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

One of the results of this week of disturbance was the arrest of several "good men and true," amongst whom was Mr Nieass, whose recent death his friends and co-workers have good reason to mourn. On the evening of July 25th Mr Bradlaugh was suddenly summoned to Bow Street; some member of the Reform League Council was reported to be under arrest. When he reached the police station he found Mr Nieass, who had been seized by the police in the Strand on a charge of inciting the people to resistance, whereas, as it was afterwards proved, he had been persuading them to disperse, and but for Mr Bradlaugh's pertinacity, Mr Nieass would have been, as others actually were, locked up all night, in spite of the fact that good bail was offered.

The Reform movement seemed to grow and spread through England with marvellous rapidity. The great meetings in London found their echo in great meetings in the provinces. As Mr Bradlaugh was not possessed of any mysterious power of reduplicating himself, he was not of course present at all these gatherings, although he somehow (I hardly know how) contrived to make time to attend a goodly number. On the first day of September, 12,000 persons met at short notice on Brandon Hill, Bristol, Mr Beales and Mr Bradlaugh attending as a deputation from London. I find it noted88 that Mr Bradlaugh was much applauded during his address, and that he sat down amidst long and continued cheering and waving of hats. In the Bristol Times and Mirror there is a letter about the meeting from "A Man in the Crowd," and among much that was hostile and absurd he wrote: "The speech that told more than any other on Brandon Hill was that of Charles Bradlaugh, Esq., and it was the best portion of it that was appreciated; … his exhortation to men to be manly carried his hearers along with him… Nothing was listened to after Mr Bradlaugh had finished." In a day or so, however, the good people of Bristol began to realise who this eloquent man was who had so moved that great crowd, and two days later he was referred to in the Times and Mirror in most abusive and scurrilous terms, whilst the Wiltshire County Mirror tried to work upon the imagination of its more timid readers by drawing a lurid picture of what was likely to happen if the Reformers were triumphant: "Mr Beales is not a professed infidel, we believe, but we are persuaded that his religious convictions and feelings are of a very indiarubber kind… Let these two gentlemen [Mr Bradlaugh and Mr G. J. Holyoake] have their way, and there would be an end to the institution of marriage, and communism with all its abominations would be established amongst us." When a too fertile imagination has carried a man thus far it is difficult to see why he should not put even a little more colour on to his brush; as it was, his statements only frightened "old ladies" (masculine and feminine), and so served the purpose of political, religious, or social intriguers. In this case it was the political intriguers who were specially served, for it was considered a capital notion to associate Mr Beales – and through him the cause of Reform – with "Infidelity," the abolition of "the institution of marriage," and the "abominations" of Communism. The four ideas well mixed together by not over-scrupulous writers, formed such a fine jumble that the ignorant and pious could not always distinguish the one from the other.

In London, during the autumn and winter, Mr Bradlaugh spoke for the Reform League at Chelsea, Cleveland Hall, Battersea, Pimlico, South Lambeth, the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel, and many other places, but the note we found struck in the Wiltshire County Mirror reverberated with such force that at length my father said that he was not sure whether "the course taken by the cowardly respectable press in denouncing the movement as an infidel one, may not render it wiser for me to leave the platform advocacy of Reform at the large gatherings to men whose religious or irreligious views are not so well known as my own." But when a few weeks later he was re-elected upon the Executive of the Reform League, he resolved to allow no sneer at his creed to influence him; no slander to make him hesitate, but to do his best, whatever that best might be, to aid in winning the battle

"between Tory obstructiveness and the advancing masses; between vested interests and human happiness; between pensioned and salaried lordlings and landowners' off-shoots on the one hand, and the brown-handed bread-winner on the other." "The people must win," he said.

Yes, "the people must win" – in the end; but complete manhood suffrage is not ours yet, and universal suffrage is still far off. "The people must win," but Oh how long the winning; and alas! the cost to the victors.

