MONEY, William Taylor (1769-1834), of Walthamstow, Essex

Money, who had been long in the service of the East India Company and was appointed a director to represent the shipping interest, C.H. Philips, E. I. Co. 337. was connected with William Wilberforce*, Zachary Macaulay, Hannah More and other members of the Clapham Sect, and actively supported such Evangelical causes as the abolition of slavery and the promotion of Christian missions abroad. Lambeth Palace Lib. ms 4243, letters to Money. At the general election of 1820 he abandoned his precarious seat at Wootton Bassett and was returned unopposed for Mitchell on the interest of Sir Christopher Hawkins*.

He continued to attend regularly and give general support to Lord Liverpool’s ministry. On 11 July 1820 he favoured a reduction of the prison sentence on Henry Swann, Member for Penryn, who had ‘two children at death’s door, upon whom he was incapacitated ... from bestowing his attention’. That day he defended the East India Company volunteers bill, explaining that the force in question was not new and was ‘composed of men who were under the obligation of self-interest to unite the character of good citizens and good soldiers’. He voted in defence of ministers’ conduct towards Queen Caroline, 6 Feb. 1821. He divided, as in the past, for Catholic relief, 28 Feb. He paired against repeal of the additional malt duty, 3 Apr., and voted against the disfranchisement of civil officers of the ordnance, 12 Apr., and Hume’s economy and retrenchment motion, 27 June. He divided for the forgery punishment mitigation bill, 23 May. He believed that ‘after their long sufferings’ American loyalists were ‘entitled to the sympathy and consideration of Parliament’, 6 June. That day he voted in the minority for inquiry into the administration of justice in Tobago, but on the 7th he dismissed attempts to censure the conduct of the former lord commissioner of the Ionian islands, Sir Thomas Maitland†, who had ‘acted only as the agent’ of the existing regulations. He supported Fowell Buxton’s motion for papers regarding the practice of suttee, 20 June, and hoped Parliament would unite with the ‘friends of humanity’ to help ‘extirpate these dreadful sacrifices’. The Times, 21 June 1821. In the debate on Wilberforce’s motion against the slave trade, 26 June 1821, he stated on the ‘best authority’ that the ‘trade was now carrying on at the eastern coast of Africa by the Portuguese with unceasing cruelty’. Ibid. 27 June 1821. He voted against more extensive tax reductions, 11, 21 Feb., and opposed abolition of one of the joint-postmasterships, 2 May 1822, as it involved ‘considerable duties and great responsibility’ and he did not believe ‘the immense patronage connected with the office ... should rest in the hands of one person’. He was added to the select committee on foreign trade, 27 Feb. (and reappointed, 12 Feb. 1823, 4 Mar. 1824). On 17 May he complained that East India merchants had been ‘treated with injustice and partiality’ by Parliament, which had imposed a prohibitive duty on Indian cotton manufactures while allowing British goods to be exported to India freely. He thought the ‘main allegations’ made in the Calcutta bankers’ petition against the East India Company had been ‘disproved’, and voted against its referral to a committee, 4 July. He divided in the minority to permit the export of bonded corn as flour, 10 June. He voted for the licensing bill, 27 June, and the aliens bill, 19 July. He ‘most cordially concurred’ in Wilberforce’s motion regarding slavery at the Cape, 25 July 1822, as he believed ‘the continuance of what was evil in principle and cruel in operation’ could not be ‘justified by any view to private or public advantage’, and in this case it would be ‘impolitic and dangerous’ as the slaves might join with the Kaffirs in an uprising. He gave examples, from his ‘considerable stay’ there, to show the brutality of Dutch colonial rule, which Britain was not ‘bound to follow’.

He supported the ‘most reasonable’ petitions from the East India Company and Calcutta merchants for equalization of the East and West Indian sugar duties, 22 May 1823, noting from his ‘experience derived from a long residence in India’ that ‘the effect of our very general employment of machinery at home had been to render the looms of India useless ... and to make the native weavers beggars’. He urged that India be allowed to export sugar on fair terms in exchange for British manufactures. Ibid. 23 May 1823. He complained of the ‘injustice ... inflicted on the Lascars’ by the East India trade bill, 7 July. Ibid. 8 July 1823. He supported the clause in the East India mutiny bill empowering the governor of Bombay to summon general courts martial, 11 July. Ibid. 12 July 1823. He voted for repeal of the usury laws, 17, 27 June. He opposed the petition of Christian ministers for the free discussion of religious opinions, 1 July, observing that ‘since Parliament and different societies had done all in their power to disseminate the blessings of education, care ought to be taken that those blessings should not be abused’. However, he defended Robert Owen from accusations that he disbelieved in a future state of rewards and punishments. He divided in the minorities to introduce trial by jury in New South Wales, 7 July, and continue proceedings against chief baron O’Grady, 9 July 1823. It was reported in March 1824 that Money sided with the East India Company chairs and the government against those directors who wished to appoint Mountstuart Elphinstone as governor of Madras. BL OIOC Mss Eur.F.142.26, S.R. Lushington to Robinson, 25 Mar. 1824. He emphasized the importance of the coal trade as a ‘nursery of seamen and ... one of the chief sources of the strength of the British navy’, 1 Apr. He again voted to repeal the usury laws, 8 Apr. He divided for the motion condemning the trial of the Methodist missionary John Smith in Demerara, 11 June. He ‘highly approved’ of the East India possessions bill, 17 June 1824, as the acquisition of Dutch colonial territories removed possible places of refuge for ‘disaffected subjects’ and provided new trading opportunities. That day, according to Canning, the leader of the Commons, Money supported the suggestion that the ten per cent reduction of ministers’ and officials’ salaries, imposed two years before, should be abolished. Geo. IV Letters, iii. 1169. He was abroad in late 1824 and early 1825 to recruit his health, but returned to divide for Catholic relief, 21 Apr., 10 May. Lambeth Palace Lib. ms 4243, ff. 98, 147. He maintained that it was in the government’s power to suppress suttee without offending the natives and referred to several instances where ‘local magistrates had, by mere persuasion, prevented the burnings’, 6 June 1825.

By early 1825 Money was seeking an appointment in the consular service, which may have been prompted by financial losses resulting from the dishonest conduct of the agents of his estate in Java. Ibid. f. 25; Harrowby mss, Money diary, 4 Feb. 1830. He vacated his seat in March 1826 on being appointed consul to the Lombard states. He died of cholera in Venice in April 1834. He left all his property to his wife in trust for their children, but it was necessary to sell the Javan estate to clear his debts; his personalty was finally sworn under £3,000. PROB 11/1858/111; IR26/1423/61. Several of his children and grandchildren served in the Indian army or civil service. Geneal. Mag. vi (1932), 294-5.