Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 1 (of 2)

CHAPTER XXIX

PERSONAL

In our house the year 1870, which was to bring death and sorrow to so many homes, and rage and despair to so many hearts, opened cheerlessly indeed. The outlook for my father was dark and gloomy in the extreme. Overweighted with debt, he seemed to be sinking ever deeper and deeper in financial difficulties. The prosecution of the National Reformer, the De Rin and the Razor litigation, had each and all left him more or less deeply involved. The great panic of 1866 had dealt him a serious blow from which he vainly attempted to recover; the identification of "C. Bradlaugh, of 23 Great St. Helen's," with "Bradlaugh, the Atheist lecturer," was fatal to business. The spirit of the boycott existed long before Captain Boycott lived to give it his name. People were much too good to do business with an Atheist, and just as the baker's wife took her custom from the boy coal merchant in 1848, so customers of a different class took their business from the City merchant twenty years later.

My father began to despair of making his business succeed under these conditions, and to think seriously of giving up his City life, and of devoting himself to public work. This course would relieve him from the anxieties of two clashing occupations; moreover, as he said, "while prejudice and clamour bring ruin to me as a business man, they can do me no injury as a lecturer and a journalist."128

In addition to all these difficulties – the outcome of his public work – there were others, less serious in some respects, it is true, but far more so in the discredit attaching to them and the anguish they caused. I refer to those home extravagances and home debts, due to my mother's infirmity, which all helped to pile up the total liabilities to unmanageable figures. In March or April a man was put into possession at Sunderland Villa, and remained there for several weeks. My father felt this bitterly, but his course of conduct was now clear before him, and unhesitatingly decided upon; thus once more we see the pressure of money difficulties directly shaping his path. A few personal words in the National Reformer129 indicated his resolve: "After five years' severe struggle," he wrote, "so severe, indeed, as to repeatedly endanger my health, I find it is utterly impossible to remain in business in the City in the face of the strong prejudice excited against me on political and religious grounds. I have determined to entirely give up all business, and devote myself to the movement. I have, therefore, taken steps to reduce the personal expenditure of myself and family to the lowest possible point, in order that I may set myself free from liability as early as I can, and I shall be glad now to arrange for week-night lectures in any part of Great Britain."

Hence, when these people, moved by their "political and religious" prejudices, drove Mr Bradlaugh from the City, and prevented him from making a livelihood in the ordinary way of business, they were unconsciously forging a weapon against themselves. Instead of giving a small portion of his time to writing and speaking against Theology, and on behalf of Radicalism and Republicanism, my father henceforth devoted the whole of his life to that work.

In accordance with his determination to reduce his personal expenditure to the lowest point, in the middle of May – before his words could have been read by those to whom they were addressed – my mother, my sister, and myself went to Midhurst, to find a home in my grandfather's little cottage, and my father set aside a modest sum weekly for our board and clothing. My brother remained with Mr John Grant of the Grenadier Guards for tuition, and Mr Bradlaugh himself took two tiny rooms at 3s. 6d. a week, at 29 Turner Street, Commercial Road, in the house of a widow who had been known to our family from her early girlhood. The size and style of these rooms may be guessed from the neighbourhood in which they were situated, and from the weekly rental asked for them. Within a few days or so from our leaving London, our household effects at Sunderland Villa were sold, my father retaining a few of the least saleable articles of furniture to supply what was necessary for his two rooms.

Instead of taking the most comfortable bedstead, he took the one which had been used by us little girls, and this was the bed upon which he slept until a year before his death, when I removed it without his knowledge during his absence in India, and put a more comfortable one in its place. Our nursery washstand, a chest of drawers, a writing-table, and half-a-dozen chairs comprised all the furniture he thought necessary for his use. My mother was not allowed to take anything whatever with her beyond our wearing apparel and a few trifles of small actual worth, but which she specially valued. My father's books, of course, he took with him, these, and one other thing which I had almost forgotten. The bedroom and sitting-room at Turner Street communicated, and the walls of both were covered with shelves, except just over the bed-head, which was reserved for the one other treasure brought from home. This was a large canvas painted in oils for Mr Bradlaugh by an artist friend, Emile Girardot. The subject was very simple, being nothing more than a tired hurdy-gurdy boy sleeping in a doorway, with a monkey anxiously watching. Whatever the intrinsic value of the picture might be, to my father it was above all price. He had quite a love for it, and often spoke of it – even in his last illness he talked of it, and wondered where it was, and longed for it, for by that time it had gone out of his hands.

