The most eloquent of the orators of the Liberal party in England
was born at Greenbank, a village now forming a part of Rochedale,
in 1811. His father was a manufacturer of some prominence, and the
son at the age of fifteen left school and became identified with
the business interests of the firm. The education of John Bright
was neither comprehensive nor thorough. He early showed an unusual
fondness for English literature, and he acquired a large knowledge of
English history; but in other respects his education was simply of
that fragmentary nature which comes from quick intelligence and large
opportunities of observation. His teachers have left no record of any
remarkable promise in his early days. About the time of attaining his
majority he travelled extensively on the continent; and the first
evidence of great oratorical promise was given in a course of lectures
embodying his recollections of a tour in Europe and the Holy Land in
1835.
Though Bright had taken an active part in the local agitation for
reform in 1832, it was not till he became identified with the
Anti-Corn-Law League in 1839 that he became prominent as a public
speaker. In the course of the agitation that followed he was closely
identified with Cobden in the work of the league. Bright’s oratory,
while less persuasive than that of Cobden, was of a loftier tone,
and was better adapted to arouse the attention of the people to the
importance of the subject. Throughout the whole of the Anti-Corn-Law
movement the names of Cobden and Bright were closely associated, and
the intimate and beautiful friendship then begun continued without
interruption till Cobden’s death. It was the popular influence they
acquired by their speeches in behalf of free trade that brought them
both into Parliament. Bright took his seat in 1843, and delivered
his maiden speech in August of the same year in behalf of extending
the principles of free trade. Though defeated in 1857 by the city of
Manchester, on account of his energetic opposition to the course of
the government in the Crimean War, he was immediately taken up by the
electors of Birmingham and returned by a triumphant majority. His
career in the House of Commons, therefore, has been uninterrupted for
more than thirty years.
During the whole of this period Mr. Bright’s powers have been
consistently exerted in behalf of certain definite lines of political
policy. From first to last he has been the uncompromising advocate
and champion of the principles of free trade. He has been a thorough
student of American affairs; and at the time of the American civil
war, it was his eloquence more than any other one thing that
restrained England from following the lead of France into the policy
of acknowledging the independence of the seceding States. In domestic
affairs he has advocated the general policy of retrenchment, a more
equitable distribution of the seats with reference to population, and
a wide extension of the rights of suffrage. In 1857 his strenuous and
eloquent opposition to the methods of Palmerston cost him his seat in
the House; and in 1882 he resigned his place in the cabinet, because
he was unwilling to share the policy of Mr. Gladstone which led to the
bombardment of Alexandria. On each of these subjects he has left a
group of speeches that are likely to retain an honorable and permanent
place in the history of British eloquence. It has been his lot to be
more frequently opposed to the government than in sympathy with it; and
although he can hardly be said to have originated any great lines of
policy, his influence has always been felt in behalf of peace and of an
extension of popular freedom.