My first lecture was delivered at the Co-operative Society's Hall, 55,
Castle Street, on August 25, 1873. Twice before this, I had ventured to
raise my voice in discussion, once at a garden-party at which I was
invited to join in a brief informal debate, and discovered that words
came readily and smoothly, and the second time at the Liberal Social
Union, in a discussion on a paper read by a member--I forget by whom--
dealing with the opening of Museums and Art Galleries on Sunday.
My membership of that same "Liberal" Social Union was not, by the way, of
very long duration. A discussion arose, one night, on the admissibility
of Atheists to the society. Dr. Zerffi declared that he would not remain
a member if avowed Atheists were admitted. I declared that I was an
Atheist, and that the basis of the Union was liberty. The result was that
I found myself coldshouldered, and those who had been warmly cordial to
me as a Theist looked askance at me after I had avowed that my scepticism
had advanced beyond their "limits of religious thought". The Liberal
Social Union knew me no more, but in the wider field of work open before
me the narrowmindedness of this petty clique troubled me not at all.
To return from this digression to my first essay in lecturing work. An
invitation to read a paper before the Co-operative Society came to me
from Mr. Greenwood, who was, I believe, the Secretary, and as the subject
was left to my own choice, I determined that my first public attempt at
speech should be on behalf of my own sex, and selected for it, "The
Political Status of Women". With much fear and trembling was that paper
written, and it was a very nervous person who presented herself at the
Co-operative Hall. When a visit to the dentist is made, and one stands on
the steps outside, desiring to run away ere the neat little boy in
buttons opens the door and beams on one with a smile of compassionate
contempt and implike triumph, then the world seems dark and life is as a
huge blunder. But all such feelings are poor and weak when compared with
the sinking of the heart, and the trembling of the knees, which, seize
upon the unhappy lecturer as he advances towards his first audience, and
as before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a tongue-tied would-be
speaker facing rows of listening faces, listening to--silence.
All this miserable feeling, however, disappeared the moment I rose to my
feet and looked at the faces before me. No tremor of nervousness touched
me from the first word to the last. And a similar experience has been
mine ever since. I am still always nervous before a lecture, and feel
miserable and ill-assured, but, once on my feet, I am at my ease, and not
once on the platform after the lecture has commenced have I experienced
the painful feeling of hesitancy and "fear of the sound of my own voice"
of which I have often heard people speak.
The death of Mr. Charles Gilpin in September left vacant one of the seats
for Northampton, and Mr. Bradlaugh at once announced his intention of
again presenting himself to the constituency as a candidate. He had at
first stood for the borough in 1868, and had received 1086 votes; on
February 5th, 1874, he received 1653 votes, and of these 1060 were
plumpers; the other candidates were Messrs. Merewether, Phipps, Gilpin,
and Lord Henley; Mr. Merewether had 12 plumpers; Mr. Phipps, 113; Mr.
Gilpin, 64; Lord Henley, 21. Thus signs were already seen of the compact
and personally loyal following which was to win the seat for its chief in
1880, after twelve years of steady struggle. In 1868, Mr. John Stuart
Mill had strongly supported Mr. Bradlaugh's candidature, and had sent a
donation to his election fund. Mr. Mill wrote in his Autobiography (pp.
311,312):
"He had the support of the working classes; having heard him speak I knew
him to be a man of ability, and he had proved that he was the reverse of
a demagogue by placing himself in strong opposition to the prevailing
opinion of the Democratic party on two such important subjects as
Malthusianism. and Personal Representation. Men of this sort, who, while
sharing the democratic feelings of the working classes, judge political
questions for themselves, and have courage to assert their individual
convictions against popular opposition, were needed, as it seemed to me,
in Parliament; and I did not think that Mr. Bradlaugh's anti-religious
opinions (even though he had been intemperate in the expression of them)
ought to exclude him."
