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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Charles Bradlaugh Biography BRADLAUGH, CHARLES (1833-91). An English Radical politician and social reformer. He was born in London, Sept. 26, 1833. His early education was meagre, for he bad to support early at times by running errands. At the age of 17 he enlisted in the army. He secured his discharge in 1853, became clerk to a London solicitor, and soon was noted as an agitator, free-thought lecturer, and as a pamphleteer under the name of "Iconoclast." He published the National Reformer. In 1873 he made a short visit to the United States, lecturing in the larger cities. In 1876, with Mrs. Annie Besant he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and £200 fine for republishing the Malthusian Fruits of Philosophy, but the conviction was quashed on appeal. Elected member of Parliament for Northampton in 1880, he pleaded that as an atheist he had the right to affirm but when this request was denied, expressed his willingness to take the oath. This the House decided he was disqualified from doing; he was ordered to leave, and on his refusal was placed in custody. His seat was declared vacant by the court to which the case was carried. But his constituency returned him in 1881; he presented himself, was again denied the privilege of taking the oath, and on his refusal to leave the House was forcibly ejected. Similar scenes occurred at the proroguing of Parliament in 1882 and 1883, and in the latter year Bradlaugh won a suit which he brought against the sergeant at arms for unlawful ejection. The case, however, was decided on technical grounds, and the invalidity of his title to a seat in the House was reaffirmed. In 1885 he was again returned for Northampton, and was permitted to take the oath, and shortly before his death, Jan. 30, 1891, Parliament expunged from its records the resolution forbidding him to take the oaths. Of his writings, The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick (Boston, 1875) attained the greatest popularity. It advocated the repeal of the Hanoverian settlement of the crown at the Queen's death. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. III (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 644. |