Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2)

CHAPTER XI.
THE NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY

I am now closely approaching the end of my task, and as yet I have only mentioned the National Secular Society incidentally. To leave it without further notice would be doing scant justice both to my father and to the association with which he worked so actively, and with which his name must ever remain connected, whatever its future history may be.

The National Secular Society has sometimes been confounded with the London Secular Society, of which Mr George Jacob Holyoake and Mr Bradlaugh were successively presidents; but that was merely a London Society, and not a general association. Indeed, I believe there had never been any general association of the Freethinkers of Great Britain until 1866, when it was felt that some endeavour should be made to organise them. There were local secular Societies all over the kingdom, there were isolated Freethinkers to be found everywhere, but hitherto there had been no attempt to unite them into one general federation. Without organisation much propagandist work had been done: in a single year, for instance, 250,000 tracts were distributed; with organisation it was believed that much more might be accomplished. But propaganda was by no means the only object to be gained by uniting Freethinkers in one general society. In September a provisional programme for the proposed National Secular Society was put forward. Mr Bradlaugh by consent assumed the office of President of the Society until the first Conference. In the programme it was stated that the objects of the Society would be: —

To form an Association for mutual help for all the Freethinkers of Great Britain.

To conduct in the United Kingdom a more vigorous Freethought propaganda, especially in districts where Freethinkers are few, and Freethought lectures rare.

To establish a fund for the assistance of aged or distressed Freethinkers.

To promote Parliamentary and other action in order to remove all disabilities on account of religious opinions.

To establish secular schools and adult instruction classes in connection with every local society having members enough to support such schools or classes.

The idea of a National Society was well taken up, and members were enrolled in all directions. It was intended to hold a Conference early in the following year, but this was postponed, partly on account of Mr Bradlaugh's ill-health, and did not actually take place until the end of November, when it was found that the Society had made a very successful start in life – a success which was fully confirmed by the time the Conference met again a year later. A special Lecturing Fund was established in 1867, and by the aid of this the accredited lecturers of the Society went into places where the Freethinkers were too poor and too few to themselves bear the whole expenses of a meeting; and in this way towns and villages were visited by a Freethought lecturer where before Freethought was almost unheard of. The provisional statement of the principles and objects of the Society was very soon amended in some minor details, and ten or twelve years later a Revision Committee was appointed and the rules newly stated.

In 1869 the Society brought out the first Secular almanack ever published. It was edited by "Charles Bradlaugh and Austin Holyoake," and met with an immediate and complete success, transcending even the hopes of its promoters, the first edition being sold out in one day. This almanack has been continued without intermission until the present time. At Mr Austin Holyoake's death, Mr Charles Watts became co-editor with Mr Bradlaugh, and in 1878 he was superseded by Mrs Annie Besant. When Mr Bradlaugh resigned his office as President of the National Secular Society – in 1890, after his serious illness of the previous winter – the new President, Mr G. W. Foote, became editor of the almanack in conjunction with Mr J. M. Wheeler.

With the exception of the year 1872, when Mr Arthur Trevelyan, J.P., was elected President, Mr Bradlaugh held the chief office of the Society from the time of its foundation until his resignation, and it was always a source of immense pride to him that he was chosen representative of the Freethinkers of Great Britain and Ireland. He laboured untiringly for the Society; not merely for the organisation as a whole, but for the separate branches and for the individuals which comprised it. "During thirty years," he said on the day he resigned, "I think I may say I have never refused any help to any branch that I thought was justified in asking for help."

He never held any paid office, but on the contrary often paid money out of his own pocket for the purposes of the Association. He estimated that the sum he had earned and given in actual cash to the Society and its branches during the time he was connected with it amounted to £3000. The Society, on its side, released him and Mrs Besant from a payment of £420⁴² due to it at the time of his resignation.

His yearly Conference reports, although they make no pretence at being detailed records, are yet landmarks, as it were, of the work accomplished by the Society; his yearly Conference speeches⁴³ often give the most vivid glimpses of himself, of his pride in work accomplished, and his aspirations for work yet undone. Often, too, their terse and moving language reveals the truest, most unstudied eloquence.

