[1] He closely investigated the educational needs of the working-classes, and in 1851 he wrote an essay, The Glory and the Shame of Britain, summarizing the results of his inquiries.
In 1852 he won the Anti-Corn-law Leagues prize with an essay on the results of the free-trade policy, published in 1854 under the title The Charter of the Nations.
[2][3] In 1855 he abandoned the ministry to edit the Manchester Examiner and Times, a prominent Liberal newspaper, in charge of which he remained till 1889.
[4] For twenty years he wrote, over the signature Verax, weekly letters to the Manchester papers; those on The Crown and the Cabinet (1877) and The Crown and the Constitution (1878) evoked so much enthusiasm that a public subscription was set on foot to present the writer with a handsome testimonial for his public services.
In 1878 Dunckley, who had often declined to stand for parliament, was elected a member of the Reform Club in recognition of his services to the Liberal party, and in 1883 he was made an LL.D.