HX64 107930 R489.H35 R27 A memoir of John Dea RECAP PR e«^^ ^#«^^ '^^ . CotunTbia'®nibers;itp (CoUesc of ^!)p^ician£! anb ^urgeong 3aeferente Hitirarp Grosvenor Memorial Fund 0^-^^ , "^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Open Knowledge Commons http://www.archive.org/details/memoirofjohndeakOOreid -^^ ^--'jr;^^ 'J^^^ ..^.yz^.^. ?^e^ ^/^^?< ^ r /^i^.^^^.i. /^^^'^ <^y.^.-f^>>*^. ry o^^^.. A^.^^^xrr^ T.O)JI)01!:I.C;;OJ'!>.1IS il: ':,". A MEMOLII () F JOHN DEAKIN II EATON, MA). OF LEEDS ^;^> EDITED BY T. WEMYSS REID LONDON LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND 0. 1883 All rights re a ri-c U CONTENTS. riiAin'Kii I. INTItODUCTroN . IT. OT.P LEEDS ....... IIT. MR. HEATON, SENIOR ..... IV. SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS .... V. PUBLIC LIFE IN LEEDS .... VI. MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE .... VTT. PROGRESS OF LEEDS, AND PUBLIC WORK VIII. MEDICAL WORK IN LEEDS .... IX. EDUCATIONAL WORK— THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE X. CLOSING DAYS ...... XT. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS CONCLUSION ....... P.Si.K 1 7 2r, .52 81 II -2 141 1S4 20.3 245 2vti .Sfi4 MEMOIE OF JOHN DEAKIN IIEATON, M.D. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Op the makino- of books there is no end, and nothin<^' is more certain than that a justification is needed for each successive vokinie that issues from tlic press. Such a justification is certain to be demanded in the present instance. Many doubtless will ask what there can have been in the life of a medical practitioner in a provincial town to call for a permanent record in the shape of a biography. Dr. Heaton, to the story of whose hfe the following pages are devoted, never achieved what the world calls fame. Though he gained something more than respectable rank in liis profession, he made no pretensions to eminence as a man of science. Nor did he seek distinction in politics, in literature, or in fiishionable society. Throughout his life lie was content witli t]ic lot in B 2 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. wliicli Providence had placed him, and witli the faitli- ful discharge of the duties — not always light or pleasant — which appertained to that lot. ' The daily round, the common task,' as it will be depicted in the course of this narrative, Avill not be found to have been an exciting or eventful one, and there will be some who will look upon it as altogether unwortliy of being recorded in print. But there must be others who will see it in a different light. Dr. Heaton's life is not only the representative life of hundreds of medical men who, well fitted to achieve eminence in the highest works of their profession, have been bound by fate to the dull routine of a provincial practice. Even if this were all that could be said of the career the salient incidents of whicli are related in these pages, the story ought not to be an uninter- esting one ; for, after all, the peoj)le of the provinces are more numerous than those of the metropolis, and, sober and monotonous as their lives may seem to those who live amid the bustle and gaiety of a capital, they are nevertheless not devoid of that interest which attaches to all human life, and, above all, to all honest human effort. Dr. Heaton, however, was not the mere physician content with the routine of his professional practice. He was one of the most active and public-spirited men in a town which has never been lacking in zeal for good works. His labours for the good of his fellow-citizens during IN'INODVCriOM 3 more l,li;iii Inriy years W(;rc iiiiiciuillin^^f ; ami to a large extent the story of" tlic ])rogre.ss of his own \\W. nflcr lie had attaiiR'(l iiiaiihoo'] is the story of" the progress of Leeds. It will be seen as tlie reader advances wliat was tlie condition of Leeds about the time of Dr. Ileaton's birth ; and some idea will be given before the close of the narrative of its state at the time of his death. The great changes which have been effected, not merely in things material but in all that concerns tlie culture of the people and the enlargement of their mental and spiritual field of vision, cannot of course be attributed to any one man. It is due to the slow but steady movement of forces that existed long before any modern generation of mankind appeared upon the scene. But it is something to have been, during a life of more than threescore years, a con- stant and successful worker in connection with the development of the leading institutions of a great provincial town. The man wlio has taken a con- spicuous part in the public life of a community like that of Leeds cannot have been a drone in the hive ; and his achievements, though they may have been accomplished at a distance from the centres of pub- licity, may well be kept in remembrance by all who can honour a useful hfe devoted to duty and to the service of one's fellnw-nien. B 2 4 MEMOIR OF J.D. HE A TON, M.B. It was not until Dr. Ileaton liad passed away from us that the full value of liis life and character was recognised, even b}^ those who had been most inthnately associated with him in public affairs. It was onl}^ when his place among us was empty that men recognised how useful he had been, how constantly his time and his energies had been at the service of his fellow-townsmen, how difficult it would be to find any one to rej^lace him. During life he had so steadily avoided anything savouring of ostentation, had accepted with so much quietness any reward that might chance to come in his way unsought, had shown so much equanimity when the rewards went, as they often did, to others ; had through it all pre- served such an evenness of temper, such a steady, unbroken devotion to duty, that men had learned to look upon all that he did for the community as a mere matter of course. It was Dr. Heaton's place to labour in this and the other movement for improving the health, or the education, or the morals of the town. He was certain to do what he was asked to do, with cheerfulness and ungrudging acquiescence in the demands made upon him. So his fellow-towns- men had almost ceased to think of this patient per- severance in public labours, this resolute subservience of his own pleasure and convenience to the interests of others, as having anything remarkable about it. He was willing to ^vork without hope of reward : and IN'/'A'()/)UC7/()N. 5 it was natural (Miou^Ii llici'cfoi'c lli;it lie should Ije allowed to work to the lull extent (d" liis powers. He had his recom])en,sc in the knowled^j^e tliat he h;id aidcMl to no small cxU^nt in iIk; ini|)r()veiiient and advanc-enient ol" his native town. rci-Jiaps Ik; hinisclf was unaware of the; degree t(j wliich llif progress of Leeds in w^liieh he assisted was acf',oni();iiiied by pro- gress on his own ])art. Yet tliose who knew him best, and who watched his life most closely, saw nujst clearly how liis own character was developed by the work in which he was engaged ; and liow, whilst labouring; with unremitting zeal for the elevation of those around him, he underwent a corresponding elevation on his own part. When he died, with startling suddenness, his col- leagues in public work first began to realise all that he had been and all that he had done in the affairs of Leeds ; and they saw then that one had gone from among them who had really played a far larger jiart in the community to which they belonged than many wdiose names were more familiar to the world. It was natural then that a wish should be expressed that the facts of this useful life of patient labour should be put on record ; and that the story of the man himself should be connected as closely as possible with the story of the towm he loved and for which he did so much. It is w^th the object of gratifying this wish that the present volume has been prepared. 6 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. It deals, as lias already been said, with a subject that is not exciting or eventful ; but it is believed that there will be many who knew Dr. Heaton who will be glad to hear something of his public career, and to have some light thrown upon the personal character of one Avho by his retiring habits and natural modesty Avas secluded to a large extent even from those with whom in public affairs he was most constantly in contact. It will be found that this volume avoids almost entirely the details of Dr. Heaton's domestic hfe. In following this course the writer has adhered most closely to what it is believed would have been Dr. Heaton's own wish. The object has been not merely to sketch the chief incidents of his career, but to say something of the many useful pubHc works in which he was engaged from his entrance upon manhood to the very eve of his death. OLD l.r.KDS, CHAPTER IT. OLD LEEDS. At the hcginning of the present century the town of Leeds presented a marvellous contrast in outward appearance to the vast and busy centre of Yorkshii-e industry which now bears that name. Before enter- ing upon the narrative of the career of one wlio was throughout his life closely identified with Leeds and its progress both material and moral, a brief sketch of the town as it existed at tlie beginning of the present century wdll not be uninteresting — especially to those who are acquainted with its condition to-day. When the census was taken in 1801, the number of inhabited houses in the town was 6,694, and the number of residents 30,669. In other w^ords Leeds was less than one tenth of the size it has now attained. Yet even in those early days it was a toAvn framed throughout the West Eiding for the industry and frugality of its citizens, and for the sturdy persever- ance with which they devoted themselves to that which they conceived to be their proper busmess. Tlie cloth trade was at tliat time the staple industry ; 8 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. but it was carried on under conditions altojiether different from those which now prevail. The manu- facturers, as a rule, did not reside in Leeds, but in the small hamlets lying to the west of the town. They conducted their industry in the simplest fashion, and with the rudest implements. As the wayfarer walked through one of these outlying villages — many of which have since been included in the circuit of the great borough — he w^ould hear the whir of the loom and the rattle of the shuttle as the manufacturer of these days busied himself under his own roof with the production of that which was literally ' homespun ' cloth. Twice a week the manufacturer would carry his goods by cart or pack-horse . into Leeds, and taking his stand in the Mixed or the White Cloth Hall, according to the particular branch of the trade in which he was engaged, would await the visits of the merchants who duly came round to attest the quality of his wares by ' rule of thumb,' and who were not only his sole customers, but the agents through whom the outer world received its supply of York- shire woollen goods. These cloth merchants were at that time the commercial aristocracy of Leeds ; for the iron trade of the town was in its infancy, the leather trade was unknown, and the only other branch of industry that had attained any importance was that of pottery — which for a few years flourished exceedingly and then suddenly died out. OLD LEEDS. 9 A slii'cwd cMrcriil i";u'(' oj' iiicii llic pcopKi who ])uill U|) ilu! lorluiicH ol" Jiccds iiiidoiihlcdly \S(i\\i. rerli;ij)8 their cliicf fault wuh their Juck of enterprise. From time immemorial, the tradition regarding LeedH luiH been that it wanted tlie life ;uid vivacity of itn smaller neighbour and rival, Ihadlord. The truth is tliat tlie ])C('uliar conditions under which tlie trade of the town was cari'ied on were not conducive to that kind of enterprise and activity by which city life is distinguished. The men who conducted the leading business of the town were hardly townspeople them- selves. Twice a week they came down from the hills lying to the west of Leeds, and stood with their goods in the Cloth Ilall, as their forefathers had stood on Leeds Bridge in bygone times. They heard the news of the daj?", and bought their copies of the ' Leeds Mercury ' or the ' Leeds Litelligencer.' They discussed the price of cloth and the prospects of tlie war over their pipes and ale in one or other of the numerous public houses that even then were to be found in and about Briggate and Boar Lane ; and then in the early evening they set off for their homes at Morley, Gildersome, Pudsey, Yeadon, Guiscley, Horsforth, Ossett, or De^vsbury, and resigned them- selves to their quiet country life. Such men were not likely to exercise a very stimulating influence upon the life of Leeds. But they gave a ' tone ' to the place, and the tone, though peculiar and distinctive. TO MEMOIR OF J. D. HE AXON, M.D. was not unwliolesome. A contemporary writer ^ commenting on this subject says : ' The dispersed state of the manufacturers in villages and single houses over the whole face of the country, is highly fiivourable to their morals and happiness. They are generally men of small capitals, and often annex a small farm to their business ; great numbers of the rest have a field or two to support a horse and cow, and are for the most part blessed with the comforts without the superfluities of life.' They presented, in fact, a quaint mixture of town and country charac- teristics. During five or six days of the week they dwelt in their own little village, among trees and fields, taking no thought of the outside world and contenting themselves with the liomely gossip of their farmstead or hamlet. But on Tuesday and Saturday they went down into the town, and showed the towns- folk that they could drive as shrewd a bargain as the sharpest of ' cits.' No one who has known Leeds for any considerable number of years will fail to recall the bi-weekly irruption of these rural manufacturers, who came into the town in shoals, clad in their quaint corduroy breeches, broad brimmed hats, and brass- buttoned coats of antique cut. They lingered among us so recently as a dozen or twenty years ago ; yet so far back as the beginning of the century their ' 'llie Leeds Guide ; indudinf/ a Skeivh of the Environs mid Kirkshill Abbey. Leeds; printed I'or the juithor Ly I'idward Biiines, 1800. OLD LEEDS. It influence on the town life of Leeds was b(;«^innin;/ to decline, for the writer just qnoted goes on as follows : ' ikit we regret to say, that this state of the manu- facture is likely to be impaired, by the increasing habit of merchants (concentrating in tlicniselves the whole ])ro('.ess of a manufactory fiom the raw wool to the finished ])iece ; and of course it must be carried en in large buildings by the joint labour of numerous workpeople, where the contaminating in- fluence of vice spreads with fatal rapidity ; and this depravity of morals must, to consider the subject merely in the narrow view of policy, ultimately prove highly injurious to the real prosperity of the clothing district.' The change that this conscientious writer foresaAv has duly happened. It would be interesting to know, supposing he could ' revisit the pale glimpses of the moon,' if he would be of the same opinion as of old regarding the inevitable consequences of that change. But in 1801 the people in Leeds were still a long way off the days of huge mills and manufactories, w^orked by steam, wherein hundreds or thousands of men and women Averc to be congregated for many hours daily, amid all the vicious influences which the writer just quoted deplored. Happier in this respect than the people of Manchester and the great manu- facturing towns of the cotton country, they were able to conduct their dailv business under more healthfid 12 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. and wholesome conditions than those wludi prevailed in most of the large provincial towns of England. Thus it came to pass that Leeds was at that time dis- tinguished by a distinct smack of rusticity in its life and in the characteristics of the community who dwelt there. They were townspeople, it is true ; but they had such close and constant intercourse with those manufacturers from the West Eiding villages who thronged their streets and filled their Cloth Halls twice a week, that their sympathies were almost equally divided between town and country. And so, though not so ' quick ' as the people of neighbouring Bradford, they possessed in an unwonted degree, for an urban community, some of those solid and whole- some characteristics that are as a rule peculiar to village hfe. Dull they undoubtedly were ; not given to great mental briskness or activity, nor prone to rush into dangerous mercantile sj)eculation. But possessed, withal, with a native shrewdness that enabled them to appreciate the blessings of liberty, and that led them to sympathise with the political party to whom the cause of liberty was for the moment entrusted. They might not know so much as they ought to have done of book-learning ; but they were sober godly souls for the most part ; regular in their attendance at public worship, and upon the whole preferring the plebeian zeal of the chapel to the aristocratic repose of the c^hurch. OLD LEEDS, 13 1'lioy \vm\ not. at tli;il liiiu; ,'i sinfflo litcr.ary or oducatioiKil .society. The ' Circiilatin<( Library,' wliidi still exists under tlie name fif the Leeds Library, liad tlien been cstablislied, it is true; but it was comparatively insig'nificant in its dimensions, and was lioiiscd in a room under tlie Rot a1 ion Office, where tlie local magistrates sat in turn to licar j)oli(',(; cases. The price of a ticket for tlie li1)rary was in those days four guineas, the annual subscription being seven shillings and sixpence. Ecyond this library there was no institution in the town that was meant for the fostering of the native intelligence. ' Under this head,' says the writer already quoted, when speaking of arts and sciences, ' we have nothing that is particularly interesting to communicate ; for ex- cepting those arts wliicli have an immediate reference to commerce and manufacture, the toAvn of Leeds has not been eminently disposed to foster the productions of art and genius, or to aid and encourage the re- searches of the philosopher. No societies of a literary or philosophical nature exist, to afford the means of concentrating and bringing before the pubhc eye the discoveries or improvements made by individuals, and for the rational employment of the leisure of young men, who might be inspired by such an institution with a taste for literary refinement, instead of culti- vatiuGf vicious habits.' To those who know Leeds now it must seem that their forefathers in 1S06, when 14 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. the foregoing lines were written, must have been livinw in the middle of the dark ao^es. What wonder that down to a comparatively recent period tliere was little sympathy with art, with literature, or with science, in a town which thus had no means of culti- vating a taste for any of these things. But if there w^ere no literary institutions in Leeds in those days, the town was distinguished not merely by its outward observance of piety but by its genuine benevolence, as exhibited in the number of charitable institutions it maintained. Of these the General In- firmary was even then the most important, for Leeds was early astir in the good work of helping the sick. In a subsequent chapter more will be said regarding the history of this most admirable institution. All that need be said of it here is that at the beginning of this century it had secured a permanent place among the charities of Leeds, and enjoyed the support of all the chief inhabitants of the town. Howard, who visited Leeds in 1788, had pronounced the building used for the purpose of the Infirmary to be ' one of the best hospitals in the kingdom,' and, after dwelling upon the attention paid to ventilation, he added signifi- cantly, ' many are here cured of compound fractures, who would lose their limbs in the unventilated and offensive wards of some hospitals.' Next to the Infirm- ary the House of Eecovery ranked in those days as the most important of the charitable institutions of Or.D LEEDS. 