Lawrence Heyworth

Lawrence persuaded his brothers that it would be beneficial to deal directly with customers in Lisbon and Oporto rather than through agents based in London and elsewhere in Britain.

[2] The South American enterprise expanded to include offices in many locations but the British government then attempted to impose tariffs on trade there.

[13] Having opposed the imposition of export duties as early as 1815, when the British government had announced its intention to impose a tariff on goods sent to Rio de Janeiro,[14] Heyworth became a supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League.

[16] He was an early supporter of the Complete Suffrage Union (CSU), along with fellow Radicals such as Edward Miall and John Bright.

[17] Although sharing similar aims to Chartism, Heyworth was among those CSU members who were influenced by Joseph Sturge and objected to the methods of Chartist leaders such as Feargus O'Connor.

[18] The influence of Sturge also played a part in his support for the abolition of slavery and his membership of a peace movement called the League of Universal Brotherhood, founded by Elihu Burritt in 1848.

[23] The latter association caused him to visit Wisconsin to promote the organisation's purchase of 1,600 acres (650 ha) of settlement land in the Dane and Iowa counties.

[25][26][27] In 1848 Heyworth was elected to the House of Commons as one of the two MPs for the Derby constituency,[28] a candidacy that owed much to his reformist proclivities and to his position as a director of the Midland Railway, which was based in the town.

[30] According to his granddaughter, Beatrice Webb, he married his servant, who died young and whom she could not remember;[31] according to more recent sources, Betsy Aked was a power-loom operator.