| AdminHistory | Thomas Attwood (1783-1856), born at Hawne House, Halesowen, was the third son of Matthias Attwood and Ann (née Adams). The other eleven children were Mary (1776-777); George (1777-1854); Matthias (1779-1851); Mary Ann (1781-1872); Thomas (1783-1856); James Henry (1785-1865); Susanna (1787-1819); Edward (1789-1866); Charles (1791-1875); Rachel Maria (1792-1881); and Benjamin (1794-1874).
Attwood’s grandfather, George, had owned a farm in Rowley Regis, and moved to Halesowen to mine the surface coal and iron ore deposits there. In 1771, he purchased Corngreaves steel furnaces. He set up a nail ironmonger partnership, purchased a mill in 1783 and 247 acres of agricultural land in Cradley and Rowley Regis. He also established the Adelphi Steel House at 11 Broad Street, Birmingham between 1788 and 1797, and to complement this manufactory, opened a copper and rolling mill in Broad Street. He also acquired two estates at Kings Norton with large mineral deposits, Colmer’s Hall and Middleton Hall. In 1791, Matthias Attwood, in partnership with Isaac Spooner (1736 - 1816), opened a bank at Birmingham. The wealth of the Spooner family was also based on iron and steel. Spooner & Attwood opened a second banking establishment in London in 1802. In 1800, George acquired eighteen acres of land with mineral rights in Dudley Wood and Netherton, which allowed mining of surface coal and iron ore deposits. George died in 1817 and his property passed to his sons Matthias and James, who died in 1818. Matthias continued to expand his holdings, acquiring the mineral rights to 250 acres of land across the River Stour from Hawne and, in 1806, an 175 acre estate named the Leasowes, which became his main residence.
Thomas Attwood was educated at Halesowen, and at Wolverhampton Grammar School and then, in 1799, went to work in his father’s bank, which had become one of the largest in Birmingham. It was situated in New Street, next to the Hen & Chickens Hotel. This work involved a careful analysis of the industrial environment and an informed familiarity with the town of Birmingham, whose population in 1801 was 71,000.
Thomas served as a volunteer in the Warwickshire Militia from 1803, but resigned in 1805 and returned to the bank. On 12 May, 1806, he married Elizabeth Carless (1784 - 1840) at Harborne parish church. The Carless family lived at Grove House, Harborne, and had a long connection with Birmingham. They had also achieved their wealth through the iron trade and were also related to the Spooner family. Thomas and Elizabeth first settled at the Larches in Sparkbrook, where their first two children were born, George de Bosco (1808 - 1855) and Thomas Aurelius (1810 - 1864). In 1811, the Attwoods bought no. 11 the Crescent, in Birmingham, to be nearer the city centre, and Thomas was elected high bailiff of Birmingham. They had four other children: Angela (1812 - 1874), Edward Marcus (1816 - 1863), Algernon (1819 - 1861) and Rosabel (1821 - 1867).
Thomas Attwood founded the Birmingham Political Union in 1830, to campaign for reform of the franchise and for representation for manufacturing towns, and to exert pressure on the government to pass the Reform Bill of 1832. In the general election held in the autumn of 1832, Attwood and another leading member of the Political Union, Joshua Scholefield, were elected as Birmingham's first two Members of Parliament. Attwood served as M.P. until 1839. Elizabeth Attwood, his wife, died in 1840, in Jersey. He married again, on 30 June 1844, to Elizabeth Grice of Handsworth Hall, and they travelled to Germany, Scarborough, York and Harrogate. In 1847, he returned to the Birmingham area, to the house, 'Fern Lodge', Heathfield Road, Handsworth. He moved to Allesley in 1848, and finally to Ellerslie, Great Malvern, where he died on 6 March 1856, of a 'paralytic disorder' from which he had suffered for several years.
The last male heir of the Attwood family, Thomas Arthur Carless Attwood, died on 21 April 1937.
[This information was taken from Thomas Attwood: the biography of a Radical, by David J. Moss (1990) and Life of Thomas Attwood by C.M.Wakefield [his grandson](1885), which has transcripts and quotations from many of the letters]. |