Charles
Bradlaugh,
the son of a solicitor's clerk, was born in Hoxton, London
on 26th September, 1833. At the age of twelve he became an office
boy in the company where his father worked. As a young man he came
under the influence of the ideas of Richard
Carlile, the man who had been sent to prison for blasphemy and
seditious libel in 1819. Like Carlile, Bradlaugh began to question
the truth of Christianity and this led to arguments with his father.
In 1849 Bradlaugh left home due to religious differences with his
family. The following year Bradlaugh enlisted in the Seventh Dragoon
Guards. However, Bradlaugh disliked army life and in 1853 he obtained
a discharge and found work in a law office. Bradlaugh was now a committed
republican and freethinker and in 1860 joined Joseph Barker, a former
Chartist from Sheffield,
to establish the radical journal, The National
Reformer.
Bradlaugh wrote a series of pamphlets on politics and religion and
by the early 1860s was recognised as one of the leading freethinkers
in Britain. In 1866 Bradlaugh helped to establish the National
Secular Society, an organisation opposed to Christian dogma. Bradlaugh
met Annie Besant and the two of them became
close friends. Bradlaugh employed Besant on The
National Reformer and over the next few years she wrote many
articles on issues such as marriage and women's rights.
In 1877
Charles Bradlaugh and Annie
Besant decided to publish The
Fruits of Philosophy, Charles Knowlton's book advocating
birth control. Besant and Bradlaugh were charged with publishing material
that was "likely to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are
open to immoral influences". In court they argued that "we
think it more moral to prevent conception of children than, after
they are born, to murder them by want of food, air and clothing."
Besant and Bradlaugh were both found guilty of
publishing an "obscene libel" and sentenced to six months
in prison. At the Court
of Appeal the sentence was quashed.
The authorities attempted to obstruct the activities
of Bradlaugh and other freethinkers. Pamphlets on religion were seized
by the Post
Office and on several
occasions they were excluded from using public buildings for their
meetings. In 1882 the staff of the journal, The
Freethinker, were prosecuted for blasphemy, and two of
them were found guilty and sent to prison.
Bradlaugh
had tried several times to be elected to represent Northampton
in Parliament. He was eventually elected in 1880, but as he was not
a Christian he asked for permission to affirm rather the oath of office.
The Speaker of the House of Commons refused
this request and Bradlaugh was expelled from Parliament. William
Gladstone, the Prime Minister, supported Bradlaugh's right to
affirm, but he had upset a lot of people with his views on Christianity,
the monarchy and birth control and when the issue was put before Parliament,
MPs voted to support the Speaker's decision to expel him.
Bradlaugh now mounted a national campaign in favour of atheists being
allowed to sit in the House of Commons.
Bradlaugh gained some support from some Nonconformists
but he was strongly opposed by the Conservative
Party and the leaders of the Anglican
and Catholic clergy. When Bradlaugh attempted
to take his seat in Parliament in June 1880, he was arrested by the
Sergeant-at-Arms and imprisoned in the Tower
of London. Benjamin Disraeli, leader
of the Conservative Party, warned
that Bradlaugh would become a martyr and it was decided to release
him.
On 26th April, 1881, Charles Bradlaugh was once again refused permission
to affirm. William Gladstone promised
to bring in legislation to enable Bradlaugh to do this, but this would
take time. Bradlaugh was unwilling to wait and when he attempted to
take his seat on 2nd August he was once forcibly removed from the
House of Commons. Bradlaugh and his supporters
organised a national petition and on 7th February, 1882, he presented
a list of 241,970 signatures calling for him to be allowed to take
his seat. However, when he tried to take the Parliamentary oath, he
was once again removed from Parliament.
Gladstone's Affirmation Bill was discussed by Parliament in the spring
of 1883. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal
Manning, head of the Catholic Church,
argued against the right of atheists to be MPs and when the vote was
taken in May 1883, the Affirmation Bill was defeated. In 1884 Bradlaugh
was once again elected to represent Northampton
in the House of Commons. He took his seat
and voted three times before he was excluded. He was later fined £1,500
for voting illegally.
Bradlaugh decided to try again to take the oath on 13th January, 1886.
