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

In April we have the first recorded lawsuit in which Mr. Bradlaugh took part as one of the principals, though earlier than this, soon after quitting the army, he had shown much legal acumen and practical wisdom in a case that I cannot do better than quote here in his own words: —

"While I was away," he says, "a number of poor men had subscribed their funds together, and had erected a Working Man's Hall, in Goldsmith's Row, Hackney Road. Not having any legal advice, it turned out that they had been entrapped into erecting their building on freehold ground without any lease or conveyance from the freeholder, who asserted his legal right to the building. The men consulted me, and finding that under the Statute of Frauds they had no remedy, I recommended them to offer a penalty rent of £20 a year. This being refused, I constituted myself into a law court; and without any riot or breach of the peace, I with the assistance of a hundred stout men took every brick of the building bodily away, and divided the materials, so far as was possible, amongst the proper owners. I think I can see now the disappointed rascal of a freeholder when he only had his bare soil left once more. He did not escape unpunished; for, to encourage the others to contribute, he had invested some few pounds in the building. He had been too clever: he had relied on the letter of the law, and I beat him with a version of common-sense justice."

To return to my father's first suit in law. He brought an action for false imprisonment against a solicitor named Wyatt. It appeared that a person named Clements had assigned a wharf and certain book debts and books to Messrs. Carr, Lamb & Co., and Mr Rogers, their solicitor, sent Mr Bradlaugh, then his clerk, to Mr Wyatt's office, Gray's Inn, to fetch away the books. Mr Wyatt refused to give them up: Mr Bradlaugh seized them and carried them (an immense pile) to a cab he had waiting. Mr Wyatt appeared on the scene with a clerk, and endeavoured to regain possession of the books. After much resistance, in which my father's coat was torn and hands cut, Mr Wyatt, unable to get the books, called a policeman, and gave his adversary into custody on a charge of "stealing the books;" this he withdrew for another – "creating a disturbance and carrying off books." My father was locked up (whether for minutes or hours I know not) with a boy who had been apprehended whilst picking pockets. When he was brought before the magistrate he was discharged, because no one appeared to prosecute. He wrote a number of letters to Mr Wyatt demanding an apology, but received no answer, and at length brought an action against him for false imprisonment. The case came on before Mr Justice Crompton, and much to his delight, he won a verdict, with £30 damages.

The foregoing is, I think, the only case in Mr Bradlaugh's career in which he kept damages awarded him for his own personal use. In every other case the damages were given to some charity – in later years, always to the Masonic Boys' School. This time however the damages awarded him by the jury were used in a purely personal manner, for the money enabled him to hasten his marriage, and on June 5th, 1855, he and my mother were married at St. Philip's Church, in the Parish of Stepney, he barely 22 years of age, and she two years his senior.

They went to live at Warner Place, as was suggested in a letter I have quoted; and my mother, who had been in very poor health for some time previous to her marriage, seems to have gone with her sister-in-law to Reigate for a few days at the end of the following July. How very straitened their circumstances were, the following extract from a letter of my father's to his wife will show: —

"Carr and Lamb have not settled with me, and I am much pinched for cash, in fact, so much so that, as mother seems to wish to come to Reigate, I have thought of letting her come on Sunday, and staying at home myself, as I cannot manage both. If you feel well enough, I would like you to come home about next Thursday or Friday, as I begin to feel rather topsy-turvy… If I do not come, I will send you money to clear you through the week. Do not think me in the least degree unkind if I stay away, because I assure you it is a great source of discomfort to me; but the fact is, if you want to spend thirty shillings, and have only twenty, there arises a most unaccountable difficulty in getting your purse and programme to agree. Had Carr and L., as I anticipated, closed accounts with me on Monday, all would have gone on smoothly, but as it is I am cramped. I have also been disappointed in the receipt of two or three other small sums which, coupled with an increased expenditure, all help to draw me up short."