When the election was over, and after Mr. Mill had himself been beaten at
Westminster, he wrote, referring to his donation: "It was the right thing
to do, and if the election were yet to take place, I would do it again".
The election in February, 1874 took place while Mr. Bradlaugh was away in
America, and this second one in the same year took place on the eve of
his departure on another American lecturing tour.
I went down to Northampton to report electioneering incidents for the
_National Reformer_, and spent some days there in the whirl of the
struggle. The Whig party was more bitter against Mr. Bradlaugh than was
the Tory, and every weapon that could be forged out of slander and
falsehood was used against him by "Liberals", who employed their
Christianity as an electioneering dodge to injure a man whose sturdy
Radicalism they feared. Over and over again Mr. Bradlaugh was told that
he was an "impossible candidate", and gibe and sneer and scoff were flung
at the man who had neither ancestors nor wealth to recommend him, who
fought his battle with his brain and his tongue, and whose election
expenses were paid by hundreds of contributions from poor men and women
in every part of the land. Strenuous efforts were made to procure a
"Liberal" candidate, who should be able at least to prevent Mr.
Bradlaugh's return by obtaining the votes of the Liberal as against the
Radical party. Messrs. Bell and James and Dr. Pearce came on the scene
only to disappear. Mr. Jacob Bright and Mr. Arthur Arnold were suggested.
Mr. Ayrton's name was whispered. Major Lumley was recommended by Mr.
Bernal Osborne. Dr. Kenealy proclaimed himself ready to rescue the
Liberal party in their dire strait. Mr. Tillet of Norwich, Mr. Cox of
Belper, were invited, but neither of these would consent to oppose a
sound Radical, who had fought two elections at Northampton and who had
been before the constituency for six years. At last Mr. William Fowler, a
banker, was invited, and accepted the task of handing over the
representation of a Radical borough to a Tory.
October 6th was fixed as the election day, and at 7.30 on that day Mr.
Merewether, the Tory, was declared elected with 2,171 votes. Mr.
Bradlaugh polled 1,766, having added another 133 voters to those who had
polled for him in the previous February.
The violent abuse levelled against Mr. Bradlaugh by the Whigs, and the
foul and wicked slanders circulated against him, had angered almost to
madness those who knew and loved him, and when it was found that the
unscrupulous Whig devices had succeeded in turning the election against
him, the fury broke out into open violence. As Mr. Bradlaugh was sitting
well-nigh exhausted in the hotel, the landlord rushed in, crying to him
to go out and try to stop the people, or there would be murder done at
the "Palmerston", Mr. Fowler's head-quarters; the crowd was charging the
door, and the windows were being broken, with showers of stones. Weary as
he was, Mr. Bradlaugh sprang to his feet and swiftly made his way to the
rescue of those who had defeated him. Flinging himself before the door,
he drove the crowd back, scolded them into quietness and dispersed them.
But at nine o'clock he had to leave the town to catch the mail for
Queenstown, where he was to join the steamer for America, and after he
had left, the riot he had quelled broke out afresh. The soldiers were
called out, the Riot Act was read, stones flew freely, heads and windows
were broken, but no very serious harm was done. The "Palmerston" and the
printing office of the _Mercury_, the Whig organ, were the principal
sufferers, windows and doors vanishing somewhat completely.
In this same month of October I find I noted in the _National Reformer_
that it was rumored "that on hearing that the Prince of Wales had
succeeded the Earl of Ripon as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of
England, Mr. Bradlaugh immediately sent in his resignation". "The
report", I added demurely, "seems likely to be a true one". I had not
much doubt of the fact, having seen the cancelled certificate.
