STEWART, John (1789-1860), of The Albany, London, Mdx. and Annandale, Demerara.

Returned in 1832 for Lymington, it appears that Stewart may have been the first Member of Parliament from an ethnic minority background. He was born in the West Indies in 1789,F. Boase, Modern English biography, iii. 753. the illegitimate son of John Stewart (?1755-1826), owner of sugar plantations and slaves in Demerara, Berbice and Grenada, who had sat briefly for Camelford in 1819.HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 276. When his father made his will in June 1826, Stewart was described as ‘my natural son John Stewart by Mary Duncan, now residing in Demerary’.PROB 11/1722/86. Little is known of his mother, but it is possible that she was black or of mixed race. During his career at Westminster there seems to have been no mention of Stewart’s ethnicity in the national press or locally at Lymington, but after he left Parliament he was referred to as ‘a man of colour’ and the first ‘coloured’ Member of Parliament.Notes and Queries, 2nd ser., 3 (1857), 30; Dundee Courier & Argus, 23 June 1888. It was said that ‘the bigoted anti-colour party in the West Indies could never get over his election by an English borough, but he was extremely popular with his constituents’.Dundee Courier & Argus, 23 June 1888. A few months after Stewart’s death a brief article in the American Saturday Evening Post referred to him and David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, the Anglo-Indian member for Sudbury, 1841-2, as ‘negroes’.Saturday Evening Post, 29 Sept. 1860, 6. These comments suggest that he was of mixed race and, if it is correct that, as Michael Fisher notes, he was ‘popularly considered black’, then he was indeed the first non-white MP.M.H. Fisher, The inordinately strange life of Dyce Sombre, Victorian Anglo-Indian MP and ‘Chancery lunatic’ (2010), 173, 344.

His father’s will made generous provision for Stewart and his other illegitimate children, as well as for numerous friends and dependants. Although the will gave Stewart senior’s trustees the discretionary power to sell his West Indies estates to fund these bequests, his son took possession of estates in Grenada and Demerara (later part of British Guiana), as well as his father’s London residence in the Albany. Stewart was also left his father’s gold watch.PROB 11/1722/86; HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 276; The Assembled Commons (1838), 214. When slavery was abolished he received compensation of £22,485 18s. 11d. for the loss of 433 slaves at the Annandale plantation in British Guiana. Compensation of £3,013 12s. 7d. for 113 slaves at the Hope Vale estate in Grenada was shared with Samuel Parr and Samuel Trehawke Kekewich, MP for Exeter, 1826-30, and Devon South, 1858-73.PP 1837-38 (215), xlviii. 454, 646. It was reported in 1835 that workers from Madeira had been imported to the Annandale plantation,Christian remembrancer (1835), 504. while in 1847-8 the plantation employed ‘Creoles from the villages’, ‘resident Creole laborers’ and ‘a few Coolies’.‘John Candler’s visit to British Guiana’, Caribbean studies, 4 (1964), ii. 57. In 1839 Stewart purchased the Vries en Hoop plantation in British Guiana.PP 1847-48 (206), xxiii, ii. 458. By 1846 he was a director of the British West India CompanyBritish Guiana, Demerara after fifteen years of freedom, by a landowner (1853), 105. and a member of the provisional committee for the Demerara Railway Company.The Economist, 4 (1846), 1511. He spent most of his time in London, where he was also a director of the London and Westminster Joint Stock Bank and deputy chairman of the Universal Life Assurance Society.Boase, Modern English biography, iii. 753; Parliamentary pocket companion (1838); Morning Post, 23 Mar. 1860. These commercial activities meant that he was well-known in City circles,The Era, 25 Mar. 1860. and he was remembered for being ‘very exact about trifles’, with his shirts, cravats and handkerchiefs ‘regularly numbered’. On one occasion he was punctilious in helping a clerk at the London and Westminster Bank to search for a lost half-sovereign.Caledonian Mercury, 10 Apr. 1860.