The National Secular Society proved itself an organisation of the utmost value, not merely as a propagandist association, but in all cases in any degree connected with the Freethought movement where combined action was required. When Mrs Besant was deprived of her child; at the time of Mr Bradlaugh's Parliamentary struggle, with its countless phases; during the prosecutions for blasphemy, and on many other occasions, meetings were held or petitions were got up simultaneously all over the country. The members of the Society were and are nearly all poor men and women; but what they have lacked in riches they have made up in energy; what they could not contribute in money, they have given eagerly and cheerfully in work.

Many people misconstrued Mr Bradlaugh's reason for resigning his office as President of the National Secular Society. Some said he made a choice between his Freethought and his Parliamentary work, and selected the latter; others said he had long been gradually subordinating his anti-theological work to his political work, with a view to dropping the former; others, that his action was entirely due to a modification in his heretical opinions; and others again said that he was not in harmony with the members of the Society. The truth was so obvious and so simple that all seemed loth to accept it, and searched for complicated motives under the plain facts. At the special Conference summoned to receive his resignation, Mr Bradlaugh gave his reasons in a voice which was low and faltering, as much from the feelings which overcame him as from his recent illness.

"With very slight break," he said, "I have led in this movement for over thirty years – a fairly long period in any life. I have been President of the Society, with the same slight break, since the Society began, and I am very sorry, very sorry, to resign office this morning. Unfortunately, while the work was never easy, it has become much harder since 1880, with the Parliamentary struggle and the litigation in which the struggle involved me. I have felt for the past three or four years – and I think I have conveyed that feeling to you in my annual speeches – that the pressure must sooner or later bring a breakdown. Last October that breakdown came, and the wonder is that I am here to tender you my resignation at all. I was then brought face to face with the difficulty that I could no longer do all the work I had done… No resource is then open to me but to resign. Some kind friends have suggested that I might hold the office nominally… But I could not do that; I must be a real President or none. My fault has been that I have sometimes been too real a one, but it is no easy matter to lead such a voluntary movement as ours… I don't want to leave you. I could not take any other office in the Society after having been so long your President; but if you thought it right to elect me a member for life, I should be grateful to you for doing it."

In this statement from Mr Bradlaugh's own lips is contained the whole and sole reason for his resignation. To be a "real" President of the National Secular Society involved the performance of a vast amount of labour, the greater part of which was unrecognised and unseen. This he felt had become beyond his powers; it was not in him to bear the name and let others do the work; in giving up the duties of his position he must also give up its honours. Only those who knew the pride he had always felt in holding this office of President of the associated Freethinkers of the nation knew the pain it cost him to lay that office down.

CHAPTER XII.
THE LAST CHAPTER

The year 1880 saw the last of the long struggle in Northampton and the beginning of that in the House of Commons. For twelve years my father fought prejudice and misrepresentation in Northampton, for six years longer he had to fight prejudice and misrepresentation in the House of Commons. But the shorter fight was the harder one; it was carried on incessantly, without the slightest intermission. It was a terrible six years. The litigation alone is something appalling; in that time eight suits were begun and ended.

First there was the libel suit against Edgcumbe, which dragged on for more than a year, and ended in nothing.

Second came Clarke v. Bradlaugh. This was an action for penalties against Mr Bradlaugh for having sat and voted without taking the oath. Commenced in July 1880, it came before the judges six times, and was ultimately decided in favour of Mr Bradlaugh in April 1883.

Third – Bradlaugh v. Newdegate. An action for maintenance brought by Mr Bradlaugh against Mr Newdegate, and decided in favour of the former in April 1883.

Fourth – The Queen (Sir Henry Tyler) v. Bradlaugh, Foote, and Ramsey. An action for blasphemy, decided in Mr Bradlaugh's favour in April 1883.⁴⁴

Fifth – Bradlaugh v. Erskine. An action against the Deputy-Sergeant-at-Arms for assault, in removing Mr Bradlaugh from the lobby of the House of Commons on August 3, 1881.⁴⁵ Commenced in April 1882, this suit was decided against Mr Bradlaugh in January 1883. In March the Government enforced their claim for costs against him.

