Rt Hon John Bright MP – ‘Shifting the Foundations of Power’
John Bright was a statesman, and an orator and an agitator who by conviction, oratory and political will moved the tectonic plates of his generation.
Before describing John Bright’s political life and the convictions which underpinned it, I will give a flavour of the man himself. Although traditionally dressed as a Quaker throughout his life in his sombre black coat and cravat as those in the House will have noted from his portrait by Millais in the Members Dining Room, he was described as having powerful features with an impression of singular force and firmness of character but he was by no means severe. He was a man of great sympathy and had deep friendships particularly with the great economist Richard Cobden who was his political partner. He was adored by his family but he enjoyed the company of women and his diaries are peppered with comments about the intelligent and attractive women he encountered. He had a powerful sense of humour and maintained good relations with his opponents but had contempt for those who he loathed such as Palmerston and Palmerston’s son-in-law, the arch Tory, Shaftesbury, who hated democracy. Although personally deeply religious, Bright stated that “this House is not the place for religious questions” and his son recalled that religion, while daily affirmed at home, was never an issue for discussion in the family. He greatly enjoyed poetry including particularly Milton, Tennyson and even the erotic Byron and visited the graves of Shelley and Keats in Italy. Immensely well read, he had a great appreciation of fine art, spending much of his holidays visiting Italian heritage sites and art galleries including the Vatican museum and was deeply impressed by the works of Michelangelo and Murillo. He was greatly sought after at the best tables in London where, despite the Quaker Temperance Movement, of which his cousin William Cash was Chairman whilst Bright’s sister Margaret Bright Lucas was President of the Women’s Movement. Bright enjoyed a good drink and smoked cigars. He had played cricket for Rochdale and enjoyed billiards. He did not care for statues and biographies of himself, “They are troublesome and soon forgotten and of no influence in the future.” He even deprecated the making of the Birmingham statue of himself by Albert Bruce Joy, a copy of which was donated to the House of Commons by Andrew Carnegie after Bright’s death and stands now just next to the Family Room. Carnegie hero-worshipped Bright, saying in his own autobiography that “he had always been my favourite living hero in public life as he had been my father’s”. John Bright’s motto was “Be Just and fear not”. He certainly lived by this.
He became one of the most controversial Members of Parliament of the nineteenth century and one of the most successful in the relentless pursuit of his causes. These were invariably against the Establishment and every one of which had a moral purpose, as we shall see, whilst he only occasionally and reluctantly held office which had no interest for him.
Gladstone’s tribute to Bright in the House of Commons two days after Bright’s death in March 1889 reflected the judgement of his peers –
“He has lived to witness the triumph of almost every great cause- perhaps I might say of every great cause – to which he had especially devoted his heart and mind … for him office had no attraction … extraordinary efforts were required to induce Mr. Bright under any circumstances to become a servant of the Crown … it was also his happy lot to teach us moral lessons, and by the simplicity, by the consistency, and by the unfailing courage and constancy of his life to present us a combination of qualities so moral in their nature as to carry us at once into a higher atmosphere … he lifted political life to a higher elevation and to a loftier standard, and he has thereby bequeathed to his country the character of a statesman … the triumphs of his life are triumphs recorded in the advance of his country and in the condition of his countrymen. His name will remain indelibly written in the annals of this Empire.”
John Bright was born in Rochdale into a Quaker family on 16th November 1811 and died on 27th March 1889. As he lay dying at his home in Rochdale, he had under his pillow a hand-written letter from Queen Victoria as her final tribute to him. He had been in Parliament as Member of Parliament for Durham briefly in 1843, then Manchester followed by Birmingham for 46 years. He had deeply changed the face of British politics. Typically, in John Bright’s first election address at Durham in 1843, he said, “I have nothing to gain by being a tool of any party.” His father had established his own cotton-spinning firm and after a patchy schooling, he went to work at the family’s Green Bank Mill teaching himself in the early mornings in the counting house everything from statistics to history. At the age of 21, he learned of the agitation that led to the Reform Bill of 1832 from his reading of the Spectator. Having successfully engaged in the presentation of the petition to Parliament that Rochdale, should be one of the new boroughs, he then travelled to Westminster to witness the Bill being enacted.