In July 1832 Stewart canvassed Lymington, where he was described as ‘a gentleman of independent and liberal principles’.Hampshire Advertiser, 7 July 1832. Thomas Hyde Villiers, member for the disfranchised borough of Bletchingley, was also in the field, but his injudicious comments about the owners of West Indies properties ‘caused a great accession of strength’ to Stewart’s cause, even though he was himself a slave owner.Ibid. Villiers and Stewart exchanged correspondence over allegations of corruption in October and Villiers abandoned his candidacy in November.Hampshire Advertiser, 6 Oct. 1832, 24 Nov. 1832. Stewart had a wide measure of support, from the Reformers, including the Hampshire Advertiser, and from Lymington’s corporation and burgesses.Hampshire Advertiser, 28 July 1832, 11 Aug. 1832; C.P. Jones, History of Lymington (1930), 145. He was also backed, albeit surreptitiously, by Sir Harry Burrard Neale, the former Tory Member, who was seeking a return to Parliament, and whose family remained the dominant influence in Lymington’s elections.Hampshire Advertiser, 17 Jan. 1835; J. James, Lymington, an illustrated history (2007), 88; [E. King], Old-times revisited in the Borough and Parish of Lymington (1879), 182. He gained the approval of The Standard, even though it did ‘not by any means support his address, as savouring too strongly of modern liberalism’.Hampshire Advertiser, 4 Aug. 1832, citing The Standard, 27 July 1832. At a meeting that September Stewart defended his record as a slave owner and denied that cruelty was practised on his property in Demerara. He also opposed Whig patronage, announced his intention to reside in the neighbourhood and emphasised his independence, saying that ‘he would never be the marked sheep of the flock, to follow the political bell-wether of the day’.Hampshire Advertiser, 29 Sep. 1832. His election address, issued in December, stated that his opinions were well-known and that he had ‘never assumed a position which I am not prepared to maintain nor avowed a sentiment for which I have cause to blush’.Hampshire Advertiser, 8 Dec. 1832. He appeared on the hustings ‘in extreme ill health’ against medical advice and at the poll was returned in second place behind Neale.Hampshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 17 Dec. 1832. On 23 January 1833, at a meeting at Portsea calling for the abolition of colonial slavery, he was criticised for having spoken at Lymington in defence of slavery.Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 28 Jan. 1833.

At the time of Stewart’s election the press described him variously as a radical,The Age, 16 Dec. 1832. a ministerialistMorning Post, 28 Dec. 1832. or a Conservative and anti-reformer.Sheffield Independent, 19 Jan. 1833. In practice he was only occasionally in the same lobby as the Radicals, and he was certainly not a reliable supporter of Whig ministers. At the beginning of his career he was often absent from divisions on Irish and ecclesiastical subjects, although he did vote against the second reading of the Irish church temporalities bill, 6 May 1833. He divided with ministers in opposition to Hume’s motion for the abolition of military and naval sinecures, 14 Feb. 1833. His first speech in the Commons was against Hume’s motion on the reduction of sugar duties, 6 Mar. 1833, when he observed that those ‘immediately connected with the colonies, had purposely abstained from opposing, or in any way embarrassing, his Majesty’s Ministers upon the present question’, because they wished to see ‘the still greater question’ of the abolition of slavery settled ‘once and for all’. He rebuked Hume for his ‘interference’, which Stewart felt stemmed from Hume’s ‘ambition, more troublesome than successful’. He spoke again on the sugar duties the following day, but otherwise rarely intervened in debate. He was more often found in the opposite lobby to ministers, dividing against them in support of Robinson’s motion on the commutation of taxes, 26 Mar., Attwood’s motion for currency reform, 24 Apr., and Ingilby’s motion on the reduction of the malt duty, 26 Apr., and also opposing them on relations with Portugal, 6 June, the bank of England charter, 1 July, and the factories regulation bill, 5 July 1833. He did, however, vote with ministers in opposition to Radical proposals for electoral reform, dividing against the ballot, 25 Apr., and shorter Parliaments, 23 July. He was appointed to the Ennis election committee, 12 Mar.,CJ, lxxxviii. 159. and on 31 May presented a petition against the emancipation of slaves in the colonies. He rallied to the defence of the agricultural interest in the 1834 session, voting for Chandos’s motion on agricultural distress, 21 Feb., and Ingilby’s motion on the repeal of the malt duty, 27 Feb., and opposing Hume’s motion on the corn laws, 7 Mar.