Sixth – Gurney v. Bradlaugh. A suit entered upon by Mr Gurney of Northampton, to try the validity of the conduct of the majority of the House in preventing Mr Bradlaugh from taking the oath and his seat in the House. Mr Justice Mathew discharged the jury, refusing to hear the case on the ground that it was a collusive action.

Seventh – Bradlaugh v. Gossett. In July 1883 Mr Bradlaugh applied for an injunction to restrain the Sergeant-at-Arms from using physical force to prevent him from entering the House. Decided against Mr Bradlaugh in the February of the following year.

Eighth – Attorney-General v. Bradlaugh. An action for penalties against Mr Bradlaugh for having sat and voted without having subscribed the oath. This case was heard at bar, and judgment given for the Attorney-General. This was appealed against, and the matter settled in October 1880; Mr Bradlaugh paid his own costs, but nothing further.⁴⁶

All these lawsuits, each involving the discussion of points of the greatest intricacy, and in which my father's brain was pitted against those of some of the greatest lawyers in England, would have been enough to tax the powers of any ordinary man, even if he had had no other struggles. But in these six years there were many other struggles; there were six elections, most of which were carried on under extremely harassing conditions. It was one constant battle within the walls of the House and without, and in the blind fury of their rage his antagonists spared neither my father nor any one whose name was associated with his. Sir Henry Tyler proceeded against Mr Foote and Mr Ramsay for blasphemy, only because along with them he hoped to be able to drag Mr Bradlaugh down. Sir Henry Tyler tried to deprive my sister and myself, as well as Mrs Besant and Dr Aveling, of our right to teach under the Science and Art Department, only because he hoped to wound Mr Bradlaugh by an attack upon his daughters⁴⁷ and his friends. The Somerville Club (at the instigation of Miss Eliza Orme) refused to accept the daughters of Charles Bradlaugh as members.⁴⁸ University College would not permit my sister Alice – a woman of stainless honour and of the highest character – and Mrs Besant to study botany within its walls;⁴⁹ the National Liberal Club, having actually invited Mr Bradlaugh to become a member, insulted him by refusing to elect him.⁵⁰

The country was flooded with literature making the most infamous charges against him, and in the name of religion men went from town to town to preach against him. Even Cardinal Manning, a prince of the greatest Church in Christendom, was not too exalted to stoop to cast his stone at the despised Atheist. Within the precincts of the great Commons House itself he had to sit in silence, with no right of reply, whilst he heard his character assailed, and those who worked with him basely slandered. Within those same historic walls he was set upon and terribly ill-used by officials, ordered to their work by gentlemen claiming to represent the nation. I was at Westminster on the day which witnessed this strange example of the boasted "English love of fair play." I tremble as I recall it.

We went to Westminster by train, my sister and I, with Mrs Besant and some friends of hers. The sight which met our eyes as we came out of the station was one not to be readily forgotten; immense masses of orderly men and women kept easily within certain limits by a thin line of police. There was a quick recognition of us as we passed along by friends from all parts of the country, who gave us grave and serious greeting. At the gates of Palace Yard we were challenged by the police, but allowed to pass on presenting our petition, and going on to Westminster Hall we found it occupied by little groups of men from all corners of England.⁵¹ These groups grew and grew, until the great hall seemed full, and voices were heard on all sides crying, "Petition," "Petition." At the head of the steps near the door leading to the lobby we took up our position. By-and-by an agonising rumour flew through the Hall, "They are killing him; they are killing him!" and swift on the heels of this came the angry cry, again and again repeated, "To the House!" and with this, the surging forward of the crowd. So few police had been spared to guard this entrance that they would have been absolutely powerless to resist these men – not London "roughs," but the pick of the London clubs, and, more formidable still, men from many a Midland town, and from many a North country pit and factory, whose hearts were bound up in my father, and who had come to London that day to petition for justice. The police command, "Keep back!" fell upon deaf ears. My sister and I involuntarily put ourselves in front of the doors, facing the crowd. Mrs Besant sprang forward, and in a few impassioned words she begged them to consider what Mr Bradlaugh's wishes would be. The effect was instantaneous. The foremost fell back, and kept others back till all were self-controlled once more; but the white, set faces told of the struggle in their hearts. "But we can't stay here and know he is being murdered, and do nothing to help him," said one in a choking voice. Some terrible minutes passed, but there was no further attempt to pass through the doors. By-and-by a message reached us from my father that he was gone to Stonecutter Street, and that we were to join him there. At Stonecutter Street we found him quite calm and self-possessed, but his coat hanging in rents, his ashen face and still quivering flesh telling the tale of the struggle he had just passed through.