‘Who was John Bright?’, some may ask. But, any of the giants of the nineteenth century – Peel, Gladstone, Disraeli, Salisbury and even Abraham Lincoln – would simply have been astonished that anyone would need to ask. The influence of John Bright on the politics of their time, both in Britain and abroad, was to them undeniable.
Bright’s political career spanned nearly fifty years during a time of massive industrial, commercial and democratic change. He acted as an anchor and a catalyst for reform.
What then were the foundations of power which John Bright shifted? Overall, they were the Establishment itself. There was the privilege of the Whig aristocracy and the landed gentry. There was also protectionism, monopoly and poverty. There was the Conservative resistance to democracy shared also by powerful elements in the Liberal, Whig establishment. There was the Irish ascendancy. Abroad, there were the rights of the people in India and in the colonies – and there was the massive issue of the injustice and racism and slavery in the United States in the South with which British commercial interests and the City establishment were bound up. There was the issue of the military establishment and the Crimean war. It was on this political and social landscape that Bright engaged for nearly five decades.
John Bright’s national political life began with his meeting Cobden and the setting up of the Anti-Corn Law League and the Manchester School. He was the most eloquent exponent of the campaign against the Corn Laws, which culminated in their repeal in 1846. As a member of the Manchester School, Bright advocated restraint in public expenditure and military adventures. He was the foremost opponent of the Crimean War – an unpopular stance at the time, though later vindicated, which led in 1857 to the loss of his seat in Manchester. He campaigned against the oppression of the tenantry in Ireland, and attacked the aristocratic privilege of the landed class, which made him deeply unpopular with them and with a significant section of Parliament itself, whose seats were dependent on the landlords. Their permeation of Parliament involved the use of parliamentary power to sustain their social order, including the Corn Laws, following the French Revolution. The limited Reform Act of 1832 still preserved their economic and parliamentary control over legislation and the wealth they derived from the Corn Laws at the expense of the poor.
In the late 1830s and in the 1840s, he drove forward one of the greatest popular agitations through the Anti-Corn Law League ever seen in this country. He did not share the more aggressive methods of some in the Chartist movement, as he was mindful of the excesses of the French Revolution but gathering the support of the country through tireless campaigning, he and his fellow Leaguers’ took their arguments to Westminster itself. Bright was first elected as MP for Durham in 1843 drawing attention to the unnecessary poverty and suffering caused by the protectionist policies of successive governments. Bright and Cobden believed in freedom of choice in the marketplace and trade as the best means of achieving growth and prosperity by the responsible use of capital and business organisation. Their efforts came to fruition in 1846 when Peel was converted to their cause and, splitting the Conservative Party, repealed the Corn Laws and with a memorable speech, resigned as leader because he could not retain the support of his own Members of Parliament on the issue. Bright declared “We have the taught the people of this country the value of a great principle.” Bright and Peel became friends before Peel’s tragic death shortly afterwards.
After this victory, the next logical step for Bright (which to begin with was not entirely shared by Cobden) was freedom of choice in the democratic marketplace. Having been removed from Manchester on account of his opposition to the Crimean war, he launched the second and arguably the greatest campaign of his career – for parliamentary reform in October 1858, having been asked to be the new Member of Parliament for Birmingham. He devoted the next decade to his campaign for household suffrage – including, with his brother-in-law, Samuel Lucas (editor of The Morning Star, and founder of the Anti-Slavery Emancipation Society), improving cheap access for the general public to information through the repeal of newspaper duties – which profoundly influenced the Reform Act of 1867 and which led to the breakthrough for the working class vote for the first time, adding initially well over 1 million voters to the electoral roll. Thereby, he intended to empower millions of new voters to elect their representatives to Westminster where decisions regarding the nation were made and then afterwards, with the secret ballot. During this campaign, he would skilfully negotiate the tricky path towards reform, avoiding the revolutionary tendencies of those such as Karl Marx and seeking common ground between such different groups as the Reform League and the Reform Union. Marx was lurking in the shadows of John Bright’s campaigns and watching Bright closely but with different fundamental objectives. Their direct contact was minimal and at first Marx was full of praise, writing from America between 1852 and 1861 for the New York Daily Tribune. In November 1858, following Bright’s election as MP for Birmingham, Marx stated –
“John Bright is not only one of the most gifted orators that England has ever produced, but he is at the moment the leader of the radical members of the House of Commons and holds the balance of power between the traditional parties of the Whigs and Tories.”
