Charles Bradlaugh

CHAPTER XIII.

THE "NATIONAL REFORMER" 119

The National Reformer Company--The coming of Joseph Barker--Turkish baths and Secularism--The difficulties of a dual editorship--A house divided--Sole editor--G. J. Holyoake as chief contributor--More difficulties--Arbitration--Messrs Smith and Son's boycott--John Watts as editor--My father resumes--The Saturday Review--"B. V." replies--The Rev. Charles Voysey: 1868 and 1880.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE "NATIONAL REFORMER" AND THE GOVERNMENT PROSECUTIONS 137

Prosecution of National Reformer by Mr Disraeli's Government--"Published in defiance of Her Majesty's Government"--The Act of James I.--Collapse of the prosecution--The Press--The Rev. J. Page Hopps--Prosecution of National Reformer by Mr Gladstone's Government--Abandonment of the prosecution--John Stuart Mill--Repeal of the odious Security laws--The Postmaster-General and the National Reformer.

CHAPTER XV.

ITALY 152

Earning money for Garibaldi--Mazzini--An eloquent passport--Police espionage--Carrying despatches--An American sees "fair play"--The police and the Life Assurance Companies.

CHAPTER XVI.

PLATFORM WORK, 1860-1861 158

Debate with the Rev. B. Grant at Bradford--Dr Brindley--Pursuing Mr Bradlaugh to New York--Debates with Dr Baylee and others--"Extended propaganda"--The Wigan Examiner--Mr Hutchings--Dispensing "justice" to the Atheist--More debates--Norwich and Yarmouth--The Yarmouth Magistrates.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DEVONPORT CASE, 1861 175

The speech in Devonport Park--Opening a fortnight's campaign--Arrest-- Imprisonment--The Guildhall--A marine adventure--The case against Superintendent Edwards--Mr Robert Collier, Q.C., M.P.--Mr Montagu Smith, Q.C.--An unjust judge--The Court of Common Pleas--Lord Chief Justice Erle--Mr Justice Keating--The Court of Appeal.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"KILL THE INFIDEL" 189

Religious liberty at Guernsey--Challenging the island authorities --Bill-posting extraordinary--"Kill the Infidel"--An infuriated crowd and a shrewd landlady--The courageous Harbour Master--"An act of natural justice."

CHAPTER XIX.

PROVINCIAL ADVENTURES, 1860-1863 194

Altrincham--Shaw--Sunderland--Rochdale--The Bellman of Leigh--Warrington Journalism--Dumfries--Burnley--Chesterfield--Counter attractions at Worksop--At Boardman's Edge, discussion precedes the lecture--The Dewsbury poster--Leeds--A dream of Voltaire.

CHAPTER XX.

A FREEMASON 203

The Philadelphs--The Grand Lodge of England--The Prince of Wales as Grand Master--"To the oppressed of all Nations"--Joshua B. Smith as Junior Warden to the Adelphi Lodge--"Ill winds" that blow good to a Masonic charity.

CHAPTER XXI.

DEBATES, 1860-1866 207

The Rev. W. Barker--Thomas Cooper--A frank avowal--The Rev. Woodville Woodman again--Mr Porteous--A one-sided debate--Mr Porteous again.

CHAPTER XXII.

"THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY; TO DO GOOD IS MY RELIGION" 214

Sympathy with Garibaldi--Irish Catholic Opposition--An attempt to stab Mr Bradlaugh--Lancashire distress--"Viva la Polonia"--Death of B. B. Jones--Sheffield inundation--Help for the needy--A Hall of Science Company.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE REFORM LEAGUE, 1866-1868 220

The National Reform League--Primrose Hill--Trafalgar Square--Sir Richard Mayne's prohibition--The Derby Cabinet--Hyde Park--Another prohibition--Fall of the Hyde Park railings--Agricultural Hall--Bristol--Attacks upon Mr Bradlaugh--Northampton--Luton--Matthew Arnold casts his stone--On horseback at Trafalgar Square--Agricultural Hall again--The Saturday Review and its followers--Hyde Park again--The Government "admonition" served and withdrawn--Mr Bradlaugh's resignation--Its result.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PROVINCIAL LECTURING, 1866-1869 238

The Mayor of Liverpool--David King--Huddersfield: Arrest; Release; Before the Magistrates--The Rev. J. M'Cann--Huddersfield again--The Murphy riots at Manchester--The New Hall of Science--Blyth and Mr Thomas Burt--The "infidel" on Portsea Common--The people who loved my father--A liberal priest.

