BROUGHAM AND VAUX (broom vo), HENRY PETER BROUGHAM, 1ST BARON (1778-1868), lord chan cellor of England, was born at Edinburgh, Sept. 1o, 1778, the eldest son of Henry Brougham and Eleanora, daughter of the Rev. James Syme. He was educated at Edinburgh high school and at Edinburgh university, and was still a student when two papers of his on light were printed (1796 and in the trans actions of the Royal Society; in 1803 he became F.R.S. But his pursuit of physical science was by way of recreation. He attended lectures in civil law, and adopted law as a profession, being ad mitted to the faculty of advocates in 180o. He at once went on the southern circuit, where he defended or prosecuted a few prisoners, and caused some scandal by playing a series of tricks on the presiding judge, Lord Eskgrove. The Scottish bar, how ever did not offer sufficient scope for his talents and his ambition. He had already appeared as junior counsel in a Scottish appeal to the House of Lords when, in 1803, he entered at Lincoln's Inn. In 1808 he was called to the English bar. In the meantime he began to write for the Edinburgh Review (founded in 1802), to which he contributed an extraordinary number of articles on science, politics, colonial policy, literature, poetry, surgery, mathe matics and the fine arts. The prodigious success of the Review, and the power he was known to wield in it, brought him the friendship of Lord Grey and the leading Whig politicians. It was chiefly through his influence that the Review afterwards sup ported the Whig cause, and gave occasion for the founding of the Tory Quarterly. His wit and gaiety made him a social success in London. He now began his Enquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers (Edinburgh 1803), with the idea of establishing himself in politics. Fox made him secretary to a mission (18o6) headed by Lord Rosslyn and Lord St. Vincent to Portugal, then threatened with a French invasion. The mission lasted two or three months ; Brougham came home out of humour and out of pocket ; and meantime the death of Fox put an end to the hopes of the Whigs.
Brougham was disappointed by the abrupt fall of the minis try, and piqued that his Whig friends had not provided him with a seat in parliament. Nevertheless he wrote many pamphlets and articles in the Whig interest during the election of 1809, and in particular An Enquiry into the State of the Nation at the com mencement of the present administration in which he attacked Pitt's foreign policy. But no seat was placed at his disposal, and he was too poor to contest a borough. At this time he joined the movement for the abolition of the slave-trade, and he remained through life not only faithful, but passionately attached to the cause. Indeed, one of the first measures he carried in the House of Commons was a bill to make the slave-trade felony, and as lord chancellor of England he had a part in the final measure of negro emancipation throughout the colonies. Before entering on practice at the English bar Brougham had acquired some know ledge of international law, and some experience of the prize courts. This probably led to his being retained as counsel for the Liver pool merchants who had petitioned both houses of parliament against the orders in council. Brougham conducted the enquiry at the bar of the House, and showed a remarkable mastery of the principles of economics and international law. The merchants nevertheless lost their case, and it was not until 1812, when Brougham was himself in parliament, that he resumed his attack on the orders in council, and ultimately conquered. His first legal success was the defence of John and Leigh Hunt, in 181r, on a charge of provoking a French invasion by publishing an article in the Examiner condemning military flogging. This trial established his reputation.
He took his seat in parliament early in 181o, as member for Camelford, a borough to which he was presented by the duke of Bedford. To prove that he could curb his already notorious im petuosity he vowed to keep silence for a month, and did so. His first speech was made in March, in condemnation of the conduct of Lord Chatham at Walcheren, and from that time he took part constantly in the debates of the House. His success was im mediate, and his name was canvassed as a possible leader of the Whig Party if it returned to power. In 1812 he secured the for mation of a committee to enquire into the state of trade, and ob tained the repeal of the orders in council, which he maintained were hampering the trade of the country. At the election of 1812 Brougham stood for Liverpool and was defeated. The new House had a strong Tory majority. Brougham remained out of parlia ment during the four eventful years from 1812 to 1816, which witnessed the end of the war with France, and he did not conceal his resentment against the Whigs, though he himself admitted that they had grounds for their distrust of him, as he was "an indifferent party man." He had been introduced in 1809 to the princess of Wales (afterwards Queen Caroline). In 1811 the princess began to con sult him on her private affairs, after the rupture between the prince regent and the Whigs had become more decided. From that time, Brougham, in conjunction with Samuel Whitbread, became one of the princess's chief advisers; he was attached to her service, not so much from any liking for herself as from indignation against her husband, and probably with an apprecia tion of the political value of his position. She on the other hand does not seem to have reposed much trust in him, but found him useful and considered him too important a person to ignore or offend. Brougham strongly opposed her departure from England in 1814, but later, in 182o, proposed to the prime minister, with out her knowledge, that she should be urged to resign her claim to the title of queen in return for an increased allowance of £so,000 a year.