Marx attended the famous meeting of London’s trade unionists in March 1863, praising the keynote address of “Father Bright” as Marx dubbed him. However, Marx’ opinion changed radically as Bright’s non-revolutionary campaign for parliamentary reform progressed. Bright led a peaceful path of democratic reform as revolutions had erupted on the continent and Bright frustrated Marx and Engel’s own hopes for revolution in Britain. Asa Briggs points out that, but for Bright’s responsible agitation and reforms and the bringing together of disparate elements outside Parliament, 1867 “might have been one of bloodshed rather than reform”. During this campaign, Bright also held meetings of as many as 150,000, as Angus Hawkins notes in his book on the period. For Bright to be heard, the crowd would pass the word back from one line to another – a sort of nineteenth century tweeting. At the same time, he took on his stubborn aristocratic opponents in the House of Commons in impassioned oratorical battles, even engaging in an intriguing and influential cross-party relationship with Disraeli himself. In the run up to 1867, and even earlier, Disraeli sought to harness and draw Bright into his orbit. As early as December 1852, Disraeli asked Bright to call on him at this home in Grosvenor Gate in London. Disraeli was on the ropes. Bright recalls that he told Disraeli “how entirely opposed we had been in political life” but Bright then records that Disraeli then said he could not see why “we, that is Cobden, myself and Gibson – our section – should not someday be with him in a Cabinet; not within 24 hours, but before long; it was quite possible and not difficult.” John Bright records that he “laughed at this as impossible”. Bright goes on to record that “Disraeli seems unable to comprehend the morality of our political course.” Disraeli and Bright had a further encounter in March 1867 as the campaign for the Reform Act of that year was coming to a head. Bright wrote a private and confidential memorandum in detail to Disraeli in his own handwriting setting out clear advice as to how to get the Reform Bill through Parliament and with an ultimatum that, if followed, would stop the external agitation in which Bright himself was deeply involved. This memorandum was discovered among Disraeli’s papers after his death by Corry, Disraeli’s close confidant and literary executor, who told Bright in 1887, shortly before Bright’s death that the letter “would be historical.” This historic letter had been copied by John Bright in his own hand and is now in the family archives but the actual letter received by Disraeli and observed by Corry has mysteriously disappeared. The relationship between Bright and Disraeli, based on Disraeli’s admiration for Bright, but not reciprocated, did not survive after 1867 when Disraeli claimed Bright’s legacy on the Reform Act for the Conservative Party and Disraeli himself. On Disraeli’s death, Bright recorded in his diary, “His life has been devoted to his own personal ambition and political principles and his party have been made subservient to that end.”
On the passing of the Reform Act, Bright could justifiably claim, as Disraeli’s biographers Moneypenny and Buckle admitted, that the terms of the Bill were in line with this personal letter to Disraeli and to Bright’s persistent and longstanding campaign for household suffrage. Bright noted in his diary on 28th May 1867, “The Bill adopted the precise franchise I recommended in 1858/59”. Asa Briggs quotes Bright as follows – “it is discovered that in the year 1867 that my principles all along have been entirely constitutional and my course perfectly patriotic. The invective and vituperation that have been poured upon me have now proved to be entirely a mistake.” By 1884, the number of male electors had grown to 5 million.
