Ewart’s father, a general commission merchant, was described by George Canning, at whose elections he assisted, as ‘unquestionably the most powerful commercial man in Liverpool’. He was a son of the Scottish minister and landowner, the Rev. John Ewart of Troqueer, Dumfries, godfather of the future prime minister William Ewart Gladstone†, and senior partner in the firm of Ewart, Rutson and Company.
The Crown Club, as far as I have been able to ascertain, does not bear a good character. I can learn nothing of the infant University. Both these Clubs, and several others, are in such a state of immaturity that you will be able to make your own election when you arrive in town, and where the choice is within your reach, I should not be justified in choosing for you. The junior University will perhaps be destroyed in its birth by the extension of the senior establishment. We are to decide in a few days whether our club is to be increased from 1,000 to 1,500 and lodged in a new edifice of magnificent construction near St. James’s Park. I inserted your name among the candidates about a year ago.
St. Deiniol’s Lib. Glynne-Gladstone mss 519, Ewart to T. Gladstone, 3 May [1828].
He owed his return for Bletchingley in July that year as the paying guest of William Russell* of Brancepeth to Canning’s friend William Huskisson, whose politics he espoused and whose Liverpool elections were partly bankrolled by his brothers.
A slight, slender, studious and rather sallow young man with longish hair,
Left without a seat at the general election of 1830, Ewart swiftly staked his claim to that vacated by Huskisson’s death, 15 Sept., so precipitating a realignment in Liverpool politics and a 20-year breach (signalled by the return of portraits) with the Gladstone family, who denied him their support.
I voted in favour of the motion, not in favour of the expressions which may have fallen from some of the speakers ... It is not likely that I should unguardedly acquiesce in any measure by which the interests of my native town and ... near relations should be unjustly compromised. I know also that some of the West Indian proprietors themselves voted on that occasion with Mr. Brougham. I may refer particularly to our respected fellow townsman Mr. [Joseph] Birch.
Glynne-Gladstone mss 2871.
He wanted the West India planters compensated but expected the colonies, ‘not Britain’, to pay.
In later life Ewart described his commitments as Member for Liverpool as onerous, thankless and permitting no free time. He advocated inquiry and early emancipation with compensation when Lord Chandos brought up the West India planters’ distress petition, 13 Dec., and spoke similarly on presenting Liverpool’s petition, 15 Dec. 1830, when, to the general satisfaction of the merchants, he praised their support for Canning’s 1823 resolutions and maintained that to be effective abolition should be gradual.
On 5 July 1831 he wrote to the leader of his local party, the Liverpool Unitarian minister William Shepherd, that
there appears to be a determination on the part of every Member of the present Parliament, liberal and otherwise, to express his sentiments about reform. I therefore infer that a reformed Parliament will be a very long winded one; as they are, I believe in America. I intend to explain myself to the Speaker and my constituents as soon as I can get an opportunity. Last night I rose several times in vain. The Speaker’s eye is not very easily caught.
William Shepherd mss vii.
He voted for the reintroduced reform bill at its second reading, 6 July, and steadily supported it in committee, where he endorsed its provisions for Downton, 21 July, Manchester and Salford, 2 Aug., the Liverpool suburb of Toxteth Park, 6 Aug., the £10 borough vote, terms of qualification, 25, 26 Aug., and two-day polls, 5 Sept. His votes on Saltash, 26 July, and Aldborough, 14 Sept., were wayward ones. He divided for the bill’s third reading, 19 Sept., and passage, 21 Sept., the second reading of the Scottish reform bill, 23 Sept., and Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct. Praising ministers, he refuted suggestions by his new colleague Lord Sandon and others that Liverpool was dissatisfied with the revised reform bill, 7, 12 Dec. He divided for its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831, generally for its details, and the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He dismissed Daniel O’Connell’s assertion that the bill would increase the electoral power of landowner combinations, 27 Jan., but divided against enfranchising £50 tenants-at-will, 1 Feb. His opposition to a proposal for a £15 qualification in large towns, 3 Feb., annoyed Liverpool corporation.
the brief moments of leisure interposed between the mechanical movements of a Member of the Lower House - oscillating as we do from the committee rooms to the green benches and back again - have not been sufficient even for a few short lines. We are now looking out for a constitutional reinforcement of peers ... I wish the ministers were more popular both in the House and in the country. I am afraid that many neutrals will become adversaries when the reform bill is passed.
William Shepherd mss vii, f. 87.
