Joseph Hume - Political Career

Political Career

In 1812, he purchased a seat in Parliament for Weymouth, Dorset, England, and voted as a Tory. When the parliament was dissolved the patron refused to return his money, and Hume brought an action to recover part of it. Six years later, Hume again entered the House, and made acquaintance with James Mill and the philosophical reformers of the school of Jeremy Bentham. He joined with Francis Place, of Westminster, and other philanthropists, to help improve the condition of the working classes, labouring especially to establish schools for them on the Lancastrian system, and forming savings banks.

In 1818, soon after his marriage with Miss Burnley, the daughter of an East India Company director, he was returned to Parliament as member for the Aberdeen Burghs, Borders, Scotland. He was afterwards successively elected for Middlesex, England (1830), Kilkenny, Ireland (1837) and for the Montrose Burghs, Montrose, Scotland (1842), in the service of which constituency he died.

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