opponents of the bill as his principal mainstay and encouragement in the work they had undertaken" Opposition to the Poor Law Commission Like Oastler, he opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834: he voted against its Third Reading (but he had been absent from all of the committee stage proceedings). Debating the Whig Poor Law Amendment Bill of 1841 (intended to extend the life of the Poor Law Commission for five years) he denounced the 1834 Act: "It was a measure which made poverty a crime; which incarcerated men who were guilty of no other crime but misery and distress, in gaols and dungeons; which cut asunder the dearest ties of human nature, fathers from their children, husbands from their wives; and it was a measure in his belief calculated more than any other to alienate the feelings of the people from the laws and institutions of their country, and upon these grounds he was determined to give it his strenuous and uncompromising opposition." In the subsequent committee stage of the bill he repeatedly voted for amendments returning powers from the Poor Law Commission to the local guardians- most notably he was teller for an amendment removing the supervisory powers of the commission: his one recorded vote against an amendment to the bill was against one making borrowing by guardians dependent on prior approval by a vestry meeting. Support for Richard Oastler His support of Oastler was not only political but personal. In 1838, he presented a petition from Huddersfield supporting the refusal of its magistrates to call out the military to suppress anti-Poor Law disturbances in which Oastler had been prominent. In 1840 he intervened in a Commons debate to obtain the retraction of a description of Oastler as an incendiary by a government minister. He visited Oastler in debtors' prison, and was a trustee of the Oastler Testimonial Fund (later the Oastler Liberation Fund), and prominent in raising the money to secure the release of Oastler (being one of the guarantors who met the shortfall in the money raised to satisfy Oastler's creditor). Career as MP In 1820 he stood with and was elected with Charles Tennyson Member of Parliament for the two-member borough constituency of Great Grimsby. Tennyson asserted his constituents had represented to him the need for both members for the seat to hold similar views; acceding to their wishes he had selected Duncombe as