but did not attend, and finished in a poor third place. James served as High Sheriff of Cumberland in 1826–27. He did not contest the two Carlisle by-elections in the 1820s, nor the 1831 general election, but he was re-elected for Carlisle in 1831 with the support of campaigners for parliamentary reform. He retreated from his earlier support for universal suffrage, and under pressure from Carlisle he backed the more modest electoral reforms proposed in the bill which became the Reform Act 1832. He was returned at the 1832 general election, and in July 1833, during the committee stage of the Abolition of Slavery Bill, he told the Irish nationalist leader Daniel O'Connell that: "in spite of slavery, the slaves in the West Indies were better off than the labourers of this country. If the peasants of Ireland were as well off as the negroes of the West Indies, the hon. and learned member for Dublin might indeed give up his agitation, for it would be useless." At the 1835 general election, James stood down in Carlisle. In 1836, he was elected unopposed in a by-election for East Cumberland. He was returned again in contested elections in 1837 and 1841, but stood down at the 1847 general election when he decided that a contest would be too expensive. Personal life In 1815, James bought Barrock Lodge near Carlisle in Cumberland, a former country estate of the 3rd Duke of Portland. In 1816, he married Frances "Fanny" Rutson, the daughter of William Calton Rutson of Allerton Lodge, a Liverpool cotton broker. They had ten sons and three daughters, but seven of the thirteen children died before their parents. James died at Barrock Lodge on 4 May 1861. Fanny had died ten months earlier, on 6 July 1860. He was succeeded in Barrock Lodge by his eldest son, William Edward James, also High Sheriff of Cumberland. See also John Ashton Yates References External links 1791 births 1861 deaths Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Cumbria MPs UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1831–1832 UK MPs 1832–1835 UK MPs 1835–1837 UK MPs 1837–1841 UK MPs 1841–1847 High Sheriffs of Cumberland British slave owners People educated at Eton College Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People from the City of Carlisle Politicians from Liverpool