78 Facts About John Bright

John Bright was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies.

John Bright sat in the House of Commons from 1843 to 1889, promoting free trade, electoral reform and religious freedom.

John Bright was almost a lone voice in opposing the Crimean War; he opposed William Ewart Gladstone's proposed Home Rule for Ireland.

John Bright saw himself as a spokesman for the middle class and strongly opposed the privileges of the landed aristocracy.

John Bright's father, Jacob Bright, was a much-respected Quaker, who had started a cotton mill at Rochdale in 1809.

Jacob John Bright was educated at the Ackworth School of the Society of Friends, and apprenticed to a fustian manufacturer at New Mills, Derbyshire.

John Bright was his son by his second wife, Martha Wood, daughter of a Quaker shopkeeper of Bolton-le-Moors.

John Bright's sisters included Priscilla Bright McLaren and Margaret Bright Lucas.

John Bright was a delicate child, and was sent as a day pupil to a boarding school near his home, kept by William Littlewood.

John Bright learned, he himself said, but little Latin and Greek, but acquired a great love of English literature, which his mother fostered, and a love of outdoor pursuits.

In Rochdale, Jacob John Bright was a leader of the opposition to a local church-rate.

John Bright was an ardent Nonconformist, proud to number among his ancestors John Gratton, a friend of George Fox, and one of the persecuted and imprisoned preachers of the Religious Society of Friends.

The chairman gave out a temperance song, and during the singing told John Bright to put his notes aside and say what came into his mind.

John Bright obeyed, began with much hesitancy, but found his tongue and made an excellent address, although sometimes he spoke with a confused syntax.

In 1832 he called on the Rev John Bright Aldis, an eminent Baptist minister, to accompany him to a local Bible meeting.

John Bright was a fairly prosperous man of business, very happy in his home, always ready to take part in the social, educational and political life of his native town.

John Bright first met Richard Cobden in 1836 or 1837.

Cobden was an alderman of the newly formed Manchester Corporation, and John Bright went to ask him to speak at an education meeting in Rochdale.

John Bright was still only the local public man, taking part in all public movements, especially in opposition to John Fielden's proposed factory legislation, and to the Rochdale church-rate.

At the general election in 1841 Cobden was returned for Stockport, Cheshire, and in 1843 John Bright was the Free Trade candidate at a by-election at Durham.

John Bright was defeated, but his successful competitor was unseated on petition, and at the second contest Bright was returned.

John Bright was already known as Cobden's chief ally, and was received in the House of Commons with suspicion and hostility.

Cobden had the calmness and confidence of the political philosopher, John Bright had the passion and the fervour of the popular orator.

Cobden did the reasoning, John Bright supplied the declamation, but mingled argument with appeal.

John Bright was not known beyond his own borough when Cobden called him to his side in 1841, and he entered parliament towards the end of the session of 1843 with a formidable reputation.

John Bright had been all over England and Scotland addressing vast meetings and, as a rule, carrying them with him; he had taken a leading part in a conference held by the Anti-Corn Law League in London had led deputations to the Duke of Sussex, to Sir James Graham, then home secretary, and to Lord Ripon and Gladstone, the secretary and under secretary of the Board of Trade; and he was universally recognised as the chief orator of the Free Trade movement.

John Bright had been so announced, for the last time, at the first great meeting in Drury Lane Theatre on 15 March 1843; henceforth his name was enough.

John Bright took his seat in the House of Commons as one of the members for Durham on 28 July 1843, and on 7 August delivered his maiden speech in support of a motion by Mr Ewart for reduction of import duties.

John Bright's voice is good, his enunciation distinct, and his delivery free from any unpleasant peculiarity or mannerism.

Mr Ewart's motion was defeated, but the movement of which Cobden and John Bright were the leaders continued to spread.

John Bright publicly deprecated the popular tendency to regard Cobden and himself as the chief movers in the agitation, and Cobden told a Rochdale audience that he always stipulated that he should speak first, and John Bright should follow.

John Bright was not violent, and Cobden said that he did his work admirably, and won golden opinions from all men.

John Bright replied that if Cobden retired the mainspring of the League was gone.

The bad harvest and the potato blight drove him to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and at a meeting in Manchester on 2 July 1846 Cobden moved and John Bright seconded a motion dissolving the league.

