Joseph Cowen

From Wikipedia: Joseph Cowen

Joseph Cowen, Junior, (Thursday, 9 July 1829 – Sunday, 18 February 1900) was an English radical Liberal politician and journalist. He was a firm friend to Anglo-Jewry, and an early advocate of Jewish emancipation, regularly contributing to The Jewish Chronicle.

Early life

The son of Joseph Cowen, Senior, a prominent citizen and Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne from 1874 to 1886, was born at Stella Hall, Blaydon (demolished 1953). Cowen junior was educated privately in Ryton and at the University of Edinburgh where he interested himself in European revolutionary movements. Cowen then joined his father in his Blaydon brick business, smuggling documents abroad in the consignments of bricks. Cowen numbered among his friends Mazzini, Louis Blanc and Ledru-Rollin, as well as Herzen and Bakunin. Garibaldi, Felice Orsini and Lajos Kossuth came to visit him in Blaydon. He supported the miners and improved the lot of the working-classes. One area of improvement revisited again by Cowen was education: changes to the Mechanics Working-men institute, was followed by a public library for Newcastle.

Political career

In 1874, he was elected Member of Parliament, succeeding his father, who had held the Newcastle seat as a Liberal since 1865.

A radical on domestic questions when elected, Cowen was also a sympathizer with Irish Nationalism. In speech, dress and manner he identified himself with the coal miners of North East England. According to Dilke he spoke with a distinctive Tyneside burr. To the consternation of Liberal operatives, Cowen vigorously supported Disraeli's foreign policy, and in 1881 opposed the Gladstonian settlement with the Boers.

On Thursday, 13 July 1876, he joined John Bright in introducing Joseph Chamberlain into the Commons as the new MP for Birmingham.

Short in stature and uncouth in appearance, his individuality first shocked and then by its earnestness impressed the House of Commons; and his sturdy independence of party ties, combined with a gift of rough but genuine eloquence (of which his speech on the Royal Title Bill of 1876 was an example), rapidly made him one of the best-known public men in the country.

His independence (which his detractors attributed in some degree to his alleged susceptibility to Tory compliments) brought him into collision both with the Liberal parliamentary party and with the party organization in Newcastle itself, but Cowen's personal popularity and his remarkable powers as an orator triumphed in his own birthplace, and he was again elected in 1885.

Shortly afterwards, however, the 'Blaydon Brick' retired both from parliament and from public life in 1886, professing his disgust at the party intrigues of politics, and devoted himself to conducting his newspaper, the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, and to his private business. In this capacity he exercised a wide influence on local opinion, and the revolt of the Newcastle electorate in later years against "doctrinaire Radicalism" was largely due to his constant preaching of a broader outlook on national affairs. He served as President of the first day of the 1873 Co-operative Congress.

Behind the scenes he continued to play a powerful part in forming North-country opinion until his death. His letters were published by his daughter in 1909.

A fine bronze statue of Cowen stands in Westgate Road in Newcastle upon Tyne.

His name lives on in The Joseph Cowen Lifelong Learning Centre, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation also based in Newcastle upon Tyne, delivering the 'Explore' lecture programme.

From MyHeritage: Joseph Cowen: 1841 England & Wales Census

6 June 1841 Census for residents of Blaydon Burn House, Winlaton, County Durham 54.954284, -1.740907, England

• Joseph Cowen, head (implied), male, aged 40 - 44 [born between 1797 and 1801], in Durham, England; Fire brick M [Manufacturer?]
• Mary Cowen, wife (implied), female, aged 40 - 44 [born between 1797 and 1801], in Durham, England
• Joseph Cowen, son (implied), male, aged 11 [born about 1830], in Durham
• 4 siblings, 3 servants

From MyHeritage: Joseph Cowen: 1851 England & Wales Census

30 March 1851 Census for residents of Hanover Square, Winlaton, County Durham, England [Hanover Square, now Hanover Drive, Winlaton, Tyne and Wear NE21 6ES 54.9552388, -1.7303155]

• Joseph Cowen, head, married, male, aged 51 [born about 1800], in Ryton, County Durham; Manufacturer
• Mary Cowen, wife, married, female, aged 54 [born about 1797], in Winlaton, County Durham; Manufacturer's Wife
• Joseph Cowen, son, single, male, aged 21 [born about 1830], in Blaydon Burn, County Durham
• 4 siblings, 3 servants

From PDF FORMAT: Joseph Cowen (1829-1900) Of Newcastle and Radical Liberalism - PhD by Joan Hugman July 1993

From NZ National Library: Evening Star Saturday, 14 April 1900 Topics of the Day: A great tribune and journalist

The death, at the age of sixty-nine, of Mr Joseph Cowen, who for many years was a prominent personage in English politics, ends a curiously ineffective career. Born to great wealth, and gifted with abilities of a high order, he ought to have made a much greater mark than he did. In early manhood Mr Cowen was a rampant Radical of the most advanced type, and was a friend in need to all the Continental revolutionists — Mazinni, Garibaldi, Kossuth, and many others, not all of the same lofty type. He supplied them with funds for their raids and revolts, and his home at Blaydon Burn was their sanctuary in the hour of danger. So thoroughly, indeed, was Mr Cowen identified with revolutionary Continentals that at one time the Governments of Russia, Prussia, Spain, and Italy issued orders for his arrest should he set foot on the soil of those countries. Joseph, junior, however, was not taking any risks, and kept safely within the limits of British jurisdiction.

His father (Sir Joseph Cowen), who had little sympathy with his son's fondness for "disreputable foreigners," was on two occasions arrested on the Continent, the police mistaking him for his son. Joseph Cowen entered Parliament in 1874 as Liberal member for Newcastle, and soon became a marked figure in the House. His personality was not altogether a strong point with him. He was below middle height, of a somewhat awkward gait, and had a pallid and in no way striking face, except for the brilliant lustre of the eyes. He was the most unconventional of men, detested "society," and usually presented a slovenly indifference to his personal appearance which suggested affectation. He generally wore black clothes a size or two too large for him, and, what with his slouch-hat and his abstracted manner, Joseph Cowen hardly looked the man he was. But on the platform, once fairly started, ho was capable of wielding an immense power over an audience. Sir Cowen had the true oratorical fire, and made brilliant speeches, remarkable for epigram and antithesis, grandeur of imagery, highly wrought metaphors', vehemence, and richness o/ language. Mr Cowen went to Parliament a supporter of Mr Gladstone's policy. Two elections following close upon each other, however, proved too great a strain upon his powers, and he broke down in health, and for over two years was quite unable to take part in public affairs. On his return to the House he quickly found himself in antagonism "to his great leader, and from then till his constituents got tired of it Mr Cowen was as often fighting against his party as with it, and nobody could feel in the least sure whether he would not discover some good reason for thwarting and opposing Liberal measures or for supporting Tory ones. He was sometimes right in his opposition to his party and his loaders, but he always seemed to be better pleased to be scalping his friends than his foes. As time went on, and he found himself oftener in opposition to the party to which he nominally belonged, and proved him to be an impracticable politician, great dissatisfaction was engendered in his constituency. In 1880 Mr Gladstone, notwithstanding Mr Cowen's estrangement from him, made a special appeal to the electors of Newcastle to work heartily for his return to Parliament again, and Mr Cowen was returned as an independent Liberal, but a year later he threw up politics in disgust, and for the rest of his life concerned himself only with local affairs in Newcastle and district, where for many years he had done excellent service, and where his name will always be held in honor. Mr Cowen was the proprietor of the 'Newcastle Chronicle,' which is today one of the leading journals in the North of England.