In Feb. 1816 Brougham was returned to parliament for an other pocket-borough, Winchelsea, in the gift of the earl of Darl ington, and he instantly resumed a commanding position in the House of Commons. He defeated the proposal for the continu ance of the income-tax; he advocated popular education; initiat ing a movement for the establishment of infant schools in Lon don ; and on the death of Romilly he took up with ardour the great work of the reform of the law. Nothing exasperated the Tory party more than the select committee which sat, with Brougham in the chair, in 1816 and the three following years, to investigate the state of education of the poor in London. But he was as far as ever from obtaining the leadership of the Whig Party, nor was he much more successful at the bar. The death of George III. suddenly changed this state of things. Queen Caro line at once, in April 182o, appointed Brougham her attorney general, and Denman her solicitor-general, and they immediately took their rank in court accordingly; this was indeed the sole act of royal authority on the part of the unhappy queen. In July Queen Caroline came from St. Omer to England; ministers sent down to both houses of parliament the secret evidence which they had long been collecting against her; and a bill (the Bill of Pains and Penalties) was brought into the House of Lords for the deposition of the queen, and the dissolution of the king's mar riage. The defence of the queen was conducted by Brougham, assisted by Denman, Lushington and Wilde, with equal courage and ability. He wound up the proceedings with a speech of extra ordinary power and effect. The peroration was said to have been written and rewritten by him 17 times. On Nov. 1 o the bill was carried, but the majority was so small that the ministry did not proceed with the bill in the Commons, and the result was a virtual triumph for the queen, which was shared by Brougham. A piece of plate was presented to him, paid for by a penny subscription of peasants and mechanics. He refused to accept a sum of £4,000 which the queen herself placed at his disposal, and took no more than the usual fees of counsel, while his salary as attorney-general remained unpaid, until it was discharged by the Treasury after her death. But from that time his fortune was made at the bar and his practice on the northern circuit quintupled. Even Lord Campbell, a rival advocate and an unfriendly critic, admitted that his position was unexampled in the profession. The meanness of George IV. and of Lord Eldon refused him the silk gown to which his position at the bar entitled him, and for some years he led the circuit as an outer barrister, to the great loss of the senior members of the circuit, who could only be employed against him. His practice rose to about £7,000 a year, but it was again falling off before he became chancellor.
Meanwhile he pursued his persistent advocacy of better educa tion. The select committee of 1816 had disclosed the misuse of various charitable educational funds and had led to an act of 1818 appointing another committee of enquiry, which resulted later in the establishment of the charity commissioners. In 182o Brougham prepared an Education Bill, which was rejected, ow ing chiefly to the necessity for co-operation with the Church of England. For the same reason it failed again in 1826. In 1820 he also proposed a compulsory education rate. Under his aus pices the first steps were taken, in 1825, for the establishment of a university in London, free from all religious or sectarian distinc tions. In 1827, he helped in founding the "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," an association which gave an immense impulse to the production of good cheap books for the people. Its publications were issued at 6d. each and the first was an essay on "The Pleasures and Advantages of Science," written by himself. In 1832 he founded the Penny Magazine, and in 1833 the Penny Cyclopaedia, which was completed 11 years later, but finally caused the bankruptcy of the Society.
In 1828 he delivered his great speech on law reform, which lasted six hours, in a thin and exhausted house.