So by the end of May we were all adrift and separated – my father in his small book-lined rooms in the east end of London; my brother Charlie with the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, wherever it happened to be; my mother, sister, and self vegetating in a Sussex hamlet. But bad as all this was, 1870 held still worse things in store for us. In June my brother was taken ill with a mild attack of scarlatina, of which we knew nothing until he came home to us for his holidays on the 20th of the month. Due precautions had been neglected, and almost immediately after he reached us kidney disease began to manifest itself. From this he died on the 15th July, and he was buried exactly a month from the day on which he came home. The shock of his death was terrible to all of us, and not least so to my father. Although barely eleven years old at his death, Charlie was a lad full of promise, quick to learn and to comprehend, amiable, honourable, and generous; and of these traits I can recall many little instances. I have a photograph of him taken at the age of seven or eight, and as I look at it I see his eyes gaze out from under his square brow with a wonderfully clear and fearless look.

He was buried on the 20th day of July in Cocking Churchyard, my grandfather's cottage at Cocking Causeway (Midhurst) being in the parish of Cocking. Of course, we had to submit to the Church of England service, for it was before the Burials Act was passed, but the Rev. Drummond Ash was a kindly, courteous gentleman, and he made things as easy as the circumstances would allow. The burial would have taken place at the Brookwood Necropolis had my father been able to afford the expense. As he was not, Charlie was laid perforce in consecrated ground at the foot of the South Down Hills with Christian rites and ceremonies.

The Rev. Theophilus Bennett, a later Rector of Cocking, has stated that his predecessor, Mr Ash, "attended" my brother "in his dying moments." This statement is entirely without foundation; I am not aware that Mr Ash ever saw or spoke with my brother at all, and certainly the only persons present when the boy was dying were my grandmother, my mother, our nurse Kate (who remained with us at her own wish to help nurse him in his illness), my sister, and myself; moreover, Mr Ash was at that time reported to be himself ill and away from home, having left word that if "the little boy at the Causeway should die," all facilities for his funeral were to be given, or some such message.

The telegram bearing the totally unexpected summons to my father to hasten to see his son for the last time was handed to him on the platform at Bury just as he was about to deliver a lecture. I have been told that when he read the words he turned deathly pale, but with that self-control which never failed him in adversity, he rose, and with the least perceptible hesitation, commenced and went through with his lecture. On Tuesday night he received his summons; on Wednesday he was with us, though only to leave again by the early train on Thursday morning. On Friday the boy died, and on that same day and the next my father had to be in the law-courts as witness in a case relating to the Naples Colour Company.130 His grief for the loss of his son was intense, but he shut it up in his heart, and rarely afterwards mentioned the name of his boy, of whom he had been so proud.

CHAPTER XXX

LECTURES – 1870-1871

The early part of the seventies was a period of much Freethought and Republican activity in England; everywhere in the Freethought ranks there was movement and life. In spite of the persistent refusal of Messrs W. H. Smith & Son to sell the National Reformer, its circulation was largely increasing, and in 1870 it was read in the four quarters of the globe. In England all sorts of devices were resorted to damage the sale; country news-agents refused, like Messrs Smith & Son, to sell it, or said they were unable to obtain it, or quietly returned it "out of print"; contents bills were no sooner posted in some towns than they were torn down, and on occasion the police employed themselves, or were employed, in this work. At Scarborough131 evidence was obtained against Police Constable Charlton, and legal proceedings were commenced. At the last moment, however, the sum of 2s. was paid into Court, together with costs proportionate to the summons, and Mr Bradlaugh, overwhelmed with other work and worries, contented himself with this acknowledgment of the wrongdoing and did not pursue the matter further.

The high pressure at which my father had been living had so undermined his health that for a long time he was a martyr to acute neuralgia; still, notwithstanding this, in the early part of the year he was lecturing once or twice a week, and as soon as he was able to extricate himself from the City his lecture list grew tremendously. In the month of July alone – a month which, as we have seen, brought its own peculiar burdens – he gave as many as twenty-six lectures. I find it noted that during this last half-year he delivered as many as one hundred and seventy lectures, in forty-nine of which the proceeds were insufficient to cover his railway expenses, and in the case of twenty more, although his railway was covered, there was not enough to clear his hotel bill.

Except in one or two very special cases132 Mr Bradlaugh never took a fee for his lectures. He took whatever surplus remained from the admission money, after paying all expenses of the meeting. He made this arrangement originally so that no town or village might be hindered from promoting lectures on account of the expense. "Large and small places," he said, "will be visited indifferently." A charge for admission was always made at his lectures, usually a small one, varying from twopence or threepence to a shilling. He objected very strongly to "free" lectures and collections. Of course he now, as ever, very often gave away the proceeds of his lectures. His audiences were frequently very large, especially in places where he was known. He happened to make a note of the numbers who came to hear him on the Sundays in January 1871, and he records that on the Sunday evenings alone he had audiences whose total numbers reached six thousand, and at three morning lectures there was a total of two thousand five hundred.