CHAPTER XXV.

IRELAND 252

English Misgovernment--The Fenian Brotherhood--Colonel Kelly and General Cluseret--The Irish proclamation of 1867--The Manchester rescue--The death sentence--The Clerkenwell explosion--Pamphlet on "the Irish Question"--A Quakers' discussion society--Lectures on behalf of Ireland--A visit to Dublin.

CHAPTER XXVI.

NORTHAMPTON, 1868 263

Mr Bradlaugh's determination to seek a seat in Parliament--The choice of Northampton--First election address--Scorn of the Whigs--Enthusiasm of the people--The election colours--John Stuart Mill--The Daily Telegraph--The Irish Reform League--John Bright--W. E. Gladstone--Mr Charles Gilpin and Lord Henley--The press--Dr Lees--Canvassing--The Lord's Day Rest Association--Mr Giffard, Q.C.--Mr Charles Capper, M.P.--Anti-Compulsory Vaccination--The nomination day--The poll--Tributes from the Mayor and from Mr Gilpin--Ministers who rejoiced.

CHAPTER XXVII.

SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 1869 280

Mr Bradlaugh and Mr Odger.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LITIGATION, 1867-1871 282

English Joint Stock Bank (Limited) and Charles Bradlaugh--Bradlaugh v. De Rin--The Oath question in different Courts-Confusion of the law of evidence--A costly victory--The Evidence Amendment Act, 1870--The Razor libel case--Mr O'Malley, Q.C.--"Outlaw or Citizen: Which am I?"--Action against the Mirfield Town Hall Company--Mr Digby Seymour, Q.C.--Mr Justice Willes.

CHAPTER XXIX.

PERSONAL 299

Financial difficulties--Mr Bradlaugh gives up business in the City and devotes himself to public work--Our home sold up--A scattered family--My brother's illness and death--His burial--The Rev. Drummond Ash--The Rev. Theophilus Bennett--My father's grief.

CHAPTER XXX.

LECTURES, 1870-1871 304

Freethought and Republican activity--A full lecture list--The "Impeachment of the House of Brunswick"--A misleading announcement--Stourbridge and Lord Lyttleton--The High Bailiff of Newton Abbot--The Sowerby Bridge champion wrestler--Dr Magee at Norwich Cathedral--Mr Disraeli and the Queen--Mr Gladstone's "Questionable Book."

CHAPTER XXXI.

FRANCE--THE WAR 312

Mr Bradlaugh's position--Republican France--Madame de Brimont--"France and Peace"--St James's Hall--Thanks of the Republican Government--Pleading for the recognition of the Republic by the English Government--The conference of European powers--M. C. Tissot.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE COMMUNE, AND AFTER 322

Communist friends--An effort for peace--Arrested at Calais--Expelled from France--A second arrest--Allowed to proceed to Paris--A lecture for French refugees--Prince Jérome Napoléon--Emile de Girardin--Emanuel Arago--Léon Gambetta--Yves Guyot--A Marxist attack.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A DOZEN DEBATES 332

George Jacob Holyoake and Secularism--Alexander Robertson and the Existence of Deity--The Rev. A. J. Harrison--Father Ignatius--Mr Burns and Spiritualism.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

FAMILY AFFAIRS 346

Father and children--School in Paris--W. R. Bradlaugh.

CHAPTER XXXV.

REPUBLICANISM AND SPAIN 352

English Republicans--Conference at Birmingham--Mr Bradlaugh carries English congratulations to the Spanish Republicans in 1873--Adventures between Irun and Madrid.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

MADRID AND AFTER 364

To Lisbon and back--Senor Castelar--Enthusiasm of the Madrid Republicans--The return journey--Reported death.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

GREAT GATHERINGS 372

The Parks Regulation Bill (1872)--Agricultural labourers at Exeter Hall--Miners' meetings in Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire--Agricultural labourers at Yeovil.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA 380

The "London Correspondents'" puff extraordinary--Welcomed on arrival in New York--The Lotos Club--O'Donovan Rossa--Financial panic--At Steinway Hall--Stephen Pearl Andrews and Mrs Victoria Woodhull: a contrast--Wendell Phillips--Charles Sumner--William Lloyd Garrison--Henry Wilson--Joshua B. Smith--An accident at Kansas City--Carlile's daughters at Chicago--Ralph Waldo Emerson--Julia Ward Howe--Dissolution of Parliament--Return to England.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

TWO NORTHAMPTON ELECTIONS, 1874 392

The first General Election under the Ballot Act--Northampton and its absent candidate--Reception on his return--Charles Gilpin's recommendation: his death--The bye-election--Mr William Fowler--The bitterness of the contest--Departure for the United States on the night of the poll--Rioting at Northampton --Hostile camps--Better counsels prevail.