Turning to America, Bright’s innate belief in fairness, freedom and democracy was expressed through his admiration for America and his profound opposition to slavery from his earliest years. He threw his weight behind the cause of Lincoln and the Northern states and against slavery during the American Civil War in the days when Britain was the greatest power in the world through its control over the High Seas – and he prevented Britain from backing the South. In this, he was in opposition to his own Prime Minister, Palmerston and originally the Foreign Secretary Russell and even Gladstone himself who subsequently apologised for his failure to appreciate his blunder; ascribed by some to his inheritance of a fortune based on slavery. Bright had for over a decade before the civil war and then during it kept up an unwavering stream of correspondence with leading Americans, including Sumner and those in Lincoln’s inner circle and key diplomats. He was also in close contact with and met anti-slavery activists including Douglass who stayed with Bright in Rochdale; Garrison for whom he hosted a meeting and; Levi Coffin, the Schindler or Winton of his time. Bright made speech after speech in favour of the North, inside and outside Parliament, and totally destroyed Laird and Roebuck, both MPs who promoted the provision of the rams or warships being built by British manufacturers, including Laird himself, to be supplied to the South and the confederate forces. Bright also defeated a resolution in the House of Commons in June 1863 to support the Confederacy, launching a fierce attack on Roebuck (the MP for the steel-making town of Sheffield), “shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat”, as one observer noted. He also thereby undermined the raising of as much as 16 million pounds in the City of London to support a confederate loan – the equivalent of well over 1 billion pounds today.
Bright’s enormous influence on the outcome of the Civil War was recognised repeatedly by American statesmen and diplomats. Thomas Dudley, the American consul, wrote in 1861 that Bright “was opposed to human slavery and opposed to war but among his countrymen at that time, he stood almost alone.” In the same year, John Bigelow who was the American consul in Paris, said of John Bright, “I do not know how to express my gratitude sufficiently to Mr Bright for his Rochdale speech … It was worthy the heart and head of Chas. J. Fox.” Charles Adams, the American Ambassador to Britain in the 1860s said that, if the North should win, Bright, by virtue of his support of their cause, “… would become the most powerful man in the country.” Elton Trueblood, a Harvard historian, wrote in 1973, “Many who are familiar with the work of Bright as a statesman are not equally familiar with him as a thinker who influenced the mind of Abraham Lincoln.” Lincoln’s widow referred to Bright “as a noble and good friend of our cause.” Indeed, on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Lincoln’s pockets contained his most treasured mementos of the Civil War, including a symbolic Confederate five dollar bill but also a ringing, written testimonial by John Bright calling for Lincoln to be re-elected. Lincoln had presented Bright with copies of a portrait of himself. After the assassination, Vice-President Colfax and Henry Janney both wrote to Bright stating that Bright’s portrait was in Lincoln’s reception room in the White House, being the only one in the room. Colfax also told Bright of Lincoln’s expression of high regard for him. Charles Sumner wrote to Bright saying that “your full length photograph is on the mantle in his office, where the only other portrait is one of his predecessors, Andrew Jackson”. Lincoln was deeply attached to Bright and Bright’s letters were frequently read out at Lincoln’s Cabinet meetings. Finally, after the assassination, a bust of John Bright was on its way to Lincoln but arrived after the assassination itself. In 1866, it was placed in one of the alcoves of the Lower Hall in the White House and then subsequently was rediscovered by Jackie Kennedy and placed by her near the public entrance. Bright had played a vital role in the American Civil War and was deeply involved in influencing Lincoln over the Emancipation Proclamation. Bright was subsequently invited by President Hayes for what amounted to a state visit to the United States but Bright declined for he disliked this degree of personal adulation. He never visited America although he greatly influenced its future. Bright’s stance during the American Civil War would bring him hardship and praise in equal measure. His business all but ground to a halt because of his refusal to use slave-grown cotton in his mills. In this, he had the support of his work people who willingly made great sacrifices for the cause.
