Right: John Bright (author – Elliott & Fry, source – scan from original, Bernd Schwabe, Hanover).
John Bright (1811-89)
The ‘great Victorian moralist’ By Stephen Roberts
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radical and Liberal statesman, supreme orator, and keen advocate of free trade, John Bright would become most famous for his opposition to the iniquitous Corn Laws, hence him being dubbed one of the ‘great Victorian moralists’. The son of a respected Quaker cotton-spinner, and born at Greenbank, Rochdale, an early centre of the Industrial Revolution, on 16th November 1811, Bright would be brought up a Quaker himself. Educated at a Friends’ school in Ackworth, Yorkshire (then York and Newton, near Clitheroe), he took a keen interest in public issues from an early stage, whilst still employed at his father’s mill, where he became a partner (Jacob Bright had opened his own cotton mill in 1809). Bright grew up in a large family, Jacob’s second marriage to Martha Wood having bestowed eleven children. The fact Bright became a man of many facets was down, in part, to his parents. From his mother he inherited sensitivity and imagination, from his father, a bluntness of manner. It’s an interesting combo that would create a decent individual. You’d know
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where you stood with him, but he also had an intrinsic caring nature. At a time when the ‘Grand Tour’ usually implied a trip around the sights of Europe, Bright took on something rather different, and more ambitious, a tour around the Near East (1835), when he would have been approaching his mid-20s. When he returned, he lectured in Rochdale on his travel experiences, as well as on some of his pet interests, such as commerce and political economy. Given his oratorical skills, I would imagine that an evening listening to Bright must have been entertaining (much like one of my own gigs I have to say). The Anti-Corn Law League was formed in 1839. Bright became a leading member and formed an impressive partnership with Sussexborn Richard Cobden (1804-65), agitating against the Corn Laws which raised food prices for the poor whilst protecting landowners’ interests (the rich) by levying taxes on imported wheat. In tandem with Cobden, Bright launched into free trade agitation throughout the nation. In that same year (1839), Bright married Elizabeth Priestman,
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
a fellow Quaker, who sadly died of consumption in 1841, having provided him with a daughter. Bright then became MP for Durham (1843), beginning a long association with the institution that he dubbed the ‘mother of parliaments’. He would remain a sitting MP until his death in 1889, and made his mark early on by vigorously opposing the Corn Laws until they were finally repealed in 1846. The previous year (1845), Bright was appointed to select committees on both the Game Laws and one dedicated to cotton cultivation in India. Bright then became MP for Manchester (1847), by which time he was in his mid-30s. Also, in 1847, Bright married for a second time to Margaret Leatham, another Quaker. Another seven children followed, and whilst the second Mrs Bright had a keen interest in politics, this was not something encouraged by her husband. For all his radicalism, one cause that he wasn’t ready to support was women’s rights. Bright would cut an increasingly lonely figure after Margaret’s death in 1878. www.lancmag.com