In October Mr Bradlaugh was speaking for the League in Northampton. I wonder whether there are Northampton men who still remember that Reform demonstration held in their town in the autumn of sixty-six, when they carried out their programme in the pelting, pitiless rain, just as "cheerily and as steadfastly as though it had been sunshine and a clear sky." Do they remember the procession, I wonder, when men and women marched through the incessant downpour, the women as earnest as the men? And the meetings in the Corn Exchange and the Mechanics' Institute, where Mr Bradlaugh's speeches were received with great applause by an enthusiastic audience? There was a meeting at the Town Hall too, to which he went at Col. Dickson's invitation; though on arriving it was only to find that the Town Hall was reserved for the "respectable great guns," and therefore there was no room for him on that platform. But other times, other customs, and many a time has the Northampton Town Hall rung with his voice since that wet October day twenty-eight years ago, when, "too proud to intrude," he went away slighted and scorned.

Great spontaneity and heartiness met him at Luton, which, "though a small town in a small county, gave us great welcome," said Mr Bradlaugh. It had been arranged that a conference of delegates (amongst whom were Mr Beales and Mr Bradlaugh, representing London) should be held previous to the Town Hall meeting, at Messrs Willis & Co.'s factory, but, much to the amazement of the delegates, when they reached the factory gates they found a meeting of several thousand persons collected there without call or summons; the gathering was such as "no living man had ever seen in that still increasing town."89 Every one was so anxious to hear the speakers from London and elsewhere that the conference of delegates was abandoned, and a public meeting was at once held in Park Square, an open space in the centre of the town. The Mercury devoted a little leader to this Reform demonstration at Luton, in which it said that

"the terse and argumentative speech of Mr Bradlaugh roused the feelings of the thousands assembled to their highest pitch, and as he put the case of reform in a clear light he was most enthusiastically applauded."90

In the course of his address, which was interrupted again and again by the cheering of his audience, he felt it incumbent upon him to deny that these meetings partook of the character of physical force demonstrations. Hundreds of thousands of working men, he pointed out, had assembled and kept their own order even when the police in their officiousness had failed to preserve it. This denial was made necessary by the attitude taken up by the Tories and weak Liberals who began to be frightened by the growth of popular opinion as exhibited in these great and orderly outdoor and indoor meetings which were taking place every week in London and the provinces. In order to hide their fear of opinion they began to pretend fear of physical force, and by dint of crying "Wolf" often and loudly they did not turn belief into disbelief like the boy in the story, but reversed the process, and were at length believed by men who ought to have known a great deal better. Take, for example, Matthew Arnold, who a year or so later made a wholly unprovoked attack upon Mr Bradlaugh, speaking of him as "Mr Bradlaugh, the Iconoclast, who seems to be almost for baptizing us all in blood and fire into his new social dispensation;" and again, "Mr Bradlaugh is evidently capable, if he had his head given him, of running us all into great dangers and confusion."91 The pious journals were of course always and increasingly alarmed at the growing popular influence of the hated and despised Atheist, and tried their best to counteract it, each according to its lights. The most common way was to decry him: thus he was not "endowed with superior attainments," nor had he "any faculty or power of teaching other men." And after devoting a column or so to showing how mean were his intellectual powers, the Christian critic would then proceed in the like amiable fashion to decry Mr Bradlaugh's personal appearance.

Just about this time Mr Bradlaugh expressed himself upon a small matter which will strike a chord in the memories of many of those who took part in meetings with him. I mean bands at processions. He said he was glad to note "a strong disposition on the part of the Executive [of the Reform League] to avoid the use of bands of music in our future processions. Ten thousand men tramping seriously along the streets towards Westminster will be unmistakable evidence of our earnestness." This is the first public expression of his feeling on this subject that I have come across, but there will still be many who can recall how much Mr Bradlaugh objected to a serious procession being accompanied by flying flags and a beating drum. A gala meeting on a Northumberland or Durham moor was one thing, but men proceeding together in orderly fashion to soberly demand a right or strenuously protest against a wrong was another. But people like noise and merriment, even when they are very much in earnest, and my father often had to submit to the band and the banner, although in his heart he wished them well at home.

He generously determined that his lectures should not cost the League one farthing. True, his Freethought friends helped him as much as lay in their power, but they were poor, and the demands upon their purses many, so that at the end of the year 1866 he found that in work for the League he had spent out of his own pocket £30 in mere travelling and hotel expenses.