Bright’s insistence on the principle of freedom was also reflected in his attitudes towards self-government in the Empire and in Ireland. He strove continuously on behalf of the indigenous populations and to relieve oppression and injustice by proposing reforms in India and to improve the administration and education of the Indian people and their infrastructure and economy for the benefit of the Indian people themselves. He was also instrumental in encouraging Indian representation in the UK Parliament, which was eventually successful in the election of Dadabhai Naoroji, who met Bright in 1886 and subsequently became the Liberal member for Finsbury Central. In the 1890s Gandhi himself acknowledged Bright, including him in a list of eminent Englishman who “by their writings, speeches and deeds, that they mean to unify the hearts of the two peoples, that they do not believe in colour distinctions and that they will raise India with them rather than rise upon its ruins.” Bright took a similar interest in Africa and elsewhere throughout the Empire. He was interested in the people and their eventual self-government. He had taken an interest in India from his earliest days in Rochdale and ultimately succeeded in his campaign in the final demise of the East India Company which he regarded as intrinsically corrupt, including its directors, some of whom were Members of Parliament. In 1911, The Indian Review in Madras published a series entitled ‘The Friends of India’, the first of which was a tribute to John Bright written by P. N. Raman Pillai –
“John Bright was one of the most high-souled Englishmen of the nineteenth century … He was dealing with the interests of large masses of mankind, and he strove to do justice to them irrespective of the consequence to himself as a politician … His name will continue to shine, with ever-increasing lustre, in the pages of history, as that of an Englishman who fought against almost immeasurable odds for the introduction of the modern spirit in the Government of India.”
Gladstone offered Bright the post of Secretary of State for India which he declined.
Before turning to the issue of Ireland and Home Rule and the end of his life, I will touch on his desire for peace and his campaign against the Crimean war which cost him his seat in Manchester in 1857. Bright was not strictly speaking a pacifist. He saw the necessity for taking sides in the American Civil War and in suppressing the Indian Mutiny but he regarded war and the ‘jingoism’, as he saw, of the military establishment and those who supported it as wasteful of human life, blood and treasure, an analogy he used himself and which has now come into common parlance. His opposition to Palmerston’s policy in the Crimea was ultimately vindicated even by the British Ambassador there after the events and failures became clear. One of Bright’s greatest speeches on 23rd February 1855, known now as the Angel of Death speech, was later made into a composition by Vaughn Williams. The House fell silent as Bright declared “The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings”. In December 1854, Bright had launched a passionate attack on Russell and Palmerston, stating that the “war cannot be justified … impartial history will teach this to posterity if we do not now comprehend it,” adding “I am not, nor did I ever pretend to be a statesman … I have not enjoyed for 30 years, like those noble lords, the emoluments of office, I have not set my sails to every passing breeze, I am a plain and simple citizen, sent here by one of the foremost constituencies of the Empire … no word of mine has tended to promote the squandering of my country’s treasure or the spilling of one single drop of my country’s blood.” The strain of the Crimean war caused Bright a severe illness, leading to extensive treatments which took many months before he recovered but he then lost his seat in Manchester in 30th March 1857 in the General Election. Shortly afterwards, Birmingham called upon him to become their Member of Parliament and he remained the Member of Parliament for Birmingham until his death in 1889.
