John B. Gough
John B. Gough was a prominent temperance lecturer born in Sandgate, Kent, England, in 1817. His early education was rooted in a family with a military and educational background. After moving to the United States at a young age, Gough faced personal tragedies, including the loss of his mother and the deaths of his first wife and child, which led him to struggle with alcoholism. He found a path to recovery through the Washington Temperance Society, pledging abstinence in 1842 and becoming a passionate advocate for temperance. Gough's lectures were characterized by his powerful oratory and personal storytelling, emphasizing individual choices over national prohibition.
Throughout his career, he traveled extensively, delivering nearly ten thousand speeches and reaching over nine million people, making him one of the most influential figures in the temperance movement. He also authored several books, including "An Autobiography" and "Sunlight and Shadow," which further solidified his impact on the movement. Gough's life and work illustrate the complexities of addiction, recovery, and the social reform efforts of his time. His legacy continues to resonate in discussions about temperance and personal choice.
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John B. Gough
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- Born: August 22, 1817
- Birthplace: Sandgate, Kent, England
- Died: 1886
Biography
John Bartholomew Gough was born in Sandgate, in England’s province of Kent. His father was a military veteran, and his mother Jane had been a teacher and headmistress in the village school. An excellent reader and writer, Gough was sent to a private seminary to be educated; before long, he was teaching classes in spelling and mathematics.
At twelve, Gough was indentured to a neighbor named Mannering who was moving to New York state. Within a couple of years, Gough relocated to New York City and gained employment in bookbinding. Soon making three dollars a week, he sent for his family. His mother and sister joined him, but his father stayed behind to collect his pension. Gough soon lost his job, however, and shortly thereafter his mother died.
Gough began turning more and more to drink. Always quick-witted and well spoken, he tried a turn as a comic actor but failed. Striving to arrest his decline, Gough opened a bookbinding shop in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1839 and married Lucretia Fowler, who soon bore a child. Before long, however, Gough returned to drinking, and during one of his binges his wife and daughter died of sickness. Gough lost all control and drank away almost everything he had.
At the depths of his despair, a waiter in a temperance hotel (where no alcohol was permitted) introduced him to the Washington Temperance Society of Worcester, Massachusetts. Before long Gough managed to make a pledge of abstinence; he quit drinking in fall of 1842. Although he succumbed again to drink once a few months later, he quickly owned up to the first incident and became more committed than ever to temperance and abstinence.
Gough soon became a temperance lecturer. He estimated that in 1843, his first year, he traveled almost seven thousand miles and gave nearly four hundred addresses. He remarried, to Mary Whitcomb in Worcester. Gough’s lectures followed the format of the time: He related his experiences, down to the most degrading detail, with fiery zeal and explosive oratory. He appealed to the emotions and typically argued not for national prohibition (in his earlier years) but instead for individual choices of abstinence.
Gough published a number of books; most were more or less transcriptions of his temperance speeches. His first major work was An Autobiography, published in 1845. He would later revise this book into an updated and more tightly constructed narrative, The Autobiography and Personal Recollections of John B. Gough; he would also go on eventually to publish Sunlight and Shadow: Or, Gleanings from My Life Work in 1880 and Platform Echoes: Or, Leaves from My Note-Book of Forty Years in 1885. With the aid of his writing, Gough became such a popular lecturer that he could also tour Europe. Not long before he died, Gough estimated that he had lectured almost ten thousand times to more than nine million audience members.