John Ralph Fenwick

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John Ralph Fenwick (14 November 1761 – 11 January 1855) was an English physician in Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham City. He was a radical of the 1790s, and an abolitionist. Well-connected, he was a militia officer and magistrate, on close terms with the Whig aristocratic leaders and politicians of the north-east of England.

Early life[edit]

He was born on 14 November 1761, the younger son of the physician John Fenwick of Morpeth.[1] The family was Catholic, and Fenwick went to the College of St Omer for education. He then studied medicine at the University of Leyden. His Catholic faith did not last into adulthood.[2] His background was brought up much later, in a by-election campaign of 1826 when the matter was topical, by George Silvertop speaking for Lord Howick.[3]

Fenwick received the M.D. degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1782 for his dissertation De Plethora.[4][5] He was physician to the Newcastle Infirmary from 1786 to 1791.[6] He then went into private practice in Durham city, from 1790.[2]

Local affairs, to 1815[edit]

Fenwick was one of a group of significant correspondents on political reform, centred on the moderate reformed Christopher Wyvill.[7] In early 1794 he wrote to Wyvill, expressing confidence that universal suffrage had wide popular appeal, and optimistic about the troubles the administration had with disaffection.[8] By 1797 he was much more downbeat about democratic reforms gaining traction, given the need to avoid fomenting revolution.[9] An invasion scare in 1798 similarly damped down hopes of reformers.[10]

In 1798 Fenwick organised the Durham Volunteer Association. It raised an infantry body. The Peace of Amiens saw it broken up, but 1804, with the Napoleonic Wars resumed, saw the Durham Volunteers take its place.[11] He was lieutenant-colonel of the Volunteers, resigning in 1806, in poor health.[1] He became a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for County Durham.[12]

In 1807 at a Durham County Meeting, Fenwick opposed an address to the King, after the fall of the Ministry of All the Talents. The address was proposed by the Earl of Strathmore, and seconded by Matthew Russell. In return, Fenwick defended the bill (on Catholic emancipation) that by failing had ended the ministry. Supported by Ralph John Lambton and Sir Ralph Milbanke, two Members of Parliament, he waved a rival address that said as much, and Milbanke seconded him. He had also the support of Sir Thomas Liddell, 6th Baronet.[13] The original address, however, was carried.[14]

Fenwick was a long-standing friend and political correspondent of Charles Grey, who as Prime Minister pushed through the Reform Bill 1832.[15] The wait was a long one, and the Newcastle group of Fenwick, Charles William Bigge, Thomas Headlam and James Losh tired of Grey's tentative approach, by the 1810s.[16]

Local affairs, 1815–1830[edit]

After the Peterloo Massacre, Fenwick was one of a County Durham group calling for investigation, by asking the High Sheriff of Durham, William Keppel Barrington, to convene a meeting. John Davison, rector of Washington, addressed an open letter to Fenwick on the matter, the same year.[17] It argued that public opinion was already revising its view of the event.[18] On the other hand the Peterloo issue and polarisation around it played an important part in the 1820 general election in County Durham, particularly in the hands of John George Lambton—"Radical Jack"—who became the Earl of Durham; Fenwick was his good friend.[19][2]

In 1822 the campaign of Thomas Joplin, from Newcastle, against the monopoly of the Bank of England, gained support in County Durham. Fenwick was one of the local group calling for Joplin's banking theories to be given attention. It included also George Barrington who was rector of Sedgefield, and the landowner Edward Shipperdson.[20]

Fenwick was a Vice-President of the Newcastle Society for Promoting the gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions.[21] The national Anti-Slavery Society ran campaigns to end British slavery in 1823 and 1826, in which James Losh and Fenwick spoke at local meetings.[22] Fenwick spoke at an emancipation meeting in 1826, in the Durham Town Hall, with others, including Shipperdson.[23]

Later life[edit]

In 1834, Fenwick chaired the meeting at which the Surtees Society was formed.[24] Shipperdson, Fenwick and William Nicholas Darnell, rector of Stanhope, made up the Society's initial committee.[25]

Fenwick died at home, on 11 January 1855, in the North Bailey, Durham, aged 93.[1][26] He was buried in Durham Cathedral, on 17 January.[12]

Works[edit]

Fenwick has been identified as the person behind the pseudonym "Ralph Bigod" in an essay by Charles Lamb.[31] But this applied to another radical, John Fenwick (died 1823).[32]

Family[edit]