15 Loeds. It liad boon roiiiidccl l)y public su])sfri])f,ioii in 1802, for the purpose ol" receiving patients .sufleririg from contagious and infectious fevers. Down to the date of its estal)Hsliment there was no provision wortliy of the name for the poor wlio fell victims to one or other of the many loathsome scourges of humanity. The fever palicnt remained where he was, in the damp anrl noisome cellar or garret, suri-ouuded by a closely packed crew of his fellow-poor. It is not wonderful that death sj)read rapidly in a town like Leeds when once a case of infectious fever had declared it.self. But at last the House of Recovery was estal)lished, and proof was afforded that, even eighty years ago, in the dark ages of sanitary science, Leeds could boast of some inhabitants so far enlightened as to their duty to their fellows as to be capable of devising and founding an institution of this character. There will be much more to be said of the House of Recovery in the course of this narrative ; and the reader will see at what a cost, not of money but of health and life, it was carried on by the devoted men who were connected with it. But no one can doubt that, ever since its establishment in 1802, it has been of the greatest benefit to the inhabitants of the town. There was yet one other charitable institution of Leeds in the olden days that deserves notice, because it belonged to an order of charities by no means common in those days. The people of Leeds, as the 1 6 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. reader has seen, were somewliat peculiar in their customs and characteristics. In no large town in England at the beginning of the present century was the tone of provincialism more marked and distinc- tive, and nowhere was there a greater suspicion of the foreigner — the foreigner being, in the eyes of a Leeds man, not necessarily one who had been born beyond the seas, but one who had lived outside the bound- aries of Yorkshire. Yet along with this feeling of doubt there was a strong desire among the better class of the inhabitants to show hospitality to the unfortunate amoncf the stranc^ers who were found within the gates of the town ; and so, towards the close of the last century, the Strangers' Friend Society was estabhshed — chiefly, it is said, through the exertions of the old Methodists. ' The name by which this charity is known,' says the writer already quoted, 'sufficiently points out its peculiar design. The friendless and strangers who are sinking under the pressure of poverty or disease are sought out and relieved, and many who must have perished for want of prompt assistance have by the efficacious aid and exertions of the managers of this institution been restored to comfort and to usefulness.' The Society was not wealthy or powerful, or even fashionable. But it did good in its way, scores of years before Charity Organisation Associations had been thought of ; and the existence of such an institution in Leeds \ OLD LEEDS. ty 'Reserves to Ix; iiolc'd, nor merely because of t.Iic liL!;lil. it, throws upon the motliodiftal way in wliicli tlicse sturdy Yorksliirn pooplrj went about the busi- ness of eliarity, as well as lli(3 other businesses in which I'hcy were en^-HLtcd, but because of the extent to whi(di it redeems I hem from the rej)roacli that might otherwise^ have fairly rested upon tliem, of a harsh and iidu)spital)le excluslveness. The outward appearance of Leeds at the beginning of the present century was strangely different from that which it now wears. The number of its in- liahitants has already been stated. Some description of the town by a contemporary writer will serve to bring home to those who are acquainted wnth the liCeds of to-da}^ an idea of the inimensc progress which tliese eighty years have witnessed. The greatest length of the town at that time, from west to east, was about a mile and a half, the western extremity being Park Place, and the eastern St. Peter's Square. From north to south, it then extended barely half a mile — from the river to St. John's Church. It is hardly necessary to say that these extreme boundaries have long since been swept away, and that practically the Leeds of 1800 is to tlie Leeds of 1SS2 what the city of London is to the greater London of the Metropolitan area. Li 1806 Park Place w^as the elegant suburban retreat of wealthy merchants and others who, havinfr c 1 8 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. amassed a competency or secured an established posi- tion, no longer found it necessary to live in imme- diate proximity to their places of business. At that time Park Place was described as ' a very elegant range of buildings,' and as in front of the houses gardens and green fields stretched all the way doAvn to the banks of the Aire, we can well beheve the statement that the Place furnished ' the most pleas- ing promenade in the town.' Immediately behind it was an unfinished square, then known as St. Paul's Square, though long since re-named Park Square. Here houses even more pretentious than those in the adjoining Park Place were being erected, and the simple-minded people of the town were beginning to wonder where a sufficient number of persons affluent enough to dwell in such imposing mansions, and idle enough to be able to live at such a distance from the centre of industry, were to be found to inhabit them. Passing from Park Square, East Parade was duly reached, and here tlie appearance of the town presented a remarkable con- trast to its appearance as now seen from the same spot. The houses on the Avestern side of East Parade formed one side of this vast square, the other sides of which were formed by the Infirmary and Coloured Cloth Hall, by the east side of Park Eow, and by the north side of South Parade. This parti- cular area enclosed by that square is now one of tlie most densely populated and closely built sites in OLD JJJU)S. 19 Leeds. J)iif, ;i1. I.IkiI. time ;ill l.liis j^^reut erirlo.siii-L', within tlie boundaries wc have named, was occupied by fields and gardens. The townsman wlio liad wandered from Ids liouse in JirigL*;aLe or Kirkgate as far as the western end of" Jjoar Lane thus found 1dm- self in tlie midst of trees and flowers, and in an essentially suburban distiiet. TJie Cloth llall was then what it is to-day — to the disgrace of Leeds — but it stood practically outside the town, with fields and gentlemen's gardens on two sides of it. Near to it, occupying a site not far from the present Queen's Hotel, was an elegant house once the residence of Dr. Watson, Bishop of Bristol, the grounds of which extended to the banks of the Aire. Near Boar Lane stood the King's Mills, the existence of which was a I'elic of feudal times. It is strange indeed to think that so recently as the beginning of the present century, in the lifetime of men who still take an active part in the affairs of their native town, the inhabitants of Leeds were compelled to have all their corn ground at a particular mill. ' Ten thousand pounds,' says the indignant local writer, ' have been offered and been refused to redeem the town from this badge of slavery.' Without parUamentary repre- sentation, without a free corporation, and with a press which was then just beginning to struggle into a position of independence, the inhabitants of the great town of Leeds were compelled to submit as c 2 20 MEMOIR OF J. jD. BEATON, M.D. patiently as might be to the practical grievance which the existence of the King's Mills imposed upon them. To-day probably few among the residents are aware that the familiar name Mill Hill commemorates a system so absurd and iniquitous as that under which their forefathers groaned. Passing by way of Boar Lane, then the most narrow and crooked of thoroughfares, into Briggate, the visitor would find himself in wliat was then, in the estimation of the inhabitants, a noble and spa- cious street. But the Briggate of those days was very different from the Briggate with which we are now familiar. From the point where it is touched by Kirkgate down to Leeds Bridge, its breadth was very nearly the same as it now is. But in the parts lying beyond Kirkgate to the north the ' noble and spacious ' street was completely lost. The middle of the thoroughfare was occupied by rows of houses and by the Moot Hall. Behind the Moot Hall, in a narrow and confined space, at the point whei^e Upperhead and Lowerhead Eows now intersect tJie street, was the Cross, at which the weekly market, for corn, butter, eggs, and poultry, Avas held. Beyond this again, by narrow lanes, St. John's Church could be reached ; and here, as has already been said, was the northern limit of the town. But with the new century new signs of life were becoming visible ; and the sleepy, steady-going town, oi.n r.F.F.ns. 21 tliat lind HO lonu^ been ('ontciit, to joi.<; on ;it, ils own ])ace, willioiil, ])a,yinL'; liccil l,o wlial. wum ])assing be- yond its walls, l)('L»;;ui to tal<(; thoii'jlif' of ot licr tliiii;^H and to extend its boundaries. Away to tlic east, near tlie large Metliodist Meeting-house erected un'ler tlic eye of John Wesley himself, St, Peter's Square had been built for the accoinmodation of the middle classes, w^ho, though anxious to escape from the con- fined streets in the neighbourhood of the parisli church, were unable to aspire to the elegance of the west end. Rumiing parallel with Briggate, but beyond the noise and bustle of the town, a new and well-built thoroughfare, then and still known as Albion Street, had been erected. It was looked upon as the rival of Park Place itself in elegance and fashion ; and the houses were the favourite residences of professional gentlemen and merchants — all retail trading in the street being strictly forbidden. Further away from the town to the north-west, marvellous improvements were already contem- plated. A new square, Queen's Square, had been laid out, though at this time, for some reason or other, the scheme for building it hung fire. Probably pru- dent men, such as the inhabitants of Old Leeds un- doubtedly were, could not be readily brought to approve of a plan for the erection of a number of elegant houses in the midst of what was then the open country. Beyond Queen's Square, however, a 22 MEMOIR OF J. B. HE A TON, M.D. number of houses had abeady been built. These formed the present St. James's Street, and they were — strange as it may seem — the sanatorium, the health resort, of the Leeds invalids of eighty years ago. The doctors sent their patients out of the town up to lodgings in St. James's Street, in order that they might enjoy the fine and bracing air ; and this now shabby and decaying thoroughfare, above which the cloud of smoke raised by the tall chimneys in the valley ever hangs hke a pall, was at the beginning of the century the Ilkley and Harrogate combined of the people of Leeds. One drawback there was to resid- ence in this dehghtful suburb. It lay beyond the hmits of the town water supply, and the inhabitants had therefore to be content with such water as they could obtain from the wells on their premises. But perhaps this was not after all so great a misfortune as the contemporary chroniclers seem to have imagined, for at that time the recognised source of the water supply of Leeds was the river Aire ; not then, it is true, reduced to the condition described so graphi- cally by Mr. Lewis Morris in his poem called ' A Yorkshire Eiver,' but still polluted by the sewage of many hamlets and towns, including the consider- able town of Bradford. Not very far from St. James's Street was 'Little Woodhouse,' an ancient village or hamlet, described as ' a charming rural spot,' where a considerable number of gentlemen's OLD L/'lEDS. 33 seats Imd boon l)iiilt, (nr away from tli(3 noise and smoke of the town. Among these buildings was one now known as Chiremont, of wliifJi rnwvh will be heard in these pages. But, alas ! Little Woodhoiisc is no longer to be described as ' a charming rural spot.' It has been absorbed in the l)ig Umn ; and the sound of the whistle of the locomotive, or the roar of ' the clamorous iron flail ' of the great works in the valley below, may be heard both by day and night within its dwellings. Enough has been said to show how great is the contrast between the Leeds of to-day and that of eighty years ago. It should be added that the southern side of the town, on the right bank of the Aire, was then a fashionable quarter, containing many handsome residences — some of which are still to be seen standinsj amid the crowd of meaner edifices — and boasting of a larger number of private carriages than were to be found in the greater Leeds that lay on the other side of the river. Hunslet and Holbeck were still, however, little more than manufacturing villages. Some idea of the condition of the commercial community of Leeds in those days may be gathered from the fact that no building had been appro- priated as a Post Office. Wherever the postmaster chanced to reside, there the Post Office had been fixed for the time being. Leeds, as it happened, lay 24 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. apart from the Great North Eoad between London and Edinburgh ; but it had its daily mails north and south, as well as to Manchester and Liverpool, and was as well supplied in this respect as most of the manufacturing towns of England. It had, moreover, two newspapers, representing the two different fac- tions in politics, and both well known and widely read tlirouo;hout the West Eidincr. There was a mean Tlieatre in Hunslet Lane, near Leeds Bridge, where stroUing companies of actors performed during the summer months. Li winter the local aristocracy ■ — who were but poor patrons of the drama — found amusement in the assemblies, which began in October and were continued until the following spring. These assemblies were conducted in the strict fashion then in vogue, under the superintendence of a master of tlie ceremonies, whose function it was to decide upon tlie eligibihty of candidates for admission to these solemn entertainments. The church was then in a state of lukewarmness.. The Nonconformists liad absorbed tlie more active spirits of the town, the Unitarians, Wesleyans, and Lidependents being the most powerful bodies among the Dissenters. But though Dissent was strong, and in a certain sense fashionable in Leeds in those days, it still laboured under the social and political disabilities that attaclicd to it in the last century ; and the inhabitant of Leeds wlio desired to be married, whatever might 01. 1) LEEDS. 25 be liis i-('liu;l()ii,s failli, was compelled to go to tlie ));iiisli clnncli in oi'dci' l,li;il llie due saiicti(Hi of tlie law miglil be given to liis union. Such was Leeds at the beginning of this century. I*)usy, but free from ])nstle ; fairly intelhgcnt, yet by no means intellectual ; with a keen eye to business, but a warm side for old manners and customs and the duties of hospitality, its people represented the sturdy English character in its best aspect in the days before railways, and electric telegraphs, and parliamentary reform, and penny newspapers had revolutionised the age. They have been sketched, so far as their moral characteristics are concerned, with admirable power and faithfulness in the pages of Charlotte Bronte. To understand the character of the men and women of the West Eidincr at the befjin- ning of the present century, indeed, one must go to * Shirley ' and ' The Professor.' The genius of a great woman has there given permanence to the salient features which then characterised the York- shire tradesman or merchant. 26 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D, CHAPTER HI. MR. HEATON, SENIOR. The grandfather of the subject of our memoh' was John Heaton of Ossett, who was born on September 4, 1736. He married one Mary Metcalfe, a person in a somewhat superior position in hfe to himself, the daughter of Urban Metcalfe, a cloth manufacturer of Hunslet ; which was then, as will have been gathered from the particulars given in the preceding chapter, a small manufacturing village. It was probably the fact of his having married this Hunslet bride, who there is reason to beHeve was in a small way an heiress, that induced John Heaton to remove from Ossett to the spot where his wife had been born. At all events he settled in Hunslet very soon after his marriage to Mary Metcalfe in July 1765, and re- mained in or near Leeds for the rest of his days. Three children were born of the marriage, tlie eldest being John Heaton, tlie father of Dr. Heaton, born July 22, 1769. The t^N^o other children were a son WiUiam, and a daugliter Hannah. 'In the year 1783,' says Dr. Heaton in his MR. JIEATON, SENIOR. zj journal, ' my grandfather i)urchase(l part of tlio small estate in Ilunslct which I now (1859) possess. Ilis father-in-law, Urban Metcalfe, was residing on it at the time ; his name as tenant being mentioned in the conveyance. My grandfatlicr liimself after- wards resided on his own property, and his widow continued to live there after his deatli. lie died August 1st, 1790, and was buried in the graveyard attached to the chapel at Hunslet, then a chapel- of-ease to the Leeds parish church. His will makes his widow and my father executors. He leaves his personal property to his wife, who has to pay out of it 100/. to his daughter Hannah, and his freeliold property, consisting of this Hunslet estate, equally between his two sons, each to come into the enjoy- ment of his share when of the age of twenty-one. Wilham came of age in 1794, and in the year following, 1795, the two brothers united in the purchase of an additional portion, the whole forming, as I suppose, the estate as it now stands. The two brothers con- tinued in this joint possession up to the time of their death. William resided in the house of his parents throughout his life, carrying on a shopkeeping business, though witli little success. In the latter part of his life he got into debt, of which he was reheved by my father, who also allowed him the whole of the proceeds of their joint estate for his maintenance.' 2S MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TO X, M.D. I liave given this extract from the journal, altlioiigh it somewhat anticipates the course of the narrative, because it tlirows a good deal of light upon the character both of the father and grandfather, and incidentally illustrates the strong characteristics of Dr. Heaton himself. Here is first the shrewd, steady young manufacturer from Ossett, who makes a match with a woman who is considered above him in station, but between whom and himself there were no dis- crepancies of temper and disposition. He comes to Leeds, the most important town of the district in which he was born, in order ' to make his fortune ' ; and in a modest manner he succeeds. Before long he can buy the little piece of property on which his father-in-law resides, and can add to it bit by bit, so that at his death his wife and children are not left altogether without resources. He makes an honest will, giving to his Avife and his several children their just dues, and then dies, leaving no other sign behind him to recall his existence. He is the type of a class from whom probably more great and successful families have sprung than from any other in the community. Unless such men were willing indeed and able to lay the foundation of the family, often laying it quite unperceived by their own generation, there would be no hope for the stability of the edifice when at last it came to be reared. Old John Heaton, the first of the family to make Leeds his home, lived his MR. / 11-: A TON, SENIOR. 