John Bright

English politician and social reformer

• Born: November 16, 1811
• Birthplace: Rochdale, Lancashire, England
• Died: March 27, 1889
• Place of death: Rochdale, Lancashire, England

Dedicated to improving the conditions of life in Great Britain and its dependencies, Bright combined moral courage and personal integrity and was instrumental in bringing about many liberal reforms in nineteenth century Great Britain.

Early Life

John Bright was the second, but oldest-surviving, of eleven children born to Jacob and Martha Wood Bright. Both of his parents came from old, established Society of Friends (Quaker) families. As a boy, Bright attended several Friends schools, until the age of fifteen, when he entered his father’s business. Although his formal education ended, he continued his education through reading and travel. He traveled throughout the British Isles, the Continent, and the Mediterranean before he was thirty, and he continued traveling throughout his life. At the age of twenty-two, he and a number of friends organized the Rochdale Literary and Philosophical Society.

Jacob Bright, along with two friends, had founded a cotton mill in 1809. By 1823, he was the sole owner of the mill. Eventually, the firm had six mills, and during the 1850’s it added a carpet manufacturing business. Jacob took his sons into the business and it provided a comfortable living for John throughout his life.

John Bright entered public life in 1830, when he began making temperance speeches in Rochdale. In 1834, he joined the Rochdale resistance to paying church rates. His involvement in these public causes led to difficulties when he proposed marriage to Elizabeth Priestman, also a member of the Society of Friends. Before she would marry him, she wanted his assurance that he would not become overly involved in politics. They were married in November, 1839. One daughter, Helen was born to them. Bright was devastated when his wife died in September, 1841. In June, 1847, he married another Friend, Margaret Leatham. They had four sons and three daughters. She died in May, 1878.

Life’s Work

The issue that thrust Bright onto the national stage was his involvement in the Anti-Corn Law League. The Corn Law imposed a duty on imported corn and, according to the league, kept the cost of food artificially high to the advantage of the landed class and to the detriment of the rest of society. Bright had joined the local branch of the league in 1838. Through the league, he became associated with one of its founders, Richard Cobden . Cobden visited Bright three days after Bright’s first wife died and persuaded him to forget his melancholy through work. The two men pledged not to rest until the Corn Law was repealed.

Bright and Cobden became the two most visible agitators for the repeal of the Corn Law. Bright brought to the league his marvelous oratorical ability. He had a voice with a bell-like tone that could be heard with clarity at the large outdoor meetings. He used few gestures while speaking but could portray a variety of emotions solely through the use of his voice. His self-assured speaking style was reinforced by his impressive head and stocky body.

In 1842, the Rochdale voters chose Bright to represent them in the House of Commons. Bright now gave speeches opposing the Corn Law both in the House and in the country. His speeches earned for him the enmity of the landed class: He accused them of being an oligarchy of the worst sort, one that legislated only for its own good. Not only did it maintain the Corn Law, but the landed class also maintained an established church, opposed electoral reform, and kept the poor from having enough to eat through the game laws.

In 1846, the Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel pressured both by the league and by famine in Ireland, repealed the Corn Law. Bright and Cobden hoped that other countries would follow Great Britain’s lead and move toward free trade. Free trade, they believed, would lead to international harmony among the European nations as they became economically interdependent. As a result of the repeal, both Bright and Cobden were very popular among the middle and lower classes. Bright, much to his delight, was chosen to represent Manchester in the 1847 election.

Although the working class supported Bright’s position on the Corn Law, they did not support his position on factory legislation. Bright opposed the 1847 Ten Hours’ Act on the principle that the proper role of government did not include regulating conditions of work or wages. Even though Bright recognized that some working conditions needed improvement, he thought that they should be the subject of negotiation between the owners and workers, not government regulation.

The proper role of government intervention concerned Bright not only in domestic affairs but also in foreign affairs. He opposed an interventionist foreign policy throughout his life. The reason for intervention was generally the concept of balance of power. Because the balance of power was always shifting, Bright argued that it was fruitless to intervene and that intervention wasted resources that could much better be used to solve domestic problems. Therefore, when the Aberdeen government became embroiled in the Crimean War in 1854, Bright, along with Cobden, was one of the leading critics of the war.