Fenwick married in 1812 Dorothy Spearman (died 1838), daughter of Robert Spearman of Old Acres. Shortly after the marriage, he retired from medical practice. His heir was his nephew Thomas James Fenwick M.D. (died 1868).[33][34][35]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c The Gentleman's Magazine. F. Jefferies. 1855. pp. 320–321.
  2. ^ a b c Hardwicke's Annual Biography for 1856: Containing Original & Selected Memories of Celebrated Characters who Have Died During the Year 1855. Robert Hardwicke. 1856. p. 242.
  3. ^ Gooch, Leopold (1989). "From Jacobite to Radical : the Catholics of North East England, 1688-1850" (PDF). etheses.dur.ac.uk. p. 254.
  4. ^ The New Annual Register, Or General Repository of History, Politics, and Literature: To which is Prefixed, a Short Review of the Principal Transactions of the Present Reign. 1783. p. 49.
  5. ^ a b Fenwick, John Ralph (1782). Dissertatio Medica Inauguralis, De Plethora: Quam, Annuente Summo Numine, Ex Auctoritate Reverendi admodum Viri, D. Gulielmi Robertson ... Pro Gradu Doctoratus ... Eruditorum examini subjicit Joannes Radulphus Fenwick, Anglus, Soc. Reg. Med. Soc. Extra. et Praes. Ann.; Ad diem 24. Junii, hora locoque solitis (in Latin). Balfour et Smellie.
  6. ^ Hodgson, John Crawford (1910). Six North Country Diaries. Durham : Pub. for the Society by Andrews & co.; [etc., etc.] p. 284 note 12.
  7. ^ Dinwiddy, J. R. (1992). Radicalism & Reform in Britain, 1780–1850. A&C Black. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-85285-062-3.
  8. ^ Jenny Graham (2000). The Nation, the Law, and the King: Reform Politics in England, 1789–1799. Vol. 2. University Press of America. p. 578. ISBN 0-7618-1484-1.
  9. ^ Jenny Graham (2000). The Nation, the Law, and the King: Reform Politics in England, 1789–1799. Vol. 2. University Press of America. p. 792. ISBN 0-7618-1484-1.
  10. ^ Jenny Graham (2000). The Nation, the Law, and the King: Reform Politics in England, 1789–1799. Vol. 2. University Press of America. pp. 853–854. ISBN 0-7618-1484-1.
  11. ^ Ward, Stephen George Peregrine (1963). Faithful: The Story of the Durham Light Infantry. Durham Light Infantry. p. 18.
  12. ^ a b Armytage, George John; Greenwell, William (1897). The baptismal, marriage, and burial registers of the Cathedral church of Christ and Blessed Mary the virgin at Durham, 1609-1896. London: Mitchell & Hughes. p. 148 and note 2.
  13. ^ Daykin, C. W. (1961). "The history of parliamentary representation in the city and county of Durham 1675-1832" (PDF). etheses.dur.ac.uk. pp. 308–309.
  14. ^ University of Durham (1993). The Durham University Journal. University of Durham. p. 12.
  15. ^ Ridley, David (1994). "Political and industrial crisis: the experience of the Tyne and Wear pitmen, 1831-1832" (PDF). etheses.dur.ac.uk. pp. 229 note 6 and 315 note 2.
  16. ^ Peter Brett, Political Dinners in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain: Platform, Meeting Place and Battleground, History Vol. 81, No. 264 (October 1996), pp. 527–552, at p. 537. Published by: Wiley JSTOR 24422783
  17. ^ Davison, John (1819). A letter to John Ralph Fenwick [with reference to the dispersal of the reform meeting at Peterloo]. p. 3.
  18. ^ Stephen C. Behrendt, Chapter 1 Peterloo, Ambivalence and Commemorative Culture, pp. 31–56, at p. 45. Edinburgh University Press JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctvnjbgpx.7
  19. ^ "Durham County 1820–1832, History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  20. ^ "Economist", An illustration of Mr. Joplin's views on currency, and plan for its improvement: together with observations applicable to the present state of the money-market; in a series of letters (1825) JSTOR 60208943
  21. ^ Society for Promoting the gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) (1823). Declaration of the objects of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Society for promoting the gradual abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions. p. 3.
  22. ^ "Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1820–1832, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 21 August 2015.
  23. ^ The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal. Henry Colburn and Company. 1826. p. 166.
  24. ^ Mackenzie, Eneas; Ross, Marvin (1834). An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive View of the County Palatine of Durham: Comprehending the Various Subjects of Natural, Civil, and Ecclesiastical Geography, Agriculture, Mines, Manufactures, Navigation, Trade, Commerce, Buildings, Antiquities, Curiosities, Public Institutions, Charities, Population, Customs, Biography, Local History, &c. Mackenzie and Dent. p. cxxi.
  25. ^ Taylor, George (1852). A Memoir of Robert Surtees. George Andrews. p. 150.
  26. ^ Leipziger Repertorium der deutschen und ausländischen Literatur (in German). Weigel. 1855. p. 255.
  27. ^ Allibone, Samuel Austin (1859). A critical dictionary of English literature, and British and American authors living and deceased. Chields & Peterson. p. 587.
  28. ^ The Scots Magazine. Sands, Brymer, Murray and Cochran. 1798. p. 693.
  29. ^ Fenwick, John Ralph (1806). Sketch of the Professional life and character of John Clark, M.D. ... Read at the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, November, 1805.
  30. ^ The Monthly Review. R. Griffiths. 1813. p. 3.
  31. ^ Cushing, William (c. 1888). Initials and Pseudonyms; a dictionary of literary disguises. 2d series. New York : T. Y. Crowell. p. 35.
  32. ^ Clemit, Pamela; McAuley, Jenny. "Fenwick, John (bap. 1757, d. 1823)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/109199. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  33. ^ Burke, John (1835). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Enjoying Territorial Possessions Or High Official Rank: But Univested with Heritable Honours. H. Colburn. p. 453.
  34. ^ The Illustrated London News. Elm House. 1855. p. 103.
  35. ^ Walford, Edward (1860). The county families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Dalcassian Publishing Company. p. 462.
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