2g lioncst frugal life, and died, liavioL^ iimdc iif> iioi^c of Miiy kind ill liis own generation, hut willi;il Jiaving accom])lislied the work assigned to Jiiin. And then comes his son, tlie next John Jlealou, who has his father's shrewdness and frugality, hut added to those things a quiet and sterling benevol- ence of character, of which we liave no record left in tlie case of the elder num. He too makes his way in the world, and, as the extract I have given shows, is able to be something more than just to his less ibr- tunate brother ; can give a ready ear to his appeal for help, relieving him of his debts, allowing him to live in the old family house in Hunslet, even per- ]riitting him — the younger son — to enjoy all through his Hfe the exclusive benefit of the little patrimony which had come to them. Even if no other record of this John Heaton's life were left than that contained in the few lines I have transcribed from his son's journal, there would be enough here to commend the man to our afi'ection and respect. Fortunately, how- ever, other records of this really remarkable as well as worthy man are left ; and it is a comparatively easy matter to picture him as he was during his busy and prosperous life in the town where he had been born. ' Fortunately,' says his son, ' for him and his children, he was not confined to the dull obscurity of what was at that time a suburban village, separ- 30 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. a ted by a mile or two of country road without habitation from the more busy town. He was ap- prenticed, I suppose about the customary age of fifteen years, to Mr. John Binus, wlio had then the laro-est business as a bookseller and stationer in the town of Leeds, and I believe in the North of Eng- land. His business was carried on in the premises No. 7 Briggate, subsequently purchased and long oc- cupied by my father in the same business. My father possessed several quahties admirably fitted for main- taining the full efficiency of a business already well established ; but his quiet manner might not have equally insured success had he attempted the estab- lishment of a new concern. He was diligent, orderly, self-denying, and of unswerving uprightness ; he possessed great transparency of character, and was remarkably free from guile, evasiveness, or subter- fuge of any kind. I may add that he was singularly free from all malice or hostile feeling. I often used to tell him that, like Moses, he was the meekest of men. I scarcely ever saw him seriously angry, so that it was almost impossible for any one to quarrel with him, and, as was said with perfect truthfulness after his death, he had not an enemy in the world.' Young John Heaton, in addition to the admirable moral qualities here depicted, possessed others equally exalted. Very early in life he became tlie subject of deep religious conviction. His father was I\IR. ///'.AVON, .SENIOR. 31 an lii(l('|)cii(l('iil, ;iii(l liad regularly uUcii'lcfl llif ()l(l VVliiiu Cliiij)cl, in lIuiislGt Lane, Leeds, lunv in the occupation of a Icatlier currier. The son shared the ecclesiastical convictions of I lie father; Avhil.st his experience of personal religion m.-ide him slill moj-e zealous than his parent in the service (jf the denomina- tion to whicli Ik; l)clonged. These were ihe djiys when Dissent lay under something more than a merely social disability ; and when even among Dissenters it was not so easy to be an Lidependent as to follow in the wake of the emotional religionists who had founded Methodism. John Heaton, however, felt that he had a reason for the faith that was in him, and all through life he clung firmly and yet gently to the Ijody of which his father had been a member. When in course of time it became desirable that the Old White Chapel should be exchanged for a more commodious edifice in a more suitable locaHty, his purse and his influence were alike employed to the fullest possible extent in the promotion of the scheme : and it was in a great measure owing to his exertions that Queen Street Chapel, Leeds, Avas erected. There he con- tinued to worship down to the time of his death, with one brief interval, when some difference in the church led to the withdraAval of ' a few of the older and more respectable members,' including Mi'. Clapham and Mr. Heaton. ' Mr. Clapham never returned to it,' says Dr. Heaton, ' but my father was of a peculiarly 32 MEMOIR OF J. D. TIE A TON, M.D meek and forgiving disposition and was much attached to the chapel, so he soon returned, and con- tinued to be a most regular attendant throughout the remainder of his life.' Such was the character of the young man who entered the boohseller's shop of Mr. Binns as an apprentice about 1785, and who, liaving done his duty faithfully during the time of his apprenticeship, was promoted to the management of the shop when his ' articles ' had expired, somewhere about the year 1791. A bookseller's shop in the country in those days was very different from any institution of the kind at the present time. These were not the times of clubs, news-rooms, commercial exchanges, and philosophical or hterary societies. Whilst the taverns furnished a rendezvous for the local politicians, the booksellers' shops were the recognised gathering- places of those who were inchned towards literature. It was here that the clergy met on Monday morning, to discuss together perchance the sermons of the previous day, more probably the last pamphlet from London, or the contents of the new number of ' Tlie Gentleman's Magazine.' It was here, too, that they found that rare article a daily newspaper, not more than three or four days old, and giving news of events in Paris which had happened so recently as a fort- night back. With the clergy of the Church of Eno-land might be seen mingled a Dissenting minister MR. n EATON, SENIOR. 3.^ or two, whose tastes ];iy ratlicr in tlic dircriion f,r science or literature than of theology, and wlio Imd no idea of measuring swords witli their exalted episcopalian bretliren on the subject of disestaljlish- ment. Of sucli men Leeds was not devoid, as the mention of the name of Priestley will suffice to remind my readers. Tlie magistrates, the gentry, and even the better class of professional men and merchants were naturally attracted to the same common centre ; so that, a hundred years ago, tlie shop of the leading bookseller of a provincial town was a place of far more importance than it can now claim to be, and supplied in a great degree the lack of those institutions which have since been established in all directions, for the promotion of social inter- course and of hterary and scientific inquiry in every conceivable mode. The talk which went on from day to day in such a place, though necessarily often frivolous and trivial, was upon the whole interesting and not seldom instructive ; and no young man could listen to it without getting a certain amount of enhghtenment which would hardly have come to him in any other branch of business. Perhaps it was this fact, or perhaps it may have been the actual superiority of the bookseUing busi- ness in those days compared with its present state, but whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that the old-fashioned bookseller of the last century D 34 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M,D. was "as a rule a person of much higlier intelligence and better education than can be generally found in the shopkeeper of to-day. He was expected to know something more than the outsides of the books in which he dealt, and as a rule he did so. Mr. Binns, tlie master to whom young Heaton had been appren- ticed, was an excellent specimen of the order of man I am describing. That he had more than a merely local fame was evidenced by the fact that some time after his death Mr. John Heaton was solicited to write an account of him for publication in Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes.' The son of a bookseller at Hahfax, where he was born in the year 1744, Mr. Binns may be said to have been brought up among books. Very early in life he showed a great taste not only for hterary pursuits but for music. In his eighteenth year he prepared — in happy anticipation of the more elaborate work of Dr. Grove — a ' Dic- tionary of Music,' wliich was published a few years afterwards, though the name of the author did not appear on the title-page. About 1765 he went to Leeds and started business there in a quaint httle shop in Briggate. Here he remained throughout his life. What I have said as to his musical and biblio- graphic tastes shows that he was a man of superior attainments. Before long ' Mr. Binns's shop ' had become the local centre of intellect and intelligence ; and on market days those of the neighbouring gentry MR. n EATON, SENIOR. 35 wlio luul any tusic for literature or any desire to ineet witli tlie leading spirits of tlic l)usy tfjwn resorted to the place, and peeping into the newest books from London or chatting over the news in the latest journal converted tlie dingy little shop into the semblance of a club. The gentle, dreamy musician — who was himself a performer of no common excellence on more than one instrument — did not take much part in the discussions which related to politics, for his tastes lay in another direction. He was himself a Conservative, as most of his patrons were. But he was more concerned in picking up some rare tracts relating to the local history of the district, or in mastering the latest news about the performances of Handel's music, than in the discus- sion of the rights of the American colonists or the speeches of Mr. Burke. His knowledge of books was most extensive and profound ; and to him every inhabitant of Leeds and the surrounding country who desired to obtain any bibliographic information resorted, seldom to be disappointed in his quest. It was something that, in what the present generation regards as the dark age of the eighteenth century, a bustling manufacturing town should have contained one such man as this. Who can tell what services he rendered to the place where he led his useful, unostentatious life ? It is probable that, if we could trace the origin of some of the most imposing move- 36 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. ments which now occupy our attention, we should be led back step by step to that dingy little bookseller's shop at the bottom of Briggate, where John Binns met the eager inquirers after knowledge and fed them out of his own stores, dropping the while many a quiet hint which, like the seed that has fallen to the ground unseen, was to bring forth its fruit long after the sower himself was forgotten. At all events ' Mr. Binns's shop ' is not a place of which the people of Leeds liave reason to think lightly ; nor ought the pleasant homely figure of the musical bookseller of that remote day to be allowed to drop entirely out of sight, in the place where his name is no longer heard. Side by side with that figure of the cultured, learned, and gentle master, we now get a glimpse of another, that of the industrious and God-fearing assistant. From Mr. Binns young John Heaton learned much. Not only did he acquire that knowledge of books by which he in turn became distinguished in the course of his business, but he caught some of his master's gentleness of spirit and demeanour. 'My father was the meekest of men,' says John Heaton's son ; and in this case the proverb ' like master like man ' is strictly apphcable. But the young man had still his way to make in the world, and was as yet far from the position of wealth and social influence which his employer had secured for MR. IIEATON, SENIOR. 37 himself. Perhaps too it would be biil f;iir to admit tliat he lacked tlie more briHi.nit intellectual qualities which distinguished the latter. He had no 'gift' like that whicli had carried the fame of Mr. 13inns far beyond local bibliogra])hic circles. But lie had, what in its way was even more valuable, sterling piinciplcs, a firm though gentle perseverance, and an absorbing desire to do his duty l)y all with wliom he was brought in contact. So after all John Heaton was by no means badly equipped for the battle of life. In 1794 Mr. Binns added to his business by pur- chasing the ' Leeds Mercury ' from its former pro- prietor, Mr. Bowling, and conducting it in connection with a general printing business in a building on the left hand of what is now called Heaton's Court, in Briefcate. This event led to several changes of importance, not only in the shop, but in the towni of Leeds itself. One day in 1795 a young man, weary with a long walk across the hills from Lancashii'e, entered Mr. Binns's shop and asked for employment as a printer. He was referred to the little printing- office in the adjoining yard ; and there, having given evidence of his good character and abihty, he was forthwith engaged. It is recorded of Edward Baines, Avho entered the town of Leeds and commenced the work of his life in this modest position, that he resolved on being admitted to Mr. Binns's estabUsh- ment, that if he could obtain employment there he 38 MEMOIR OF J. D. H EATON, M.D. would never seek to get another situation : and it is not necessary that I should pause to repeat the story of how he kept this vow. In the following year, 1796, Mr. John Binns, wliilst on a journey from London, whither he had been on a book-buying expedition, was attacked by serious illness at Grantham. After several days of intense suffering he died there. His body was brought to Leeds and interred in a vault in the parish church, where a monument recording his name is still to be seen. Wliilst the gcod man lay dying he was able to attend to his worldly affairs, and duly made his will a day or two before his death. In this will, whilst chieffy mindful of those who were near to him in blood, he did not forget his faithful shopman, and by a legacy of twenty pounds bore the last testimony of his regard for the character of John Heaton. Mrs. Binns was left with her two sons to carry on the bookselling business. Each of these two sons in turn was placed at its head ; but in reality the management was left almost entirely in the hands of John Heaton. Mrs. Binns and her children continued for some years to reside above the shop ; and being an active capable woman she took a lively interest in all that was passing in the business. In the printing- office Edward Baines had now secured the leading- position, just as John Heaton held it in the book- seller's shop. Naturally, under such circumstances the MR. II EATON, SliNIOK. 39 two young incn became fast friencl.s, tJiougli tlicy must liave (lifTercd miir-li in disposition. Tliey sliarcd in common, it is true, the .sterlinj^ [jiinciples wliicli must ibrni the foundation of all true character, and no widow could have been more liighly favoured in those to whom she liad to trust for the management of her affairs than was Mrs. Binns in having Edward Baines and John Heaton in her service. ]>ut wliilst Baines was full of courage and enthusiasm, taking a lively interest in passing events, quick to note the humorous as well as the serious side of things, and bent upon making his way in the world if he could do so honestly and honourably, Heaton was shy, retiring, and grave. The atmosphere of books in which he dwelt was altogether different fi'om that atmosphere of the printing-office in which his more brilKant fellow- workman moved. He had acquired some of the outward characteristics of the bookworm, whilst his companion, with his fine flow of animal spirits, his brightness and vigour, was the very type of the journalist. 'I always know that Edward Baines is in the shop,' said Mrs. Binns one day, * when I hear John Heaton laugh.' In 1801 a great change took place in the position and prospects of one of the two friends. The Liberals of Yorkshire, feeling the want of a newspaper which could represent their principles in a proper manner, determined to buy the ' Ijceds Mercury,' and to 40 MEMOIR OF J. D. HEAT ON, M.D. place Mr Edward Baiiies in cliarge of it. This was accordingly done. Mr. Baines, backed by many influential men in Leeds and the district, became the purchaser of the paper from Mrs. Binns, and con- tinued to carry it on for some years in the printing- office adjoining the bookseller's shop. John Binns, the eldest son of the old bookseller, died in this year, 1801, and the business was transferred to his young brother Thomas, who was, however, at that time a youth of only seventeen j^ears. Like his brother, he died young ; and in 1805 Mrs. Binns found herself left without a son to whom to entrust the conduct of the business estabhshed by her husband. In these circumstances she took that which was undoubtedly the wisest course open to her. Hitherto, although she was in easy and indeed affluent circumstances, she had continued to live in the cramped apartments above the shop where her husband had made his home on coming to Leeds many years before. She now resolved to leave Leeds and make a home for herself and her] daughters in London ; and, mindful of the faithful services of John Heaton, she bestowed upon him the good-will of her husband's business. It was a valuable gift, for in those days ' good- will ' was something more than a phrase, and an established business was not exposed to the risks from pushing rivalries which now dog the footstej)s of even the most fortunate of tradespeople. Heaton MR. HE A TON, SENIOR. 41 had, however, w(!ll deserved this irnicli of Mrs. IJinn.s's confidence, wliicli was accompanied l)y a further proof of lier approval in tlie shape of a gift of a gold watch-seal, engraved with his initials. The large and very valual)le stock of books in tlie shop was bought by John Ileaton, and lienceforth he carried on the business on liis own account — tlie familiar name of Binns having given place to one which was destined eventually to become even more familiar to the people of Leeds. Two years after entering into possession of tlie business, and at a time when he was just beginning to gather together the wealth which he eventually accumulated, Mr. Heaton married, as his first wife, Martha Hobson. Her brotlier was a silk-mercer carrying on his business in the shop adjoining that which John Heaton occupied ; and after the fashion of these times he lived behind his shop, his sister living with him. This Mr. Hobson was himself sub- sequently a public man of some little note in Leeds, and took a considerable part in the estabhshment of the Gas Company. The marriage of his sister ^\\\ Mr. Heaton is spoken of by the son of the latter as having been ' an afiair of convenience rather than of warm affection.' Heaton was engrossed with his business throughout the day, and had no leisure in which to enjoy the pleasures of society. But he could not avoid making the acquaintance of his next-door 42 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. neighbour and his sister ; and eventually he came to the conclusion that, needing some one to manage his household affairs, he could not do better than con- tract a union with Miss Hobson. He had, when entering into possession of the bookselhng business, succeeded to the occupancy of the house in which his former employer and his family had lived so long, and there can be no doubt that he was already, as a steady and prosperous young tradesman, a very eligible suitor in the eyes of those around him. At all events nothing happened to interfere with his brief courtship of Martha Hobson, to whom he was married on June 18, 1807. Their married life was, however, of short duration. Mrs. Heaton, who had always been weakly, died less than three years after her marriage, and John Heaton, now becoming through his dihgence and success in business a man of no inconsiderable wealth, was left a widower. There had been a secret romance in the young bookseller's life, as there is in most lives. I have spoken of Mrs. Binns and the two daughters with whom she went to London in 1805, when Heaton became the purchaser of the bookselhng business. These daughters were sprightly and handsome young ladies, moving in the very best circle of society in Leeds, and there is reason to suppose that John Heaton admired the younger of them afar off during many years. The difference of station which separated MR. JIRATOM, SEMfOR. 