an ample
fortune. Meanwhile he had in 1861 married his first wife, Miss Harriet
Kenrick (she died in 1863), and had gradually come to take an
increasingly important part in the municipal and political life of
Birmingham. He was a constant speaker at the Birmingham and Edgbaston
Debating Society; and when in 1868 the Birmingham Liberal Association
was reorganized, he became one of its leading members. In 1869 he was
elected chairman of the executive council of the new National Education
League, the outcome of Mr George Dixon's movement for promoting the
education of the children of the lower classes by paying their school
fees, and agitating for more accommodation and a better national system.
In the same year he was elected a member of the town council, and
married his second wife--a cousin of his first--Miss Florence Kenrick
(d. 1875).

In 1870 he was elected a member of the first school board for
Birmingham; and for the next six years, and especially after 1873, when
he became leader of a majority and chairman, he actively championed the
Nonconformist opposition to denominationalism. He was then regarded as a
Republican--the term signifying rather that he held advanced Radical
opinions, which were construed by average men in the light of the
current political developments in France, than that he really favoured
Republican institutions. His programme was "free Church, free land, free
schools, free labour." At the general election of 1874 he stood as a
parliamentary candidate for Sheffield, but without success. Between 1869
and 1873 he was a prominent advocate in the Birmingham town council of
the gospel of municipal reform preached by Mr Dawson, Dr Dale and Mr
Bunce (of the _Birmingham. Post_); and in 1873 his party obtained a
majority, and he was elected mayor, an office he retained until June
1876. As mayor he had to receive the prince and princess of Wales on
their visit in June 1874, an occasion which excited some curiosity
because of his reputation as a Republican; but those who looked for an
exhibition of bad taste were disappointed, and the behaviour of the
Radical mayor satisfied the requirements alike of _The Times_ and of
_Punch_.

The period of his mayoralty was one of historic importance in the growth
of modern Birmingham. New municipal buildings were erected, Highgate
Park was opened as a place of recreation, the free library and art
gallery were developed. But the great work carried through by Mr
Cham