In a few days he fell very ill. The small muscles of both arms were ruptured; erysipelas supervened, and the left arm was very bad indeed, needing constant attention by day and night. All day long from early morning to the small hours of the next day there were people calling, some friendly and some very much otherwise, besides press men and persons on business. My father had no rest, and one day the physician said, "You will never get well, Mr Bradlaugh, if you don't get out of this room."

"You wish me to go away?" asked my father.

"Yes."

"When?"

"At once."

"I will go to-day," was the characteristic reply.

I packed up the necessary baggage, a fly was ordered to take us to the station, and at Mrs Besant's suggestion it was decided to go to Eastbourne. I was nursing my father, so I went with him, while for a day or so my sister remained behind to attend to things at home. Mrs Besant accompanied us. On the way to the station my father, who was feeling very ill and very depressed, said he did not care to go to Eastbourne – it was too fashionable; so I took the map from the railway guide and called over the names of places on the South Coast until he stopped me at Worthing, and then we turned about to go to there instead of to Eastbourne. My father had both arms in slings, and at the station Mrs Besant and I had to walk one each side of him to protect them from the impertinent and the unfeeling who crowded round to stare at him. Arrived at Worthing, we got into a cab, asking the driver if he could recommend us to a quiet hotel; he looked compassionately at the only too evidently sick man, and said he thought West Worthing would suit us best. Whilst he was getting the luggage, a clergyman whom we had seen inside the station came out, and walking up to the open cab stared rudely at my father, and as he turned away said loudly, for us to hear, "That's Bradlaugh; I hope they'll make it warm for him yet."

West Worthing did suit us, as the cabman surmised; my father's health daily improved, and indeed there is little doubt that his timely removal to this quiet spot saved his life for the time. After a few days my sister joined us, and we all felt the better for the change, as much from the momentary respite as from the fresh air and sea breeze.

The expenses of the litigation and the various elections were enormous, both directly and indirectly. Although eventually Mr Newdegate had to bear the whole of the costs in the suit which he brought against Mr Bradlaugh, yet the latter had to find several hundred pounds – about £725 in all – to pay into court at different times. These sums were ultimately repaid to him, but liabilities had to be incurred to produce them at the required moments. The shorthand notes in the three days' appeal from the trial at bar alone cost him £50. In the case of Bradlaugh v. Erskine, in which the House of Commons defended its officer, the Government made Mr Bradlaugh pay the costs, under the circumstances a very harsh and unusual proceeding. Very little time was allowed to elapse before the claim was insisted upon, and to find the money my father had to choose between more borrowing and selling his library. Yet if the motion carried unanimously and "amid cheers" on the 27th January 1891 means anything, it is an acknowledgment that the House was in the wrong when it instructed its officer to prevent Mr Bradlaugh by force from obeying the law. It was not merely the direct cost, however; there were the indirect penalties also. For instance, in February 1885, after the appeal from the trial at bar (which, with its subsequent proceedings alone covered thirteen days), my father spoke of the worry and uncertainty which had "for months arrested nearly all my means of earning money." People were always subscribing in an endeavour to pay for him the expenses they knew of, and many were the sacrifices some of them made in their eager desire to help. One old Yorkshire miner, who had been sorely troubled that times were so hard with him that he could spare nothing, one day came triumphantly to his friend saying, "I have made it all right; I will go without the half pint for a week, and send it to the lad."⁵² Many cut down their usual allowance of tobacco, and some went altogether without. One poor man sent his silver watch, the only thing of value which he possessed; some people in London, touched at hearing of this sacrifice, offered to join together to buy him a gold one in acknowledgment of it, but he would not hear of it. Several times I have known a cabman refuse to take his fare.⁵³ Many poor people sent their small subscriptions weekly or monthly. But my father always worried about these funds; he could not bear the thought of his poor friends denying themselves their little luxuries, or even perhaps their necessaries, and he always promptly closed a fund when it had been open some fixed time or directly the specific sum was reached.