45 the Iieircsscs — for .siicJi \\\(\ (I;uigliU;rB of Mr. I')iims were — from the young tradesman was too great to be bridged over; but judging by certain letters whicli remain, and l)y memoranda discovered l^y liis son after his deatli, he h)ng cherislied a great regard for one of tlie young hidies wliom lie had seen as children running about the rooms in which he had himself hved, and who continued for many years to show a sincere affection and respect for their father's old and faithfid servant. The correspondence which was maintained between Mrs. Binns and her daughters on one side, and Mr. Heaton on the other, after the removal of the family to London, is in the highest degree honourable to both parties. It shoAvs the wealthy widow and daughters cherishing a warm feeling of respect and gratitude towards their old friend. There are many invitations to the young bookseller to visit London and make the house of Mrs. Turner — the elder daughter of ]\ir. Binns — his home. There are little presents and messages regularly interchanged between the fashionable people in London and the simple frugal tradesman in Leeds. After his wife's death, when, appar- ently on the strength of his improved position in business, Mr. Heaton allowed himself to indulge in recollections of the past, when the handsome daughters of his old .patron were constant visitors to the shop, there was apparently a decided disposition 44 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE ATOM, M.D. Oil the part of the younger of these ladies to recipro- cate his feelings. But the little romance was never to be converted intorealitj^ and on October 23, 1812, he received — it is to be feared with mingled feelings — the announcement of the marriage of Miss Binns to Colonel Wall of Worcester, accompanied by a portion of the bride-cake, of which he is requested to let ]\Ir. Baines have a taste. For a year or two after this Mr Heaton devoted himself entirely to his business, the only relaxation he allowed himself being that which he found in con- nection with his congenial labours as a member of the White Chapel. He continued to prosper in busi- ness ; his stock increased in value, and out of his profits he was able to purchase several blocks of pro- perty in the immediate neighbourhood of his shop. But presently the need of companionship began to force itself upon the mind of the lonely, self-concen- trated bookseller. Apparently he knew no one who seemed hkely to suit his tastes. He had lived so long among his books that he had found no time to make acquaintance with living people. His first marriage had not been altogether a successful venture, and the little episodical romance which had preceded and followed it was now at an end. In these circumstances he applied to his minister, the Eev. William Eccles, for advice, and event- ually asked that worthy man if he knew of any one MR. HE A TON, SENIOR. 45 who would be suitaljlc as a wile. Il is not in Uiis way that marriages are usually contracted in novels ; and perhaps, even when a minister of religion is the originator of such an alliance, it can hardly be classed among those which are traditionally supf)oscd to be * made in heaven.' ]3ut the common experience of mankind proves that unions which are contracted in this prosaic fashion are not always the most unfortunate, and that not a little of real happiness may spring from them. Mr. Eccles did know of a family whom he could recommend to the young bookseller as being likely to furnish him with a worthy and congenial partner in life. This was the family of Mr. Wilham Deakin, a substantial yeoman, farming a considerable piece of land, his own property, in Attercliffe and Tinsley. Mr. Deakin's wife had died some time before, and he now lived at Attercliffe in a quaint country house, built by his father some thirty years previously, where he enjoyed the companionship of several unmarried daughters. His two sons Avere both married, and his third daughter was the wife of the Eev. Maurice Phillips, minister of the Independent Chapel at Atter- cliffe, through whom it is probable Mi'. Eccles had become acquainted with the family. Accordingly on a certain Good Friday, when shops were shut and no business was to be done, the worthy bookseller and his minister set off in a gig, ostensibly to drive from 46 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. Leeds to Hasbro' College, where Mr. Eccles was sup- posed to have some busmess to transact. The precise year of this memorable expedition is not known, but it was either in 1814 or 1815. Attercliffe had to be taken on the way to Masbro', and what more natural than that the minister should call, as he passed through the village, at the house of his friend Mr. Deakin ? Five daughters of the house were then living at home. As it chanced, the door was opened by Ann, the second in age, and her kindly and un- affected welcome, not only to the minister but to his companion, at once made a most favourable impres- sion upon the latter. Nor did she suffer subsequently in his estimation when Mr. Heaton was able to com- pare her with her sisters. It was towards her that his heart from the first inclined. She on her part reciprocated his feelings, and after a brief courtship, during which the sober lovers met more than once at Harrogate or Leeds, good Mr. Eccles entertaining the young lady at his house, they were married on Sep- tember 21, 1815. * The courtship,' says Dr. Heaton in his diary, ' may seem somewhat brief ; but the marriage was a still more summary process. My grandfather Deakin was rapidly sinking from old age and infirmity, and not expected to live long. After his death it would be inappropriate to have a marriage without the cus- tomary interval of mourning. It was determined. MR, HE A TON, SENIOR. 47 tlicrerorc, tluit iJie man-iu^^fc .should take place williout delay. But my mother could not leave her father, on whom she was the chief" altcndiint. My father, also, was so devoted to his l)usiness at this time that he could not absent himself for long, even for so interest- ing an occasion as his marriage. It was arranged, therefore, that my father just came over for the day ; he and my mother were married in the most quiet way at the parish church at Sheffield, and he went back alone to Leeds the same evening. The marriage took place on September 21, 1815 ; my grandfather died a fortnight afterwards, on October 4, and as soon as was convenient after that (I believe about a fort- night after her father's death) my mother went to her husband at Leeds, accompanied by my eldest aunt, Mary. It was certainly a dreary commencement of her married life. And thus she settled down in her new home.' By the marriage with Miss Deakin, John Heaton found himself introduced into the midst of a some- what numerous and active family, whose habits both of mind and body must have presented a decided contrast to those of the gentle, self-secluded book- seller. The Deakin family was one of very consider- able antiquity. ' I have in my possession,' says Dr. Heaton, ' a pedigree tracing in unbroken succession my grandfather's descent from the ancient family of Dakeynes of Biggin Grange and Stubbing Edge, 48 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. coiinty Derby. The pedigree commences in the fifteenth century ; but the works on Heraldry refer the same family to De Akeney, who held lands in the Peak of Derbyshire in the reigns of Edward the First and Edward the Second ; and the first known of whose name was some mythical hero who came into this country with William the Conqueror. Thus it would seem, with a reasonable probability, that both my father's and mother's families were originally Norman, and that the patronymic of both had the patrician prefix " De." ' What is quite certain, apart from any of the tra- ditions of the Heralds' College, is that the Deakins or Dakeynes of Atterclifie had held the position of sub- stantial yeomen in that part of Yorkshire for nearly a century and a half before John Heaton's first inter- view with his future wife. Mrs. Deakin, the mother of Mrs. Heaton, had been dead for several years previous to her daughter's marriage, and I have just told how the father's death took place immediately after the somewhat curious wedding. ' Of my grand- father and grandmother Deakin,' says Dr. Heaton, ' I of course only know what I have heard from my mother and aunts. They were excellent, simple- minded, pious people, and lived in a plain country fashion ; liberally, but without show. Amongst my mother's papers found after her death was a short manuscript in her handwriting, containing a sketch MR. J I EATON, SI'INIOR. 49 of her motlier's character, uiid a liistory . ff EATON, M.D. horrors of tlie Ghetto or of the purheus of Cologne. Naturally the public reaped the fruits of their own oflending in,tliis matter. Fevers of the worst kind and successive visitations of cholera swept down upon tlie town and carried off hundreds — on one memorable occasion, thousands — of the inhabitants. Naturally, too, these epidemics revelled among sucli spots as those of which I have spoken, the nests of hovels where the poor were crowded together under the shadow of the noble parish church ; but their ravages were not confined to these places, and many of the wealthy, as well as some of those benevolent and pious persons whose chief mission it was to succour the victims of these recurring visitations, perished along wdth the ill-housed poor. Dr. Heaton, as I shall have occasion presently to tell, was himself one of those medical men who suffered greatly in health through their efforts to cope with the epidemics which were then so common in Leeds. Such was the state of the town forty years ago. Of political activity there was no lack. Cobden and Bright were then frequent visitors to the chief city of the West Eiding, and frequent speakers in the Music Hall, then the scene of most political meetings. Dr. Hook and his antagonists, Mr. (now Sir Edward) Baines and Dr. Winter Hamilton, were engaged in discussing the true theory of a system of national education and the other questions upon which Churchmen and Non- rUJUJC /J/'E /N UCICDS. 91 ('oiifoniiisls wci'c i);iiiir;ill)' divided ill o|)iiii()ii. l'id)lic spirit f;m jiisl, .-is liiLdi llicii ;is it docs now in mij' great proviiiciitl towns. Hut it was a time when the quaint social eonscrvatisiri whicli had given a distinc- tive character of its own to each great town and city thr()uglu)ut (he country was rapidly disappearing, and when as yet its place liad not l)een taken by that local patriotism wliicdi lias since been developed so largely. People living in towns like Leeds recognised the fact that they were provincial, and made no attempt to escape from their provincialism. Though they had plenty to say about the repeal of the Corn Laws, or any other exciting political question, they had not yet realised the fact that at their own doors there was work to be done in its way not less import- ant tlian that intrusted to the Imperial Parliament. To lay out wide and handsome streets, to erect im- posing public buildings, to establish really efficient systems of lio:htino' and drainincf, to reform the dwelhngs of the poor, and to sweep out of existence the vile dens in wdiich ague, cholera, and fever constantly lurked; to provide means by which the mhabitants even of a great manufacturing town, separated by hundreds of miles from the capital and from tlic great seats of learning might yet acquire something of the higher culture, and be placed in sympathy with those movements of human intelli- gence and national feeling which did not concern 92 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. Acts of Parliament or the policy of Ministers ; and in general to elevate and enlighten a provincial com- miinit}^, sweetening its life and raising its aspirations, was a work to which few felt themselves to be called — a work, indeed, the very existence of which was hardly realised by the vast majority of persons. Dr. Heaton had no taste for politics, nor did he appreciate the charms of ecclesiastical dialectics. Unlike his father, he took no interest in the Non- conformist community with which his early years had been associated ; and, as a mere boy, he left the Independents and became a regular attendant at St. Paul's Church, and when he subsequently settled in Leeds and began practice he became a seat-holder at St. George's Church, of which the Eev, William Sinclair was then the incumbent, and this church he continued to attend to the day of his death. This separation from the creed of his fathers, and his dis- like for mere pohtical conflict, shut him off to a great extent from the field in which in those days the largest amount of mental activity and public spirit was dis- played. But he was not a man who could shut himself up within the narrow limits of domestic or professional life, and it was the natural consequence of the position in which he found himself, strongly attached to neither political party, that he was thrown into that branch of public work which was just beginning to assert its claims upon the thought- PUBLIC LIFE IN LEEDS. 93 ful and liberal-minded iiili;il)itaiits of om- large pro- vincial towns. It wan to the duties of a citizen that he devoted himself very early after liis establish- ment in ])ractice in Leeds, and it was as the useful, laborious, and public-spirited local worker that he subsequently reached his highest reputation and his widest sphere of usefulness. It will be my duty now to show the various works for the improvement and development of Leeds, and of the inhabitants of the district in which Leeds is situated, in which he took part during his public career. Naturally enough, during his earliest years of pro- fessional work he made that work his chief occupa- tion. I have hinted at some of the conditions which then affected the health of the poor of Leeds. As physician to the Public Dispensary, Dr. Heaton found that he could at once obtain any amount of practice among the very poor. It was not of course remunerative labour, but it had great attractions for him. The boyish fastidiousness which had led him to turn with something hke disgust from the heavy and often unpleasant duties which had belonged to him as the assistant of a general practitioner, had now yielded to the enthusiasm of his calhng. He had mastered the great truth that the first thought of the physician must be for his patient, his last thought for himself; and that no work, however menial or heavy it may be, which is undertaken for 94 MEMOIR OF J. D. BEATON, M.D. the purpose of relieving luimaii pain and misery, oiio'lit to be obnoxious to one wlio lias devoted him- self to the medical profession. Accordingly we find that, during these early years of his practice in Leeds, he was more at home among the squalid residences of the poor or in the consulting rooms of the Dis- pensary than in his own house in East Parade. Taking a real and deep interest in his work, he busied himself during his scanty leisure in preparing reports upon the most interesting cases which came under his care, for publication in the ' Medical Gazette.' That leisure must have been scant indeed during the first year of his practice in Leeds. Early in 1844 he was offered a lectureship in the Medical School, of which he was now justly regarded as one of the most distinguished pupils. The offer was made to him on the usual condition of his purchasing a share in the School and becoming a member of the Council. The particular lectureship he was asked to undertake was one for which he was peculiarly qualified by his own studies — that of Botany. He eagerly accejDted the offer, and at once set about the preparation of his lectures, the delivery of which was to commence in May. Before the summer session of the School was at an end he was asked to undertake a new and very onerous duty in connection with it. Dr. Duncan had resigned the lectureship on Materia Medica, and tlie /'(//U./C Lirr. IN LEEDS. 95 Council li;i,(l coiuc lo Llic ('.(MicliLsioii iJiuL llicrc wmh at llie thiie no one; in Leeds e]ic(| ; .-iikI iIk; sofidy (iiijilly (li('(l ;i ii;il,iir;il (|c;illi, Ic'iviiiL'' Ix.'IhimI il .'iboilt T)!)/. ill iiioiicy, wliicli is now ( I . HE A TO A^, M.D. line ; military bands ; banners bearing the Duke's arms, his charger and insignia of office, and the magnificent bronze funeral car, drawn by twelve black dray- horses, clothed in black velvet trappings, and with lofty plumes on theii' heads. After eight in the morning there was no rain ; the day was hazy, with occasional gleams of sunshine, which seemed appro- priate to the occasion. The sun's rays produced striking effects when glancing on the breastplates and weapons of the soldiers as they passed. After the procession was over we got home as best we could, with no ill effects to any of us, and on the following Monday we returned home to Leeds.' It is not the purpose of this memoir to deal with the domestic life of Dr. Heaton. I am, lioweve]*, tempted by many passages in his journal to throw light upon this side of my subject. Whilst to the outer world he seemed to be somewhat cold and reserved in demeanour, very different was the im- pression which he made upon those who were admitted to the familiar and unreserved inter- course of his own fireside. Here he was seen at his best, unlike the many who, whilst making brilliant figures in society, are dull and almost sullen under the slielter of their own roofs. His marriage had turned out most happily ; he was de^^oted to his wife, and full of affection for and interest in his children. In- deed, from the time of his union with Mrs. Heaton, MARRIAGE AND J'AMJI.Y LU'E. 119 the journal from wliidi T luivc m.-idc so many extracts is almost exclusively occupied witli tlie record of domestic events, nothing that in any way concerned his wife and children seeming to him to be too trivial to be mentioned. It is only occasionally that one catches glimpses in its pages of liis piiMic labours; one must go elsewhere to find any full record (jf them. Ihit he is full of the details of family excur- sions to vai'ious places in the neighbourhood of Leeds, or of trips with his wife to London and Paris ; whilst there is incidental mention of the books he was reading, of the alterations and imj^rovements he was making in his house, of the transformation of bis father's old dwelling in Briggate — the birthplace of Dr. Heaton and his sister — into a shop, and of other events of purely personal or domestic interest. The following, however, is a passage which, as bearing upon Dr. Heaton's pubhc work, ought to be given. ' I had for some time (1853) been the sole physician to the Dispensary, my last two former colleagues having resigned and left the town, so that the work of these fell upon me alone. Neither Dr. Wilson nor Dr. Chad wick would come forward to help me, nor did the Committee trouble themselves at all about the matter, so long as I was content to do the work. As I had now been ten years physician to the Dispensary, and sole physician for the last three years, having likewise the physicianship of the House 120 MEMOIR OF J. D. HEATOA\ M.D. of Eecovery and the Infirmary, I thought it right to give up tliis thankless and onerous charge, I accordingly sent in my resignation to the Committee, and received a very tardy and cool acknowledgment of my communication, and vote of thanks for my services. The Committee then advertised their three vacancies, but received no response ; they therefore applied to Wilson, Chadwick, and myself, asking us all to resume office. Dr. Chadwick was willing to accept at all events a nominal appointment, and wished my- self and Wilson, who were a good deal cooler about it, to come into his views. Wilson consented, claim- ing to be considered as . senior, Chadwick claimed to stand second, leaving me, after having been senior for many years, and after having done all the work, now to rank last. It was agreed that the question should be referred to Mr. Garhck, who upon some mistaken grounds adjudged that such should be our relative standing as physicians to the Dispensary. It was clear, however, that no one could object to my signing my name as late senior physician to the Dispensary. The result then was, that I returned to office, now assisted by two colleagues ; and that as a reward for my ten years' service, in which I had been successively third, second, senior, and ultimately sole physician, I was put back to the position of third, or junior physician, late senior physician, to the Dis- pensary.' MAR N I ACE AND rAM/I.V /.IFE. 121 1a!