The newly-married couple did not stop very long at Warner Place. Mrs Bradlaugh senior and her daughter-in-law did not get on comfortably together, and so husband and wife removed to 4 West Street, Bethnal Green, where their first child, my sister Alice, was born on April 30, 1856. At the outset my parents were devotedly attached to one another, an attachment which was not in the least degree diminished on my mother's part until the hour of her death; and had they remained pinched by the same close grip of poverty as at first their union might have remained unbroken; who can say? My father was essentially a "home" man, and when not called away on business preferred his own fireside to that of any other man. People have taken it upon themselves to describe my mother's personal appearance, some by one adjective and some by another; but to my eyes, at least, she was comely to look upon. She was a brunette, with hair which was black and silky, and the finest I ever saw; she was nearly as tall as my father, and carried herself well, although in her later years she was much too stout. She was good-natured to a fault, generous to lavishness, and had an open ear and an open pocket for every tale of sorrow or distress. During my recollection our home was never without one or more needy visitors: my father's brother and youngest sister, her own brother and sister, Mr James Thomson, and others too numerous to mention, all partook of the open-hearted hospitality which was lavished upon them. She shone at her best in entertaining my father's political friends, and her good-natured amiability made her a general favourite. She was passionately attached to her children, and was rewarded by her children's devotion, which endured through fair weather and foul; as, indeed, was only her just due, for in all points save one she was the best of mothers.

And it was this one point which, overbalancing all the rest, ruined our home, lost her my father's love and her friends' respect, and was the cause of her own sufferings, unhappiness, and early death. As soon as fortune and success began to shine ever so feebly on my father's labours, there did not lack the usual flatterers to his wife, and panderers to her unhappy weakness. In a terribly short time, by the aid of thoughtless, good-natured evil-doers and intentional malice, this weakness developed into absolute and confirmed intemperance, which it seemed as though nothing could check. With intemperance came the long train of grievous consequences; easy good nature became extravagant folly, and was soon followed by the alienation of real friends and a ruined home. My father was gentleness and forbearance itself, but his life was bitterly poisoned; he had his wife treated medically, and sent to a hydropathic establishment, but all to no purpose. When our home was finally broken up in 1870, and the closest retrenchment was necessary, my father decided that it was utterly impossible to do that with dignity as long as my mother remained in London; so she and we two girls – my brother was at school – went to board with my grandfather at Midhurst, Sussex. It was intended as a merely temporary arrangement, and had it proved beneficial to my mother we should, when better times came, have had a reunited home; but, alas! it was not to be. At first my father came fairly frequently to Midhurst, but there was no improvement, and so his visits became fewer and fewer; they brought him no pleasure, but merely renewed the acuteness of his suffering. At length he, always thoughtful for those about him and recognising the terrible strain upon us his daughters in the life we were then leading, arranged for us each to spend a month alternately with him at his London lodgings, but not continuously, as he was anxious not to separate us. Sometimes it was contrived for us both to be in London together, and these were indeed sun-shiny days. We wrote letters for him, and did what we could, and he made us happy by persuading us that we were his secretaries and really useful to him; we tried to be, but I fear our desires and his loving acceptance of our work went far beyond its real merits. With time my mother became a confirmed invalid, and in May 1877 she died very unexpectedly from heart disease engendered by alcoholism.

Malevolent people have made a jest of all this, but the tragedy was ours; others even more malevolent have endeavoured to make my father in some way blameworthy in the matter – they might just as well blame me! Any one who knows the story in all its details, with its years of silent martyrdom for him, will know that my father's behaviour was that of one man in a thousand. Some also have said that my mother was in an asylum. Perhaps the following quotation from a letter written by her from Midhurst, a few days before her death, to us who were in London getting my father's things straight in his new lodgings, will be the best answer, and will also show a little the kind of woman she was: —

"My chest is so bad. I really feel ill altogether; if either of you were with me, you could not do me any good. I shall be glad of a letter to know how Hypatia gets on.

