Mr. Winfield could scarcely be called a public man. Early in life he served the office of High Bailiff, and was placed upon the Commission of the Peace. He did not, upon the incorporation of the town, seek municipal honours, and he rarely took part in political action. He was a very warmly-attached member of the Church of England, and in this connection was ardently Conservative; but, although nominally a Conservative, he was truly Liberal in all secular affairs. He was an earnest helper in the movement for the better education of the people, and their elevation in other respects. He certainly always took the Conservative side at election times, but he never attempted unduly to influence his _employés_. Indeed, on polling days it was his habit to throw open the gates of his manufactory, so that his men might have full liberty to go and record their votes as they pleased. Whenever he did appear on a public platform, it was to aid by his presence or his advocacy the cause of the Church to which he was so much devoted, or to assist in some charitable or scholastic effort.
As a magistrate, he was one of the most regular attendants at the Public Office. I have seen him there many times, and have frequently been struck with the thought that when he passed sentence, it never sounded like an expression of the revenge of society for a wrong that had been done, but seemed rather to resemble the sorrowing reproof of a father, hoping by stern discipline to restrain erring conduct in a disobedient child.
Very early in life he married Lucy, the only surviving child of Mr. John Fawkener, of Shrewsbury, and took up his residence in a large red brick house in New Street, which has only lately been pulled down. It stood nearly opposite the rooms of the Society of Artists. Its last occupant was Mr. Sharman, professor of music. About the year 1828, Mr. Winfield built a house in the Ladywood Road, which he named "The Hawthorns," and here he resided all his life. The neighbourhood was then entirely open, and from his house to his manufactory was a pleasant walk amid fields, through the noble avenue of elms that led to Ladywood House and Vincent Street bridge, and from thence by the bank of the canal to the Crescent. I often walked to town in his company, and admired with him the gorgeous apple blossoms of the trees in the valley now filled up by the railway. We stood together one day in 1846 or 1847, and saw the first barrowful of soil removed from the canal bank, near the Crescent bridge, to form the opening which is now the railway tunnel.