The death of Canning, the failure of Lord Goderich, and the accession of the duke of Wellington to power (Jan. 1828), im proved the prospects of the Whig party. At the general election of 183o Brougham was returned as M.P. for the county of York. Parliament met in November. Brougham's first act was to move for leave to bring in a bill to amend the representation of the people; but before the debate came on the Tory government was defeated on another question (Nov. 15, 1830) ; the duke re signed, and was succeeded by Earl Grey.
Amongst the difficulties of the new premier and the Whig party were the position and attitude of Brougham. He was not the leader of any party, and had no personal following in the House of Commons. Moreover, he himself had repeatedly declared that nothing would induce him to exchange his position as an inde pendent member of parliament for any office, however great. On the day following the resignation of the Tory government he re luctantly consented to postpone for one week his motion on par liamentary reform. The attorney-generalship was offered to him and indignantly refused. He himself affirms that he desired to be master of the rolls, which would have left him free to sit in the House of Commons. But this was positively interdicted by the king, and objected to by Lord Althorp, who declared that he could not undertake to lead the House with so insubordinate a follower behind him. But as it was impossible to leave Brougham out of the ministry, it was determined to offer him the chan cellorship. Brougham did not wish to lose his seat in the Com mons, but finally yielded to the representations of Lord Grey and Lord Althorp. On Nov. 2 2 the great seal was delivered to him by the king, and he was raised to the peerage as Baron Brougham and Vaux. His chancellorship lasted exactly four years.
Lord Brougham took a most active and prominent part in all the great measures promoted by Grey's government, and the passing of the Reform Bill was due in a great measure to his bril liant defence in the Lords, although he was excluded from the cabinet committee of four which prepared the bill. Unfortunately Brougham's success developed his native arrogance. His manner became dictatorial and he exhibited a restless eccentricity, and a passion for interfering with every department of state, which alarmed the king. Lord Grey resigned, but very much by Brough am's exertions the cabinet was reconstructed under Lord Mel bourne, and he expected that his own influence in it would be increased. But the extreme mental excitement under which he laboured at this time culminated during a journey to Scotland in a behaviour so extravagant that his fall became certain. Whether the stories circulated were true or not, it is certain that his cor respondence with the king caused alarm at Windsor, and con tributed to the destruction of the ministry.
Shortly after the meeting of parliament in November 1834 the king dismissed his ministers. The chancellor, who had dined at Holland house, called on Lord Melbourne on his way home, and learned the intelligence. Melbourne made him promise that he would keep it secret until the next day, but in the morning the occurrence was related in the Times, in a paragraph which added that "the queen had done it all." It was always supposed that Brougham gave the information to the Times, and this was the last act of his official life. The Peel ministry, prematurely and rashly summoned to power, was short-lived, and Brougham took an active part in overthrowing it. Lord Melbourne was summoned in April 1835 to reconstruct the Whig government with his former colleagues. But the Whigs were determined that Brougham should not hold the great seal or any other office. The great seal was put in commission (April 183 5) so that the way for his return was nominally left open. In the session of 1835 Hansard records no less than 221 speeches of his. But in Jan. 1835 Lord Cottenham was made lord chancellor. Brougham's spirit was quenched for a time, and during the year 1836 he never spoke in parliament. But in 1837 he advocated the establishment of a new department for the purpose of extending education. For more than 3o years after his fall Brougham continued to take an active part in the judicial business of the House of Lords and in its debates. His reappearance in parliament on the accession of Queen Victoria was marked by sneers at the court, and violent attacks on the Whigs for their enthusiastic attachment to the young sovereign; and upon the outbreak of the insurrection in Canada, and the miscarriage of Lord Durham's mission, he overwhelmed his for mer colleagues and especially Lord Glenelg, with a torrent of in vective and sarcasm, equal in point of oratory to the greatest of his earlier speeches. Indeed Brougham estranged himself from the whole of his own party. But, in spite of the hostility of the Whigs and his own disappointed ambition, Brougham continued to render great public service by the genuine liberalism of his views, and by his great legal acumen in the judicial cases brought before the privy council, and the House of Lords. The privy council, especially when hearing appeals from the colonies, India, and the courts maritime and ecclesiastical, was his favourite tri bunal; its vast range of jurisdiction, varied by questions of for eign and international law, suited his discursive genius. Colonial administration had been one of his earliest studies, and in colo nial questions his learning was put to good use. Brougham had, as lord chancellor, remodelled the judicial committee in 1833, and it still remains one of the most useful of his creations.