A constant accusation brought against Mr Bradlaugh was that of living in aristocratic style,⁵⁴ and of having a most enormous income.⁵⁵ As a matter of fact, he had no income other than what he earned from day to day, and his habits and mode of life at Circus Road were of the simplest possible kind. His bedroom was very small, about 10 feet by 9 feet, with just room for his bedstead, chest of drawers, wash-stand, and a couple of chairs. His library, on the first floor after 1880, was a very large room with five windows to it; but spacious as it was, it was by no means too large for his books. The room was shelved all round to the very edges of the windows, except just over the fireplace; and there were also three sets of movable shelves on the floor of the room. The furniture was quite simple – just a desk, writing-tables, cane-seated chairs, my father's two old oaken arm-chairs from Tottenham, and an easy chair, which was bought specially for him one time when he was not well. There was no other "easy" chair in the house, and only one small sofa – really a bedroom lounge – which my sister bought for me one morning when I was ailing. I doubt whether the whole of my father's furniture would have fetched five-and-twenty pounds at a sale. Our meals we had downstairs in a very dark basement room under our landlord's music shop, and here the blue books were also stored.

My father's habits were as simple as his surroundings. He was an early riser, and at whatever time he got home at night he was in his study soon after seven in the morning, Even when he was not home from the House of Commons till four o'clock in the morning, it was seldom he lay in bed after eight. He had a cup of tea as soon as he was down, and he worked at his desk until breakfast-time, which he liked punctually at eight. If he was more than usually busy or worried, he asked for his breakfast to be brought to his study, and he would take it as he worked; but my sister and I always affected to be vexed if he did this, because we liked to get him away from his work and into another room for his meals. About the middle of 1877 his ever-increasing correspondence obliged him to have regular clerical assistance, and his secretary came at nine. He was in to callers until ten or half-past. This was the time he saw people who wanted to consult him on legal or private matters: he listened patiently to their troubles, and often gave them most helpful advice how to get out of them. All sorts of difficulties were confided to him – family troubles, dissensions between husband and wife, between employer and employed; great troubles and small were brought to him, and those who brought them were sure of a sympathetic and patient listener, and a confidant to whom they could unreservedly open their hearts.

If Mr Bradlaugh did not have to attend a Committee of the House he would have his dinner (or "lunch," as it was indifferently called) at half-past twelve, and this was followed by a cup of tea in his library; if he were in all day, he had his afternoon tea (just a cup of tea and a crust of bread and butter) at four, and his supper about seven or half-past seven. At his dinner and supper he drank hock or burgundy.⁵⁶ Often after supper there would be a little pleasant chat, sometimes a game of chess, and, more rarely, whist with a dummy. If my father was too tired or too worried for any of these, he would go to bed as early as half-past eight or nine, lie and read for a while, and then sleep soundly until morning. Of course it was not often he could do this, for his evenings were usually spent in lecturing or at the House of Commons.⁵⁷ The only time during the session which he could rely upon for seeing callers, answering letters,⁵⁸ and earning his living, was from seven A.M. until the time he left for the House. Saturday evening and Sundays were generally employed in lecturing. Until 1884 his holidays were of the rarest and the shortest. In that year he first went fishing at Loch Long. At the suggestion of some Scotch friends, a cottage was taken for a month that summer at Portincaple, a lovely and secluded spot just opposite Loch Goil. My sister and I and a Scotch lady, Miss Lees, stayed the whole time; different friends came and went, and my father spent a week fishing. The cottage belonged to Finlay M'Nab, fisherman and ferryman, and had belonged to his father and grandfather before him. On nearly all Mr Bradlaugh's fishing expeditions Finlay M'Nab was his boatman. They would go off just after breakfast, or sometimes even earlier, get dinner at Carrick Castle or Ardentinny, and come home at sunset with a big bag of fish. After 1884 we went to Portincaple several summers in succession, and then Mr Bradlaugh took to going there in the Easter and Whitsun recess, and for a few days after Parliament rose. On these occasions he went alone, but Mrs M'Nab attended to all his comforts indoors as though he were at home, and outdoors her husband looked after the bait and the boat – except on Sundays; then, my father had to content himself with the dangerous amusement of fishing from the rocks, whilst Finlay looked wistfully on.