"Do not neglect writing me, my darlings, for my heart is very sad. With great love to dear Papa, and also to your own dear selves. – Always believe me, your faithful mother,

S. L. Bradlaugh."

I have in this chapter said all I intend to say as to the relations between my father and my mother. I shall perhaps be pardoned – in my capacity as daughter, if not in that of biographer – for leaving the matter here, and not going into it more fully. It is a painful subject for one who loved her parents equally, and would fain have been equally proud of both. Honestly speaking, I think I should never have had the courage to touch upon it at all had I not felt that my duty to my father absolutely required it. He allowed himself to be maligned and slandered publicly and privately on the subject of his alleged separation from his wife, but he never once took up the pen to defend himself. Hence it becomes my unhappy duty to give the world for the first time some real idea of the truth.

CHAPTER VII

HYDE PARK MEETINGS, 1855

In the summer of 1855, Mr Bradlaugh for the first time took part in a great Hyde Park meeting. He went, like so many others, merely as a spectator, having no idea that the part he would be called upon to play would lead him into a position of prominence. In order to get a little into the spirit of that Hyde Park meeting, I must recall a few of the events which led up to it.

A Bill had been introduced into the House of Commons by Lord Robert Grosvenor which was called the New Sunday Bill or the Sunday Trading Bill, and had for its object the prevention of the whole of that small trading by poor vendors, with which we are familiar in certain parts of the metropolis to-day. Who has not seen or heard of the Sunday marketing in Petticoat Lane, Leather Lane, Golden Lane, Whitecross Street, and many such another place? This small trading is very useful, and in many cases absolutely necessary to the very poor, who, being at work all the week, would not otherwise have time for the purchase of the Sunday dinner – the one real dinner of the week – shoes, or such other articles of clothing as decency compels them to have even when their slender purses almost forbid the purchase. Lord Robert Grosvenor's Bill fell amongst these like a bombshell, causing the wildest excitement and indignation.16

Then it was that the excitement of the people needed to find some expression in action, and J. B. Leno, the working man poet, and others, turned the popular feeling to account by directing it into the form of an unmistakable protest against this class of legislation. Amongst the handbills put in circulation was the following, calling a meeting for June 24th: —

"New Sunday Bill to put down newspapers, shaving, smoking, eating and drinking of all kinds of food, or recreation for body or mind at present enjoyed by poor people. An open-air meeting of the artizans, mechanics, and lower orders of the metropolis will be held in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon next, to see how religiously the aristocracy observe the Sabbath, and how careful they are not to work their servants or their cattle on that day (vide Lord Robert Grosvenor's speech). The meeting is summoned for three o'clock on the right bank of the Serpentine, looking towards Kensington Gardens. Come and bring your wives and families with you, that they may benefit by the example set them by their betters. —A Ratepayer of Walworth."

The outcome of all this was that large numbers of people found their way into Hyde Park on Sunday, June 24th. They came with the intention of holding a meeting of protest. A space was set aside for the meeting, and a Mr James Bligh called upon to preside. He began by addressing the people in very temperate language, but was soon interrupted by an Inspector of Police, who "politely told him he was authorised by the Commissioner of the Police to prevent any meeting being held in the Park; inasmuch as the Park was not public property, it would be illegal." The Inspector said that his orders were imperative, and if the speaker continued speaking he would be obliged to take him into custody. Sir Richard Mayne was present with a Superintendent of Police, and although the meeting was broken up, nevertheless many thousands remained in the Park. These lounged along the carriage ways and greeted the carriages with groans and hooting, or chaffing and good-humoured sarcasm, each according to his feelings. The aristocracy and wealthy commoners, who were taking their Sunday afternoon airing at their ease in the Park, did not at all approve of the attendance and attention of the multitude. The ladies and gentlemen reclining in their carriages were asked why they allowed their servants to work on Sunday, or were told to "go to Church," an order which some met by shaking their Church Services in the faces of the throng, or by sneers; whilst others, such as Lord and Lady Wilton, Lady Granville, and the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, were so frightened that they got out of their carriages at the demand of the crowd and trudged it on foot.

