page_title: William Harris (Birmingham Liberal)
section_title: Writing and cultural activities
hierarchical_section_title: William Harris (Birmingham Liberal) / Writing and cultural activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Title page of William Harris, The History of the Radical Party in Parliament (London, 1885)
context_page_description: William Harris was a Liberal politician and strategist in Birmingham, England, in an era of dramatic municipal reform. On his death, he was described by one obituary-writer as "one of the founders of modern Birmingham". J. L. Garvin called him "the Abbé Sieyès of Birmingham"; and Asa Briggs "a most active and intelligent wire-puller behind the scenes". He was dubbed the "father of the Caucus", the highly organised and controversial Liberal party machine that had its origins in Birmingham, but was afterwards introduced at national level to the National Liberal Federation. He served as the first Chairman of the National Liberal Federation from 1877 to 1882. By profession he was an architect and surveyor; and he was also a prolific journalist and author.
context_section_description: Harris was a prolific writer in the radical cause. In 1855, with George Dawson, James Freeman, and others, he helped launch, and then became editor of, a local radical daily newspaper, the Birmingham Daily Press. This was well received, but a commercial failure: it merged with the Birmingham Mercury in 1857, and ceased publication entirely in November 1858. In 1861, again with other members of the Dawson circle, he became one of the founders of, and an anonymous contributor to, a more successful satirical paper, The Town Crier. This sought, through humour, to compare "municipal government as it was – in incompetent hands – with municipal government as it might be", and "in those days wielded considerable influence in the town". At the monthly Town Crier dinners Harris is described as being "amusingly epigrammatic". He afterwards became an active (but still anonymous) leader-writer for the Birmingham Daily Post under the editorship of his friend, J. T. Bunce. In this capacity, he is described by H. R. G. Whates as an "old Radical warhorse". Even after the 1886–8 split in the Liberal Party had distanced him from many of his former associates, he continued to contribute articles to the Post on foreign affairs and other topics.
  In 1848, he became one of a group of friends who met regularly at one another’s houses to discuss philosophical, political and social matters. They called themselves the "Inner Circle", and it became their custom to prepare some written presentation in advance. In 1850, three of the members, Harris, J. A. Langford and Henry Latham, published a volume of poems that had emerged from these sessions, entitled Thoughts from the Inner Circle.
  In 1885, Harris published a substantial History of the Radical Party in Parliament. Robert Spence Watson wrote in 1907 that this work "ought to be known to every Liberal"; and H. R. G. Whates considered it "still not wholly superseded" in 1957.
  Harris was prominent on the committee that – following a failed attempt in 1852 – persuaded Birmingham Town Council in 1859 to adopt the Public Libraries Act, paving the way for the opening of the city’s Central Lending and Reference Libraries in 1865–6, and other branch libraries. He subsequently served from 1868 to 1871 as chairman of the Birmingham Free Libraries Committee. In about 1858, he, Dawson, Samuel Timmins, Bunce, J. H. Chamberlain, and others in their circle, began to meet irregularly for literary and cultural discussions: by 1860, these meetings had been regularised into a more formal club, which in 1862 was named "Our Shakespeare Club". Whates calls Our Shakespeare Club "the intellectual centre of the community, [and] the nineteenth century equivalent of the famous Lunar Society". It was largely responsible for the establishment of the Shakespeare Memorial Library within the Central Library building in 1864 (the tercentenary year of Shakespeare's birth). Harris published an official History of the club in 1903.
  In 1870, along with J. T. Bunce, he was appointed by the Council to oversee the purchase of pictures and objects for the proposed Birmingham Art Gallery. He served on the council of the Birmingham and Midland Institute during the secretaryship of J. H. Chamberlain; and was also a member of the Birmingham Philosophical Society.
caption: Title page of Harris's History of the Radical Party in Parliament (1885)
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