Jabez Balfour
Jabez Spencer Balfour (
4 September 1843 -
23 February 1916) was a businessman, British politician and criminal. He was brought back from
Salta,
Argentina after his swindling of the Liberator Building Society was discovered and tried at the
Old Bailey.
Balfour came from relatively humble beginnings - his father was a clerk, his mother a preacher of temperance. His family were non-conformist in their religion and radically liberal in their politics.
In 1880, Balfour became
Liberal Member of Parliament for
Tamworth, serving until 1885, winning in a "Drink versus Temperance" campaign against "Mr Worthington", the famous local brewer. Tamworth returned two MPs the second being the brewer "Mr Bass". The seat disappeared in a reorganisation of constituencies at the next election. (McKie 39-47)
In the meantime, Balfour's home town of
Croydon,
Surrey, was made a
county borough and the council invited Balfour to become its first Mayor in 1883, a great honour. Balfour lived in
Broad Green, Croydon and presented himself as the growing town's philanthropic father figure, once he had made his riches. His house was always open to his worshipping townsfolk.
In 1885 it was natural that he ran for Parliament for the
Croydon seat. But he was unsuccessful in his attempt, losing to
Conservative William Grantham by almost a thousand votes.
He was re-elected to Parliament in 1889, this time for
Burnley, where he became identified with progressive causes like the reform of the Factory Acts, the extension of the suffrage, and
Home Rule for
Ireland. As a generous contributor to party funds, Balfour established a prominent position in the party and was tipped for promotion to the cabinet. In Burnley he became a major patron of many local organisations, among them its ambitious
football club. Some local Liberals described him after his fall and disgrace as "the most popular member Burnley ever had".
However, he was loathed by Conservatives, who made fun of his support for temperance - his red cheeks and round body betrayed his love of a drink. After Balfour's disgrace 30 year old clarets and twenty different bands of champagne were removed by the police from his country house Burcot (McKie 65). The house was knocked down in the 1950s.
Balfour resigned his seat by applying for the Chiltern Hundreds in November 1892. He fled the country the following month.
Balfour was the moving spirit in the Liberator Building Society, which he founded in 1872. The Liberator's founding aim was to free working men and women from the weekly burden of the rent book and help them to buy their own homes, founded on values of temperance and self-help. Although rooted in non-conformist culture, Balfour's building society soon shook itself free from any do-gooding associations. By the time he was 40, the Liberator was one of the country's biggest financial institutions and J Spencer Balfour one of its most prosperous men. There was nothing remotely abstemious about the way he lived now: his houses were showy, his cellars filled with champagne and he wore the finest suits.
By 1889, however, it was clear that things were not as they seemed. A downswing in the economy put pressure on profits and made people look harder at the internal workings of the institutions in which they had lodged their savings. Balfour's empire - which now included construction companies and a bank - was revealed to be worthless. At the end of each year Balfour decided how much money he and his cronies needed, and the company's turnover was inflated on paper to supply the justification for massive pay-outs.
The final collapse of the Liberator in 1892 led to many sorry tales of destitute savers. Elderly ladies died at the shock of discovering that they were ruined; working men killed themselves with the burden of knowing that they had dragged their families into the gutter. The
workhouse now threatened even those who had considered themselves comfortably off. Balfour became the most notorious man in the land, effigies of him burnt on bonfire night.
Balfour escaped to
Argentina, which had not yet ratified an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom agreed three years earlier. He was living in some style in
Lomas de Zamora in Argentina's capital,
Buenos Aires. The city had important links with Britain and Balfour had to make arrangements to avoid abduction to
Uruguay. In 1893, when the British Consulate posted his photo and description, he fled to remote
Salta in the North East. He settled into Salta life, posting reports back to England that were published in the newspapers.
Britain worked hard to agree an extradition treaty with Argentina and ratified it through the UK Parliament in July 1893. Argentina took another six months, at which point an extradition warrant for Balfour was sought. In January 1894, the British minister in Argentina arrested Balfour in the street, but his extradition was delayed by legal wranglings and Balfour's local popularity, perhaps based on the belief that he had brought large sums of money to the country.
A change of government in Argentina hastened an end to Balfour's attempts to avoid extradition and he finally left
Buenos Aires by ship in April 1895.
In October 1895, Balfour was tried at the Old Bailey and was sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment. Balfour served ten years of his sentence and was released in 1906. He embarked upon a new career as a journalist, writing a series of prison memoirs that fronted the
Weekly Dispatch for 26 consecutive weeks. Later, he became a mining engineer; at the age of 71, Balfour took a post in
Burma, but was ordered back to London on the grounds that he would not survive in such heat. He returned to a bitter winter, which probably killed him. He died in February 1916 of a heart attack on a train taking him to south
Wales to begin a new job at
Morriston Colliery.
Balfour was survied by his son James Balfour (b1868), who had stood by his father after his fall from grace and was waiting outside the prison gates in April 1906 when Balfour was released. Clara (b1867) emigrated to Canada before her father's release from prison (McKie 250). Balfour married in 1866 Eleen Mead. Eleen's mental health problems resulted in her being institutionalised in 1880. She remained in an institution for the rest of her life.
Jabez: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Scoundrel by
David McKie (Atlantic Books, 2004) ISBN 1843541300
*
Portrait of Balfour in the
National Portrait Gallery, London.