Although Stewart had pledged to reside in or near Lymington during part of the Parliamentary vacation,Hampshire Advertiser, 29 Sep. 1832. he announced in April 1834 that ‘unforeseen occurrences had rendered this impracticable’. He was praised for his ‘straight forward, gentlemanly and honorable’ conduct in writing to his committee to offer to resign, but they released him from his pledge.Hampshire Advertiser, 19 Apr. 1834; Morning Post, 23 Apr. 1834. It seems that he never had a residence in Lymington and never developed close links with the town. However, despite failing to attend many local meetings and dinners,Hampshire Advertiser, 27 June 1835, 9 Apr. 1836, 15 Sep. 1838, 2 Apr. 1842; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 29 June 1835; Morning Post, 16 Oct. 1841. he remained popular, being noted for his upright independent conduct and his mild unobtrusive manners.Hampshire Advertiser, 27 June 1835. He also won favour as a ‘liberal benefactor’ to Lymington,Hampshire Advertiser, 7 Apr. 1860. and his charitable donations included new gas fittings for the church in 1833,British magazine and monthly register of religious and ecclesiastical information 5 (1834), 111; Hand-book for the town of Lymington [1847], 35; A new guide to Lymington, by a resident gentleman (1841), 38. a substantial subsidy to the Baths and Improvements Company in 1835Hampshire Advertiser, 27 June 1835; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 29 June 1835. and £100 to the poor in 1837.The Standard, 20 Jan. 1837. In 1840 he subscribed to a memorial monument for Neale.The Era, 29 Mar. 1840.

Stewart was re-elected unopposed in 1835, when he declared that he had ‘ever been the uncompromising advocate for every practicable economy in every department of the state’ and that he was in favour of reforming not destroying its institutions. He wished to give relief to Nonconformists without disturbing the security of the Established Church. He did not regret the change of ministry and ‘without entirely approving of the constitution’ of Peel’s administration he had no hesitation in acknowledging his confidence in its principal members. He intended to give them his support and anticipated that their ‘habits of business possessed... in so superior a degree over their predecessors’ meant that their measures would be ‘less crude and better matured’.Hampshire Advertiser, 17 Jan. 1835. The Age, which in 1832 had listed him as a Radical, now regarded him as a Tory,The Age, 11 Jan. 1835. but The Times still dubbed him a Reformer.The Times, 9 Jan. 1835. Having considered Stewart as a Reformer in January, The Examiner a few weeks later included him in its list of ‘doubtful men’, noting that he was ‘a very independent man’.The Examiner, 11 Jan. 1835, 8 Feb. 1835. Other newspapers were slow to recognise his altered stance but in practice he had become a Conservative.

Stewart’s party allegiance was confirmed by his votes with the Peel ministry on the speakership, 19 Feb., the address, 26 Feb., and Russell’s motion on the Irish church, 2 Apr. 1835. He was in the minorities for Chandos’s motion on agricultural distress, 25 May, and Poulter’s Sabbath observance bill, 2 June. He made a brief interjection regarding the recorder of Lymington during the debate on the municipal corporations bill, 22 June 1835.Hampshire Advertiser, 27 June 1835; Hansard, 22 June 1835, vol. 28, c. 1015 attributes the speech to ‘An Hon. Member’, not to Stewart. After this he was often absent from the division lists, apparently unpaired, until July 1836. He did, however, make a rare contribution to debate – in a speech unnoticed by Hansard – on the question of slave apprenticeships, 22 Mar. 1836, when he said that for nine years before the passing of the Emancipation bill he had possessed the largest slave estate in Antigua but that it had not been profitable until he received ‘a large sum in compensation’.Tait’s Edinburgh magazine 3 (1836), 341. No compensation for his Antigua estate is recorded in PP 1837-38 (215), xlviii. In August 1836 Stewart made what was probably a rare visit to Lymington, where he was greeted so enthusiastically that his re-election was considered ‘far beyond doubt’.Hampshire Advertiser, 20 Aug. 1836. He generally followed Peel into the division lobbies in the 1837 session, including in opposition to Whig ministerial proposals on church rates, 15 Mar., and in defence of the corn laws, 16 Mar.

At the 1837 general election Stewart was re-elected at the head of the poll. The press now listed him as a Tory although the 1838 edition of The assembled Commons still referred to him as ‘a commercial gentleman of great respectability, a moderate Whig’.The assembled Commons (1838), 214. His votes and activities in this Parliament were subject to confusion with those of James Stewart (1805-1860), who sat as a Liberal for Honiton, 1837-41, and the misidentification of the two men in the sources was compounded by the fact that they both died in the same year.Boase, Modern English biography, iii. 752-3. Although they were often in different lobbies it is not always clear from the division lists during the 1837-41 Parliament which of them was voting. It was reported that John Stewart was appointed to the Newcastle-under-Lyme election committee in 1838, but the Commons Journal indicates that it was in fact James Stewart.The Times, 2 Mar. 1838; CJ, xciii. 319.

