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W.B.FERRAND: 'The Working Man's Friend'
~John Ward                                                                                                                                         Edited and with an Introduction by Norman Gash

A Victorian Squire Weston with a social conscience, W.B.Ferrand represented a strand of Tory activism which is often neglected, since those who write about such topics as factory exploitation prefer, in general, to find their heroes on the left rather than on the maverick right. Ferrand was a magnificent character, and John Ward sets him in his Yorkshire as well as his parliamentary context with extraordinary richness of detail, whether battling on the hustings, struggling with the poachers who attacked his gamekeepers, or taking on Bradford corporation as they busily poisoned the trout streams for miles around. 

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