Wilson , Henry Joseph , 1833-1914 , MP for Holmfirth

Henry Joseph Wilson (1833-1914) was born on the 14 Apr 1833 in Nottingham. One of the 7 children of William Wilson, cotton spinner, and Eliza Read of Sheffield. His parents were non-conformist radicals and his father was the Chair of the Nottingham Anti-Slavery committee. Wilson was sent to London University College to study in 1850, but returned home the following year when his mother died. After this, he was sent to work on a farm in Gloucestershire and then to his father's own farm in Mansfield in 1853 where he remained until his father's death in 1866. There he was deeply involved in non-conformist religion, the temperance movement and he was instrumental in the foundation of the Mansfield Co-operative Society of which he was the first president. It was in the 1860s the three Contagious Diseases (or CD) Acts were passed in an effort to regulate prostitution and the spread of venereal disease. Wilson was one of the many that opposed the Acts on the grounds that it would establish the state regulation of vice. He and his wife Charlotte [nee Cowan], whom he had married in 1859, began their careers of public speaking and political activism. In 1871, they attended a meeting of the Royal Commission on the implementation of the CD Acts in Sheffield that was also attended and addressed by Josephine Butler. When the latter perceived in 1872 that it would be impossible to run the whole anti-CD Acts campaign from London, Wilson became one of those who were to be central to the formation of the Northern Counties Electoral League for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (known as the Northern Counties League). Branches of the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts had already been set up in the north east but it was felt that a strong central body was necessary. Edward Backhouse was the first Chair with Joseph Edmonson as the Treasurer and Wilson as the secretary. Their aim was to make known in their area the 'atrocious character' of the Acts and to raise the issue of them at elections. The group immediately began to send out petition forms and circulars were distributed to churches and chapels throughout the region. It was with their support that Josephine Butler came to Pontefract to address the crowds at the by-election and was caught up in the chaos that ensued. In 1877 it was decided to broaden the objects of the League and to reflect this change its name was officially changed to the 'Northern Counties League for Abolishing State Regulation of Vice and for Prompting Social Purity and the Rescue of the Fallen'. Wilson remained an integral part of the organisation, despite his growing number of commitments. He was present at a conference on the state regulation of vice which was held in Liverpool in 1875 and it was there that the British, Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution was established. Wilson became joint secretary along with Butler. However, the CD Acts did not solely occupy his attention. Since 1872 he had been the Chair of the Sheffield Reform Association, which had merged with the Sheffield Liberal Association two years later and in which Wilson remained the honorary secretary. In 1876 he was elected to the Sheffield School Board and in 1885 he was elected a Liberal MP for the constituency of Holmfirth in West Riding. He had been a fervent supporter of Home Rule for Ireland since the beginning of the 1880s and retained this position in the House of Commons. In 1892 he was selected to be a member of the Police and Sanitary Committee and then of the Royal Commission on Opium Traffic three years later, a position which involved him travelling to India in 1893-4. Despite the repeal of the CD Acts on British soil in 1886, they effectively remained in force in India through the Cantonments Act and the Contagious Diseases (India) Act and there were threats to re-introduce them in areas such as Guernsey after an increase in venereal disease in the 1890s. Consequently, his work in this area continued through the last decade of the nineteenth century. Despite his unpopular opposition to the Boer War, he remained an MP until his retirement in 1912. He died in 1914.