A silent member for the remainder of his parliamentary career, Stewart generally divided with the Conservatives, although he was a sporadic attender. His committee service appears to have been confined to private bills.PP 1840 (570), xlv. 28. In 1837 he signed a memorial to the Queen from British Guiana.PP 1837-38 (154-I, 154-II), xlix, i. 537-40. He voted against Strickland’s motion on Jamaican apprentices, 30 Mar. 1838, and against the slavery abolition amendment bill, 6 Apr. 1838. John Bull criticised his absence from the lobbies when Chandos’s motion on Lord Durham’s mission to Canada was defeated by 2 votes, 3 Apr. 1838.John Bull, 8 Apr. 1838. There was also criticism of his vote on the Irish tithes bill, 15 May 1838, but this stemmed from confusion with James Stewart, who was in the majority, whereas John Stewart had been in the minority against the measure.The Standard, 25 May 1838. He divided against ministers on the Jamaican question in the 1839 session, and renewed his opposition to the ballot, 18 June 1839. He paired for Sir John Yarde Buller’s motion of no confidence in Whig ministers, 31 Jan., and against their China policy, 9 Apr. 1840. He was absent unpaired from the vote on the corn laws, 3 Apr., but voted against Villiers’s motion, 26 May 1840. He divided against ministers on the sugar duties, 18 May, and Peel’s confidence motion, 4 June 1841.

At the nomination in 1841 Stewart was suffering from illness and spoke in such a low voice that he was unable to be heard, but was nonetheless re-elected at the head of the poll.Hampshire Advertiser, 3 July 1841. In the new Parliament he seems to have attended more frequently than before although his presence in the division lobbies could still not be relied on. He generally divided with the Conservative ministry. Having backed Peel’s sliding scale on corn in 1842 and consistently opposed Villiers’ anti-corn law motions, Stewart rallied to support Peel on the question of corn law repeal, 27 Mar., 15 May 1846. He divided in support of Ashley’s proposals for a 10 hour factory day, 18 and 22 Mar. 1844. He did not take a consistent line on the sugar duties, however, dividing with ministers, 22 June 1843, 3 and 10 June 1844, but opposing them in order to support the amendments of Philip Miles, 14 and 17 June 1844. He generally backed them on the question in the 1845 session, but voted for Hawes’ amendment, 14 Mar. 1845. He voted for the Maynooth grant, and continued to oppose further electoral reform and the ballot. He rallied behind Peel on the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846, but was largely absent thereafter. Rumours that November that he had resigned his seat were quashed, when he was described as ‘an unpledged man’ who had ‘not forfeited the confidence of his constituents’.The Standard, 17 Nov. 1846.

Seeking re-election in 1847, Stewart defended his conduct on the slave trade and his votes on the sugar question and the corn laws, but was defeated in third place.Daily News, 31 July 1847; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 31 July 1847. It emerged a few months later that he had continued his previous practice of declining to endorse any other candidate, and that some of those who supported his fellow Peelite MP William Mackinnon had therefore plumped for Mackinnon rather than also voting for Stewart. Stewart issued an address to the electors of Lymington in February 1848 explaining this situation and the Hampshire Telegraph considered that he had been unfairly treated.Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 12 Feb. 1848. He seems to have taken no further part in politics after this date.Hampshire Advertiser, 7 Apr. 1860. Later in 1848 he married Phoebe Rossiter, nearly 30 years his junior.The marriage was registered at Kensington Oct.-Dec. 1848.

Stewart, who although ‘a strict disciplinarian’ was regarded as ‘a liberal and kind-hearted master’,Caledonian Mercury, 10 Apr. 1860. died at his home, 2 Burwood Place, Hyde Park, in March 1860, aged 71.The Times, 19 Mar. 1860; Daily News, 20 Mar. 1860; Morning Chronicle, 20 Mar. 1860; Morning Post, 20 Mar. 1860; Gent. Mag. (1860), i. 526. He was succeeded by his son, William Duncan Stewart, who died at Georgetown, British Guiana, in 1869 at the age of 40.Western Mail, 3 Aug. 1869. The Annandale plantation passed out of the family’s hands shortly thereafter.Guyanese sugar plantations in the late nineteenth century: a contemporary description from the ‘Argosy’, ed. W. Rodney (1979), 61-2, 94. His widow died in 1870 at the age of 52.The Standard, 14 June 1870.