Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men

by Eliezer Edwards

In addition to these two important concerns, Mr. Geach was a partner in a large manufactory near Dudley. He was extensively engaged as a contractor for several railway companies. He was an active promoter and director of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, and of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railways. He was also one of the concessionnaires of the Western Railway of France; and to his wonderful administrative ability and power of organisation the success of that company is mainly due.

Although so closely connected with the railway interest, and although, as a proprietor in most of the leading railway companies, he was constantly called upon to attend meetings, his great energies found other spheres of action. He was a promoter, and one of the most active directors, of the Crystal Palace Company, at Sydenham; and he was a director of the Great Eastern Steam-ship Company.

Busy as his commercial life was, he found time to devote to duties of a more public character. In 1843 or 1844 he was elected one of the Aldermen of Birmingham. Here he was very active and useful. Up to his time, the finances of the Borough had been managed with little skill or system. His great financial knowledge, and his clear vision of the right and the wrong, in public book-keeping, enabled him to suggest, and to carry into operation, great improvements in the management of the Corporation accounts. In 1847 he was Mayor, and in that office won the goodwill of everyone by his suavity of manner and his untiring industry. Two or three years afterwards, the pressure of other duties compelled him to retire from municipal office.

It is needless to tell Birmingham men that in politics Mr. Geach was a Liberal. His public political life commenced at the time of the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws. During that exciting period he was the guiding spirit of the local Association, and transacted the whole of the business with the central body at Manchester. He was active in promoting the elections of his friends, Joshua and William Scholefield, with both of whom he was on terms of intimate friendship. His political creed was very wide and eminently practical. He had no abstract theories to which everything must bend. His eye saw at a glance the right thing to do, and he set to work energetically to do it, or to get it done.

In the year 1851 there was a vacancy in the representation of the city of Coventry, and Mr. Geach was solicited to stand as a candidate. I saw him on the platform of the old railway station, in Duddeston Row, on his way to the nomination. He was very reliant, and spoke of the certainty he felt that he should be successful. There was, however, no excitement, and no undue elevation at the prospect of the crowning honour of his life being so near his grasp. He was opposed by Mr. Hubbard, the eminent London financier, and by Mr. Strutt, who was afterwards created Lord Belper; but he was returned by a considerable majority, and at a subsequent election he was unopposed. He held the seat until his death.

In a very short time after his election, he began to take part in the debates. He was not a fluent speaker; indeed he was hesitating, and sometimes his sentences were much involved; but, as he never spoke except upon topics with which he was perfectly familiar, he was listened to with the respect and attention which are always, in the House of Commons, accorded to those who have "something to say." Upon financial topics he soon was looked upon as an authority, and there were many who looked upon him as a possible future Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Soon after his return to Parliament he became the host of the illustrious Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth. It was in Mr. Geach's carriage that the great exile rode triumphantly through the crowded streets of Birmingham, amid the plaudits of the entire population. Few who saw it can forget how Geach's face was lighted up with smiles of delight, as he sat beside Kossuth in his progress, with George Dawson on the box. Kossuth, albeit not unused to the applause and ovations of his grateful countrymen, said that he had never before received himself, or seen in the case of others, so magnificent and enthusiastic a reception.

In person, Mr. Geach was tall, and stoutly built. His height was, probably, two or three inches beyond six feet. He had a bright, clear, fair complexion, and an ample brow. His face would have been strikingly handsome but for an undue preponderance of the under jaw, which gave the lower part of the face too massive an appearance. He had singularly agreeable manners. His grasp of the hand was firm and cordial. He was entirely free from the "airs" which some self-made men put on. In his appearance there was evidence of power and influence that rendered any assumption superfluous. He was always ready to listen, and to give his friends the benefit of his large knowledge and experience. He was very generous, even to those who had in early life crossed his path. Only the other day I was told that one of his greatest opponents having died in straitened circumstances, Geach took charge of his sons, and placed them in positions to raise themselves to opulence. In private life he was greatly beloved. A lady, who had ample opportunities of forming a correct judgment, tells me that "as a husband and father his excellence could not be exceeded; and altogether he was the very best man I have ever known."

Soon after his retirement from the management of the Midland Bank, the shareholders and directors, to mark their sense of his services, and their esteem for him as a man, voted him a magnificent service of plate. A fine full-length portrait was about the same time placed in the board room of the bank. The painting is by Partridge, and is a very excellent characteristic likeness of Mr. Geach in the prime of his life.

In the autumn of 1854 he was somewhat enfeebled by the pressure of Parliamentary and commercial duties, and took a trip to Scotland to recruit his strength. Soon after his return to London, he was seized with an internal disorder, which reduced his strength very much. He was recovering from this attack, when a return of an old affection of one of his legs took place. From this time his ultimate recovery seemed doubtful. It was at one time contemplated to amputate the left foot, but in his prostrate condition this was considered unsafe and hopeless. He gradually became weaker, and on Wednesday, November 1st, 1854, he died, in his 46th year. He left a widow and four children to mourn his loss, and a larger circle than most men possess, of warmly-attached friends to honour and respect his memory.