The immediate cause of the Crimean War was the quarrel between Russia and Turkey over Russia’s demands that Turkey recognize its proprietary role as protector of the Greek Orthodox subjects in the Turkish Empire. Turkey refused, and war broke out between Turkey and Russia. Great Britain and France came to Turkey’s defense. Bright argued that British interests were not involved in the dispute and that the aim of preserving Turkish integrity or preventing Russian expansion was beyond Great Britain’s ability to accomplish. Because the war was very popular in the beginning, those such as Bright and Cobden who opposed the war were vilified on all sides. Nevertheless, Bright’s speeches in the House of Commons always drew large audiences. In his most famous speech against the war, he stated that “the angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings.”

Bright’s exertions during the war contributed to his physical breakdown early in 1856. When the prescribed rest did not seem to help much, a change of scenery was advised. Bright traveled in England, Scotland, and Wales and then to North Africa, France, and Italy. His loneliness was reduced when his daughter Helen joined him. He was still traveling when Manchester rejected him in March, 1857. He returned to England in June, however, and was elected to represent Birmingham in August. He continued to represent Birmingham until his death in 1889. In February, 1858, he was sufficiently recovered to resume his parliamentary activity.

During the controversy over the Crimean War, Bright was often viewed as someone who believed in peace at any price. This view was not true during the Crimean War, and Bright’s position during the American Civil War clearly demonstrated that it was not. Many of the British, including William Ewart Gladstone, were sympathetic toward the American South because of the protectionism of the North and the reliance of the textile industry upon cotton from the South. Bright thought that the key issue was a moral one, slavery, and he therefore approved of the war and championed the cause of the North. His many speeches were instrumental in keeping Great Britain neutral during the conflict. At the end of the war, many Americans, including President Abraham Lincoln, expressed their gratitude for the role that Bright had played.

The reform of the electoral system was a major concern throughout Bright’s life. He advocated franchise extension, the secret ballot, and the redistribution of parliamentary seats. During the 1850’s and most of the 1860’s, he had little success, but he did keep the reform issue alive. His agitation contributed to the 1867 and 1884 reform bills and the Ballot Act of 1872.

Bright’s positions on the American Civil War and reform having restored his popularity, Bright joined the Gladstone cabinet as the president of the Board of Trade in 1868. He was not to enjoy his position in the cabinet for long, because in 1870 he had another breakdown. He resigned from the cabinet in November, 1870, partially because of his health and partially because he disagreed with Gladstone’s resistance to Russia’s desire to be a Black Sea power. He remained on the sidelines recovering until February, 1873, when he returned to Commons and the cabinet as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

The electoral victory of the Conservatives under Benjamin Disraeli in 1874 horrified Bright, because he believed that their primary goal was to block necessary reforms. During the six years of the Disraeli government, he spent a great amount of time with his family in Rochdale and often protested the more aggressive Disraeli foreign policy. The death of his wife in 1878 was a loss from which Bright never completely recovered.

When the Liberals regained the majority in 1880, Bright again joined the Gladstone cabinet as the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He remained in the cabinet until 1882, when he resigned over the British shelling of Alexandria. Bright thought that Great Britain had no more business meddling in the affairs of Egypt than it had had in meddling in the affairs of Turkey nearly thirty years earlier.

During Bright’s last years, the public issue upon which he spent most of his time and energy was opposing Gladstone’s attempt to grant home rule to Ireland. Bright had long urged reform rather than repression as the way to treat Ireland. He had supported Gladstone’s disestablishment of the Irish Church (1869) and the Irish Land Acts of 1870 and 1881 , which recognized that tenants as well as landlords had rights. Bright thought, however, that home rule would be a step toward Irish independence, which he thought unacceptable because it would threaten the security of Great Britain—the only justification for meddling in the affairs of another country. His opposition to home rule lost the popularity in Ireland that his previous support of reform had gained for him.

Significance

The dominant political creed during the nineteenth century was liberalism. Liberalism supported free trade, reforms that eroded the power of the landed class, and the freedom of the individual. Liberalism found its support primarily among the middle class, and for some Liberals, liberalism did not extend beyond those reforms that benefited the middle class. John Bright personified nineteenth century liberalism but applied its principles beyond middle-class advantage. He wanted to extend the right to vote to include most of the working class. His belief in the freedom of the individual led him to oppose factory legislation, which appears to be very self-serving, but he also supported freedom of the individual when it was in his interest to oppose it. For example, he was a temperance advocate, but he opposed attempts to legislate temperance because of his conviction that the government had no right to curtail the freedom to choose or to reject temperance.