My second lecture was delivered on September 27th, during the election
struggle, at Mr. Moncure D. Conway's Chapel in St. Paul's Road, Camden
Town, and was on "The true basis of morality.". The lecture was
re-delivered a few weeks later at a Unitarian chapel, where the minister
was the Rev. Peter Dean, and gave, I was afterwards told, great offence
to some of the congregation, especially to Miss Frances Power Cobbe, who
declared that she would have left the chapel had not the speaker been a
woman. The ground of complaint was that the suggested "basis" was
Utilitarian and human instead of Intuitional and Theistic. Published as a
pamphlet, the lecture has reached its seventh thousand.
In October I had a severe attack of congestion of the lungs, and soon
after my recovery I left Norwood to settle in London. I found that my
work required that I should be nearer head-quarters, and I arranged to
rent part of a house--19, Westbourne Park Terrace, Bayswater--two lady
friends taking the remainder. The arrangement proved a very comfortable
one, and it continued until my improved means enabled me, in 1876, to
take a house of my own.
In January, 1875, I made up my mind to lecture regularly, and in the
_National Reformer_ for January 17th I find the announcement that "Mrs.
Annie Besant (Ajax) will lecture at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, on
'Civil and religious liberty'", Mr. Conway took the chair at this first
identification of "Ajax" with myself, and sent a very kindly notice of
the lecture to the _Cincinnati Commercial_. Mr. Charles Watts wrote a
report in the _National Reformer_ of January 24th. Dr. Maurice Davies
also wrote a very favorable article in a London journal, but
unfortunately he knew Mr. Walter Besant, who persuaded him to suppress my
name, so that although the notice appeared it did me no service. My
struggle to gain my livelihood was for some time rendered considerably
more difficult by this kind of ungenerous and underhand antagonism. A
woman's road to the earning of her own living, especially when she is
weighted with the care of a young child, is always fairly thorny at the
outset, and does not need to be rendered yet more difficult by secret
attempts to injure, on the part of those who trust that suffering and
poverty may avail to bend pride to submission.
My next lecture was given in the Theatre Royal, Northampton, and in the
_National Reformer_ of February 14th appears for the first time my list
of lecturing engagements, so that in February next I shall complete my
first decade of lecturing for the Freethought and Republican Cause.
Never, since first I stood on the Freethought platform, have I felt one
hour's regret for the resolution taken in solitude in January, 1875, to
devote to that sacred Cause every power of brain and tongue that I
possessed. Not lightly was that resolution taken, for I know no task of
weightier responsibility than that of standing forth as teacher, and
swaying thousands of hearers year after year. But I pledged my word then
to the Cause I loved that no effort on my part should be wanting to
render myself worthy of the privilege of service which I took; that I
would read, and study, and would train every faculty that I had; that I
would polish my language, discipline my thought, widen my knowledge; and
this, at least, I may say, that if I have written and spoken much I have
studied and thought more, and that at least I have not given to my
mistress, Liberty, that "which hath cost me nothing".
A queer incident occurred on February 17th. I had been invited by the
Dialectical Society to read a paper, and selected for subject "The
existence of God". The Dialectical Society had for some years held their
meetings in a room in Adam Street rented from the Social Science
Association. When the members gathered as usual on this 17th February,
the door was found closed, and they were informed that Ajax's paper had
been too much for the Social Science nerves, and that entrance to the
ordinary meeting-place was henceforth denied. We found refuge in the
Charing Cross Hotel, where we speculated merrily on the eccentricities of
religious charity.
On February 12th, I started on my first lecturing tour in the provinces.
After lecturing at Birkenhead on the evening of that day, I started by
the night mail for Glasgow. Some races--dog races, I think--had been
going on, and very unpleasant were many of the passengers waiting on the
platform. Some Birkenhead friends had secured me a compartment, and
watched over me till the train began to move. Then, after we had fairly
started, the door was flung open by a porter and a man was thrust in who
half tumbled on to the seat. As he slowly recovered, he stood up, and as
his money rolled out of his hand on to the floor and he gazed vaguely at
it, I saw, to my horror, that he was drunk. The position was pleasant,
for the train was an express and was not timed to stop for a considerable
time. My odious fellow-passenger spent some time on the floor hunting for
his scattered coins. Then he slowly gathered himself up, and presently
became conscious of my presence. He studied me for some time and then
proposed to shut the window. I assented quietly, not wanting to discuss a
trifle, and feeling in deadly terror. Alone at night in an express, with
a man not drunk enough to be helpless but too drunk to be controlled.
