Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text 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.
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,[1] 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.
[Footnote 1: A friend studying the _Topographer and Genealogist_ found
the following extract in Vol. II.:--
"Hoxne Hundred.
"Kelsall Church. Brass; no figure. John Parker, gent., who married
Dorothy Bradlaugh, alias Jaco Previous Next |