(j(1s w;is iiDW being ;igil:.iLc. HE A TON, M.D. some provincial town, where possibly the hurry and rush of life have not been so great as in the capital, and where, in consequence, public buildings have lived a httle longer than they are apt to do on the banks of the Thames. But quite apart from this aspect of the question, there is another side to it of greater and more im- mediate importance. Those who know anything of the older cities of the Continent must be well aware of the extent to which the taste of the different com- munities dwelhng in those cities has been educated and elevated by the character of the public buildings in their midst. We are naturally inchned to ' live up to ' the things of beauty by which we are surrounded. Let a town once possess a single building which is an architectural ornament to it, and all meaner edifices will at once be put to shame, and will begin to pall upon the taste of the people. This was the view held by Dr. Heaton, as well as by many other enhghtened inhabit- ants of Leeds at the period to which we refer. The reader will have gathered from previous pages that the great Yorkshire town had little to boast of in the way of architectural decoration down to 1854. The building of the parish church, in the midst of the squalor and desolation of Kirkgate, had indeed done something to redeem the character of the town. But, apart from this one building, there was not a single edifice in the town of which the inhabitants had any MARK LI UK AND J-AAJJLV LILE. 123 reason lo !»' pioiid. Nor \v;is if, ^-ertain at tliis tiiiK; that tlu' ToNvu (!()mi('il, witli whom i-cstud the decision as to the c.lKiraeter of Llie Town liall wliieh was to he erected, would prove worthy of tlie great respon- sibility intiusled to them. They were more than suspected of a leaning towards a discreditable parsi- mony, and the more pubhc-spirited and intelligent inhabitants of Leeds feared lest the borough should be permanently disfigured by a building which should be a perpetual monument of the lack of taste and liberality on the part of the local governing body. In these circumstances a vigorous agitation was carried on for the purpose of enhghtening public opinion, and of thus bringing indirect pressure to bear upon the Town Council. Naturally enough, the members of the Town Council resented the notion that any pressure of this kind was needed in order to bring them into the right path. But in spite of their protests the people of taste in Leeds pursued their course, and, by means of the local press and of lectures before the chief local societies, did all that was possible to stimulate and inform the pubUc mind. It was not in Dr. Heaton's power to look on with indifference whilst a work of this kind Avas in pro- gress. Foreign travel had done much to improve his taste and enlarge his ideas ; he saw now more clearly than he had ever done before the glaring deficiencies of Leeds as a citv ; and he now laboured 124 MEMOIR OF J. D. HEATO^, M.D. as earnestly to increase its beauty as to improve its sanitary state. On the evening; of Twelfth Nig;ht, 1854, he dehvered a lecture on the subject of Town Halls before the members of the Philosophical and Literary Society, in which, treating the subject from a historical point of view, he gave his fellow-towns- men a large amount of useful information on a ques- tion which, it will be readily understood, "was at that time of more than ordinary interest to those whom he addressed. A matter of infinitely greater importance than this local agitation respecting the architecture of a Town Hall, was now, however, beginning to absorb the attention of the people of England. After a peace of forty years' duration, this country was once more about to enter upon a great European War, It is interesting, even for those of us who are old enough to remember with distinctness the events of that epoch, to see how people in England were struck at the time by the resort to the arbitrament of battle. Three years before this date, the Great Exhibition had been opened in Hyde Park, amid rejoicings which might fairly be described as cosmo- pohtan in their character. Throughout Europe men believed that this festival of industry and art was to set the seal upon the reign of peace, and to mark with emphasis the repudiation of war as a policy or a means of attaining national ends. It was a terrible MARh'tAdE AND I'AMII.V /.//■/■:. 125 \)\]\ from llic liciulil of ihc cxpcrtalJoris wliicli wen; 1I1UH indulf^cd into iJic dcptJi of iJic passions vvliicli prevailed tliroiiiilioiil llic comili'y in 1854. ]U\\ once afi^ain Englisliincn proved on that occasion llint, niulerlying aJI professions of peace and all inrlin;i- tion for peace, there is a deep-rooted Ijcliigerent sentiment by which in tlie last result their natures are entirely dominated. With hardly an exception the nation was ready for the call to arms when it came. It forgot all about the Great Exhibition and the sen- timents of universal brotherhood which had been everywhere preached in 1851 ; and the shopkeeping class in particular, those against whom the greatest poet of the day had launched the bitter invective with which the pages of ' Maud ' are loaded, showed themselves eager to support Ministers in carrying on a war. Of the real causes of that war, of the objects at which it aimed, they might know little. It was enough for them that it was waged under the flag of England, and in this fact they found a sufficient reason for throwing aside the professions of forty years of peace. Dr. Heaton as a politician was a singularly calm and impartial person. He showed throughout his life a strong distaste for mere party pohtics. Not at all the man to find favour Avith a Caucus or with the wire-pullers of any particular pohtical organisation, he had a habit of looking at questions upon their merits which is not without its value in a country 126 MEMOIR OF J. D. HEATON, M.D. where party reigns supreme. His own intimate friends hardly knew whether to describe him as a Liberal or a Conservative, and probably on neither side was there any rehance placed upon his vote at an election. That which he believed to be for the good of his country, whether it was advocated by Liberal or Conservative, was what found favour in his eyes. His singular power of cutting himself absolutely loose from the great movements of public feehng on the questions of the day, the power of standing aside as it were, whilst the contending currents of popular opinion were being dashed against each other in angry vehemence, enabled him often to see more of the game than was visible to those who were actually engaged in it. There are naturally not a few refer- ences in his journal to the Crimean War, but I need only make one extract in order to show the cool and dispassionate way in which he could look even at so absorbing and exciting a matter as this was. ' We were now entering on the Crimean War with Russia, together with our allies the French, and subsequently the Sardinians. This being the first European war in which England had been involved since 1815, created much sensation and considerable anxiety, an anxiety which the result fully justified, as this war lasted just two years, with a tremendous loss of life and waste of money, and was concluded finally with no very appreciable good result, although MAniUAGE AND FAMff-.Y LI IE. 127 tlie allies wci'c (lie successful I ).'iily. In Imil'^I.-iu'I wc are pretty fully coiiviiiced that had this country alone undertaken the war, it would li.ivc been ended much iiu)rc Hucccssfully, more speedily, and wilh nuxre glory to our arms. Rivalries, hesitations, and difTerences of opinion, which so naturally arose l)etween the commanders of the tw(j nations, much retarded and obstructed the operations of the war, and in the end peace was concluded by tlie deter- mination of the French Government, their own resources being exhausted, at a time when the English were both able and willing to prosecute the war to a more successful issue.' But even in times of war the ordinary usages of society are maintained. It seemed strange to many of us during the dark days when our troops were facing death on the cruel plains of the Crimea that at home the ordinary round of feast and festival should be maintained after the accustomed fashion, and that not even the darkening of a hundred homes by the presence of death in its most terrible shape could be allowed to interfere with the gaieties of the London season. Among the Mansion House dinners which took place this year was one which had a special interest for many persons in Leeds. ls\x. Sidney, the great tea-merchant, was at that time Lord Mayor, and Mr. Sidney's business was not confined to London, lie had a branch estabUshment in Leeds, where he J 28 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. was well known. On the occasion of his mayoralty, he invited many Leeds gentlemen to partake of the hospitalities of the Mansion House, and Dr. Heaton was a guest at a dinner thus given on May 11. ' We reached the Mansion House soon after six, and were ushered into the drawing-room, which was guarded at the door by the Macebearer and Sword- bearer in their state liveries. Here we were introduced to the Lady Mayoress, as well as to her daughter Mrs. Moon, who is married to the son of the eminent publisher of engravings. The Bishop of Eipon, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, Archdeacon Thorpe, our borough members, and other notables were also gathered here, besides a large number of our Leeds acquaintances. About seven we were ushered into the Egyptian Hall to dinner, the number of guests being two hundred and seventy in all. Of course there was a magnificent display of civic plate, a great abundance of food of every kind, and many varieties of wine. After dinner the Lord Mayor drank to the company assembled in the peculiar fashion adopted at these City banquets. The toast- master announced the Lord Mayor's intention as follows : "The Lord Mayor drinks to all a kindly cup, and wishes all a Idndly greeting." Then all the guests pledged each other, a large two-handled cup beino- passed along round the table, each person and his neicfhbour in succession standing up, and each MANh'fACR AiVI) I'.l.Mll.V I.I IE. 139 Jioldin^' l.lic ciii) by (jiic IkukIIc whilst llic fii-sl, rcjioated tlio pledge to tlie Hcnond, who Uicni turned round .•Mid w(Mil, iJii'oii^h llic same ceremony wilh his neigld)()iir on iJic oilier side. 'Hk; coinpaiiy hrokc 11 1 ) aJ)oiil twelve o'clock. The fjord Mayor was very polite, and invited us and the ladies to go with some of the company in his barge to see the launch of the Royal Albert^ 131 guns, on Saturday. This was a very interesting excursion. We assembled at the Mansion House, where Mr. Sidney introduced the party to his wife and daughter. We also met there Dr. Croly, the rector of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, in which parish the Mansion House stands. The Avhole company were taken down in carriages to Fresh Wharf, where we embarked. Two river steamers had been provided for our accommodation, and we were asked to go in that which the Lord Mayor and his attendants — Swordbearer, Macebearer, and water- men — also took passage. Both the boats Avere hung round with flags, and the second boat had a band of music on board. We thus went down the river quite in gala fashion, and about one o'clock reached Wool- Avich, where we were moored next to the Admiralty steamer, the Black Eagle. This in turn was moored close to the quay on which was the platform provided for the Royal party, so that our position was unexceptionable. We were indeed directly opposite the immense shed under which lay the vessel whose K I30 MEMOIR OF J. D. BEATON, M.D. entrance upon her nautical life we bad come to witness. Soon after one, the Queen, Prince Albert, the Princess Eoyal, the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, Princess Alice, the Duchess of Kent, Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and a brilliant suite of naval and mihtary officers, made their appearance. They walked round the ship and then returned to the platform. The Queen then christened the vessel in the usual manner, and the launch took place most successfully, amid immense cheering and the playing of the national anthem by the numberless bands on board the many steamboats which were gathered on the spot. Wlien the ceremony was over we sat down to a magnificent collation, which had been laid out in the cabin of the steamboat whilst we were engaged in viewing the spectacle. Every variety of delicate viand and unhmited quantities of iced champagne were provided ; and after luncheon, when we came on deck, port and claret were supplied ad libitum, as well as ices, hothouse grapes, and straw- berries. Both of these fruits were selling at that time in Covent Garden at ten shillings a pound. Meanwhile the steamer went further down the river to Erith Eeach, when it turned back. On reaching the Eoyal Albert, which was now moored in the middle of the river, we came alongside, and the whole party w^as invited on board to inspect the ship, the size and strength of which impressed us greatly.' A'l.lNh'IACE ,LV/) /'AMJ/.y 1. 1 IE. i,y Art(;r l-liis |)l(';is;iiit. iiidiilircnrc in iiitcr-iiiiiriirij)al li(),sj)ita]iti('s, Di-. Jlcaloii ;iii(l liis wife rctiirnocl to Leeds and to tlicir ordinaiy life tliere. A l)iisy life as usual, htil not witliout its c-oinpensations in tlie sliape of Conversation Club excursions, as well as ])rivatc visits to many of the scenes of beauty and interest by which the West Ridinji is distinguished. In the beginning of October, at the request of the Council of the Philosophical Society, of whicli he was one of the leading members, Dr. Ileaton, accompanied by Mr. Denny, the secretary to the society, went to Drewton Manor near Hull, to discharge a commission on behalf of the society. DrcAvton Manor was the seat of the late Mr. Baron, who had bequeatlied a large collection of ancient coins, and all his books on antiquarian and topographical subjects, to the Leeds Philosophical Society. The object of Dr. Heaton's visit was to protect the society's interests under this bequest, as there was considerable danger that some of the books which came within the terms of this bequest mio-lit tliroud;]! accident or misunderstandino- be put up for sale along with tlie other portions of the librarj-. Dr. Heaton bought in many books which seemed to him and Mr. Denny to be the property of the Philosophical Scciety, and the justice of their contention on this point being subsequently admitted by Mr. Baron's executors, these books were duly added to the library of the society in the build- K 2 132 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. ing ill Park Row. Tlie following iiioiith, at the annual conversazione of the societj^ it fell to Dr. Heaton's lot to read a paper descriptive of the various books forming part of the Baron bequest which he had thus been in a measure instrumental in securing. The year 1855 was made memorable in the domestic annals of the household by the birth of a son, John Arthur Dakeyne Heaton. This event happened in June, and some weeks later Dr. and Mrs. Heaton went to Paris, where the Exposition, an imitation of the Great Exhibition of 1851, was being held at the time, and where they had the opportunity of witnessing the public rejoicings for the victories in the Crimea. It was shortly after their return from Paris, in the beo-innino; of 1856, that Dr. and Mrs. Heaton took the first steps in a matter which led to a not incon- siderable change in the course of their daily life in Leeds. Up to this time they had continued to reside in the house in East Parade which had been provided for him by his father when he began practice in the town. Now, however, circumstances led them to contem- plate the purchase of a larger detached house, situated on the north side of Wood house Square, which was at that time still almost in the suburbs of Leeds, and in the most fashionable quarter of the town. A man's house, it is justly said, is always an indication of his character, and the house which Dr. Heaton MAKRIAGR AND FAMll.) I.II'E. 133 WHH {il)<)iit l<> |)UJ'(;liu,sc, and vvliicli under tlic name of Clarcnionl subsequently became so well known to the inhabitants of Leeds and to many persons of dis- tinction in ;ill parts of the country, affords no excep- tion to this I'ulc. i)Ut there is another side to the aphoi'isni, and it is not less true lhal men are to a not inconsiderable extent influenced by the character- istics of the houses which are their homes. We are all more or less the creatures of circumstances, and of all the circumstances by which we are surrounded few can be more powerful than the atmosphere of our daily life in our own homes. Eemoval from East Parade to Claremont was, in the case of Dr. Heaton, evidence of the fact that lie had become, so far as wealth and social position were concerned, one of the leading inhabitants of the town. It may seem absurd to alter one's estimate of a man merely because he has changed his place of residence : but it is the way of the world. Dr. Heaton at Claremont was in no respect different from Dr. Heaton at East Parade. He was still the indefatigable and unselfish servant of the public ; never neglecting his duties to his own household, never failing to take tender charge of those wlio'were nearest and dearest to him ; but at the same time successfully combining attention to public matters and care for the welfare of the whole community with this devotion to those interests which were naturally' of the first importance to a man 134 MEMOIR OF J. D. HEATON, M.D. of his temperament. But although he had not changed in any way in his devotion to his work, men began to regard him in a different hght after he had estabhshed himself in his new home, and hence- forth he played a more important part in the affairs of Leeds than he had done before. Nor was it quite without reason that this change in his position took place. At Claremont, as the occupier of a large and commodious house, occupying a most convenient situation, he was able to be the host of many of the persons of distinction or useful- ness who visited Leeds on matters of public business. Thus he was brought into contact with a wider circle than that in which he had hitherto moved, and became in due course the leader in the hterary, scien- tific, and artistic' society of the town. The visitors' book at Claremont contains the names of many who are known to the world at large, and who had an opportunity of enjoying the pleasant hospitalities of the master of the house. But those hospitalities were never limited to people of note or fashion, and for more than twenty years that house was the recognised centre of much that was brightest and best in the social life of Leeds. After purchasing Claremont, and before entering upon the occupancy of it. Dr. Heaton had to ex- perience another of the risks incident to his profession. lie had been absent from Leeds for a few days visiting M/1 A' A' //!