As to Ireland, Bright was throughout his political life deeply and passionately involved in the Irish question. Indeed, he had been profoundly moved by the sight of poverty in Ireland which he had visited even before he became the Member of Parliament for Durham in 1843. He was a friend of O’Connell and cousin of the radical Independent MP for Co. Meath, Frederick Lucas, Secretary of the Tenant Right Association in the 1840s. Throughout his life Bright continuously campaigned for the improvement of the lives of the Irish tenantry and agricultural workers whom he regarded as being exploited by the English ascendancy and absentee landlords. He did not however espouse or approve in any way of the violence of the Irish nationalists and was even driven eventually to vote for a Coercion Bill by what he argued was their extremist behaviour. He did however campaign against the capital punishment of several Irish nationalists for terrorist attacks because he was profoundly opposed to capital punishment in principle. His endeavours on behalf of Ireland were driven primarily by his belief that it was the duty of the Westminster Parliament to behave with honour towards Ireland in which he believed there had been a massive failure by the British Establishment. He deeply disapproved of Charles Stewart Parnell and his tactics and Bright opposed him at every turn. Despite this, on Bright’s death, the Parnellites paid tribute to Bright for his long battle for the Irish people. The great Irish biographer Barry O’Brien wrote of Bright that “Alone amongst English statesmen at that time Bright fiercely identified himself with the Irish popular cause”. He added that “He will live in the memory of his fellow countrymen as the greatest moral force which appeared in English politics during his generation.” Voting for the Coercion Bill and defeating Home Rule might be regarded by O’Brien as the worst of political crimes but O’Brien, an Irish Catholic nationalist and Parnell’s secretary and biographer, paid fulsome tribute to Bright on his death, even quoting from the Parnellite Justin McCarthy’s tribute to Bright in 1889. McCarthy gave his eulogy to Bright in the House of Commons in the absence of Parnell, which was “quite unavoidable” and deeply regretted. McCarthy stated to the House that “If we remain silent, it might be thought that because of late years we had not Mr Bright’s sympathy and support for our national cause, we were unwilling to associate ourselves in the tribute all other Parties are paying to his career and to his memory … Our memory goes back to the time when he championed our Irish cause with an eloquence and sincerity never surpassed in the struggle for any great purpose whatever … The most magnificent illustrations of his immortal eloquence were given to champion the cause of the suffering Irish peasant and to awaken in this country a sympathy with the Irish cause.” All this was said despite the fact that Bright himself had been largely responsible for opposing Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill for Ireland. Bright took this position because of his belief in Westminster parliamentary democracy, in line with his phrase, ‘England is the mother of Parliaments’.
Although Ireland had never been off the political agenda it returned with vigour in the 1880s, coinciding with Bright’s political alliance with Joseph Chamberlain whose career Bright had fostered for many years and whom Bright introduced into the House of Commons. They did not agree on everything but both were trenchantly opposed to the use of the powers of the House of Lords to frustrate the Commons. Indeed, in August 1884 Bright suggested with great prescience that the Lords veto should be limited to two parliamentary sessions – as enacted nearly thirty years later in the Parliament Act 1911. They did however differ over imperial federation which Bright completely repudiated. In June 1883, Bright celebrated his 25th anniversary as MP for Birmingham attended by 20,000 people. But the Irish question cast an increasing shadow over the country. In June 1885, the Conservatives and Parnellites combined to defeat Gladstone with seventy abstentions within the Liberal ranks. Randolph Churchill, hoping to destroy in one blow the Liberal Party, Chamberlain, and Bright, stood for the Tories against Bright in the General Election in his Birmingham seat, hoping to inherit Bright’s mantle for the working class but failed. Eighty-five utterly intransigent Home-Rulers under Parnell from Ireland with massive majorities entered Parliament. Bright regarded the Parnellites as rebels, unfit to legislate. In March 1886, Chamberlain demanded from Gladstone a statement repudiating an independent legislature for Ireland. On 8th April, Gladstone brought forward his Home Rule Bill. Bright wrote a warning letter to Gladstone on 13th May referring to Gladstone’s “policy of surrender”. On 31st May, there was a historic meeting in Committee Room 15 and the Liberal Party split asunder. Bright wrote to Chamberlain which was read to the meeting stating that Bright intended to vote against the Second Reading. On 7th June, with 92 other Liberal members, Bright with Chamberlain voted against Gladstone in the Opposition Lobby and the Home Rule Bill was defeated. On 28th June, the Queen wrote to Bright supporting his actions. Bright stood as a Liberal, not specifically as a Liberal Unionist in the ensuing General Election. Gladstone opposed all the Birmingham Liberal Unionists as defined by their vote on Home Rule, except Bright. On 5th July, Gladstone was defeated in the General Election, gaining only 191 seats; the Liberal Unionists attained 78; the Conservatives, 315 and; the Parnellites, 86. Bright was recorded as a Liberal Unionist. He significantly published forty letters in the press supporting Liberal Unionism.
