A Unitarian merchant from Liverpool, Thornely was described as a ‘worker rather than a talker’.
In many respects Mr Thornely was a model of what it is desirable, as a rule, that a Member of Parliament should be … [possessing] soundness and promptness of judgment, clearness of view, intelligent and unremitting attention to business, great practical experience as a travelled merchant, and, to crown all, inflexible consistency and uprightness of purpose.
‘Memoir of Thomas Thornely’, 374.
Thornely hailed from two distinguished Dissenting families, the Thornelys, of Hyde, Cheshire, and the Mathers, of Toxteth Park, Lancashire.
An original member of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, Thornely was a founder, and later secretary, treasurer and president of the Liverpool Mechanics’ Library founded in 1824, as well as a proprietor of the town’s Athenaeum.
Thornely was invited by local Reformers to contest Wolverhampton at the 1835 general election, when he was returned alongside another Liberal, Charles Pelham Villiers, against Conservative and Radical opposition. After seeing off another Conservative challenge at the 1837 general election he faced no further contests. He later remarked to Villiers that ‘we cannot be too thankful to the excellent constituency we represent. I know no constituency like them’.
Despite his radical leanings, Thornely was a reliable Liberal voter in all the important party divisions. He made over a hundred speeches, usually brief, low-key contributions on subjects where he had expertise. In his early years in the Commons he served on parliamentary inquiries on the Weights and Measures Act, the British Museum, mining accidents, railway bills and the salt trade, the last of which recommended ‘free competition’.
Thornely’s energies were increasingly directed towards promoting free trade, which he believed was the only remedy for economic distress and depression. However, in the late 1830s he thought that a total repeal of the corn laws was impracticable, and pragmatically advocated ‘a moderate fixed duty on corn’ as a first step towards free trade.
In 1839 he served on a select committee that pressed for further reduction in the duties on foreign fruit, lowered the previous year by the Whig government as a limited free trade experiment.
Thornely enthusiastically backed the Whigs when they finally adopted his preferred policy of a low fixed duty on corn in May 1841. Although the government was defeated and the Conservatives victorious at the subsequent general election, Thornely was ‘delighted the fight has come’ as he was confident that free trade principles would ultimately triumph.
In autumn 1842 Thornely went on a two-month tour of the United States covering 2,000 miles.
Although free trade consumed much of Thornely’s energies, he made important contributions in other areas. In 1844 he played a vital part in the passing of the Dissenters’ chapels bill, which he noted ‘added very much to my labours’.
Thornely was also an expert on monetary issues. Although he was ‘not sure about a currency entirely metallic’, he contended that critics of the 1819 Bank Act like the Birmingham school of Thomas Attwood were ‘wrong-headed’.
In the second half of his parliamentary career, from 1847 to 1859, Thornely offered loyal support to the Liberal and coalition governments led by Russell, Aberdeen and Palmerston. He repeatedly cast votes in favour of Jewish relief and the abolition of the church rates and continued to press for the removal of existing restrictions on trade such as the navigation laws and the quarantine laws.
As a respected parliamentarian, Thornely served on a number of committees relating to Commons administration and procedure including on offices (1849), standing orders (1849 and 1852) and printing (1854-55).
A lifelong bachelor who lived with his sister, Thornely died in 1862, his personal estate of £40,000 passing to his nephews William and James Thornely, of Liverpool, who continued the family merchant house.