At the quarterly election of officers in December 1866 Mr Bradlaugh was again elected upon the Executive, and he appealed to his friends to show renewed activity in the time of hard work which he felt lay before them. On February 11th (1867) the League held two mass meetings, one in the afternoon at Trafalgar Square, and one in the evening at the Agricultural Hall. The Trafalgar Square meeting was, if possible, "more complete, more orderly, and more resolute" than any previous one. Mr Baxter Langley and Mr Bradlaugh were appointed "deputy marshals;" they were mounted, and wore tri-coloured scarves and armlets (I have my father's now). It was their special duty to see that order was kept, and their office was no sinecure; for although the main body was entirely orderly, still on the outskirts there was a fair sprinkling of people who had come "to see the fun," and were bent on seeing it, even if they had to make it for themselves. One form of creating "fun" was the snatching off hats and throwing them into the fountain basins; another was throwing stones from above on to the crowd below. This dangerous amusement was checked by Mr Bradlaugh, who, singling out a young fellow who had thrown a stone from the front of the National Gallery, rode his horse right up the steps in pursuit. The young man escaped amongst his companions, but Mr Bradlaugh's energy stopped that form of "fun." That poor little brown horse! It would be difficult to say which was the more tired, horse or rider, before they parted company that day; the horse was small – as I have heard my father say – for the weight it had to carry, and my father had not crossed a horse since he left the army in 1853. For six and a half hours they kept order together, and both must have been heartily glad when they reached the Agricultural Hall, and the little brown horse went home to his stall and his supper whilst Mr Bradlaugh went inside to speak.92

The day wound up with the meeting in the Agricultural Hall, which was addressed by professors, clergymen, and members of Parliament, Irishmen, Scotchmen, and men like Ernest Jones, directly representing the working men. Never was there such a wonderful sight as this gathering. At the previous Agricultural Hall meeting "the vast hall presented a surging mass of human beings without form or coherence;" this time it was a solid body of thousands upon thousands of citizens with faces all anxiously upturned towards the platform. I know not whether it was arranged that Mr Bradlaugh should be one of the speakers or not, but in any case he was called for again and again by the audience, and in response made a brief but earnest speech.

At the next quarterly meeting of the Reform League he was re-elected on the Executive by a vote of five-sixths of those present, although he had made a grave declaration to the Council "that events were possible which would necessitate holding meetings under conditions forbidden by Act of Parliament, and that he, having determined if needful to resist the Government decision as to Hyde Park, did not desire to remain on the Executive of a body whom he might injure by a policy too advanced."

The storm of abuse now broke over Mr Bradlaugh's head in full force – always with intent to damage the Reform League, for his enemies had not yet taken the measure of his power and proportions. For the moment he was merely considered as a weapon, to be used unscrupulously, and pointed with lies. In this method of warfare the Saturday Review93 at one bound took a front place. The Standard on the 11th of March reprinted from it the article, "Who are the Leaguers?" from which journals all over the country took their lead. It was in this article of the Saturday Review that Mr Bradlaugh is made responsible for the story of the "Fanatical Monkeys" written by Charles Southwell (who probably derived it from some old fable), and rewritten from memory by J. P. Adams, who sent it to the National Reformer, where it was published on February 17, 1867. This story was reproduced in a hundred shapes, and of course my father was said to be the author of all of them, a proof, asserted these veracious ones, of his utter depravity. I have noted a letter of Mr Bradlaugh's, written in 1868, in which he asked to deny the story for at least "the hundredth time;" but denial was of little use; the lie sown by the Saturday Review in March 1867, like most other ill weeds, throve apace, and was even repeated so late as two years ago. Speaking in Trafalgar Square on March 11th, where as usual he was "loudly called for,"94 he said those who were carrying on the struggle had not entered into it without counting the cost, and, confident in their own strength and manhood, they were determined upon gaining their rights. He compared the people with a "resistless wave," and warned those who should dare "to stem the tide." The Weekly Dispatch jeered at "the figurative Bradlaugh" for this speech, and, trying in its turn to injure the Reform League, suggested that the demonstrations were more welcome to the thieves than to any other class of metropolitan society. Others, like the Sunday Times, struck with the determination and confident purpose betokened in such a speech, chose to interpret it to mean physical force, and said —

"The Reform Leaguers throughout the country are beginning to talk treason and must be watched. 'Iconoclast,' who, but for his disposition to violence, would be altogether too vulgar for notice, systematically threatens violation of the law, and defiance of the powers that be."