In one of Bright’s last political statements in November 1887, Bright wrote “I prefer to join hands with Lord Salisbury and his colleagues than Mr Parnell and his friends, the leader of the Irish rebellion.” It was the Tory, Salisbury who having resigned over the 1867 Reform Act said of Bright’s oratory that, at its best, it was greater than that of Sheridan and Fox. Bright put the sovereignty of the UK Parliament ahead of his party.
He became seriously ill in May 1888 and died on 27th March 1889. A personal letter from the Queen lay under his pillow. His simple grave was a plain, horizontal stone slab bearing only the words, ‘John Bright – died March 27th 1889 – aged 77 years’, without so much as a mention of his even being a Member of Parliament. Thousands came to his funeral including prominent Liberal Unionists and Conservatives. The Queen sent a wreath with a card which she personally inscribed. A memorial service was held on the same day in Westminster Abbey, attended by senior Lords and Commons and representatives of the Royal Family. Shortly afterwards, Bright’s son, John Albert Bright, gave the Liberal Unionists their first great victory against a Gladstonian Liberal in Bright’s own seat. John Albert Bright’s successor assumed the label ‘Unionist’ in 1910 and became ‘Conservative’ when the new Conservative and Unionist Party was created in 1912. Robert Blake, the Conservative historian, asserts that the birth of the Conservative party “can be indisputably traced to 1846 from the repeal of the Corn Laws and the delivery of Bright’s “great principle”. John Bright’s innate conservatism described by Walter Bagehot as the “conservative vein in Mr Bright”, and his loyalty to the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament, representing the voter, thus lived on.
Bright has until recently been almost forgotten. Professor Hahn of the University of Rochester in New York wrote that –
“At his death, the New York Times and the London Times enshrined [John Bright] as one of the unquestionably great statesmen of the nineteenth century. … Walter Bagehot, one of the shrewdest Victorian political commentators and historians – speculated that Bright would be the one contemporary statesman whose fame and accomplishments transcended the age.”
However, despite the facts and the acknowledgement of his achievements and success by his contemporary statesmen, Bagehot would prove to be wrong, at any rate for most of the twentieth century. Perhaps this was because Bright did not seek post mortem adulation for his achievements, unlike Disraeli, whom Robert Blake exposed as being preoccupied with the greasy pole. Disraeli even ensured in his will that his literary executor, Corry, had the specific task of ensuring his reputation. As Disraeli said to Bright about the House of Commons, ‘We come here for fame!’ Bright came for Principle. Trevelyan, Bright’s biographer and Regus Professor of History at Cambridge, wrote in 1913, “His selfless motives and his rugged, fearless strength, were a combination that made him a rare example of the hero as politician.” In Bright’s own words, “My life is in my speeches”. His diaries were published forty years after his death.
John Bright was a pre-eminent example of a backbench-driven radical in a Golden Age before the formalisation of political parties, the creation of an all-pervading civil service to carry out political leaders instructions and through the Party Whip. To this must be added the relentless evolution of Standing Orders devised by cross-party agreement in the 1880s to defeat the Parnellites and which now serially bolsters the delivery of the Government’s parliamentary programme. Ironically, Governments came to realise that modern democracy was something of a Pandora’s box which their leadership wanted to contain.
Last Saturday, albeit not in Government, Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition has demonstrated a backbench-initiated, grassroots movement protesting against the Labour Party establishment. Time will tell whether the new policies can ever appeal across a wider spectrum on all issues. Some will and some will not. However, what this election does illustrate is that conviction politics in the public arena can still shift the foundations of power within a party.
Bright not only shifted the foundations of power within his own Party but shifted them throughout the nation and much of the world as well. He successfully challenged the Establishment, not from any ideology but because he questioned the assumption, which leaderships assert in their Party’s interest, that they have a prerogative or monopoly of judgement on what is the national interest. He stands as a towering example of a politician who was able to move the tectonic plates, not just on one issue of vital national interest, but on many, the consequences of which continue to benefit us today.
