John Robertson - Charles Bradlaugh - a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2)

At Selhurst, in June 1885.

"National Life and Character," by C. H. Pearson.

Stroud News , May 28.

Mrs Bradlaugh died in April 1871.

Tried 25th April 1876 at Nisi Prius, before Mr Justice Field and a special jury.

Belfast Times , April 8, 1872.

Saturday Review , September 14, 1872.

At his death in 1879 Mr William Thomson of Montrose left £1000 to Mr Bradlaugh as President of the National Secular Society, which sum he was at liberty to invest in the Freethought Publishing Company, on condition that he paid the Society £5 a month while it lasted. This he did regularly from 1879 until February 1890, when the Society generously released him from the remainder.

See Speeches by Charles Bradlaugh.

In the case against Foote and Ramsey the jury disagreed. The prosecution then entered a nolle prosequi .

Mr Bradlaugh applied for a summons against Inspector Denning, but this application was refused.

These proceedings – except the libel case, which has been already noticed – will be found fully dealt with by Mr J. M. Robertson in Part II., in his account of Mr Bradlaugh's Parliamentary struggle.

This attack upon Mr Bradlaugh through his daughters, insignificant and inoffensive though we were, was no new idea. In 1877 an attempt was made to introduce female students into the classes of the City of London College. At my father's suggestion my sister and I, who at that time took little interest in the matter, joined Mr Levy's Class on Political Economy. I went up for the examination at the end of the term, and, to my surprise and my father's delight, I took a second-class certificate. But the City of London College were divided upon the subject of the admission of female students, and, after much acrimonious discussion, Mr Armytage Bakewell, a member of the Council, carried his intolerance so far as to turn the dispute upon the admission of my sister and myself. He wrote to the City Press that "though the ostensible subject of controversy has been whether females should attend the young men's classes or not, there was well known to be a wider divergence," and that was "best indicated by the fact that Mr Bradlaugh's daughters attended Mr Levy's classes." It is only just to the City of London College to add that the Council, while repudiating any responsibility for Mr Bakewell's conduct, expressed "their regret that any allusion had been made to Mr Bradlaugh's daughters" in the letter alluded to. The City of London College decided against the further admission of women, and within a few days of their decision had to listen to Lord Houghton's congratulations upon their liberality in admitting women when he presented me with my certificate! He had not been informed that the College had just come to the contrary resolution.

March 1883.

May 1883.

1884. Five years later the National Liberal Club spontaneously elected Mr Bradlaugh, without his knowledge, a member paying his first year's subscription.

Seven persons were allowed to enter with each petition.

National Reformer , April 27, 1884.

I have lately heard a touching story of a cabman who drove Mr Bradlaugh several times. He greatly admired my father, but was too shy to speak to him. Every time he took a fare from him he gave it away to some charitable object. He said he could not spend Mr Bradlaugh's money on himself, he felt that "he must do some good with it."

The Plymouth and Exeter Gazette (April 1878) reproved Mr Bradlaugh for the glaring inconsistency of his practice with his democratic principles, "by living in the most aristocratic style."

The Leeds Daily News (July 1883) said his income was £12,000 a year.

He was frequently charged with drinking expensive wines, but the hock he had straight from Bensheim at a cost of 1s. 3d. per bottle (including carriage and duty); the burgundy came direct from Beaune, and cost a trifle more.

During the time he was not allowed to take his seat he attended the House constantly, sitting under the gallery in a seat technically outside the House.

One year he calculated that he had written 1200 letters of advice in the twelvemonth – this, of course, in addition to general correspondence.

The following extracts, taken at hazard from New Year's addresses to his friends in the National Reformer , will show how grateful he was to them for their help and what support he found in their love and trust: —

"Women and men, I have great need of your strength to make me strong, of your courage to make me brave. I am in a breach where I must fall fighting or go through. I will not turn, but I could not win if I had to fight alone" (1st January 1882).

"1883 has freed me from some troubles and cleared me of some peril, but it leaves me in 1884 a legacy of unfinished fighting. I thank the friends of the dead year, without whose help I, too, must have been nearly as dead as the old year itself… I have had more kindnesses shown me than my deservings warrant, more love than I have yet earned, and I open the gate of 1884 most hopefully because I know how many hundred kindly hearts there are to cheer me if my uphill road should prove even harder to climb than in the years of yesterday" (6th January 1884).

"The present greeting is first to our old friends; some poor folk who early in 1860 took No. 1 [of the National Reformer ], and have through good and ill report kept steadily with us through the more than a quarter of a century struggle for existence" (3rd January 1886).

Bognor Observer , February 1887.

One at the Shoreditch Town Hall in May 1884, on behalf of the Hackney United Radical Club, realised as much as £40. The hall was packed in every corner, and hundreds were unable to gain admittance.

Mr Bradlaugh asked for it to be closed on 26th September.

This I think has been recognised by most people. In December 1884 the Weekly Dispatch spoke of the "great strain" put upon Mr Bradlaugh, "under which a man less vigorous in mind and body would long ere this have broken down."

The doctors would not allow Mr Bradlaugh to remain in his bedroom; one of them told him indignantly – albeit with some exaggeration – that he would have better accommodation in the workhouse!

Wednesday, 10th December. This was the last lecture Mr Bradlaugh ever delivered. The subject was "The Evidence for the Gospels," in criticism of Dr Watkin's Bampton lectures.

A person writing in the Swansea Journal for 7th February 1891 said that some time previously Mr Bradlaugh had told him of his sufferings from angina pectoris . This is utterly untrue; my father never suffered from this complaint, nor until his fatal illness was he ever conscious that he had anything wrong with his heart. In a private letter to a friend written on the 14th – almost the last written with his own hand – he says distinctly, "I have never suffered from heart or lungs before." The mania for invention is extraordinary.