To taunts of ‘Toxteth Park’ he was mocked by the anti-reformers for defending the bill’s ‘meagre’ provision for Liverpool, 28 Feb., 5 Mar. According to Edward Littleton’s* diary
a disgraceful and most ungentlemanly scene took place ... [that day] between Croker and Ewart ... in which Croker’s manner was more violent and worse than his language. The chairman put it to him whether it was ‘worth while’ to continue such language to Ewart, on which Croker rejoined, ‘Sir, I agree with you’, and then with a most courteous motion of the hand towards Ewart, said, ‘It is not worth while’. The whole House felt indignant, and [Smith] Stanley insisted on explanations before the parties left the House. Bernal, the chairman, then called not on Croker! but on Ewart! to explain. He must have been asleep. However the affair was made up.
Hatherton diary, 5 Mar. 1832.
Ewart suggested to Shepherd that he should rely only on the Mirror of Parliament’s account of the debate and explained:
Croker was in a fury; but he assailed me first. [Smith] Stanley did not extricate me well, though kindly, from the skirmish. Toxteth Park has been made a rallying point by Peel and Croker. I suspect that ... Peel has an eye to Toxteth, as he has always had to Liverpool.
William Shepherd mss vii, f. 87.
He voted for the address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the reform bill unimpaired, 10 May, and, as directed by the meeting, he endorsed the Liverpool petition requesting the withholding of supplies pending its passage, 15 May.
Dogged by bribery allegations and the controversy surrounding the Liverpool by-election writ (necessitated by Denison choosing to sit for Nottinghamshire), he deemed delay to the latter insupportable, 6 July, and was a minority teller for issuing it, 8 July 1831. He had informed Shepherd, 5 July, that ‘the proceedings of Benett have been, and are, in my opinion, absurd’ and signalled his intention of avoiding a quarrel with him, ‘as much as I should his acquaintance’.
After suffering several postponements and disparaging comments from Peel, on 27 Mar. 1832 Ewart obtained leave to introduce his bill to end capital punishment for the non-violent theft of animals, money and effects from domestic premises. He backed it with petitions (7, 17 May, 22, 28 June) and a plethora of statistics and arguments demonstrating that in these instances the death penalty inhibited sentencing, rarely followed conviction and was no deterrent, 2 Apr., 30 June, 3, 4, 5, 6, 21 July. It received royal assent on 11 July (2 & 3 Gul. IV, c. 62), and served as a basis for his subsequent achievements as an abolitionist. He naturally supported the forgery punishment mitigation bill, 22 June, 21, 25 July, 11 Aug. 1832. He was appointed to the East India select committees, 28 June 1831, 27 Jan. 1832. In debate, 28 June 1831, he described the difficulties faced by British merchants at Canton and pressed for consular representation there and measures to promote the China trade. He presented the East India Association’s petition against renewing the Sugar Refinery Act, 16 Aug., but apparently refrained from voting when the bill’s second reading was made a party issue, 12 Sept. 1831. On 7 Oct., he said that he hoped to see the problems arising from it referred to the West India select committee, to which he was named, 6 Oct., 15 Dec. 1831. He criticized the opposition raised by the planters’ spokesman Burge to the crown colonies relief bill and expressed confidence in it and in the November 1831 orders in council, 8 Aug. 1832. Drawing on information supplied by Liverpool traders, he urged ministers to lodge formal protests over the Brazilian government’s tardiness in compensating British merchants, 16 Apr., and also against Russia for invading Poland, 18 Apr., 7 Aug. However, echoing Huskisson’s former pleas, he warned that war inhibited the extension of liberal principles, 7 Aug. 1832. As a spokesman for the Liverpool merchants and tradesmen, who submitted bills and petitions, he reiterated his criticism of the duties on soap and timber, 1 July 1831, adding those on marine insurance, hemp and railway carriages to the list, 8 July 1831, 2 Apr., 9 Aug. 1832. He justified government expenditure on the Liverpool Revenue Buildings, 1 July 1831, 8 Feb. 1832, detailed the hardship the quarantine laws imposed on shipping, 8 Aug. 1831, and, using his experience as a member of the select committee on Irish communications, opposed the proposed curtailment of the Liverpool-Dublin packets, 4 Apr. 1832. Although personally in favour of registration in principle, he joined in criticism of the general register bill, 11 Oct. 1831, 14 Feb. 1832. With the general election and the Irish vote in mind, he supported Liverpool’s bid to host the Lancashire assizes, 19, 22 June, and petitions in favour of the Maynooth grant, 22 June, 23 July, and against the bill for the removal of Irish vagrants, 28 June, 16 July 1832.
Ewart contested Liverpool successfully in 1832 and 1835 as a Liberal free trader, inclined to radicalism. Following defeats there and at Kilkenny in 1837, when the general election coincided with a slump in trade, he published a pamphlet questioning the achievements of the Reform Act.