The growing influence of the middle class fundamentally changed Great Britain during the nineteenth century. Bright, a middle-class manufacturer, was a proud representative of his class, even though he was not always comfortable with all elements of it. He detested those parts of the middle class that practiced conspicuous consumption or were deferential toward the landed class.

Bright’s position on foreign affairs was not shared by any large segment of nineteenth century British society. He advocated nonintervention and arbitration when most politicians and the public favored intervention and force. He regarded his inability to change the British foreign policy as a major failure on his part.

In 1883, when celebrations were held to recognize Bright’s twenty-five years as Birmingham’s representative, praise came from all segments of British society, from both friends and foes, and from the United States and Latin America. Bright was praised for his humanity, earnestness, consistency, trustworthiness, courage, independence, fidelity to principle, love of freedom and justice, and trust in the people. Although he acknowledged his role in accomplishing many reforms, he thought that there was much reform yet to be accomplished. He advocated the curtailment of the power of the House of Lords, disestablishment of the Church, economic and political reform in India to prepare for its eventual independence, tax and military cuts, and educational reform.

Despite Bright’s many successes and the general approbation in which he was held, Bright remained a modest person. When he died, he requested that he be buried in the graveyard of the Friends Meeting House in Rochdale. The legacy he left was the model of a principled and moral individual who had, at great personal cost, spent his life working to improve the conditions of life in Great Britain and its dependencies.

Bibliography

Ausubel, Herman. John Bright: Victorian Reformer. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966. A well-written, relatively short biography that concentrates almost exclusively on Bright’s public life. Ausubel argues that Bright was less self-confident than his public image portrayed. Illustrated by several cartoons from Punch.

Briggs, Asa. Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851-1867. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955. Rev. ed., 1972. Chapter 8, “John Bright and the Creed of Reform,” discusses Bright’s reform activity between the 1840’s and the 1867 Reform Bill. It places Bright within the context of the “Manchester School” (liberal advocates of free trade) and middle-class politics.

Bright, John. Diaries of John Bright. Edited by R. A. J. Walling. New York: William Morrow, 1931. Bright’s entries were intended as an aid to his memory, not publication. This edited volume provides valuable insights into Bright’s character and his evaluation of contemporaries.

Joyce, Patrick. Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. An examination of class and identity in nineteenth century English society, focusing on the lives of John Bright, whom the author portrays as a typical member of the emerging middle class, and Lancashire poet Edwin Waugh, who typifies the working class.

McCord, Norman. The Anti-Corn Law League. London: Allen & Unwin, 1958. An excellent analysis of the origin, development, and activities of the League as a political pressure group. Bright’s role in the League is evaluated.

Pickering, Paul A., and Alex Tyrell. The People’s Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Law League. London: Leicester University Press, 2000. Supplements McCord’s book (see above) with new information and a detailed analysis of the League’s members and activities.

Read, Donald. Cobden and Bright: A Victorian Political Partnership. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968. A good discussion of both the similarities and the differences between the two men. Argues that Cobden was the more important and more radical—an assessment that other historians dispute.

Robbins, Keith. John Bright. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. A good chronological discussion of Bright’s life that provides an analysis of his intellectual and personal characteristics and his contributions. Robbins regards Bright as “the most successful political figure of the Victorian Age.”

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Politicians, Diplomacy, and War in Modern British History. London: Hambledon Press, 1994. Bright is included in this study of modern British politicians who sought the “high moral ground” in domestic or international politics. Robbins offers an appreciation of Bright’s political career.

Sturgis, James L. John Bright and the British Empire. London: Athlone Press, 1969. A topical discussion of Bright’s attitude toward Ireland, India, and the colonies. There is almost no discussion of foreign affairs.

Trevelyan, George Macaulay. The Life of John Bright. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925. Reprint. London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1993. A descriptive biography with many quotations from Bright’s journals, letters, and speeches. Despite Trevelyan’s tendency to overpraise his father’s friend, this is still a very readable and interesting biography.