John Bright coined this famous phrase on 18 January 1865 in a speech at Birmingham supporting an expansion of the franchise.

John Bright married firstly, on 27 November 1839, Elizabeth Priestman of Newcastle, daughter of Jonathan Priestman and Rachel Bragg.

John Bright had visited her often but her had been cared for by her sister Margaret.

Elizabeth's requests included that Helen Priestman John Bright should be brought up by her larger family.

John Bright later married William Stephens Clark of Street in Somerset.

John Bright employed Lydia Rous in 1868 to teach his children.

John Bright compared her abilities as second only to the Queen.

In July 1847, John Bright was elected uncontested for Manchester, with Milner Gibson.

When Lord John Russell brought forward his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, Bright opposed it as "a little, paltry, miserable measure", and foretold its failure.

John Bright spoke against capital punishment, against church-rates, against flogging in the army, and against the Irish Established Church.

John Bright supported Cobden's motion for the reduction of public expenditure, and in and out of parliament pleaded for peace.

John Bright would hold this position for over thirty years though he would later leave the Liberal Party on the issue of Irish Home Rule in 1886.

In 1868, John Bright entered the cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone as President of the Board of Trade, but resigned in 1870 due to ill health.

John Bright served twice again in Gladstone cabinets as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

John Bright scornfully dismissed it as "a jobbers' war" on behalf of a privileged class of capitalists, and resigned from the Gladstone cabinet.

For deeply personal reasons, John Bright was closely associated with the North Wales tourist resort of Llandudno.

John Bright returned to Llandudno at least once a year until his own death.

John Bright is still commemorated in Llandudno where the principal secondary school was named after him, and a new school, Ysgol John Bright was built in 2004.

John Bright had much literary and social recognition in his later years.

John Bright delivered the opening address for the Birmingham Central Library in 1882, and in 1888 the city erected a statue of him.

When in the wake of the Great Irish Famine, an all-Ireland Tenant Right League was formed, John Bright expressed sympathy and support for reform of Irish land tenure.

In 1886 when Gladstone proposed Home Rule for Ireland and another Irish Land Act, John Bright opposed it, along with Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Hartington.

John Bright regarded Charles Stewart Parnell's Irish Parliamentary Party as "the rebel party".

John Bright was repeatedly contacted by Gladstone, Chamberlain and Hartington to solicit his support.

John Bright was widely regarded as a force to be reckoned with and his political influence was considerably out of proportion to his activity.

In March 1886 John Bright went to London, and on 10 March met Hartington, having an hour's talk with him on Ireland.

John Bright gave me a long memorandum, historical in character, on the past Irish story, which seemed to be somewhat one-sided, leaving out of view the important minority and the views and feelings of the Protestant and loyal portion of the people.

John Bright explained much of his policy as to a Dublin Parliament, and as to Land purchase.

John Bright predicted the Conservatives would gain in strength if an election were called.

John Bright exhorted his countrymen to put the Union above the Liberal Party.

The chairman of the National Liberal Federation, Sir B Walter Foster, complained that Bright "probably did more harm in this election to his own party than any other single individual".

John Bright was re-elected by his Birmingham constituents and it turned out to be his last Parliament.

John Bright sat as a Liberal Unionist allied to the Conservative Party who had formed a government after the election.

John Bright participated little in this Parliament, however his actions could still decide events.

From this point until his death, John Bright did not meet Gladstone, despite their long political relationship together.

John Bright was again nominated as part of the separatist protest and on this occasion won the resulting by-election on 10 July 1869.

However, it was claimed in 1867 that John Bright was an "intimate personal friend" of the then Governor of Queensland George Bowen.

In late 1888, John Bright became seriously ill and he realised the end was near.

John Bright received many letters and telegrams of sympathy from the Queen downwards.

John Bright died at his home One Ash on 27 March 1889 and was buried in the graveyard of the meeting-house of the Religious Society of Friends in Rochdale.

John Bright was a keen disputant, a keen combatant; like many eager men, he had little tolerance of opposition.

John Bright was inspired by nothing but the purest patriotism and benevolence from the first beginning of his public career to the hour of its close.

New York State's recently deceased native son received the honours, but not before John Bright was inducted as its first honorary member.

John Bright did more than any other man to prevent the intervention of this country on the side of the South during the American Civil War, and he headed the reform agitation in 1867 which brought the industrial working class within the pale of the constitution.