CHARLES BRADLAUGH.

CHAPTER I.. Parentage and Childhood.

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD.

Although there has often been desultory talk among us concerning the origin of the Bradlaugh family, there has never been any effort made to trace it out. The name is an uncommon one: as far as I am aware, ours is the only family that bears it, and when the name comes before the public ours is the pride or the shame--for, unfortunately, there are black sheep in every flock. I have heard a gentleman (an Irishman) assure Mr Bradlaugh that he was of Irish origin, for was not the Irish "lough" close akin to the termination "laugh"? Others have said he was of Scotch extraction, and others again that he must go to the red-haired Dane to look for his forbears. My father would only laugh lazily--he took no vivid interest in his particular ancestors of a few centuries ago--and reply that he could not go farther back than his grandfather, who came from Suffolk; in his boyhood he had heard that there were some highly respectable relations at Wickham Market, in Suffolk. But so little did the matter trouble him that he never verified it, though, if it were true, it would rather point to the Danish origin, for parts of Suffolk were undoubtedly colonized by the Danes in the ninth century, and a little fact which came to our knowledge a few years ago shows that the name Bradlaugh is no new one in that province.

Kelsall and Laxfield, where there were Bradlaughs in the beginning of the 17th century; Wickham Market and Brandeston, whence Mr Bradlaugh's grandfather came at the beginning of the 19th, and where there are Bradlaughs at the present day, are all within a narrow radius of a few miles. The name Bradlaugh commenced to be corrupted into Bradley prior to 1628, as may be seen from a stone in Laxfield Church, and has also been so corrupted by a branch of the family within our own knowledge. The name has also, I know, been spelled "Bradlough."

James Bradlaugh, who came from Brandeston about the year 1807, was a gunsmith, and settled for a time in Bride Lane, Fleet Street, where his son Charles, his fourth and last child, was born in February 1811. He himself died in October of the same year, at the early age of thirty-one.

Charles Bradlaugh (the elder) was in due course apprenticed to a law stationer, and consequently this became his nominal profession; in reality, he was confidential clerk to a firm of solicitors, Messrs Lepard & Co. The apprentice was, on the occasion of some great trial, lent to Messrs Lepard, and the mutual satisfaction seems to have been so great that it was arranged that he should remain with them, compensation being paid for the cancelling of his indentures. I have beside me at the moment a letter, yellow and faded, dated July 30th, 1831, inquiring of "---- Batchelour, Esq.," concerning the character of "a young man of the name of Bradlaugh," with the answer copied on the back, in which the writer begs "leave to state that I have a high opinion of him both as regards his moral character and industrious habits, and that he is worthy of any confidence you may think proper to place in him."

Charles Bradlaugh stayed with these solicitors until his death in 1852, when the firm testified their appreciation of his services by putting an obituary notice in the Times, stating that he had been "for upwards of twenty years the faithful and confidential clerk of Messrs Lepard & Co., of 6 Cloak Lane." He married a nursemaid named Elizabeth Trimby, and on September 26th, 1833, was born their first child, who was named Charles after his father. He was born in a small house in Bacchus Walk, Hoxton. The houses in Bacchus Walk are small four-roomed tenements; I am told that they have been altered and improved since 1833, but I do not think the improvement can have been great, for the little street has a desperate air of squalor and poverty; and when I went there the other day, Number 5, where my father was born, could not be held to be in any way conspicuous in respect of superior cleanliness. But in such a street cleanliness would seem to be almost an impossibility. From Bacchus Walk the family went to Birdcage Walk, where I have heard there was a large garden in which my grandfather assiduously cultivated dahlias, for he seems to have been passionately fond of flowers. Soon the encroaching tide of population caused their garden to be taken for building purposes, and they removed to Elizabeth Street, and again finally to 13 Warner Place South, a little house nominally of seven rooms, then rented at seven shillings per week.

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