BRADLAUGH, CHARLES (1833-1891), English free thinker and politician, was born at Hoxton, London, on Sept. 26, 1833, the son of a poor solicitor's clerk. He managed to earn a living by odd jobs, and came into contact with a group of free thinkers who were disciples of Richard Carlile.
At the end of 185o he enlisted as a soldier, but in 1853 was bought out with money provided by his mother. He then found employment as a lawyer's clerk, and gradually became known as a free-thought lecturer, under the name of "Iconoclast." From 186o he conducted the National Reformer for several years, and dis played much resource in legal defence when the paper was prose cuted by the government on account of its alleged blasphemy and sedition in 2868-69. The passing of the Evidence Amendment act in 1869 was the result of another legal contest (1867-69) as to whether Bradlaugh being an atheist, and so unable to take the oath, could give evidence in a court of law. In 1874 he became acquainted with Mrs. Annie Besant, who soon became co-editor of the National Reformer. In 1876 the Bristol publisher of an American pamphlet on the population question, called Fruits of Philosophy, was indicted for selling a work full of indecent physiological details, and, pleading guilty, was lightly sentenced; but Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant took the matter up, in order to vindicate their ideas of liberty, and aggressively republished and circulated the pamphlet. In the prosecution which resulted they were convicted and sentenced to a heavy fine and imprisonment, but the sentence was stayed and the indictment ultimately quashed on a technical point. The affair, however, had several side issues in the courts and led to much prejudice against the defendants, the distinction being ignored between a protest against the suppression of opinion and the championship of the particular opinions in question. Mrs. Besant's close alliance with Bradlaugh terminated in 1885, when she drifted from secularism, first into socialistic and labour agitation and then into theosophy as a pupil of Mme. Blavatsky. Bradlaugh himself took up politics with increasing fervour. He had been unsuccessful in standing for Northampton in 1868, but in 188o he was returned by that con stituency to parliament as an advanced radical. A long and sensa tional parliamentary struggle now began. He claimed to be allowed to affirm under the Parliamentary Oaths act, and the rejection of this pretension, and the refusal to allow him to take the oath on his professing his willingness to do so, terminated in Bradlaugh's victory in 1886. But this result was not obtained without pro tracted scenes in the House; in July 188o Bradlaugh was unseated; in Aug. 1881, having been re-elected, he attempted to force his way into the House, but was ejected. In 1882, at the opening of the session he advanced up the House and, producing a Bible from his pocket, administered the oath to himself. After several re elections and exclusions, and much litigation, Bradlaugh was vic torious in Jan. 1886, when the new Speaker insisted on his being allowed to take the oath. When the long struggle was over, the public had gradually got used to Bradlaugh, and his transparent honesty and courageous contempt for mere popularity gained him increasing respect. He died on Jan. 3o, 1891. Hard, arrogant and dogmatic, with a powerful physique and a real gift for popular oratory, he was a natural leader in causes which had society against them, but his sincerity was as unquestionable as his com bativeness.