Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Henry, Mitchell
HENRY, MITCHELL (1826–1910), Irish politician, born at Ardwick Green, Manchester, in 1826, was younger son of Alexander Henry, M.P. for South Lancashire in the liberal interest (1847–52), who died 4 Oct. 1862, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of George Brush, of Dromore, co. Down. Having been educated privately and at University College School, Henry joined the Pine Street school of medicine in Manchester, afterwards incorporated in the medical department of the Owens College. He graduated M.R.C.S. in 1847 and having established himself in practice as a consulting surgeon at No. 5 Harley Street, Cavendish Square, he was next year appointed surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, and in 1854 was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1862, however, he abandoned his profession and became a partner in the family firm of A. & S. Henry, merchants and general warehousemen, of Manchester and Huddersfield. In 1865 he unsuccessfully contested Woodstock in the liberal interest, and was defeated at Manchester both at a bye-election in 1867 and at the general election in 1868. During his second Manchester candidature he founded the 'Evening News ' as an electioneering sheet, and after his defeat he disposed of the paper to the printer, William Evans.
Henry was an enthusiastic angler, and his interest in the sport brought him frequently to the west of Ireland. As a consequence he successfully contested county Galway in 1871. He warmly supported the political principles of Isaac Butt [q. v.] and was a member of the council of the Home Rule League; his election was therefore regarded as a great victory for the national party (O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, p. 226). His first important speech in parliament was in support of Butt's motion for an inquiry into the judgment of Mr. Justice Keogh (see Keogh, William Nicholas) in the matter of the Galway election petition in 1872. He opposed Gladstone's Irish university bill, chiefly on the ground that it did not concede the principle of sectarian education demanded by public opinion in Ireland, and on 2 July 1874, in seconding Butt's motion to consider the parliamentary relations between Great Britain and Ireland, he dealt effectively with the financial side of the question, arguing strongly that Ireland had for years been paying more than her due share of the taxation of the empire, as fixed by the Act of Union. In July 1877 he returned to the subject of the over-taxation of Ireland, and at the opening of parliament in January next year, being called on, owing to Butt's illness, to act as leader of the Irish party, he urged that the most pressing needs of Ireland were the assimilation of the Irish franchise to that of England, a reasonable university bill, and the acknowledgment of Ireland's right to manage her own domestic affairs.
Meanwhile he had purchased from the Blakes a large estate of some 14,000 acres in county Galway between Letterfrack and Lenane. It consisted mostly of bog land, which he reclaimed, and at Kylemore Lough he erected a stately mansion, known as Kylemore Castle, now the property of the duke of Manchester. These operations and the fact of his residing there brought money into the district, and his relations with the peasantry were on the whole very friendly till the days of the Land League. His position as an Irish landlord seems, however, to have modified his political views; anyhow he came to view with apprehension the development of the home rule agitation under Parnell's leadership. Independent of his rents for his income, he suffered less than his neighbours from the Land League movement, but he disapproved its operations. The home rule which he advocated was, he declared, intended to draw Ireland closer to England, whereas the object of the Parnellites was to sever Ireland from England (Hansard, Debates, cclv. 1884-90). His warm support of Forster's efforts to suppress the league brought about an open breach with his former colleagues. While supporting the land bill of 1881 he deprecated the working of it by the county court judges (12 May 1881, ibid. cclxii. 342–51), and described the Land League as a ‘dishonest, demoralising and un-Christian agitation.’ Henry was unseated at the general election in 1885 by what he called Parnellite ‘intimidation.’ He was, however, elected for the Blackfriars division of Glasgow, and returning to parliament he reopened the campaign against his former colleagues and their Gladstonian allies (ib. ccciv. 1275), and voted against the second reading of Gladstone's home rule bill on 7 June 1886. He failed to obtain re-election at the general election that year and retired from parliament. In 1889 the firm of A. & S. Henry was turned into a limited liability company, of which Henry was chairman till 1893. His interest in Ireland declined and his pecuniary position was not maintained. Disposing of his Galway estate, he established himself at Leamington, where he died on 22 Nov. 1910. Henry married in 1850 Margaret, daughter of George Vaughan of Quilly House, Dromore, county Down, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. His wife predeceased him in 1874 and was buried in a mausoleum erected by him near Kylemore Castle.
A cartoon by ‘Spy’ appeared in ‘Vanity Fair’ (1879).
[Manchester Guardian, 24 Nov. 1910; The Times, 23 Nov. 1910; Annual Register, 1910, p. 144; Burke's Landed Gentry; Hansard's Parliamentary Debates; Lucy's Diary of Two Parliaments; Locker-Lampson's Consideration of the State of Ireland; O'Donnell's Hist. of Irish Parliamentary Party; information kindly supplied by Mr. Percy Robinson and Mr. C. W. Sutton.]