Duckworth had been a reformer since his youth, driven by own impoverished beginnings and inspired by attending the speeches of the Radical politician John Bright. Bright's colleague Richard Cobden represented the town for six years, and Duckworth was present for Cobden's last speech, delivered in November 1864 in Robinson's warehouse in Rochdale. When the Liberal Party split over William Ewart Gladstone's Irish Home Rule Bill, Bright and many of the other Radicals joined the breakaway Liberal Unionists, but Duckworth broke with his mentor and supported Gladstone.
