Sir John William Maclure was always a great figure at a banquet, both literally and physically as well as socially, and ready enough he was either to take a jest at his own expense in good part or to pink his adversary with an epigram. I remember one excellent score he made off myself. Maclure was the acknowledged impresario of the Tory party, and was rather proud of the fact. He used to deny with mock-modest emphasis that every appointment of recent years was made through his influence. “But very nearly so!” he added. It was at a grand jury dinner, where I sat next Sir Joseph Leese, the Recorder of Manchester, and in proposing Sir William Maclure’s health I taunted him with the discomfort he must feel on seeing Leese and myself present, and knowing that we were the only two jobs in Lancashire with which he had had nothing to do.
“Ah!” said the genial baronet as he finished his reply, “it is correct, and it is a sad truth, no doubt greatly regretted in Lancashire, that I had nothing to do with the appointment of the present Recorder or the present County Court Judge. I have the greatest respect for those two gentlemen, but I must correct his Honour in one particular. He referred, no doubt in jest, to the two appointments as two jobs. May I put him right? Sir Joseph Leese’s appointment was not a job.”
In his more expansive humour, Sir John William was quite Falstaffian in his addresses. I remember at a dinner given by a Society of Accountants to which he had come from London, he expatiated on the difficulties he had had in coming down at all. “I must tell you, gentlemen, that Mr. Balfour said to me, ‘Sir John, it is impossible to carry on the House if you leave us.’ ‘But, sir,’ I said, ‘I have to dine with the Manchester accountants.’ ‘Ah,’ said Mr. Balfour, ‘then I won’t keep you; but tell that excellent body from me how much I admire them.’ (Great cheering.) But that is not all, gentlemen. In Westminster Hall I met Lord Salisbury, and I had the greatest difficulty to get away from him. He wanted me to come down to Hatfield with him. I said, ‘What, my lord, and break my word to the Manchester accountants?’ ‘No,’ said Lord Salisbury, ‘of course you mustn’t, but I tell you what you must do; you must tell them from me that without accountancy the nation would be ruined.’ (More cheering.) But, gentlemen,
it did not end there, for at the railway station I found there was a special train just going to Sandringham. I was sent for, and the Prince of Wales was gracious enough to request me to come down and spend Sunday with him. ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘such a kind request is a command, but I have promised to be with the Manchester accountants to-night.’ ‘Not another word, Maclure,’ said the Prince. ‘Keep your appointment, and tell the Manchester accountants that in my view they are the backbone of the nation.’” (Long and continued cheering.)
Later in the evening a speaker of no particular account, who spoke in a diffident, somewhat halting way, said he did not move in the select circles that Sir John William Maclure did, “but,” he continued, “I happen to know on the highest authority the regard in which he is held by the greatest in the land. I was strolling in the gardens in Windsor the other day, and a Scots servant in a kilt came up and asked me if I came from Manchester. I said I did. ‘And do you know Sir John William Maclure?’ ‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘Come with me then,’ he said, and he led me into a beautiful drawing-room in the Palace, in which I found I was in the presence of Royalty itself. After a courteous greeting I was asked what I knew about Sir John William Maclure. I drew a noble picture of all the virtues and attainments which endear him to Manchester men. When I had finished, the gracious lady said, with a sigh of relief: ‘You have taken a great load
off my mind, for I was not at all sure that he was a good companion for Albert Edward.’”
Fair play for Maclure, he enjoyed the chaff as much as anyone. And that was one of the happy traits of after-dinner in Manchester—everyone was there, like a schoolboy, to make fun or take fun in good part. And, perhaps, the most admirable feature of the whole thing was that even if there were reporters present, they were always clever enough to pick out the sense of the speeches, and leave the wilder flights of humour to the pleasures of memory.
Alas, John William’s jovial face smiles at us no longer, and too many of the good fellows who were guests at the board are shadows of memory. But fond as I was of the older days, and loyal as I am to the memory of the older men, I am not going to praise yesterday at the expense of to-day. I think the same right spirit of enjoyment still holds good, and I hope it will always be true to say that no one will find himself in touch with Manchester who cannot thoroughly enter into that “joyous folly that unbends the mind,” which is Manchester’s habit after dinner.