John Bright
John Bright (16 November 1811 – 27 March 1889) was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies.
For other people named John Bright, see John Bright (disambiguation).
John Bright
Victoria
William Ewart Gladstone
Victoria
William Ewart Gladstone
Thomas Edward Taylor
16 November 1811
Rochdale, Lancashire, England
27 March 1889 (aged 77)
Rochdale, Lancashire, England
Liberal Unionist (1886-89)
Liberal (1859-86)
Radical (until 1859)
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Elizabeth Priestman(m. 1839; died 1841)
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Margaret Leatham(m. 1847)
A Quaker, Bright is most famous for battling the Corn Laws. In partnership with Richard Cobden, he founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the Corn Laws, which raised food prices and protected landowners' interests by levying taxes on imported wheat. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846. Bright also worked with Cobden in another free trade initiative, the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between Great Britain and the Second French Empire. This campaign was conducted in collaboration with French economist Michel Chevalier, and succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French.
Bright sat in the House of Commons from 1843 to 1889, promoting free trade, electoral reform and religious freedom. He was almost a lone voice in opposing the Crimean War; he also opposed William Ewart Gladstone's proposed Home Rule for Ireland. He saw himself as a spokesman for the middle class and strongly opposed the privileges of the landed aristocracy. In terms of Ireland, he sought to end the political privileges of Anglicans, disestablished the Church of Ireland, and began land reform that would turn land over to the Catholic peasants. He coined the phrase "The mother of parliaments."
Early life[edit]
Bright was born at Greenbank, Rochdale, in Lancashire, England—one of the early centres of the Industrial Revolution. His father, Jacob Bright, was a much respected Quaker, who had started a cotton mill at Rochdale in 1809. Jacob's father, Abraham, was a Wiltshire yeoman, who, early in the 18th century, moved to Coventry, where his descendants remained. Jacob Bright was educated at the Ackworth School of the Society of Friends, and apprenticed to a fustian manufacturer at New Mills, Derbyshire. John Bright was his son by his second wife, Martha Wood, daughter of a Quaker shopkeeper of Bolton-le-Moors. Educated at Ackworth School, she was a woman of great strength of character and refined taste. There were eleven children of this marriage, of whom John was the eldest surviving son.[1] His younger brother was Jacob Bright, an MP and mayor. His sisters included Priscilla Bright McLaren (whose husband was Duncan McLaren MP) and Margaret Bright Lucas. John was a delicate child and was sent as a day pupil to a boarding school near his home, kept by William Littlewood. A year at the Ackworth School, two years at Bootham School,[2] York, and a year and a half at Newton, near Clitheroe, completed his education. He later claimed to have learned little Latin and Greek at school, but instead acquired a love of English literature, which his mother fostered, and a love of outdoor pursuits. In his sixteenth year, he entered his father's mill, and in due time became a partner in the business.[1]
In Rochdale, Jacob Bright was a leader of the opposition to a local church-rate. Rochdale was also prominent in the movement for parliamentary reform, by which the town successfully claimed to have a member allotted to it under the Reform Bill. John Bright took part in both campaigns. He was an ardent Nonconformist, proud to number among his ancestors John Gratton, a friend of George Fox, and one of the persecuted and imprisoned preachers of the Religious Society of Friends. His political interest was probably first kindled by the Preston election in 1830, in which Edward Stanley, after a long struggle, was defeated by Henry "Orator" Hunt.[1]
But it was as a member of the Rochdale Juvenile Temperance Band that Bright first learned public speaking. These young men went out into the villages, borrowed a chair of a cottager, and spoke from it at open-air meetings. John Bright's first extempore speech was at a temperance meeting. Bright got his notes muddled and broke down. The chairman gave out a temperance song, and during the singing told Bright to put his notes aside and say what came into his mind. Bright obeyed, began with much hesitancy, but found his tongue and made an excellent address,[1] although sometimes he spoke with a confused syntax.[3] Tales of these early years circulated through Britain and the United States late into his career, to the extent that students at institutions such as the young Cornell University regarded him as an exemplar for activities such as the Irving Literary Society.
On some early occasions, however, he committed his speech to memory. In 1832 he called on the Rev. John Aldis, an eminent Baptist minister, to accompany him to a local Bible meeting. Mr Aldis described him as a slender, modest young gentleman, who surprised him by his intelligence and thoughtfulness, but who seemed nervous as they walked to the meeting together. At the meeting he made a stimulating speech, and on the way home asked for advice. Mr Aldis counselled him not to learn his speeches, but to write out and commit to memory certain passages and the peroration. This "first lesson in public speaking", as Bright called it, was given in his twenty-first year, but he had not then contemplated a public career. He was a fairly prosperous man of business, very happy in his home, always ready to take part in the social, educational and political life of his native town. A founder of the Rochdale Literary and Philosophical Society, he took a leading part in its debates, and on returning from a holiday journey in the east, gave the society a lecture on his travels.[1]
Marriage and Manchester[edit]
Bright married firstly, on 27 November 1839, Elizabeth Priestman of Newcastle, daughter of Jonathan Priestman and Rachel Bragg. They had one daughter, Helen Priestman Bright (b. 1840) but Elizabeth eventually died from tubercolosis on 10 September 1841. Bright had visited her often but she had been cared for by her sister Margaret. Elizabeth's requests included that Helen Priestman Bright should be brought up by her larger family.[8] She later married William Stephens Clark (1839–1925) of Street in Somerset.
Bright married secondly, in June 1847, Margaret Elizabeth Leatham, sister of Edward Aldam Leatham of Wakefield, by whom he had seven children including John Albert Bright and William Leatham Bright. Bright employed Lydia Rous in 1868 to teach his children. He compared her abilities as second only to the Queen.[9]
In July 1847, Bright was elected uncontested for Manchester, with Milner Gibson. In the new parliament, he opposed legislation restricting the hours of labour, and, as a Nonconformist, spoke against clerical control of national education. In 1848 he voted for Hume's household suffrage motion, and introduced a bill for the repeal of the Game Laws. When Lord John Russell brought forward his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, Bright opposed it as "a little, paltry, miserable measure", and foretold its failure. In this parliament he spoke much on Irish questions. In a speech in favour of the government bill for a rate in aid (a tax on the prosperous parts of Ireland that would have paid for famine relief in the rest of that island) in 1849, he won loud cheers from both sides, and was complimented by Disraeli for having sustained the reputation of that assembly. From this time forward he had the ear of the House, and took effective part in the debates. He spoke against capital punishment, against church-rates, against flogging in the army, and against the Irish Established Church. He supported Cobden's motion for the reduction of public expenditure, and in and out of parliament pleaded for peace.[5]
In the election of 1852 Bright was again returned for Manchester on the principles of free trade, electoral reform and religious freedom. But war was in the air, and the most impassioned speeches he ever delivered were addressed to this parliament in fruitless opposition to the Crimean War. Neither the House nor the country would listen. "I went to the House on Monday", wrote Macaulay in March 1854, "and heard Bright say everything I thought." His most memorable speech, the greatest he ever made, was delivered on 23 February 1855.[10] "The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land. You may almost hear the beating of his wings", he said, and concluded with an appeal that moved the House as it had never been moved within living memory.[5][11]
In 1860, Bright won another victory with Cobden in a new Free Trade initiative, the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty, promoting closer interdependence between Britain and France. This campaign was conducted in collaboration with French economist Michel Chevalier, and succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French.
