Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History

Book

Open Original Text

a public meeting of about four
thousand persons held in the Market Square, a vote was taken as to Mr
Bradlaugh's candidature, and only one hand was lifted against it.

The issue of this address and the subsequent public meeting produced
a considerable flutter in the political dovecots of Northampton. A
great outcry was raised at Mr Bradlaugh's unheard-of audacity in
putting himself forward without receiving the usual requisition, but,
as he calmly explained at a meeting in the Northampton theatre a few
weeks later, he had for two years intended to become a candidate for
Parliament, and had determined to offer himself to any body of men
wherever he thought he had a fair chance of success. He believed
Northampton was that place, and in putting himself forward without
formal invitation he did not think he had imperilled either his own
dignity or that of the electors. The _Northampton Mercury_,[114] the
local Whig paper, affected the utmost scorn for his candidature, saying
that he had "no more chance of being elected member for Northampton
than he has of being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury." "_Nous
verrons_" was Mr Bradlaugh's only comment upon this declaration, which
was afterwards taken up and repeated by different papers as a sort of
_bon mot_.

[Footnote 114: July 4th.]

But the disdain of the Northampton Whigs was well balanced by the
enthusiasm of the Northampton working-men. They threw themselves into
the work of the election contest, from the very outset, with the utmost
zeal and ardour; they delivered the address by hand at every house in
Northampton--and the work was all done gratuitously. And so with all
the elections in which my father took part: he had neither paid agents
nor paid canvassers; he had no paid speakers (beyond, in some cases,
out-of-pocket expenses) and few paid clerks; all such work was freely
and eagerly volunteered. Nor were the women less ardent than the men.
They soon decided upon his election colours, and at the conclusion
of a meeting held by him in the theatre in the middle of July, they
presented him with a rosette made of mauve, white, and green ribbons,
a combination unique amongst election colours, afterwards generally
identified with Mr Bradlaugh and loved for his sake. Some of these same
rosettes fashioned and worn at this election in 1868 were cast into
the grave at Brookwood in 1891, and some others, which their owners
had carefully treasured for six-and-twenty years, were worn for the
last time on the 25th June 1894, when the statue of Mr Bradlaugh was
unveiled in the town whose name will be for ever associated with his
own.

Amongst those who came to speak for him the first place must be given
to George Odger, who was himself trying to win a seat at Chelsea.
Besides Mr Odger there were the Rev. J. K. Applebee, Austin Holyoake,
R. A. Cooper, E. Truelove, C. Watts, and others, and everywhere the
meetings were large and enthusiastic. Poor men--freethinkers and
radicals--throughout the country vied to help in this election; but
men in Edinburgh and men in Lancashire could neither vote nor canvass,
so they resolved to give aid in money. Long and costly was the
candidature; the elections did not come off until November, and thus
the campaign continued over five months. Some of the northern towns
endeavoured to raise a regular monthly subscription, some a weekly one,
and soon long lists appeared in the columns of the _National Reformer_,
long lists made up mostly of small sums, of threepences or sixpences,
or shillings; sums of £1 and over were rare, and seldom indeed was
there such a heavy donation as £10, Mr Bradlaugh's supporters being,
with scarcely an exception, poor working men. At the end of August John
Stuart Mill drew upon himself a hailstorm of abuse by sending £10 to
Mr Austin Holyoake, secretary of the Election Fund, with the following
letter:--

 "Avignon, August 28th, 1868.

 "DEAR SIR,--I enclose a subscription of £10 to the fund for
 defraying the expenses of Mr Bradlaugh's election to the House of
 Commons. I do so in the confidence that Mr Bradlaugh would not contest
 any place where by so doing he would risk the return of a Tory in the
 room of a supporter of Mr Gladstone, and of the disendowment of the
 Irish Church.--I am, dear Sir, yours very faithfully,

 J. S. MILL.

 "AUSTIN HOLYOAKE, Esq."

Much capital was made out of the assertion that Mr Bradlaugh was trying
to divide the Liberal vote at Northampton, and so let in a Tory, but it
was an assertion entirely without foundation. Over and over again he
stated that it was Lord Henley's[115] seat that he was trying to win,
and that rather than risk the losing of it to a Tory he was prepared
to submit to a decision of a test meeting of the electors. At that
time there were 5,729 electors on the register, and of these as many
as 3,400 were new voters, so extensively had the new Act affected the
voting power in the single borough of Northampton. Mr Bradlaugh's offer
to be governed by the decision of a public meeting of the electorate
was entirely ignored. "It was in vain," says the writer of the little
_Souvenir_ book issued on the occasion of the unveiling of my father's
statue at Northampton, "it was in vain that Mr Bradlaugh offered to
abide by any fair test that might be devised to settle beforehand which
of the two Liberal candidates in the field should go to the poll." A
test ballot had been taken at Manchester to decide the claims of Ernest
Jones. "If, however," continued the writer of the _Souvenir_, "the
Manchester method were unacceptable, Mr Bradlaugh was prepared to agree
to any other form of gauging the opinion of the constituency that was
equally just to him" and to Lord Henley. But the Whigs seemed afraid
to put it "to the touch," and my father's address was rapidly followed
by one signed jointly by Charles Gilpin and Lord Henley. The Tories
followed considerably later with two candidates, Messrs Merewether
and Lendrick, and later still came a sixth candidate, Dr F. R. Lees,
well known as a Temperance advocate. Why he came it is a little
difficult to say, for before coming he wrote my father that he was not
hostile to him; and he publicly declared that if he were elected in Mr
Gilpin's place, he would at once resign in that gentleman's favour. Mr
Bradlaugh therefore asked him, as it was impossible that both could
win Lord Henley's seat, "to at once consent to adopt some course which
will avoid division of the Radical strength." At his first meeting
amendments were carried in Mr Bradlaugh's favour, but Dr Lees persisted
right up to the last day, and abandoned his candidature "only on the
day of the poll, when it was too late to prevent nearly five hundred
electors recording their votes on his behalf."[116]

[Footnote 115: The sitting members were Charles Gilpin and Lord Henley.]

[Footnote 116: _Souvenir._]

During the whole time, from the end of June to mid-November, Mr
Bradlaugh was of course constantly addressing meetings from one end
to th

Previous Next