(;/'. ANf) FAMU.Y l.I/. HE A TON, M.D. ordinarily susceptible to infection, and made it clear that it was not prudent for him to continue his services to his fellow-townsmen in that capacity. On November 27, 1856, he occupied Claremont for the first time, and as the early days of liis resid- ence in this house were marked by at least one incident of a somewhat extraordinary character, an extract from his journal bearing upon the subject may be inserted here with advantage. ' The only two rooms then habitable were the day-nursery for our sitting-room and the night- nursery for our bedroom. Workmen were in nearly all the rooms, but we gradually got some of them put into some degree of habitable condition. In December we got into our own bedroom, and used my dressing-room for a sitting-room. Before Christ- mas we had the drawing-room and library nearly completed, but the dining-room was still without a fireplace. We arranged, however, to have a large family gathering on Christmas day. On the night of Sunday, December 21, a large hungry rat got shut up in our bedroom when we went to bed. In its efforts to escape it gnawed and tore up the carpet near the door, as we found next day, but being unable to escape it got upon the bed and attacked me as I lay asleep. I was aroused by a sudden sharp pain on my nose, and the feeling of the animal's claws upon my face. Starting up I found my face covered wiili MAKh'IACE AND /■AM/ /A' /.///■:. i.^ blooil IVom a .severe bile aeross the bridge '»f tlie nose. I got some hot water and bathed tlie \v. HE A TON, M.D. more than a generation. Briggate, the main tlioi'ough- fare of tlie town, and the street in Avhich Dr. Heaton's father so long carried on his business, was one of the plainest and poorest streets in England. It might almost have been thought that those who were re- sponsible for it had deliberately conspired together to produce the worst possible effect. Boar Lane, the street which gave access to the railway stations, and along which an enormous traffic w^as constantly being- carried, was as ugly as Briggate, and had the addi- tional disadvantage of being so narrow that at certain points two-wheeled vehicles of ordinary size could not pass each other. The rest of Leeds consisted of long terraces of tasteless suburban houses, or streets occupied by mean and paltry dwellings allotted to the poor. All this was changed by the erection of the Town Hall. But the change was not wrought without a great struggle. The public-spirited men of the borough saw that a splendid opportunity had pre- sented itself for revolutionising the architecture of Leeds. They beUeved, and as it proved with entire justice, that, if a noble municipal palace that might fairly vie with some of the best Town Halls of the Continent were to be erected in the middle of their hitherto squalid and unbeautiful town, it would become a practical admonition to the populace of the value of beauty and art, and in course of time men PROGRESS 01' LEEDS, AND PUIiL/C WONK. (43 would Ic.'U'ii 1,0 liv(; up to iL l<'iii-l licnnorc, timy suw that tlic tiiiKj was approaching wlicn provincial iif'c would regain some of its lost importance, and wlien cities like Manchester, liirminghani, and Leeds, ceasing to be mere liiiinhle dej)endaiits upon llio capital of tlie nation, would tliemselves become the capitals of the districts in wliicli tliey were situated, just as the old county towns had been one or two liundred years before. They felt, tlierefore, that a I'ich town like Leeds, having to consider the necessity of erecting a Town Hall, was bound to approach that question in the most broad and liberal spirit, and to incur that which might even seem to some to be an extravagant expenditure, rather than fail in a duty which it owed to the rest of tlie community and to posterity. But it need hardly be said that farseeing and public men are not the only active members of a community. Leeds, like other towns, had a consider- able number of citizens whose one idea of the duty of tlie local government was that it should avoid all expenditure which could not be proved to be abso- lutely necessary. It is to be regretted that this false idea of economy should be so generally prevalent in provincial communities. We must remember, however, the character of the great majority of tlie population in these communities. It does not consist of men of Avealth and culture. Verv few T44 MEMOIR OF J. D. H EATON, M.D. pei-soiis belonging to the leisured classes are to be found in a manufacturing town ; and, so far as nine- teen men out of twenty are concerned, life is a hard struggle for money. When we remember the kind of education to which these people have been sub- jected, when we think of their painful and squalid surroundings, and of the efforts which each must make in order to gain not wealth but a bare subsist- ence, we cannot pretend to wonder at the fact that the false notion of economy which leads people to prefer that which is cheap to that which is good or beautiful, should so largely prevail. The cultured classes in Leeds were, however, determined to win this battle if they could. Their only chance of doing so was of course by converting the mass of the people to their side — for the municipal franchise in a manufacturing town is very democratic, and town councillors are only too apt to render obedience to their masters whatever may be the nature of the orders which they receive from them. Among those who threw themselves into the fray with eagerness was Dr. Heaton. He had now made several rather extended tours on the Continent, and could speak from actual observation of the state of things in those famous old cities whose Town Halls are the permanent glory of the inhabitants and the standing wonder and dehght of visitors from a dis- tance. Accordingly, in order to aid in the enlighten- rA'OGA'/CSS (>/' /.AA/AS, .IX/J /'(//; /,/C WORK. 145 mcMit uf liiw J(;lluw-t(>\vii.siii(.'ii (Mi this ^^rcul Hubjcct, Ik; lijul delivered on January 0, 1854, a lecture before the iiu'iiilxM-sol" iJic l'liil(),s()|)liic;il iiiid Literary Society on I, lie subject of Town Halls, wliidi Iiad attracted coii- sidcnible attention. It ou^lit to be explained that the Town Council li.id by this time gone so far as to select a very fuic classic design for their municipal palace, the author of which was a young and unknown architect named Brodrick. Mr. Brod rick's design had many noble qualities, as all who have seen the Leeds Town Hall can testify. But persons were of opinion that its efl'ect would have been greatly increased if the building he designed had been crow^ned by a tower of sufliciently stately proportions. To this the economical section of the inhabitants objected, on the ground that a tower would cost money and would be only good to look at, not to use. It was at this par- ticular juncture in the great local controversy that Dr. Heaton delivered his lecture before the members of the Philosophical and Literary Societj'. After giving a sketch, at once clear and scholarly, and affording strong proof of his own delight in beauty of every kind, of the great Town Halls of the Continent, and of their intimate connection with the public spirit and municipal life of the places where they were to be found, Dr Heaton proceeded to deal with the case of Leeds. ' In 1207,' he said, ' a charter was given to the L 146 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. burgesses of Leeds by Maurice Pagauel, their feudal lord, confirming tliem in the possession of various privi- leges. But the first lloyal charter of incorporation was granted in 1626, in the second year of Charles the First. Previously to the granting of this charter, liow- ever, the burgesses had already erected for themselves a Moot Hall. We find a charge against John Metcalfe, under baihff of the town, before a jury empanelled at Wakefield, April 28, 1620, in pursuance of a commission issued the previous year for inquiring into the due administration of public charities ; the charge being that he had appropriated to himself for two years the rental of part of that building, then recently erected, which should have been employed for the relief of the poor, the Moot Hall having been erected out of money and stocks belonging to the poor. This was not the Moot Hall which stood in the middle of Briggate within the recollection of many of my hearers. It was not till 1710 that this latter building was erected on the old site, in front of which stood the pillory and the stocks. ' This was the sole municipal building for just a century. In 1809 an Act of Parliament was obtained for better lighting the town with gas, and supplying it with water, and also for the erection of a Court House and prison for the borough. Under the provisions of this Act the present Court House was erected, the foundation stone being laid in 1811, rROGRKss (>/• i.i'ir.ns. .\ni> i'ujilic ifoA'h'. 1.17 and the wliolc coni])let('(l in 1813. For .some years Ioniser tlic old Moot Hull (^oiitimicd to obstruct our principal tliorouglii'arc. JBut in the year 1825 it was taken down, together with the Middle Row and Market Cross above it, by wliicli tlie u])pcr part of Briggate had till then l)een divided into two narrow alleys known as Cross Parish and tlie Shambles. This brings us to the present time. Till now tlie Court House has been the sole building for the trans- action of all municij)al business ; but a necessity has Lmg been felt for ampler accommodation and for architectural display more worthy of the wealth and importance of the town. All parties have gladly acquiesced iu the resolution of the Town Council that this want shall be worthily supplied. ' The municipal buildings about to be erected by the burgesses of Leeds, besides the primary object of furnishing convenient accommodation to their officers in the transaction of public business, are intended to present an appearance worthy of the wealth and prosperity of the town ; to show that in the ardour of mercantile pursuits the inhabitants of Leeds have not omitted to cultivate the perception of the beautiful and a taste for the line arts, and to serve as a lastiniT monument of their public spii^it and generous pride in the possession of their municipal privileges. They will form a monument which shall present an object of beauty not merely for their own contemplation and L 2 148 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. that of theii' children for successive generations, but which may be famous beyond their own hmits, and, hke the noble halls of France, of Belgium, and of Italy, may attract to our town the visits of strangers, dilettanti tourists, and the lovers of art from distant places. ' We have seen how the citizens of free towns in the middle ages erected for their pubhc meetings, and as the seat and outward symbol of theu' public government, the most sumptuous buildings, decoral ed with all the grace which architecture and sculpture could confer upon the exterior, and whose interior halls added to these effects the rich variety of colour which the painter's art supplies. With the selection of the architectural designs for our Town Hall now in course of erection, I believe the inhabitants of Leeds have expressed a very general sentiment of approval and satisfaction. And perhaps it is not too much to anticipate that the completion of its construction will not be the end of the work, but that in it the memory of our Leeds worthies, and of the great men of our country, may be hereafter preserved by the statuary's art, and that native artists may depict upon its inner walls the more memorable events in the history of our town and country, the progress of manufactures and of our commercial prosperity. The w^ork has been begun in no merely utilitarian or un- duly economic spirit, and I trust that the same /•a'()(;a'/':xs ()/• i.Ei'.ns, and ruiii./c Wi)fa<. 149 enliglilcncd libcrnlily .'iiid 1,;i..sf,(! will wal.fli ovor its progress, ;iii(l sl.ili (Vom yciir to year, .'ind iiide*.'*! from (•.(Mil.iiry to ceiiiury, iuld to its embellisliiiieiit and conij)leteiiess. ' It is in sucli a spirit tliat I would liave discussed the question of tlie propriety of adding a tower to this building. Were this a question to be decided on merely utilitarian grounds, I believe the tower must be condemned, for it is not my opinion that any of the possible uses suggested, to which such an erection might be applied, are of sufficient practical im- portance to warrant the expense of such a structure, were these the only or the chief consideration. But let us ask what is appropriate to a building for the purpose of the one in question, and what will be conducive to its dignity and beauty ? And should we decide that a tower may be made and indeed is essential to fulfil these conditions, let us not, after having nobly determined on the expenditure of so large a sum upon the body of the work, grudge a few additional thousands to give this completion to the whole.' I have given this extract from Dr. Heaton's lecture, not merely because of its direct bearing u^ion the subject of which I am writing, but in order that I may show the spirit in which he approached these questions of town improvement. Severely practical as he was in most matters, he was yet well able to 150 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. appreciate tlie value of art and of the more genial and elevating influences which it brings to bear upon life ; and whenever it became a question between mere utility and utility 'plus beauty, his voice was unhesitatingly given in favour of the latter. The state of a community in which no men of this stamp Avere to be found would be poor indeed. In Leeds, happily, Dr. Heaton was but one of several public- spirited inhabitants whose public spirit was guided and informed by a cultured mind and a wide know- ledge of men and things. In the present controversy the advocates of the tower got their way. It was a curious circumstance that the tower itself had not formed any part of Mr. Brodrick's original plan. He had been hampered by the restrictions laid down for the competition in designs, and had accordingly prepared a plan of a building which did not require this adjunct. Everybody knows how perilous in such circumstances is the experiment of making that which is almost a revolutionary change in the architect's conception. Yet by common consent the experiment was successfully performed upon this occasion. The Leeds Town Hall, with its noble tower crowning the finely proportioned building itself, is one of those edifices which command admiration and disarm criticism. It was on September 6, 1858, that this noble building was opened by the Queen, who visited j'A'Oc'A'/Lss or /.A' a/as; .//V/; /'(//i/jc wokk. 151 Lcc(1h for iJic |)iii-j)()S(! of .'issisliii^ in (••■Icbi'.'il iiii.'' tlio coiiijilc'.lioii of ;i. t,;isk wliidi did .so iiiiicli lioiioiir l,f> the taste and pnMic spiiil, of (Ik; inli;d)il,ai)ts. The' diary of one who took so lively an iniorcst in all that concerned the welfare of the town an did T)r. TIcaton cannot be uninteres'injy when describing; sucli a 11 event as this, and therefore I do not hesitate to transcribe the following passages from liis nari'ative. ' The Queen was to arrive on Monday the Gth of September, and as she would proceed direct to Woods- ley House, which had been placed at the disposal of herself and suite by the Mayor, Mr. P. Fairbairn, the procession would go up Clarendon Eoad and pass our house and garden. We invited a large party of guests for the occasion, and put up two platforms behind the garden wall, so that our visitors might occupy these and look over the wall, and so command a perfect view of the Eoyal party and their escort as they passed. The platform was of course hung with drapery and gaily decorated with flags. We had about one hundred and twenty guests on the after- noon of that day. Our visitors began to assemble about four o'clock, and left us about eight o'clock. There were slight showers, but at the time that the Queen passed it was very fine. A few plain Eoyal carriages, drawn by four horses, and escorted by a troop of Yorkshire hussars, formed the principal part of the cavalcade. The Mayor, in his own carriage, 152 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. pr:occlcd the ])rocession, and tlie road was kept l)y the poHce. When onr visitors for the day had left lis, tlie party staying in the house set out to walk tlii'ougli tlie streets to see the illuminations and other decorations, which were on a large scale and very general. The crowds were enormous, but we got back safely without any misadventure, though tho- roughly tired. The following day was that fixed for the opening of the Town Hall by the Queen. Early in the morning Prince Albert accompanied some of the Leeds merchants, members of the Chamber of Commerce, to the Coloured Cloth Hall, where a very good Exhibition of local industry had been got up, exemplifjdng the great varieties of manufacture and workmanship carried on in this district. At a later hour the Eoyal procession started from Woodsley House across the moor, where a large assemblage of Simday scholars, arranged on platforms, sang various hymns and ' God Save the Queen,' as the Queen passed ; then down Woodhouse Lane and by a long circuit through the principal streets, finally arriving at the Town Hall. Several triumphal arches were erected, and the whole line of route was most elaborately decorated with evergreens, festoons, flags, drapery, mottoes, artificial flowers, and pictorial representations, so that the town was so disguised by its holiday dress as to present not the slightest resemblance to its usual appearance. The wliole /'A'()(;a'/':.s.s o/' lf.f.ds, and rinu.ic work. 153 exi.ciisivc IVoiil of Messrs. Cloll's mill, \i)V instanoo, in Wellington Street, w;i,s \\\\\v^ witli crinisoii dolli, ele- gantly draped. Tlie whole line of route was guarded with barricades, and no carriages were allowed to pass after a certain lime. We did not at1em])t to see tlie procession, as we had tickets admitting us to the Town Hall to see tlie opening ceremony. A little after twelve o'clock the Queen entered the hall, accompanied by Prince Albert and the Princesses Alice and Helena. She was preceded by the Mayor in his robes, walking backwards with as much grace as he coidd command. They walked to the end of the hall, where gilt chairs of state were arranged upon a dais, but I thiidx the Queen did not sit down. The Corporation in their robes, together wntli the magistrates and other officials, stood around. An address was read, the Queen replied, the hall was declared open, and the ceremony was at an end. Before leaving the hall her Majesty knighted the Mayor, On the four following days there was a great musical festival in the Town Hall, the chief apartment of wdiich no^v took the name of the Victoria Hall. We went to Woodsley House, ;^fter the Queen's departure, to see the rooms as they had been fitted up for her Majesty. The "whole had been done very elegantly, and no doubt at great cost. Tlie Queen afterwards presented Lady Fairbairn with a diamond bracelet. But the visit of the Queen and the opening of the 154 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. Town Hall were not the only events of importance in the history of Leeds at this time with which Dr. Heaton was closely identified. Perhaps a better idea of the extent of the work of a public or semi-public character in which he was constantly occupied will be gained by a further extract from his diary for the year 1858, than by any other means. ' Now commenced,' he says, ' the work of prepar- ing for the meeting of the British Association in Leeds. I was one of the secretaries of the Section of Physiology, and had a good deal of correspondence to manage previous to the commencement of the meeting, which began on Wednesday, September 22. On the previous day Mr. Ward of Clapham Eise, known as a botanist and the inventor of the close glass cases for growing ferns, &c., came to be our guest, accompanied by two daughters. Mr. Ward was the examiner in botany for the Apothecaries' Company at the time when I gained the prize in 1840. On Wednesday Mr. Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) also arrived, having been allotted to me as a guest by the local committee. Our whole party went in the evening to hear the opening address by Professor Owen, who was the president of the year. On Thursday we had a dinner in honour of our guests, at which I had Dean Erskine, who came with Mr. J. H. Shaw, and Hare, who was in Leeds staying with some relatives, as well as a large number of rj\oaRKSS OF lkehs, and ruju.ic worn. 155 ()t,li(M-,s. . . . On M()ii(l:iy,()cl()I)('r '1, r i-(!;i(l lli(; o|)('ii- iii_i»- iiddrcss ;i,l, iJicSdiool of McdiciiK;, boiii;/ ])i-(,'si(lerit of lJi(! (Joiiiicll lliis yc.'ir. On November '^3 (my i()i-|,y- Cii'sl, l)irlli(l:iy) llic ;innn;il ('onvcM-s.'izioJio was licld ai iJu' riiilosophicrd llrdl. I read a sliort notice of sonu; of ilie recent more important acquisitions to the museum, as one of tlie papers in the proL'ramine of tlic proceedings for the evening. My address at tlie opening of the session of tlie Medical School was revised and printed for publication about tliis time at the request of tlie Council. Early in December I commenced my part of tlie course of lectures on the Practice of Medicine at the Medical School.' Thus the busy useful life ran its course, not quite uneventfully, and yet most unostentatiously. En- gagement was heaped upon engagement, duty upon duty, but a time was found for the discharge of all the work thus undertaken for the benefit of others ; and not onl}^ time for this, the serious business of life, but time also for its lighter duties and pleasures. Some of the sentences contained in the extracts just oiven will show that Dr. Ileaton was at least ' c^iven to hospitality.' His house was now in fact becoming one of the recognised headquarters of the hospitality of the town, and many strangers found there a warm and genial reception. It is worth noting, too, as illustrative of the development of provincial customs. 156 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. that the old-fashioned ' tea and evening party ' of which mention was made in a previous chapter, had by this time well-nigh disappeared, so far at least as Claremont was concerned, the conventional seven or eight o'clock dinner-party known to all of us taking- its place. So another hnk with the simple customs of the past was snapped, and the life of the great Yorkshire town brought a httle nearer in its social customs to that of the capital. The year 1859 opened amid just as much activity, social and public, as that which had distinguished the preceding year. It began indeed for Dr. Heaton by his undertaking the secretaryship of the St. George's schools, an of&ce which involved a good deal of labour, and which he held a few years, until he was persuaded to undertake the still more troublesome and more laborious office of treasurer. About this time also a scheme was set on foot, by Mr. Edward Baines chiefly, to raise a fund for the decoration of the Town Hall with paintings and other works of art by eminent artists. A committee was formed and a subscription list opened, but the effort, in which Dr. Heaton took his part, was not successful. The times were not then ripe for such a movement. The people of Leeds had been induced to see the necessity of making their Town Hall one creditable to them- selves in size and general appearance, but the}^ had not advanced far enough to feel emulous of the local PNOCNKSS ()/' /.AAVAS, ,1/V/) I'dll/./C WONK. 157 pntriolisiii wliidi disliiiLniislied the gf^od l''Kiiii-li .'iMfl Gcniiiiii l)iir'di(M',s of llio rniddlc a'J'o.s. Itwiis in I lie s|)i'iii!j- of lliis yciir, I8")l), tlial, a new departure took' jjlacc in the ]nsloi-y i\'i tJiat lilth; body called tlic Conversation Clul), of wliirli some acrount lias already been given in these pages. Oi" tliis event, which was not without its influence upon the social history of Leeds, Dr. Ileaton gives the following account. 'The club had been for some time dis- cussing whether any means could be adopted for bi-inging together the society of Leeds so as to make acquainted with each other the different little coteries into which it is divided. It Avas at length decided that such members of tJie club as were willincf should from time to time open their houses for a reception of the visiting acquaintances of all the members and other residents distinguished either ofBcially, by 2^osition, or in the literary or scientific world. The invitations being given in the name of the club would obviate all appearance of intrusion or undue familiarity on the part of the member who received the club at his house. Mr. Sykes Ward offered his house for the first experiment, and from that time two receptions have been held by the club each season. The refreshments are limited to tea and cofTee, Avitli cakes, &c., and the entertainment consists of an}' objects of scientific or artistic interest which can be procured for the occasion. The number 158 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. of visitors is generally between" two and three hundred.' Towards the close of 1860 ancAV question of great importance to the people of Leeds began to attract piibhc attention. This was the proposal to erect a new Infirmary in place of the old building which had for many years done good service to the suffering poor of the town and district, but which was now practically obsolete. Much controversy arose both as to the site on which the new building should be erected, and as to the character of the building itself, In the discussion of this question, naturally. Dr. Heaton took an active part. He was not placed upon the Buildino- Committee when at last the battle of the sites had been decided, inasmuch as the senior phy- sician to the Infirmary, Dr. Chadwick, had precedence of him. But the interest of Dr. Heaton in the work was too great to be stifled merely because he had no official connection with it. He had given his time and energy for so many years to the service of the Infirmary that he could not fail to entertain the strono-est desire that the new building should be one worthy alike of the great community which was to erect it, and of the purpose for which it was designed. Accordingly, such aid as it was in his power to render to those who had undertaken the task of superintend- ing the erection of the Infirmary was most cheerfully and systematically given. /'A'()(;a'/',ss 01' /.r.KDs, and puiujc work. 159 TJio iiL'VV l)iiil(liii;j;, ;i J;i,r;j;c ;iii(i Ji.'uid.sonic edifice, designed upon wluit is now known as the pavilion ])lan, by tSir (lilbcrl. t'~^coll, was one of 1 lie first of iIk; great new liospitals erected in ]*jiglaiid under tlic reformed system, and as sucli some acconnt of it may not inappropriately be given here. It took the place of a large and commodious edifice of the old style which had been erected about the year 1770, in what was then a pleasant suburban district of Leeds, at the west end of the Coloured Cloth Hall Yard. This building itself had taken the place of a small edifice temporarily used for tlie purpose of the hospital in Kirkgate. The Leeds Infirmary had been for many years the most important of all the medical institu- tions of the West Eidins;. It was in connection with it that the admirable Medical School of the town had been formed, and its reputation had extended far and wide throughout the country. Mr. Carr's build- ing was, as has been said, in the old style. Carr was an architect of eminence Avho had designed many handsome buildings, among them Harewood House, near Leeds. The Infirmary was not unworthy of his reputation. It was a massive and stately buildiuw of fine proportions. But it had been built at a time when our knowledge of hygienic laws was in its infiincy. Like all the old hospitals, it w^as erected witli an idea that it was impossible to bring the dif- ferent wards too close to each other, or to make them i6o MEMOIR OF J. £>. HE A TON, M.D. too large. As a consequence the medical staff of tlie infirmary had, long before 1861, come to tlie conclu- sion that it was altogether defective so far as the purpose for which it had been erected was concerned. When first tlie idea of replacing it by a new building was mooted, there was strong opposition in certain quarters to the scheme, and it was proposed as an alternative merely to enlarge the existing building. Fortunately, this proposal, as we have seen, was over- ruled, and after much delay and discussion it was finally determined, towards the close of 18G1, to buy the site east of St. George's Church, on which the present building stands. For the following account of this remarkable edifice — the first large infirmary, as has been stated, which was built in England on the pavihon principle — I am indebted to Dr. Chad wick, who was for so many years Dr. Heaton's colleague on the staff of the Leeds Infirmary. At the meeting of the British Medical Association at Leeds in 1869, Dr. Chadwick, who was president of the meeting, gave a description of the building. The Leeds new In- firmary and the Herbert Hospital at Woolwich, he stated, are the first complete hospitals built in Eng- land on the pavilion principle. The Leeds Hospital is arranged on the normal plan of a cloistered quad- rangle in the centre, from which the pavilions branch out north and south. The width of the ground only permits three pavilions on either side of the central /'A'OCUF-SS (>/■■ LEEDS, ANH ECJIUJC WOh'K \(>\ roiiii,, .-iikI ;i(liiiiiiisl i;iti\ f icf|iiirtiiichl.s oilier I li:ui t Ik; special objects of l lie iii(inii;i,iy iicccssitatefl the iis(;of" one of iJie soiillicrii spaces, so lli;il, llie lios|)it,;il really consists of five pavilions. Ovvin<; to tJie fall in the ii;roiin(l on wliic!) the lios])it;il is built, one-lialf of the buildiun' li.'is ;iii exi r;i L'roinul stoi'y oi' I'ull liei;_Hit. Tliis is appropriated iiiaiiily to the several purj^oscs of ad- ministration. Theresult is,l]ial on reaching the hospital level the entire space is devoted to the actual uses of the patients, and the culinary or rjllier administrative Avoi'k is transacted on this floor. The exact mensure- ment of the wards is as follows : — Upper ward, 32 beds, 19 feet hicfh, 122 feet lona, 27'6 feet wide. Lower North, 32 beds, IG 6 feet high, 122 feet long, 27-6 feet wide. Upper South, 28 beds, 19 feet high, 112 feet long, 27*6 feet wide. Lower South, 28 beds, 16-6 feet high, 122 feet long, 27'6 feet wide. The large amount of window space in the Leeds Infirmary, and in all modern structures for the same purpose, affords a striking and advantageous contrast to those of earlier construction. There are eight large windows on each side of the soutliern, and seven large windows on each side of the northern, wards, besides one at the end of each ward. These are all divided l^y mullions, and so contrived as to admit of opening and shutting, as the need for ventilation demands. Standing in the central line of the wards are two detached and open stoves, by which alone the warming of the wards is 1 62 MEMOIR OF J. D. H EATON, M.D. effected. They have descending flues which pass into the chimney shafts within the walls. They have been carefully constructed in every particular, and, having a large radiating surface, are well calculated to effect their purpose. The water-closets, sinks, lavatories, and baths are situated at the terminal extremities of the wards. The pavilions are approached from the central court b}^ means of lofty, well-proportioned halls, having the staircase on one side, the ward nurses' room and scullery on the other. The external features of this noble hospital are furnislied by a fine adaptation of niediasval architecture ; and Sir Gilbert Scott has shown all his usual skill in making the very best of a site that presented no ordinary difii- culties. It was determined, when the building was ap- proaching completion, to celebrate ith opening by holding an Exhibition of Art Treasures in the wards, which were well adapted for the display of pictures ; and it was hoped that a sufiicient amount of public support would be obtained for the Exhibition to enable the trustees of the infirmary to reduce by a considerable amount the heavy debt which remained upon the building after the receipt of the various subscriptions which had been promised. This scheme made necessary a considerable delay in the opening of the new infirmary for the reception of patients, a delay to which the medical staff somewhat grudgingly ris'()(;i<:Ess or i.F.Ens, and rirnuc work. i^>3 assented, in view of the beneficiul results tli<;y liojjed to sccuirc from the Exliil)ition. Dr. Ilcaton, along witli ninny ol licr iTsidciils in LccmIs, \v;is now inucli or.rnj)i('(I in making preparations for this Exdiiltifion. Tlie (■ollcclion of pictures formed at tlie infirmary was sucli as had never been gathered togetlier before in any provineial town. On Tuesday, May 1 8, the Exliibition was opened l)y tlie Prince of Wales. ' The Priiioe,' says Dr. Ileaton, 'was expected soon after twelve, but it was after one o'clock before he made his appearance. After a tedious delay, liis arrival was amiounced by a salute of twenty-one guns, fired from a battery of the Eoyal Artillery stationed in the vacant ground at the foot of my garden. The Prince, after inspecting the collection of pictures, returned to the hall where the guests invited for the occasion were assembled, and declared the Exliibition open.' The day was not altogether a successful one in Leeds, as the rain fell in torrents during the afternoon, drenching the tliousands of pleasure-seekers who had been brought togetlier to greet tl\e Prince and to celebrate the opening of tlie Exhibition. In the evening a ball was given by the Mayor, Mr. (now Sir Andrew) Fairbairn, in the Town Hall, at which the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Devonshire, and other distinguished guests ^vere present. Unfortunately, the Exhibition, though fi'om an artistic point of view so brilliant a success, proved a 1 64 MEMOIR OF J. D. H EATON, M.D. failure in another, and perhaps a more important, respect. Instead of adding some twelve thousand pounds to the infirmary building fund, it resulted in a small deficiency. That there must have been some want of good management in the business arrange- ments was certain. The committee apparently allowed themselves to be led into a needlessly lavish expenditure, and, as a consequence, the infirmary suffered in a double sense. Its appropriation to the special purpose for which it was intended was delayed for twelve months, and no pecuniary advantage was gained. To anticipate the course of this narrative, it may be stated here that, in March 1869, the medical faculty of the infirmary generously commenced a movement for wiping off" the debt left upon the build- ing. Dr. Heaton and five other members of the staff each contributing a hundred pounds for this purpose. Under the stimulus of their example, the public bestirred themselves vigorously in the matter, and 20,000/. was quickly raised. It was at tlie time when this effort w^as being made that the small but beauti- ful chapel connected with the infirmary was opened for service. One of the distinguishing features of this chapel is the number of fine stained glass windows which it contains. A contemporary record says : ' The three two-light windows which form as many sides of the east apsidal end are exceedingly beautiful, the colours employed in tlie designs being brilliant I'ROGRESS ()/' r.FJ'lDS, AND J'UBLIC WORK. 165 ;i,ii(l ricli ill hue, ;iti(l inosl li.'innoiiioiis in Uhic. 'J'lie rigliL uiul Icil windows ui'c Llic niiinificcnt gift of J)r, lleaton, of Leeds. Each window contains four figure compositions .'iikI I wo ciiihlciiialic designs. The designs in tlic upper j).'iri of the left window represent the "Faitliful Servant" and the "Widow's Mite"; beneath designs emblematical of the texts, " Your heavenly Father feedeth them " (the birds of the air), and " Consider the lilies of the field " ; the lower figure compositions representing the Good Samaritan and the Good Shepherd. The inscription at the foot of this window is as follows : — " To the memory of John Heaton, 24 years a member of the Weekly Board of this Infirmary, died July 22, 1852, aged 83 ; and his Mdfe, daughter of William Deakin, of Attercliffe, died May 2, 1841, aged 66 years." The right window is similarly designed, the subjects being illustrative of the texts, " To the poor the gospel is preached ; " " Come ye blessed of my Father ; " " Suffer little children to come unto me ; " " I was sick and ye visited me." Tavo other texts are also illustrated — " The desert shall blossom as the rose," and "I am the true vine." The centre window is tlie generous gift of Sii' Andrew Fairbairn. At the foot there is the folloAving inscrip- tion : — " Dedicated to the glory of God by A. F. and C. F. F." The figure compositions portray Christ healing the sick and restoring sight to the blind, the foroiveness of sins and the restoration of the dead to 1 66 MEMOIR OF J. D. BEATON, M.D. life, the texts being, '* Thy sins are forgiven thee ; " " Young man, I say unto thee arise ; " " Their eyes received sight ; " and " Thy faitli hath made thee whole." Separating these conpositions are two works suggested by the words, " Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree." There is a very pretty rose window in the west gable, which has been filled with stained glass by subscription among the gentlemen immediately connected with the management of the infirmary.' It may no doubt seem a small matter that this little chapel in this ' House of Pain ' should have been beautified in this way, but those who know anything of the bare and unredeemed ugliness of the hospital chapels of the past will admit that there is something significant of the age in which we live, and of the greater gentleness and sympathy with the poor and sufiering by which it is characterised, in this adornment of the Leeds Infirmary Chapel. But we must return to the year ] 868, and to the Art Exhibition. Mention has already been made more than once in these pages of another most import- ant pubhc institution of Leeds with wdiich Dr. Heaton was closely identified. This was the Philo- sophical and Literary Society. We have seen how, as a very young man, he had become connected with that society, and how constantly he had aided in the good work which it accompHshed by the delivery of lectures on various subjects to its members. For the PROGRESS ()/' LEEDS, AND PUJU.IC IVORK. 