In the year a second patent was conferred upon him by Queen Victoria, with a reversion of his peerage to his youngest brother, William Brougham (d. i886). The preamble of this patent stated that this unusual mark of honour was conferred upon him by the Crown as acknowledgment of the great services he had rendered, more especially in promoting the abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of the negro race. The peerage was thus perpetuated in a junior branch of the family, Lord Brougham himself being without an heir. He had married in 1821 Mrs. Spalding (d. 1865), daughter of Thomas Eden, and had two daughters, the survivor of whom died in 1839. Brough am's last days were passed at Cannes, where he had built himself a house about the year 1838, when the place was little more than a fishing village. His choice and his example was the beginning of its vogue. He died there on May 7, 1868, in the 90th year of his age.
As chancellor, Brougham affected at first to treat the business of the court of chancery as a light affair, and his manner in court was desultory and dictatorial. As has been shown, his legal train ing was of considerable assistance to him in his parliamentary life, and he never ceased to advocate legal reforms, in particular the mitigation of the severity of the criminal code, the simplifi cation of existing laws, and improvement in 'the methods of their administration. His ideals are amplified in his famous speech of 1828 on "the present State of Law." In his earlier career his tendency was to specialize in cases which had a political bearing, probably with a view to increasing his own political influence.
Although an able lawyer, Brougham's chief interest was in the political field, where he never gained the position which he thought to be his due. His failure appears to have been caused largely by the instability of his political beliefs, and by the fact that his actions were often influenced by his ambition and desire for position. He was throughout his life an enthusiastic advo cate of improved education, and of other measures which had wide popular support. It is uncertain to what extent this policy was the result of conviction, or how far it was a means of ob taining popular support.
Brougham was one of the most powerful orators of his time, his command of language, audacity and well-stored memory en abling him to dominate the House. His striking and almost gro tesque personal appearance added to the effect of his voice and manner—a tall, disjointed frame, with strong bony limbs and hands, that seemed to interpret the power of his address ; strange angular motions of the arms; the modulations of his voice, now thundering in the loudest tones of indignation, now subdued to a whisper—all contributed to give him the magical influence ex cited by a great actor. His political personality, however, lacked the charm which appears to have been characteristic of him in private life.
Brougham's collected works were published in ii volumes (Glasgow, 1855-61, and Edinburgh 1872-73, edited by himself). His speeches were published in 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1838) . A bibliographical list of his works by "the Author of the Handbook of Fictitious Names" appeared in 1873. His works include An Enquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European powers (2 vols. Edinburgh, 1803 and 1830) ; A Concise Statement of the Question regarding the abolition of the Slave Trade (1804) ; An Enquiry into the State of the Nation at the com mencement of the present administration (18o6) ; An Enquiry into the causes and consequences of Continental alienation, written as a sequel to the Enquiry into the State of the Nation (18o8) ; A letter to Sir Samuel Romilly upon the abuse of Charities (1818) ; Practical observa tions upon the education of the People (1825 and 3o later editions, German trans., 1827) . Sketches of Statesmen of the Time of George III. . A novel entitled Albert Lund was attributed to him (1844 and 1872). His autobiography Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham written by himself was published in 3 volumes in 1871. See Lord Campbell's account of Brougham in his Lives of the Chan cellors (1869) , a contemporary and not impartial record; W. Hunt's biography in the D.N.B. See also the Greville Memoirs (ed. H. Reeve, 8 vols. 1872) ; T. Creevy, Papers (ed. Sir Herbert Maxwell, 2 vols. 1904) ; S. Walpole, History of England (1890) ; J. A. Roebuck, History of the Whig Ministry (1852) ; Lord Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party (1854) ; Brougham and his early friends; Letters to James Loch, 1798-1809 (3 vols. 1908, privately printed. Ed. R. H. M. B. Atkinson and G. A. Jackson) ; A. Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party