This little taste of the delights of showing the wealthy their power and of giving them a little bit of a fright only inflamed the people the more. During the week following the 24th the excitement continued to increase, and more handbills and placards were distributed. A very witty placard issued by the "Leave us alone Club," and some amusing lines, are quoted in Mr Headingley's Biography; while another which met with great success was in the following terms: —

"GO TO CHURCH!"

"Lord Robert Grosvenor wishes to drive us all to church! Let us go to church with Lord Grosvenor next Sunday morning! We can attend on his Lordship at Park Lane at half-past ten: 'go to church' with him, then go home to dinner, and be back in time to see 'our friends' in Hyde Park. Come in your best clothes, as his lordship is very particular."

In the House, Lord Grosvenor fanned the flames of the popular excitement outside by an express refusal to withdraw the Bill, and by stating his fixed determination to press the measure. The signs of the increasing agitation amongst the people were so marked that Sir Richard Mayne, Commissioner of Police, became alarmed, especially as the police superintendents of various districts reported to him that large numbers of people were likely to attend the Park on the Sunday; and on June 29th he communicated with Sir George Grey, then Home Secretary, from whom, as he stated later on to the Commission, he received instructions to draft a document forbidding the meeting.

This notice was printed in one or two newspapers on the morning of Saturday the 30th, but not issued in the form of a handbill until the afternoon. It was then also posted throughout the metropolis, and on Sunday morning at the Park Gates.

In common with the rest of the London public, Mr Bradlaugh read this police notice, and directly he read it he felt convinced that the Commissioner of Police had no power to prevent a meeting in the Park. He therefore, after due consideration, resolved not to submit to this order, but to take part in the general concourse – one can hardly call it a meeting, since any attempt to form in a mass and listen to speeches had been prevented on the previous Sunday – in the Park, and if necessary to resist in his own person any active interference on the part of the police.

The 1st of July arrived, and people from every district of London and all round about flocked to the Park, crowding particularly towards the north side of the Serpentine. Although showing every disposition to be in the main quiet and orderly, the temper of the crowd was much less good-humoured than on the previous Sunday; the police placards had acted as a very successful irritant, and this feeling of irritation was kept up and augmented by the sight of the wealthy ones parading up and down in their carriages. As on the former Sunday, they were greeted with groans and hooting, and so much vigour was thrown into the groans that in two or three cases the high-spirited horses took fright, and serious accidents appeared probable. At this point the police charged the people, and naturally enough rioting (so-called) was the result. Many persons were hurt, and seventy were taken prisoners. The police accommodation at the Marlborough Street Police Station proved totally inadequate for so large a number of prisoners, and the condition of the cells was compared with that of the Black Hole in Calcutta. My father was in the Park with my grandfather, Mr A. Hooper, and what he did there may be learned a little later on from his own words.

This demonstration in Hyde Park produced such an impression that on the following day, the 2nd of July, Lord Robert Grosvenor, in answer to a question put to him in the House of Commons, said he was in "rather an awkward predicament," a statement which we can readily believe. His Bill, the Honourable Member insisted, was in reality intended to increase the amount of holiday possible to "the overtaxed thousands of the metropolis. But," he went on, "considering this is one of those measures which are peculiarly liable to misrepresentation and ridicule; considering also the late period of the session, and the formidable opposition I am threatened with, I think it would not be right to keep up the irritation that at the present moment exists for the bare chance of passing this measure during the present session."

This abandonment of his Sunday Bill in a fright by "Saint" Grosvenor, as he was nicknamed, was a tremendous triumph to all those whom it affected, a triumph happily not marred by any punishment being inflicted on the men arrested on various charges connected with the demonstration, for when these were brought into court on the Monday they were all discharged. At the John Street Institution a meeting was held to protest against the action of the police, to express sympathy with the injured, and to collect subscriptions on their behalf.17

A Royal Commission was appointed "to inquire into the alleged disturbances of the public peace in Hyde Park, Sunday, July 1st, 1855; and the conduct of the metropolitan police in connection with the same." This Commission sat continuously day by day from Tuesday, July 17th, to Thursday, August 2nd. The sittings were held in the Court of Exchequer, and the Commission heard eighty-six witnesses on the part of the complainants, and ninety-three for the police. Amongst the eighty-six witnesses was my father, who was examined on the 20th July. I quote the questions, with their often extremely characteristic answers, from the Parliamentary Blue Book.18

"Mr C. Bradlaugh examined by Mr Mitchell: —

"Where do you reside? – At No. 13 Warner Street South, Hackney Road.