167 long pciiod (ji" lliiiLy-iivc ycjirs Jii.s ijitcrcHt in it was iimintaincd, not merely inuihuted, hut with ever-in- creasing warmth and zeal. In lcS07 ho was appointed to the post of honorary curator of the library, and that position he held For tlic remainder of his life. It was by no means a sinecure. Tlie library of tlie society, consisting of rare and valuable books on scientific and philosophic questions, called for con- stant attention, and a considerable portion of Dr. Heaton's time was devoted to the discharge of the duties lie had undertaken in connection with it. In 1866 he became one of the vice-presidents of the society, and, after holding that office for two years, he was appointed president — an office which he held until 1872. The president of such a society as the Leeds Philo- sophical and Literary Society has to fill a position of no ordinary importance. He is, or he ought to be, the head of the literary and scientific society of the town in which he lives. It is his chief duty to hold aloft the torch of culture for the benefit of a community which has little time to spare for thought about anything save the hard practical business of Hfe. Some idea of the difficulty of securing suitable persons for such a post in a great manufacturing and commercial town may be found from the fact that it has become already a tradition in Leeds that the president of the Philosophical Society must be either i6S MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. a doctor or a clerg3"maii. For many years it seemed to be supposed that no one wJio did not belong to one or other of these orders could have sufficient sympathy with art or with science or literature to be qualified to fill this office. Your business man might perhaps condescend occasionally to read a scientific book, or to attend a lecture upon some subject which happened at the moment to be exciting public atten- tion ; but nobody expected him to devote any por- tion of his leisure to the careful and intelligent study of any of those great subjects of human interest which He outside the dull arena of commerce, unless they happened to be subjects closely connected with party politics. Engrossed from early morning till late in the afternoon in the severe task of money- making, the man of business, when he reached home in the evening, was expected to devote himself to the pleasures of the table as his chief occupation for the remainder of the day. Not many years ago, a very wealthy and prosperous merchant of Leeds, renowned as much for his hospitahty as for his riches, found to his annoyance one evening that he had made a slight mistake in the character of the guests whom he was entertaining. Two of them, instead of joining in the usual animated talk over the characteristics of par- ticular vintages of port, the price of iron, or the gossip of the Exchange, positively insisted upon dis- cussing a subject so dull and void of a]l Iminan I'ROCRESS (>/■ t,EEDS, AND PUJUJC WORK. \(») interest as books. 'I'liey were in the midst of a l)risk conversation about the treasmes of their respective libraries, wlien tlieir host, wliose patience was cx- luiusted by their nnseemly conduct, interrupted them. ' GentlcuuMi,' he said, ' (bd you ever see my hl)rary I' ' Tliey botli confessed ignorance of the fact that he possessed sucli a iJiing. ' Come along with me then, gentlemen, and 111 let you see my books.' The wonder with wliidi lliey received this invitation was not lessened by the devious and mysterious way that led to the apartment they were thus invited to inspect. Their host, candlestick in hand, seemed to be taking them down to the very foundation of his handsome mansion. Suddenly he flung open a door, and ushered them into — a spacious wine cellar ! ' There, gentlemen ! ' said he, with a flush of pride upon his face, as he pointed to the well-filled bins in which many rare vintages were nestling snugly side by side, ' thafs my library ; and I'd hke to know if that ain't a long sight better than a lot of your fusty books ? ' It would be a libel upon the people of Leeds to say that this story affords a fair representation of the state of cidture in that town at the present moment. From the days of Priestley doAvn to those in which we now live, there has always been in Leeds society a not inconsiderable representation of culture both Uterary and scientific, though it must be said that few towns approaching Leeds in size have given T70 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. so feAV men of eminence, either in science, art, or literature, to the world. But despite the ' Kttle leaven ' of this cultivated clique, it cannot be doubted that the great mass of the societ}^ of Leeds, until a comparatively recent period, took but a feeble in- terest in the progress of culture. The Philosophical and Literary Society was the second of the important institutions established in the town for the purpose of ministering; to the hia;her intellectual needs of the inhabitants. The first had been the Leeds Library, still a flourishing and most valuable institution, for the foundation of which Leeds was indebted to Dr. Priestley. Something has been said in a preceding chapter of the foundation of the Philosophical and Literary Society, and of the manner in which it grew out of a chance seed cast into the ground by one who still survives — the venerable Sir Edward Baines. It started under excellent auspices, that ' cultured clique ' of which mention has been made taking the warmest interest in its progress, and freely advancing money for the erection of a building on the site now occupied for the same purpose. Li 1861 it was found that this building was too small, and money was obtained for the enlargement, or rather the rebuilding, of the original edifice. In this work Dr. Heaton took a very active part, and at the close of 1862 he had the satisfaction of seeing the new and very commodious premises in Park Eow /'A'()(;/^ESS ()/' I.FJ'IDS, AND /'(//ilJC ll'OA'K. i -j t thrown <)J)CTi for l.lio ;i,ccoiiiiiio(l;il.ioii of llic .society. Between live aiitl six years later, lie was elected president. It so liappencd tli;i,t lie entered upon the presi- dential office at the time when Ticeds was engaged in })reparing for tlie Art Treasures Exhibition in the new infirmary. The council of the riiil(j,so])hi(al Society had wisely determined to celebrate the occasion by a series of s])ecial lectures in the theatre of their institution, illustrative of the Exhibition. It became Dr. Ileaton's first duty, after his election, to visit London for the purpose of securing suitable lecturers for this special course. How successful he w^as will be gathered from the fact that among those who undertook to deliver lectures in Leeds during the summer, to illustrate the collection of art treasures at the infirmary, were Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr. Digby Wyatt, Mr. Eedford, Mr. E. N. James, LIr. Hailstone, Mr. J. C. Eobinson, Mr. B. B. Woodward, and Mr. H. O'Neil. For the next four years much of Dr. Heaton's time and attention was necessarily devoted to the work of the ofiice he held in connection with the Philosophical and Literary Society. Upon the pre- sident rests necessarily the heaviest part of the duties in connection with the annual session of the society. He is expected to arrange for the course of lectures held during each successive winter, to preside at these lectures, to entertain, on all suitable occasions, either 17-^ MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. those wlio are eii^ao-ed in lecturing' or those who are Do O specially interested in science and literature, and generally to represent the town of Leeds in movements connected with the advance of culture in Yorkshire. No one who knew Dr. Heaton can doubt that he discharged the duties thus laid upon him with zeal and efficiency. Not a fluent speaker himself, nor one who dehghted in obtruding himself upon the notice of the pubhc, he nevertheless did not shrink from any part of the responsibilities he had assumed when he accepted the office of president of the Philosophical and Literary Society. His interest in the welfare of that society had been proved by years of unremitting labour in its behalf ; and even now, when he had attained the post of highest honour which its members could confer upon him, he refused to allow the duties of the presidency to interfere with the more obscure but probably not less trouble- some duties of the librarianship. For the whole four years of his presidency he continued to act as curator to the hbrary. As an occupant of the presidential chair he was distinguished by tlie clearness with which he grasped the point of each successive lecture and the common-sense of the views which he enunciated in the customary discussion on the subject of the papers read before the society. Not having the faintest ambition to shine in oratorical display, he was devoid of all temptation to occupy the time of those PROGRESS OF LEEDS, AND PUIUJC WORK. 173 Aviioiii lie ;i(l(lrc,ssc(l l)y iiic.-in.s o(" long set orations. \\\\i lit! Ii;i(l full possession of the secret of the art of ])ublie speaking, lie iievei' spoke unless lie had something that he really wished to say, he always knew exactly what that something was l)efore he rose to his feet, and he invariably expressed himself clearly and concisely. Thus, though the term of his presidency was not marked by any brilliant displays of oratory, or even of exceptional learning, it was one that was singularly successful so far as the com- fort, of the members and the prosperity of the society were concerned. The president was not seeking to ' show off ' on his own account. He was well content, indeed, to sink his own individuality in that of the body of which he was the head ; and though in con- sequence men probably formed a much lower estimate than they ought to have done of Dr. Heaton's per- sonal abilities, he had his reward in the great success of the society during his administration of its affairs. His connection with it unquestionably marked something hke a new era in his own social hfe. As president he was placed by virtue of his office in the front rank in the society of Leeds. The personal reserve, almost amounting to shyness, which charac- terised him, had prevented his hitherto making any attempt to cultivate the society of those whom — with perhaps a mistaken idea of their relative importance — he had regarded as his social superiors. Wliilst 174 MEMOIR OF J. D. FIE A TON, M.D. delighting in the company of men of culture and genius, he had shrunk from any attempt to cultivate their acquaintance, from a fear that they might regard him as an intruder. But as president of the Philosophical and Literary Society it became his duty, as we have seen, to show hospitality to the many men distinguished in science and hterature who visited Leeds. How admirably he discharged that task is known to all who lived in Leeds during that period. Claremont had already become one of the centres of social intercourse so far as Leeds itself was concerned. It now became something more, however ; and the leading residents of tlie town frequented it not merely to meet each other, and the host and his amiable wife, but to make the acquaintance of not a few of the most eminent men of the day who had visited Leeds upon some literary or scientific mission. The visitors' book at Claremont bears the signatures of not a few men of rank and fame, who had from time to time enjoyed the hospitality of Dr. Heaton. His house became now the recognised meeting point of all sections of society in the town, and both the host and those whom he entertained so pleasantly and genially benefited by the step in advance which he had thus made. An extract from his journal at this particular period gives an interesting account of his visit to the meeting of the British Medical Association at Oxford. PROCRRSS OF LEEDS, AND fU/l/JC WONK. 175 'The ;uiriii;il iiicctiiijj; ol" I lie l)iiti
  • l(; iiicii of llic iippci- classes should iiol be excluded merely because they did nol, liappcn to be popularly known ainonL-" fli<' masses. But where fifteen members of a Board are to be chosen, and eacli (slcctor lias fifteen votes of which he may dispose as he pleases, either giving the whole fifteen to a single candidate, or splitting them according as his fancy dictates among any number of candidates, a tremendous weapon is placed in the hands of narrow sects and self-absorbed cliques. Such- was found to be the case when the Leeds School Board of 1870 was elected. When the time for the election of the Board drew near a strenuous effort was made by the friends of education in the borough to secure the appointment of a thoroughly satisfactory Board Avithout a contest. A provisional committee on which, as far as possible, all parties in the borough were represented, was appointed for the purpose of drawing up a list of crentlemen whose election on the Board would secure the full representation of different shades of opinion on educational questions. Of this committee Dr. Heaton and ]\ii\ Baines, then the senior representative of the borough in Parliament, were members, and Dr. Heaton was unanimously chosen as chairman. He and Mr. Baines strove earnestly to bring about a reconciliation an\oiig all parties, based upon their 2o8 MEMOIR OF /. D. HE A TON, M.D. common adhesion to the principles embodied in the Education Act ; but their efforts failed, and at Leeds, as elsewhere, the lirst School Board election involved a somewliat bitter and exciting politico-ecclesiastical controversy. Candidates were nominated on behalf of the Church party, of the Radicals in the borough, and of different Nonconformist bodies. The five candidates put forward on behalf of the Church of England were Sir Andrew Fairbairn, Dr. Heaton, and Messrs. Armitage, EUershaw, and Middleton. Thus, for the first time in his life, the subject of this memoir found himself in 1870 appearing before the public in the prominent and not altogether agreeable position of a candidate in a contested election. It was a great sacrifice which he made in consenting to come for- ward on this occasion — a sacrifice to which nothing but the strongest sense of duty could have led him. Hitherto, busy and indefatigable as he had been in public work, he had always shrunk from any appear- ance as an active politician. It was in the quieter paths of life that he loved to walk, and he had at all times been ready to bear the brunt of the effort whilst leaving the honours of success, such as they were, to others. To the tumult, bitterness, and agita- tion of a contested election he had the very strongest aversion. But he felt too strongly on this question of the Education Act to stand aside when he saw that he mia'ht render some service to that which he EDUCATIONAL WORK— YORKSHIRE COLLEGE. 209 believed lo l)e the cause ol' li-ulh .'ind jiislice. Althoiigli born of Noiieoiiforrnist parents he had been, almost from boyliood, a sincere and devoted member of the Clnirch of England ; .-iiid lie was prepared to make any sacrifice of his own conifoi't in a cause in which he believed ili;d, not only the interests of tliat Church but of the peo])le of England were involved. His political opinions, though never very pronounced, had been growing somewhat more Conservative wnth advancing years; and, though the Church candidates at this Leeds election were not selected on political grounds, one of them indeed being a decided Liberal, there can be no doubt that Dr. Heaton's candidature on this occasion brought him into direct contact with the Conservative party in the borough, and probably tended to accelerate his progress in the direction of Conservatism. As for the education question itself, it was no new one to him. He had sho^m his prac- tical interest in it during the many years in which he had officiated as one of the manaofers of the St. George's Schools, and by the good work he had ac- complished in connection with the Yorkshire Board of Education. He had therefore strongr reasons for throwing himself with heart and soul into the cause which he now espoused ; and he accordingly did so with a vigour and thoroughness which surprised all who knew him. One extract only need be made from one of the p 210 MEMOIR OF /. D. HE A TON, M.D. many speeches wliich lie delivered during the course of the contest. It is inserted here merely for the purpose of showing the views he held in this memor- able struggle — for it must be remembered that the contest which was being waged in Leeds in November 1870 was practically being waged simultaneously in nearly all the other large towns of England. The report itself is bald enough, and utterly devoid, as will be seen, of any rhetorical ornament : still it will not be the less valuable on that account as an expres- sion of the views of the speaker. ' He said, though fully determined to give effect to the Act in allowing religious instruction to be given, yet he did not mean to carry out those provisions in any unfair or partial spirit. He would have the same pleasure, if returned, in working with his Dissenting colleagues who entertained hke views, as with his Church colleagues. The Act laid down the principle of religious instruction, and he thought that it was those who were opposed to such teaching that were endeavouring to evade the Act rather than those who wished to introduce religious teaching. He would never be a party to establishing new schools that would tend to impair the efficiency of existing schools, because he thought it was due to those who had worked so long in the cause that they should be allowed to continue their labours unimpeded. With reference to the desirability of having free schools, EDUCATIONAL WORK— YORKSfl I RE COLLEGE. 211 liLs i'eeliii'j' was <*iii<'"li lie wmild, educate free of cliarge tliose wliose parents were un- able to pay for them. Witli rcj^rard to compulsory attendance lie would apply it, but only after all other menus had failed to induce parents to send their children. He thought the election of a Scliool Board was a mattei- of the utmost importance, and that the future welfare and prosperity of the country depended much upon the character of the men they should return. He would only say that, if returned, it would be his endeavour to promote conscientiously the objects they had in view.' When the election took place it was found, as lias already been remarked, that in Leeds as elsewhere tlie power conferred by the cumulative mode of voting told heavily in favour of comparatively small but thoroughly united and well-organised bodies of men. The candidates who had been brought out on behalf of the Liberal party pure and simple were defeated, with two exceptions. Mr. Jowitt, who had been nominated b}^ the Congregationahsts, was at the head of the poll w^ith nearly fifty thousand votes ; the five Church candidates came next — a Wesleyan candidate being returned in the middle of the little group of five — and the Eoman Catholic candidates, independ- ent Church candidates, and other Nonconformist candidates made up the hst. The result Avas a surprise to everybody, and it is probable that what ai2 MEMOIR OF J. D. HE A TON, M.D. happened in this Scliool Board election of November 1870 in Leeds, happened in almost all the other towns in which similar elections took place at that time. The purely pohtical difFerences between the two great parties were for the moment obhterated, their place being supphed by the rehgioiis and ecclesiastical dis- tinctions which prevailed in connection with the education question. So far as Leeds was concerned, however, the Board thus elected proved a great success. It laid wide and deep the foundations of a system of education for the town which has been carried out with the happiest results, and it was peculiarly fortunate in avoiding any difficulty of a re- ligious character. This was in a great measure due to the fact that the Church and denominational candi- dates had, for the most part, been selected with great judgment by their respective constituents. They were one and all animated, as Dr. Heaton showed himself to be in the speech quoted on a j)revious page, by a most sincere desire to carry out not the mere letter, but the spirit of the Act of 1870. They were, in short, thoroughly loyal to that Act, and far more anxious to bring all classes of the population within reach of the blessings of education than to advance their own personal or sectional opinions. The result was that, during the three years of its existence, this first School Board for Leeds not only performed wonders in the way of providing school EDUCATIONAL WORK—YONKSJlll