The Sunday Times then went on, in the same paragraph, to speak in terms of reprobation of "a person" who, at some meeting at Newcastle, urged that an attempt should be made to win the sympathies of the army, so that in the event of "a collision" the people and the army would be on the same side. The remarks of an unnamed person at some meeting at which Mr Bradlaugh was not even present, were thus used as though he were responsible for them.

Lord Derby's Government began to be frightened at the possibilities evoked by its own fears and the determined persistence of the League. Special reporters were sent to the meetings in order to verify speeches for the purposes of a prosecution, a course which merely made the speakers more stern and more outspoken. In May it was resolved to hold another mass meeting in Hyde Park: the Reform League leaders were convinced that they had the law on their side, and they meant to insist on their rights. Mr Edmund Beales issued an address to the men of London, calling upon them to meet the Council of the League in Hyde Park on Monday evening, May 6th. "Come," he said, "as loyal, peaceful, and orderly citizens, enemies of all riot and tumult, but unalterably fixed and resolved in demanding and insisting upon what you are entitled to. If time presses, stay not to form in processions, but come straight from your work, come without bands and banners." On the same evening that Mr Beales' address was read over to the Council of the League, an "admonition" from the Government was served upon the delegates, warning all persons "to abstain from attending, aiding, or taking part in any such meeting, or from entering the Park with a view to attend, aid, or take part in such meeting."

Much pressure was put upon Mr Beales to prevent the meeting from being held, but he, knowing that he and his colleagues were in the right, and knowing that the Government knew it also, persisted in the determination arrived at, after due deliberation, by the Council. The Government reluctantly, and at the last moment – that is, in the issue of the Times for May 6th – acknowledged that they had no power to eject the demonstrators from the Park. Having decided that they had not the law on their side, Lord Derby, snitching at a straw, thought the Park regulations would help them, and sent a message to the League in the afternoon that the meeting would be prohibited; and there was a talk of prosecuting for trespass each person who had received the notice of prohibition. But all this "tall talk" was absolutely without effect: 200,000 persons went to the Park. Mr Bradlaugh was one of the first to enter; and Platform No. 8 was a "very great centre of attraction, for this was the scene of Mr Bradlaugh's oratory."95

Mr Bradlaugh was, as I said, re-elected on the Executive of the League on the full understanding that he had determined to resist the Government decision as to Hyde Park. During the spring-time he lectured week after week in London and the provinces, not only bearing his own expenses, but on one occasion, at least, actually paying for tickets for his wife and friends. On May 6th, the demonstration maintaining the right of the people to meet in the people's park was held, in spite of Lord Derby's opposition and prohibition. On the following day, May 7th, Mr Bradlaugh tendered his resignation as vice-president and member of the Council and the Executive of the Reform League; he took this course "in order to deprive the enemies of reform of the pretext for attack on the League afforded by my irreligion, and to save some of the friends of the League from the pain of having their names associated with my own." Especially Mr Bradlaugh praises the honourable and straightforward conduct of Mr Beales, but deeply regrets that he (Mr Beales) should have felt it necessary publicly to disclaim responsibility for his sayings, and hopes that his resignation will relieve him from pain. The League only accepted Mr Bradlaugh's resignation, as far as it related to the Executive Council; he continued a Vice-President of the League from its foundation to the end, but after this date he rarely appeared upon its platforms. If there should be trouble, and his services were desired, he said, he was ready to do his duty; otherwise he preferred to remain aloof. Now, mark the generosity of his opponents! Finding he did not appear as frequently as before on the Reform platform, they began to circulate every reason for his abstention save the true one – his honourable desire to aid the cause of Reform even to the extent of self-effacement, since his persecutors made that necessary. The Pall Mall Gazette in 1868 said:

"Mr Bradlaugh, who furnished the Saturday Reviewers with an additional sting to articles in which his name was coupled with Mr Beales', avowed Atheistical views, but they met with so little favour that he had to leave the Committee of the Reform Association because he brought discredit on the cause."

Mr Bradlaugh in reply asked if it was true his views found "little favour," and answering his own question said, "Let the audiences crowding the theatre at Huddersfield, the circus at Grimsby, the theatre at Northampton, the halls in London, Dublin, Newcastle, Ashton, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, and Bradford – let these enthusiastic audiences reply." And, in conclusion, he printed this letter from Mr Beales in reply to his resignation, which he had received in the previous May, but now for the first time made public.