"You are a solicitor's clerk? – I am.

"Were you in Hyde Park on the 1st of July? – I was.

"At what time? – From about half-past three to half-past six.

"Where did you walk during that time? I walked completely over the park, round by the carriage drive, and all round during that time.

"Did you see a man in a cab with several policemen? – Yes. I saw a man being driven along in a cab with three policemen in the cab, a man with no shirt on; he was without his shirt, he was trying to look out, and I saw a policeman strike him over the temple with his truncheon.

"There were three policemen in the cab? – Yes.

"Mr Stuart Wortley: A man without a shirt? – Yes.

"Mr Mitchell: Did you see anybody attacked? – Yes, I saw a rush made out on to the greensward. I went forward, and I saw four or five policemen striking a short man: his hat was knocked with a truncheon, and he held up his hands and said, 'For God's sake, do not hit me – take me!'

"Did they continue to hit him? – Yes; I ran forward, and put one truncheon back with my gloved hand, and I said, 'The next man that strikes I will knock him down!'

"What did they do then? – Then they left off striking him, and they put him between two policemen, and I suppose he was taken away in custody.

"They found that you were rather a strongish man? – They would.

"Were you attacked by the police? – I was standing on the grass just after that, and they made another sortie out from the roadway, and ordered the people to move on, and they moved as fast as they could. One of them came up to me, and began to push me with his truncheon, upon which I said to him: 'Do not do that, friend; you have no right to do it, and I am stronger than you are.' He then beckoned to two others, who came up, and I took hold of two of the truncheons, one in each hand, and I said to the centre one: 'If you attempt to touch me, I will take one of those truncheons, and knock you down with it.' I took the two truncheons, and I wrested them, and I showed them that I could do it.

"Did they then leave you alone? – Yes; the people that came behind me picked me up and carried me up about 100 yards back, cheering me.

"Mr Stuart Wortley. – Did they take you off your legs? – Yes, and I thought it was the police behind for a moment.

"Mr Mitchell. – You were in the Park for three hours? – Yes.

"How were the people behaving? – I never saw a large assemblage of people behaving so well.

"You were with your father-in-law, were you not? – Yes, I was.

"What time in the day was this particular occurrence? – About half-an-hour before I left.

"Mr Henderson. – The people gathered round you? – Yes. I did not want to be a self-constituted leader, and immediately I could I got away from the press and came away. I left about half-past six, a few minutes after or a few minutes before.

"Mr Stuart Wortley. – Had the excitement in the Park increased a good deal at that time? – Yes; I felt excited by seeing men, unable to defend themselves, knocked about.

"Mr Mitchell. – Did you see any other rush of the police at the people? – I saw several rushes. I could not understand the reason for them at all, except on one occasion; I saw one mounted superintendent stretch out his arm, and I saw a rush immediately in the direction that his arm went.

"What sort of a horse had he? – I could not see; I was on the sward. I only noticed a mounted man.

"You would not know him if you saw him again? – Yes; I think so: I should certainly know him if I saw him mounted.

"Can you say whether he had whiskers or not? – Yes; I think he had, but that is more an impression than anything else.

"Did you see them strike any woman? – I saw in the rush, in one of them, a man and two women thrown down, and I saw the police run over them. They did not strike them, but they ran right over them. I made a remark to my father-in-law: 'It is lucky they are no sisters of mine, or else they would stop to pick them up.'

"You did not go into the Park to resist the police? – Decidedly not. I went in consequence of seeing the notice of Sir Richard Mayne forbidding it, and to see what took place there.