Henry Noel Brailsford was born in Mirfield, a Yorkshire colliery town, on 25th December 1873. Henry's father, Edward John Brailsford (1841–1921), was a Wesleyan Methodist preacher who mainly worked in Edinburgh and Glasgow. His mother was Clara Pooley Brailsford (1843–1944).
Brailsford was educated at George Watson's College, Edinburgh (1883-84) and Dundee High School (1885-90) where he won a scholarship to study at the University of Glasgow. According to his biographer, F. M. Leventhal: "Rebelling against the puritanical regimen of his upbringing, Brailsford became estranged from his father, whose attempt to shield him from immorality by imposing teetotalism and a distinctive outfit had only made him self-conscious."
After obtaining a first-class honours degree he was employed to lecturer at Queen Margaret College in Glasgow. During this period he joined the Fabian Society. In 1897 he decided to abandon his academic career and became a journalist working on the Scots Pictorial. The following year he married one of his former students, Jane Esdon Malloch.
Seeking adventure he enlisted in the Philhellenic Legion, a volunteer force fighting for the Greeks in their struggle with Turkey. His war experiences gave him the material for his only novel, The Broom of the War God (1898).
On the recommendation of Robert Adamson, professor of logic at Glasgow University, Brailsford was employed as a foreign correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. This involved spending time in the Balkans, France and Egypt. In 1899 he moved to London where he became a journalist for the Morning Leader. Later he became a leader writer on the Daily News. As well as contributing to The Star and the weekly journal, The Nation.
Considered to be an expert on the Balkans, he was selected to head of the British relief mission to Macedonia in 1903. On his return he wrote Macedonia (1906), a cultural and historical survey of the area. Brailsford also was active in the Friends of Russian Freedom, and organisation that raised funds to help those groups in Russia fighting for democracy.
Brailsford had been gradually moving to the left and in 1907 joined the Independent Labour Party. His wife, Jane Brailsford, was a member of the WSPU. He shared her views and in 1909 resigned from the Daily News with his friend, Henry Nevinson, when the paper supported the government policy of force-feeding women prisoners. The two men now helped to establish the Men's League for Women's Suffrage.
For the next couple of years he concentrated on writing books. This included Adventures in Prose (1911), Shelley, Godwin and his Circle (1913), War of Steel and Gold (1914), Origins of the Great War (1914) and Belgium and the Scrap of Paper (1915). A member of the Union of Democratic Control, his criticism's of the government war policy led to his books being impounded.
Brailsford's book A League of Nations (1917) called for the setting up of an international organisation responsible for trade, overseas investment and the distribution of raw materials and a deep influence on the thinking of the US president, Woodrow Wilson.
After failing to be elected as the Labour candidate for Montrose Burghs in the 1918 General Election, Brailsford toured Central Europe and his graphic accounts of the suffering being endured by the people in the defeated countries appeared in his books Across the Blockade (1919) and After the Peace (1920). He also warned that unless the Versailles Treaty was renegotiated, this deeply flawed peace settlement would led to an increase of German militarism and a possible Second World War.
Brailsford was interested in the Russian Revolution and after visiting the country published two books on the subject, The Russian Workers' Republic (1921) and How the Soviets Work (1927). Although impressed by the economic achievements of the communist regime, he was highly critical of the lack of individual freedom and the suppression of dissent.
In 1922 Clifford Allen, arranged for Brailsford to be appointed as editor the New Leader, the newspaper of the Independent Labour Party. Brailsford employed several talented writers including George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and Bertrand Russell. Allen worked closely with Brailsford to produce a new type of political newspaper where the standard of typography and design was as important as its editorial contents. Each issue contained original woodcuts that illustrated articles about politics and culture. Considered by many as one of the most successful radical newspapers ever published, it unfortunately upset too many powerful people in the labour movement. Ramsay MacDonald and the other leaders of the Labour Party objected to Brailsford's attacks on their moderate, non-socialist policies. However, the left distrusted Brailsford's middle-class background and in 1926 he was ousted as editor.
Replaced by his friend, Fenner Brockway, Brailsford continued to contribute articles for the newspaper until he left the Independent Labour Party in 1932. After that he tended to write for The Reynolds News and the New Statesman. He also wrote several books including Rebel India (1931) where he called for an end to colonial rule and Property or Peace? (1934) where he explored the connections between war and capitalism.
Brailsford had been one of the major critics of the Versailles Treaty and a supporter of disarmament, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War convinced him that an anti-fascist alliance, including the Soviet Union, was vitally important. Although in his sixties, he considered joining the International Brigades. According to his biographer, F. M. Leventhal, "only with difficulty could friends dissuade him from enlisting".
Brailsford chaired the Labour Spain Committee, a pressure group advocating an active pro-loyalist policy. He also played a role in persuading men to join the British Battalion, that was formed in January 1937. As the author of The Spanish Civil War and the British Labour Movement (1991) has pointed out: "it soon became apparent that the assistance of dependants and wounded would be an expensive task - the estimated weekly cost rose from an initial £70-90 to £700 in November 1937." Brailsford approached Walter Citrine, the general secretary of the TUC, and suggested that the labour movement should take responsibility for the 230 trade unionists and 40 Labour Party members fighting in the battalion. Citrine, who was concerned about the growing influence of the Communist Party of Great Britain in the International Brigades, rejected the idea.
Brailsford visited the I on the front-line. Fred Copeman later recorded: "Of all the politicians who visited Spain, I was impressed most by Brailsford... I can see him today standing beside the small monument behind the line, marking the place where our dead were buried, with his white hair blowing in the wind and pouring rain - alone. No passing love here, but a deliberate demonstration of personal affection for those who had given all in a cause which he held dear, and for which he had fought over many years. God bless old Brailsford. We need more men like him."
After the defeat of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War Brailsford became convinced that only military resistance to Adolf Hitler would stop the growth of fascism. His denunciation of the Munich Agreement signed by Neville Chamberlain and
Edouard Daladier was among the strongest indictments to appear in the British press. As F. M. Leventhal has pointed out Brailsford "also spoke out forcefully against the Soviet purge trials, earning the enmity of the Communist Party."
Brailsford gave his support to the Left Book Club started by Victor Gollancz, Harold Laski and John Strachey and the left wing journal, Tribune, that began publication in 1937.
During the Second World War Brailsford wrote for the New Statesman and broadcast for the BBC Overseas Service. Brailsford continued to write books during the war, the most important being Subject India (1943) and Our Settlement with Germany (1944).
After his retirement from journalism in 1946,