Never, before or since, have I felt so thoroughly frightened, but I sat
there quiet and unmoved, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with a
desperate resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need arose. The
man had risen again to his feet and had come over to me, when a jarring
noise was heard and the train began to slacken.
"What is that?" stammered my drunken companion.
"They are putting on the brakes to stop the train," I said very slowly
and distinctly, though a very passion of relief made it hard to say
quietly the measured words.
The man sat down stupidly, staring at me, and in a minute or two more the
train pulled up at a station. It had been stopped by signal. In a moment
I was at the window, calling the guard. I rapidly explained to him that I
was travelling alone, that a half-drunken man was with me, and I begged
him to put me into another carriage. With the usual kindliness of a
railway official, the guard at once moved my baggage and myself into an
empty compartment, into which he locked me, and he kept a friendly watch
over me at every station at which we stopped until he landed me safely at
Glasgow.
At Glasgow a room had been taken for me at a Temperance Hotel, and it
seemed to me a new and lonely sort of thing to be "on my own account" in
a strange city in a strange hotel. By the way, why are Temperance Hotels
so often lacking in cleanliness? Surely abstinence from wine and
superfluity of "matter in the wrong place" need not necessarily be
correlated in hotel-life, and yet my experience leads me to look for the
twain together. Here and there I have been to Temperance Hotels in which
water is used for other purposes than that of drinking, but these are, I
regret to say, the exceptions to a melancholy rule.
From Glasgow I went north to Aberdeen, and from Aberdeen home again to
London. A long weary journey that was, in a third-class carriage in the
cold month of February, but the labor had in it a joy that outpaid all
physical discomfort, and the feeling that I had found my work in the
world gave a new happiness to my life.
I reported my doings to the chief of our party in America, and found them
only half approved. "You should have waited till I returned, and at least
I could have saved you some discomforts," he wrote; but the discomforts
troubled me little, and I think I rather preferred the independent launch
out into lecturing work, trusting only to my own courage and ability to
win my way. So far as health was concerned, the lecturing acted as a
tonic. My chest had always been a little delicate, and when I consulted a
doctor on the possibility of my lecturing he answered: "It will either
kill you or cure you". It has entirely cured the lung weakness, and I
have grown strong and vigorous instead of being frail and delicate as of
old.
On February 28th I delivered my first lecture at the Hall of Science,
London, and was received with that warmth of greeting which Freethinkers
are ever willing to extend to one who sacrifices aught to join their
ranks. From that day to this that hearty welcome at our central London
hall has never failed me, and the love and courage wherewith Freethinkers
have ever stood by me have overpaid a thousandfold any poor services I
have been fortunate enough to render to the common cause.
It would be wearisome to go step by step over the ten years' journeys and
lectures; I will only select, here and there, incidents illustrative of
the whole.
Some folk say that the lives of Freethought lecturers are easy, and that
their lecturing tours are lucrative in the extreme. On one occasion I
spent eight days in the north lecturing daily, with three lectures on the
two Sundays, and made a deficit of 11s. on the journey! I do not pretend
that such a thing would happen now, but I fancy that every Freethought
lecturer could tell of a similar experience in the early days of "winning
his way".
There is no better field for Freethought and Radical work than
Northumberland and Durham; the miners there are as a rule shrewd and
hard-headed men, and very cordial is the greeting given by them to those
whom they have reason to trust. At Seghill and at Bedlington I have slept
in their cottages and have been welcomed to their tables, and I remember
one evening at Seghill, after a lecture, that my host invited about a
dozen miners to supper to meet me; the talk ran on politics, and I soon
found that my companions knew more of English politics and had a far
shrewder notion of political methods than I had found among the ordinary
"diners-out" in "society". They were of the "uneducated" class despised
by "gentlemen" and had not the vote, but politically they were far better
educated than their social superiors, and were far better fitted to
discharge the duties of citizenship.
