.

Halley Stewart strongly supported the Gladstonian policy of Irish Home Rule.

Halley Stewart spoke in favour of the establishment of a Parliament for Ireland at a meeting of the British Home Rule Association in 1886 with other notable Liberals including Henry Labouchere and later travelled in Ireland and spoke on the subject and the need to redress other Irish grievances.

Halley Stewart felt his Congregational pulpit was a suitable place from which to expound his political views, acknowledging the overlap of religious and political objectives in the improvement of social conditions and the duty of religious teachers to inform their congregations on public affairs, so they could better influence the lawmakers.

The church did not agree however and Halley Stewart moved into direct political activity.

Halley Stewart was involved in the organisation of campaigns but, no doubt drawing on the experience of years of preaching, as a speaker on behalf of candidates.

Halley Stewart never fought the seat because it lost its two member status for the 1885 general election.

Halley Stewart was linked with the other south Lincolnshire seat of Stamford before transferring his allegiance to new seat of Spalding where he stood unsuccessfully at the general elections of 1885 and 1886.

Halley Stewart won the contest by an unexpectedly comfortable margin of 747 votes compared to his loss by 288 in 1886, delighting party colleagues who thought it a great blow to the government.

Halley Stewart held the seat at the 1892 general election with a reduced majority but lost in 1895.

In May 1900 Halley Stewart was selected as the Liberal candidate for Peterborough, in preference to the former Peterborough MP Alpheus Morton, who had been nursing the seat since his defeat in 1895.

Halley Stewart was unsuccessful at the 1900 general election, but three years later he was selected as Liberal candidate for the Scottish constituency of Greenock in the historic county of Renfrewshire and contested the 1906 general election there.

Halley Stewart was elected and remained as MP for the constituency until he retired from the House of Commons at the January 1910 election.

In 1911, Halley Stewart was one of the large number of names on a list of potential peers which prime minister H H Asquith drew up during the constitutional crisis around the People's Budget and the Parliament Act.

However, in 1932, at the age of 93, Halley Stewart was created a Knight Bachelor in the New Year's Honours list for philanthropic and social services, and was elected a Fellow of King's College, London in 1936.

Halley Stewart served as a Justice of the Peace for the County of Sussex from 1891.

Halley Stewart died at his home, the Red House in Carlton Road, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, on 26 January 1937.

Halley Stewart had been ill with influenza and developed bronchitis and was 99 years old.