Stuart, James

(1843-1913), educational reformer and politician

by H. C. G. Matthew

© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved

Stuart, James (1843-1913), educational reformer and politician, was born in Balgonie, Fife, on 2 January 1843, the eldest child of James Gordon Stuart, mill owner, and his wife, Catherine, daughter of David Booth, lexicographer, of Newburgh, Fife. He had seven brothers, three of whom died in childhood, and one sister. He was educated at Madras College in St Andrews, and at St Andrews University, where he graduated BA in 1861 (he was awarded an honorary LLD in 1875). In 1862 he won a minor scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, and he graduated third wrangler in 1866. Elected a fellow of Trinity in 1866, he became an assistant tutor in 1867.

Stuart was aware of the 'vast masses who desire education', as he put it in his 'On the work of the universities in higher education' (Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science 1871, 1872, 373), and in addition to his college duties he organized intercollegiate lectures and courses of university extension lectures. From 1867 he gave a series of lectures in the north of England, the most successful of the several initiatives of Josephine Butler's North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women. From 1873 to 1876 he was the first secretary of the local lectures syndicate in Cambridge, and he materially assisted similar developments by an Oxford committee and by the London Society for the Extension of University Education. He should not, as has sometimes been the case, be seen as sole originator of university extension, but he was certainly its most prominent early activist. In 1875 he was elected the first professor of mechanism and applied mechanics at Cambridge and planned the mechanical science tripos. Practical training cut across Cambridge's theoretical tradition, and Stuart's approach and his radical politics led to criticism. He resigned his chair in 1889 when his tripos proposals were rejected and his department's existence threatened.

In 1882 Stuart unsuccessfully contested one of the Cambridge University seats, standing as a Liberal; he was strongly opposed by the clergy. He was elected for Hackney in 1884 and represented Hoxton from 1885 to 1900, when he was defeated. He was MP for Sunderland from 1906 until 1910, when he was again defeated. He continued his association with Josephine Butler by assisting in the campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, and was a vigorous advocate of female suffrage and of reform of the House of Lords. He was an energetic editor of the Star and Morning Leader from 1890 to 1898. To his acute disappointment, especially in 1892, he was never offered office by a Liberal prime minister, but he served on several royal commissions. He was an alderman of the London county council from 1889 to 1898 and an elected councillor (for Haggerston ward) from 1901 to 1907. He was sworn of the privy council in 1909.

In 1890 Stuart married Laura Elizabeth, daughter of Jeremiah James Colman (1830-1898), the mustard manufacturer [see under Colman family (per. 1814-1898)], and his wife, Caroline Colman, née Cozens-Hardy [see under Colman family (per. 1814-1898)]; they had no children. They moved on the fringes of the circle around Gladstone, staying at Hawarden Castle and organizing prime ministerial visits to Norfolk. When his father-in-law died unexpectedly in 1898, Stuart moved to Norfolk and managed the firm. He died at his home, Carrow Abbey, Norwich, on 13 October 1913. His widow founded an extramural lecturership at Cambridge in his memory; Stuart House, to which she contributed, was for many years the home of the Cambridge Board of Extramural Studies. Stuart's was a fragmented public career: he achieved some eminence in several capacities, but distinction only as an educational reformer in the early part of his public life.

H. C. G. MATTHEW

Sources  
J. Stuart, Reminiscences (1911)
T. J. N. Hilken, Engineering at Cambridge University, 1783-1965 (1967)
E. Welch, The peripatetic university (1973)
L. Goldman, Dons and workers: Oxford and adult education since 1850 (1995)
Gladstone, Diaries
E. J. Bristow, Vice and vigilance (1977)

Archives  
CUL, corresp., texts of lectures and other papers relating to the university extension |  BL, letters to W. E. Gladstone, Add. MSS 44468-44789, passim
King's AC Cam., letters to Oscar Browning

Likenesses  
F. Hollyer, photograph, repro. in Stuart, Reminiscences
lithograph, repro. in VF (1899)

Wealth at death  
£36,756 4s. 7d.: probate, 22 Dec 1913, CGPLA Eng. & Wales


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