Mr Bradlaugh was a very even-tempered man, and those who waited on him usually served him eagerly. He never found fault unnecessarily, and provided an attempt was well meant, it mattered little, as far as his behaviour went, if the result was not equal to the intention. He was most generous and tender-hearted, except to those who had wantonly taken advantage of the confidence he reposed in them to deceive him. Such persons called him hard and unrelenting, for even if he forgave them they never again held quite the same place in his esteem. Some critics have said he was a man of unrestrained passions; others have said he was absolutely passionless. Neither is right. He was a man of very strong feelings, but he had an iron will. At a critical moment in his life, when he was greatly tempted to follow a certain course, a friend urged upon him that if he did he would injure the work he had at heart. My father replied by stretching out his arm, and closing his fingers over an imagined object. "I have not a passion," he said, "that I could not crush as easily as an egg within my hand if it were necessary for the good of the cause I love." And he was true to his word.

In 1877 when Mr Bradlaugh severed his business connection with Mr C. Watts, he started, as I have said, a publishing business in connection with Mrs Annie Besant, under the style of the Freethought Publishing Company. The business premises were at Stonecutter Street, E.C., and here, with small premises, a small staff, and a small rent, the Company did fairly well. In 1882, however, my father was induced against his better judgment to lease a shop at the corner of Fleet Street and Bouverie Street (now occupied by the Black and White Company). Here the premises were large and the rent heavy. To make matters worse, about a couple of years later, owing to the financial difficulties of his landlord, he was reluctantly obliged to take up the remainder of the lease of the whole building, and thus he became saddled with the rent and taxes – amounting to more than seven hundred per annum – and the responsibility of a great house in the city. In order to raise the capital required to meet these expenses, Mr Bradlaugh with Mrs Besant issued debenture stock to the amount of four or five thousand pounds, the interest on which was paid with unfailing regularity until my father's death.

But as he had feared, the business at Fleet Street did not thrive sufficiently to support so large an establishment; the greater part of it had always been, and was then, a postal business, hence it could be carried on as well in a little shop in a side street as in a large corner shop in such a thoroughfare. The details of the managership of the publishing department were in the hands of Mrs Besant and my sister Alice, but as both were without the least experience in business, my father was the final referee on all matters, and it was he of course who had to provide for quarter-day with its heavy rent, taxes, and debenture interest.

In 1884, unable to let the upper portion of the building, Mr Bradlaugh decided to utilise it himself by setting up a printing-office, and doing his own printing. This department was put under the control of Mr Bonner, to whom I was then engaged to be married. As my husband was already familiar with the management of a printing-office, Mr Bradlaugh's only trouble with this branch of his business was in finding the money, and this was not a great anxiety, as it paid for itself from the very first. It is true the profits were never great, for the prejudice against giving work to any establishment connected with the name of Bradlaugh at first limited the work almost to the printing of his own publications. My father was very glad to be saved responsibility, even in this small matter for, as he often said, he had never intended to become a publisher, and he had never intended to become a printer; he had so many things on his hands that he had time neither for one nor the other; he had, in fact, no inclination for commercial pursuits: they had always been forced upon him by circumstances.