"4 Stone's Buildings, Lincoln's Inn,17th May 1867.

"My Dear Sir, – Pray excuse my not having sooner answered, or noticed, your letter of the 7th inst. to me, tendering your resignation as a member of the Executive of the Reform League, and asking that your name may be erased from the list of the Council and Vice-Presidents. I really have been in such a whirl of occupation since receiving your letter that it was not in my power sooner to write to you, as I wished. Meanwhile you have, I believe, received through Mr Cooper and others intimation that the Executive were unwilling to accept your resignation, and lose your services. In that unwillingness I concur, whilst I avail myself of this opportunity of communicating to you with the utmost openness and frankness, and with very sincere regard, my feelings in the matter. I have already expressed in public my strong sense of the services you have rendered to the League by your ability and good sense, and of the invariable fidelity, delicacy, and admirable taste with which you have studiously abstained from uttering a word at our meetings that could offend the religious scruples of the most sensitive or fastidious Christian. At the same time that your known and published opinions on these matters (I do not allude to the subject of the Saturday Review's savage attack, which was not, I believe, from your pen) have injured the League with many in a moral and pecuniary point of view must, I am afraid, be admitted, though I doubt whether such injury has outweighed the aid you have rendered to the League by your oratorical power and talent. At all events, I am not disposed to allow the evil to have outweighed the good. You say that the conduct of the Press in constantly coupling your name with mine has given me pain. Well, it has, but not quite from the cause you suppose. I despise from my soul the base motives of the writers in thus coupling our names together, and it would only make me more strongly tender to you the hand of friendship. But I do feel great pain at the thought of a man of your undoubted ability, and, I believe, purity of purpose and high honesty, being in such a position from your antagonism to Christianity as to make men imagine that they could pain or injure me or the League by thus coupling our names together.

"C. Bradlaugh.

"E. Beales."

Mr George Howell, the Secretary, had also written expressing his deep regret at my father's resignation, and testifying to the kindly consideration shown himself, and to the earnest and powerful advocacy and support given to the objects of the League.

Probably in consequence of the form taken by these aspersions Mr Bradlaugh was again elected on the Executive Council in December 1868.

CHAPTER XXIV

PROVINCIAL LECTURING, 1866-1869

I will take up once more the story of my father's lecturing experiences in the provinces by telling of the Mayor's attempt to prevent the delivery of some lectures he had agreed to give in Liverpool, in the middle of October 1866. The subjects to be dealt with were: "The Pentateuch: without it Christianity is nothing; with it, Humanity is impossible;" "The Twelve Apostles," and "Kings, Lords, and Commons." The bills announcing these particulars were posted all over the town, and seem to have much alarmed the Mayor. This gentleman was a Methodist, and held such peculiar ideas concerning the duties of chief magistrate of so important a place as Liverpool that he preferred, for example, attending a Scripture Readers' tea-party rather than the banquet given to the layers of the Atlantic Cable, at which he was expected. It can be easily understood that such a Mayor would be greatly disturbed by the possibility of an atheistic criticism of the Pentateuch and the twelve Apostles. So great was his perturbation that he consulted with the Chief Constable, Major Greig, with the result that the latter sent his subordinates to the lessee of the theatre to explain to him that he must close his doors against the wicked "Iconoclast." The lessee, hesitating, was carried before the Chief Constable himself, who, speaking with all the majesty of his office, told him that the lectures could not be allowed. On Saturday night (13th October)96 Mr Bradlaugh's agent, Mr Cowan, called upon the lessee for the keys, but was informed that he had been ordered not to permit the meetings to be held. Poor lessee! between the upper and the nether millstone he got very little peace. Mr Cowan, after considerable discussion, took him, late at night though it was, to Mr Bradlaugh. Mr Bradlaugh had gone to bed, but got up at the summons, and all three went to the Chief Constable's, but nothing was to be done there at that time of night. In the morning the lessee accepted Mr Bradlaugh's written indemnity against all consequence, and my father was permitted to lecture unmolested, although he and his friends were much diverted to find detectives, police, and magistrates amongst the audience.