BRIGHT, John, English statesman and orator: b. Greenbank, Rochdale, Lancashire, 16 Nov. 1811; d. 27 March 1889. His father, Jacob Bright, who belonged to a Quaker family originally connected with Wiltshire, migrated to Rochdale early in the century, and there established himself as a cotton-spinner and man ufacturer. John Bright, who was the second of 10 children, was educated at Rochdale, Ack worth, York, and finally at Newton, near Clitheroe. At the age of 15 he entered the cotton-spinning business of his father, where, even at that early age, he showed much shrewd ness and practical energy. Not satisfied, how ever, with merely mercantile affairs, he took an enthusiastic interest in such public questions as the abolition of slavery and the Reform Bill of 1831-32, while he diligently educated himself in public speaking at the debates of the Roch dale Literary and Philosophical Society. In 1835 he traveled in Greece,t and Pales tine, and gave an account of thejourney in a series of lectures delivered in his native town; but his career as a notable public speaker began with the free-trade movement. To relieve the pressure upon the working population of Eng land occasioned by commercial depression and a bad harvest, it was proposed to cheapen bread by the repeal of the corn duty, and in an asso ciation formed for this purpose at Manchester in 1838 Mr. Bright was made a member of committee. In the following year this associa tion, at a meeting in London, was widened into the famous Anti-Corn Law League, in which Richard Cobden and John Bright were the two most prominent members. Yet it was not until after the death of his first wife, in 1841, that, on the personal appeal of his friend Cobden, the former put all his strength into the repeal cam paign. In the autumn and winter of that year he organized branches of the league and ad dressed meetings in nearly all the large towns of England. It was inevitable that such a prom inent politician should find a place in Parlia ment, and in 1843, he was elected as member for the .city of Durham. He made his maiden speech in August of the same year on a motion in favor of carrying out the recommendations of the Import Duties Commission of 1840. Thereafter he seized every opportunity to press this question of repeal. The opposition from both of the great parties in the House was dogged, and the controversy might have been prolonged but for the widespread sympathy oc casioned by the Irish famine. In January 1846 Parliament was summoned, and Sir Robert Peel announced that his government was prepared to reduce and almost abolish the corn duties. This resolution was carried; but on the question of Irish coercion the government was defeated, and at the general election which followed (1847), John Bright was elected for Manches ter. The corn duty question having been satis factorily settled, he now turned his attention to such subjects as a reform in the affairs of Ireland and India, extension of the suffrage, voting by ballot, and the establishment of a national system of education. At the dissolu tion of Parliament in 1852 he was re-elected' for Manchester, but through his strenuous de nunciation of the Crimean War (1854), and his equally decided disapproval of the Chinese War (1856), he was rejected by his constituency at the general election of 1857. This result was made known to him at Florence, where he had retired to recruit after a serious illness, but the disappointment which it caused him was miti gated in a few months by his election for Bir mingham, and in 1858 he returned to public life after an absence of two years. During the
American Civil War he sturdily advocated the abolition of slavery and gave his passionate adherence to the cause of the North, although as a Lancashire cotton-spinner his business suf fered severely from a continuance of the struggle. About this time also his name be came closely identified with electoral reform and he had the satisfaction of seeing the prin ciples for which he had contended embodied in the Reform Bill (1867) passed by Mr. Disraeli. He had no desire for office, but his prestige in the Liberal party was so great that it was de sirable to include him in the cabinet, and he was constrained to accept the presidency of the Board of Trade in Mr. Gladstone's government (1868). In this office he gave powerful assist ance in passing the act for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the Irish Land Act and the Elementary Education Act. Owing to ill health he retired from office in 1870, but re entered the ministry as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1873. When the Liberal party returned to power in 1880 he again accepted this office; but two years later he resigned as he was opposed to armed intervention in Egypt. At this time and for some years previously he had not appeared often upon public platforms, but in 1883 he delivered a notable address when installed as lord rector of Glasgow University, and another in 'Birmingham in the same year when celebrating the 25th anniversary of his connection with that city. In 1886 he opposed the Home Rule Bill introduced by Mr. Glad stone, and until his death he strongly identified himself with the Unionist party in its efforts to defeat the Home Rule policy. This opposition was weighted with the same characteristics which had secured for him in previous contro versies the respect of the country— a trans parent sincerity of purpose which found its fearless exposition by pen and speech in direct, racy, idiomatic English. As an orator his plat form manner was remarkable for its ease and unstudied simplicity; the richness and lucidity of his diction, abounding in happy epithets, often edged with irony or glancing with humor; a spirit of outspoken truthfulness breathing through all his utterances; while he was pos sessed of a voice which laid a spell upon his audience by its clear, round, sonorous fullness. Perhaps the most splendid expression of his sympathetic nature is found in the speeches in which he pleaded for justice to the oppressed populations whether in Ireland or India, while the same broad humanity, even more than the doctrines which were his Quaker birthright. animated his denunciations of war. He opposed the factory legislation with which the name of Lord Shaftesbury is identified and viewed with disfavor the restriction of hours of labor, .especially of adults. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and was married first to a Miss Priestman, who died in 1841, and again to a Miss Leatham, who died suddenly in 1878. His life and speeches in two volumes were pub lished in 1881 by G. Barnett Smith, and his public letters by H. J. Leech in 1885. Consult also Robertson, 'Life and Times of John Bright' (London 1902) and Trevelyan's biog raphy (London 1913). •