On May 16th I attended, for the first time, the Annual Conference called
by the National Secular Society. It was held at Manchester, in the
Society's rooms in Grosvenor Street, and it is interesting and
encouraging to note how the Society has grown and strengthened since that
small meeting held nearly ten years ago. Mr. Bradlaugh was elected
President; Messrs. A. Trevelyan, T. Slater, C. Watts, C.C. Cattell, R.A.
Cooper, P.A.V. Le Lubez, N. Ridgway, G.W. Foote, G.H. Reddalls, and Mrs.
Besant Vice Presidents. Messrs. Watts and Standring were elected as
Secretary and Assistant-Secretary--both offices were then honorary, for
the Society was too poor to pay the holders--and Mr. Le Lubez Treasurer.
The result of the Conference was soon seen in the energy infused into the
Freethought propaganda, and from that time to this the Society has
increased in numbers and in influence, until that which was scarcely more
than a skeleton has become a living power in the land on the side of all
social and political reforms. The Council for 1875 consisted of but
thirty-nine members, including President, Vice-Presidents, and Secretary,
and of these only nine were available as a Central Executive. Let
Freethinkers compare this meagre list with the present, and then let them
"thank" man "and take courage".
Lecturing at Leicester in June, I came for the first time across a
falsehood of which I have since heard plenty. An irate Christian declared
that I was responsible for a book entitled the "Elements of Social
Science", which was, he averred, the "Bible of Secularists". I had never
heard of the book, but as he insisted that it was in favor of the
abolition of marriage, and that Mr. Bradlaugh agreed with it, I promptly
contradicted him, knowing that Mr. Bradlaugh's views on marriage were
conservative rather than revolutionary. On enquiry afterwards I found
that the book in question had been written some years before by a Doctor
of Medicine, and had been sent for review by its publisher to the
_National Reformer_ among other papers. I found further that it consisted
of three parts; the first dealt with the sexual relation, and advocated,
from the standpoint of an experienced medical man, what is roughly known
as "free love"; the second was entirely medical, dealing with diseases;
the third consisted of a very clear and able exposition of the law of
population as laid down by Malthus, and insisted--as John Stuart Mill had
done--that it was the duty of married persons to voluntarily limit their
families within their means of subsistence. Mr. Bradlaugh, in the
_National Reformer_, in reviewing the book, stated that it was written
"with honest and pure intent and purpose", and recommended to working men
the exposition of the law of population. Because he did this Christians
and Tories who desire to injure him still insist that he shares the
author's views on sexual relations, and despite his reiterated
contradictions, they quote detached pieces of the work, speaking against
marriage, as containing his views. Anything more meanly vile and
dishonest than this it would be difficult to imagine, yet such are the
weapons used against Atheists in a Christian country. Unable to find in
Mr. Bradlaugh's own writings anything to serve their purpose, they take
isolated passages from a book he neither wrote nor published, but once
reviewed with a recommendation of a part of it which says nothing against
marriage.
That the book is a remarkable one and deserves to be read has been
acknowledged on all hands. Personally, I cordially dislike a large part
of it, and dissent utterly from its views on the marital relation, but
none the less I feel sure that the writer is an honest, good, and right
meaning man. In the _Reasoner_, edited by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, I
find warmer praise of it than in the _National Reformer_; in the review
the following passage appears:--
"In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be
weakness and criminal prudery--a prudery as criminal as vice itself--not
to say that such a book as the one in question is not only a far lesser
evil than the one that it combats, but in one sense a book which it is a
mercy to issue and courage to publish."