The new Speaker, Sir Arthur Wellesley Peel, did not object, arguing
that he had to authority to interfere with the oath-taking. Bradlaugh
now had the right to speak and vote in the House
of Commons, and over the next few years he supported Irish
Home Rule and the redistribution of land. He continued to argue
for republicanism and was a fierce critic of pensions, such as the
£4,000 a year to the Duke of Marlborough, being paid to members
of the royal family. Bradlaugh was also a strong critic of Britain's
foreign policy and opposed the military involvement in South Africa,
Sudan, Afghanistan and Egypt. Charles Bradlaugh died on 30th January,
1891. His funeral was attended by 3,000 mourners who saw him buried
in unconsecrated ground.
Drawing of Charles Bradlaugh being
evicted from the House of Commons in 1880
(1)
In 1877 Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh
attempted to publish The Fruits of Philosophy in Britain.
The couple were immediately arrested and charged with publishing
an 'obscene' book. Hardinge Gifford, the public prosecutor, explained
why Besant and Bradlaugh were on trial.
I say that this is a dirty, filthy book, and the test of it is that
no human being would allow that book on his table, no decently educated
English husband would allow even his wife to have it…the object
of it is to enable a person to have sexual intercourse, and not
to have that which in the order of providence is the natural result
of that sexual intercourse. That is the only purpose of the book
and all the instruction in the other parts of the book leads up
to that proposition.
(2)
Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh were
both found guilty and sentenced to six months imprisonment, and
fined £200. However in February 1878, the Court of Appeal reversed
the judgement and the sentence was quashed. Annie Besant responded
to this decision by writing her own book on birth control. She explained
in her autobiography her reasons for this.
I wrote a pamphlet entitled The Law of Population giving
the arguments which had convinced me of its truth, the terrible
distress and degradation entailed on families by overcrowding and
the lack of necessaries of life, pleading for early marriages that
prostitution might be destroyed, and limitation of the family that
pauperism might be avoided, finally giving the information which
rendered early marriage without these evils possible. This pamphlet
was put in circulation as representing our views on the subject.
We continued the
sale of Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy for some time until
we received an intimation that no further prosecution would be attempted,
and on this we at once dropped its publication, substituting for
it my Law of Population.
(3)
Charles Bradlaugh, The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick
(1880)
Her Majesty is now enormously rich, and - as she is like her Royal
grandmother - grows richer daily. She is also generous, and has
recently given not quite half a day's income to the starving poor
of India.
(4)
Charles Bradlaugh, The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle
(1877)
The enormous estates of the few landed proprietors must not only
be prevented from growing larger, they must be broken up. If they
claim that in this we are unfair, our answer is ready. You have
monopolized the land, and while you have got each year a wider and
firmer grip, you have cast its burdens on others; you have made
labour pay the taxes which land could more easily have bourne. You
have been intolerant in your power, driving your tenants to the
poll like cattle, keeping your labourers ignorant and demoralized.
(5) Philip Snowden,
An Autobiography (1934)
In those early days I heard a number of famous people. Charles Bradlaugh
and Annie Besant were at the height of their popularity. They had
just been prosecuted for the publication of the Knowlton pamphlet
on birth control. I heard Bradlaugh speak on the subject, and I
can see him now as he stood on the platform. He was a massive figure,
with a fine head and a powerful voice, and in declamation he was
a tremendous force.
(6)
Henry
Snell, Men Movements and Myself (1936)
The controversy which had arisen over the
question of Charles Bradlaugh's claim to be admitted to Parliament
had made his name a household word throughout the country, and when
it was announced that he would shortly visit Nottingham I determined
that I would try and see him and hear him speak. The subject of
his lecture was Ireland. Bradlaugh was already speaking when I arrived,
and I remember, as clearly as though it were only yesterday, the
immediate and compelling impression made upon me by that extraordinary
man. I have never been so influenced by a human personality as I
was by Charles Bradlaugh. The commanding strength, the massive head,
the imposing stature, and the ringing eloquence of the man fascinated
me, and from that hour until the day of his death, ten years later,
I was one of his humblest but most devoted of his followers.
Taking him all in all - as man, orator, as leader of unpopular causes,
and as an incorruptible public figure, he was the most imposing
human being that I have ever known, and I do not expect to look
upon his like again. I have seen strong men, under the storm of
his passion, rise from their seats, and sometimes weep with emotion.
Like a prodigal he threw away with both hands the energies of a
precious life, and he died, exhausted, by the early age of fifty-seven.
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