Halls were often refused to him, although not quite so frequently as in former years. In 1870 the Stratford Town Hall was refused by the West Ham Local Board, and for many years he had great difficulty in obtaining a hall in Stratford. The St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, was refused to him by the Mayor of Coventry for a lecture on "The Land and the People," and the Mirfield Town Hall after it had been duly engaged for two political lectures was closed against him by the proprietors.133 An exactly similar case occurred at Glossop a year and a half later. The Town Hall was taken for a political lecture, and at almost the last moment, after the lapse of several weeks, the Council instructed that the money paid for the hire should be returned. The effect of this was to produce a much greater and more widespread excitement and discussion than half a dozen lectures would have done.

It was in 1870 that Mr Bradlaugh began that close scrutiny of the history of our reigning family which resulted in the publication of his "Impeachment of the House of Brunswick," a little book which created some considerable stir both when it was first published in 1871,134 and when an edition partly revised by Mr Bradlaugh was brought out after his death. The "Impeachment" has been widely read both here and in America, where it was reprinted. Besides writing upon the Brunswick family, Mr Bradlaugh used to take the history of one or more of the members of it as a subject for his lecture, and taught many a good Republican lesson whilst discoursing upon the exceptional virtues of "George, Prince of Wales," or "the four Georges." A friend has told me an amusing story concerning one of these lectures. My father had promised to speak one Saturday evening at Sowerby Bridge on "George, Prince of Wales." By some curious blunder the friends who were making the arrangements placarded the town with the subject announced as "Albert Edward, Prince of Wales." The effect of this was to cause a large number of police to be drafted into the town, and a Government shorthand reporter was sent down from London, travelling by the same train as my father. The hall was, of course, crowded, but whether the audience were disappointed when my father explained the mistake in the subject of the lecture, my informant did not say. In any case I expect that the officials who had been so busy in preparing for treason and riot, and found only history and order, felt that the proceedings had turned out rather flat. At Stourbridge, where Mr Bradlaugh was invited135 by some "gentlemen of Republican tendencies" to discourse upon the "House of Brunswick," Lord Lyttleton, as Lord Lieutenant of the county, tried to induce the Stourbridge Town Commissioners to withdraw from their agreement to let the Corn Exchange for the lectures, but his efforts were in vain. His Lordship seems to have been a little angry, and it was even rumoured that he went so far as to tell the magistrates that he would have Mr Bradlaugh arrested for treason. He succeeded in raising such a scare that a large extra body of police were drafted into the town under the order of the Chief Constable of the county. There were two lectures, and Colonel Carmichael, the Chief Constable, was present at both, but, as I gather from the printed reports, the meetings were large, the audiences delighted, and of both the end "was peace."

In the summer of 1871 Mr Bradlaugh went one Monday evening to Newton Abbot to address a meeting in the New Vegetable Market, used then for a public gathering for the first time. The subject on which he was to speak was "The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle." Very few of the tradesmen in the town would consent to expose bills of the lecture, and several who did display them at first took them from their windows at the advice of the "respectable and pious," and in the end only two showed the announcements. Two gentlemen who were present at the meeting – one as a reporter for the local paper, the other, one of the five Radicals who invited Mr Bradlaugh to Newton – have given a vivid account of a little incident which enlivened the evening's proceedings. It appears that in 1871 a certain Mr John George Stuart was the High Bailiff of the town. "This gentleman," I am told, "was a Methodist, and had at that time two sons who were studying for the ministry. He was also a distinguished boxer, and he had the reputation of being the most formidable wielder of the gloves in England." Mr Stuart, supported by two friends, "attended the meeting with the avowed intention of obstructing Mr Bradlaugh. As soon as Mr Bradlaugh began to speak, Mr Stuart commenced to disturb the meeting. Mr Bradlaugh repeatedly requested him to reserve his criticisms until the close of the lecture, when an opportunity would be offered him of speaking from the platform. But Mr Stuart continued to shout his opinions upon Mr Bradlaugh's Atheism, although the lecture was on a purely political question. At last Mr Bradlaugh said that unless the interruptions ceased, he should be compelled to act as his own chairman, and to request Mr Stuart to leave the building. As Mr Stuart and his friends would not desist from shouting, Mr Bradlaugh stepped from the platform, walked up to the athlete, and carried him to the door with ease. At the doorway Mr Stuart spread his arms and held the jambs, but Mr White, who was acting as doorkeeper pushed one of his hands aside, and Mr Bradlaugh set the disturber down in the street. None of Mr Stuart's friends offered the least resistance, and the crowd, which was made up of hostile as well as friendly hearers, loudly cheered Mr Bradlaugh's unceremonious ejectment of the local hero of the 'noble art.'" The friends to whom I am indebted for the foregoing say further that Mr Stuart's pride was brought very low by this episode, and that he rarely appeared afterwards among the former admirers of his prowess.