BRIGHT, Joux ( 1811-89 ) . An English statesman and orator. He was the son of Jacob Bright, a Quaker cotton spinner and manufac turer at Rochdale, Lancashire. and was born at Greenbank, near that town, November 16, 1811. Young Bright's education was of a fitful and elementary character, and the magnificent at tainments which he displayed in later life must be ascribed entirely to native talent and to in defatigable industry. At the age of fifteen he entered his father's business, but devoted himself at the same time to the study of public oratory, which seems to have attracted him at a very early period. In 1835 he made a foreign tour, which included a journey to Palestine. On his return he delivered a number of lectures on the subject of his travels and on topics connected with commerce and political economy before the Literary Society of Rochdale, of %vitich he was one of the founders. His attention was first drawn to the subject of the Corn Laws, with which he was to be so prominently identi fied, by an attack on the evils of the factory system—in answering which, Bright pointed out that the lamentable condition of the Lan cashire mill-operatives was clue in very great measure to the iniquitous Corn Laws. which made food so dear in times of scarcity. in 1839 he was one of the founders of the first Anti-Corn Law Association at Manchester. at which time he made the acquaintance of Richard Cobden, with whom he lived in close friendship till the latter's death. Bright, however, did not actively enter into the Anti-Corn Law agitation until 1841; but from that time until the repeal of the laws in 1846, he and Cobden were the most prominent leaders of the movement: and Bright continued, by the side of Cobden. to be one of the chief pillars of the general system of free trade, which obtained such complete as eendeney in England. Bright's power con sisted in his talent for forceful presentation. which made him an excellent popular exponent of the principles formulated by finer thinkers. like Cobden. in 18-13 Bright was elected to Parliament from Durham. and four years later from the factory town of Manchester, for by this time he had come to he regarded as one of the leaders of English workingmen. After 1857 lie sat for Birmingham. In Parliament. Bright, though initiating no important measures of legis lation himself, exercised a very powerful influence on the most important features of Imperial pol icy. Ile showed himself an ardent champion of the rights of the people of India; in their defense he antagonized the East India Company, and he was largely instrumental in bringing India tinder the direct control of the Crown. Re also lent much attention to the Irish question. He was a warm advocate of the disestablishment of the Irish Church. and to the end of his life was inter ested in the various Irish land-measures. He re mained a leader of the demoeraey throughout his life, playing a great part in the movement which led to the Reform Bill of 1867, and, in a some what less degree, in the agitation preceding the Comity Franchise Bill of 1884. Ile held office
under Gladstone as president of the board of trade from 1868 to 1870, and as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancashire from 1873 to 1874 and from 1880 to 1882. in 1883 he was made Lord Rector of Glasgow University. He died March 27, 1889.
The enormous influence which Bright exercised on English polities and public opinion during the greater part of his life was due in less measure to his intellectual attainments than to his great moral strength. Aside from the gift of oratory, which, according to competent critics, be possessed to a degree unequaled by any other English statesman of the _Nineteenth Century, Bright impressed himself upon Parliament. and more than that, upon the people at large by the intense earnestness, the hatred of injustice, and the disinterested sympathy for the oppressed which he displayed at all times. He has heen char acterized as having had in him something of the austerity of the ancient llebrew prophets; and lie certainly spoke like one who brings his religion into his politics. Though called the 'Tribune of the People,' lie never feared to antagonize public opinion whenever that opinion was out of con formity with his rigid standards of duty and right. Thus, being in general opposed to all war (as a result no doubt of his Quaker origin), he dared to advocate peace with Russia in 1854 at a time when the war fever was at its height; and again, in 1877-78. he stood opposed to British intervention in Russo-Turkish affairs. To Amer ica, especially, Bright rendered services of in estimable value during the period of the Civil War, in that lie was undoubtedly the most promi nent among the very few notable MOD in Parlia ment or out, who advocated the cause of the North against the South; and that, too, in spite of the fact that the continuance of the war was disastrous to his own interests as a cotton-spin ner. and to the entire Lancashire cotton trade. But his moral power was most clearly shown in the period after tile convershm of the Liberal Party to Dome Rule in 1885. Mr. Bright. regard ing such a policy as vicious, refused to follow his old leader, Gladstone, and did not hesitate to denounce openly the 'unholy alliance,' as lie con sidered it, of the old Liberal Party with the Parnellites; although, to him, this meant the breaking up of ancient personal and political ties which effectually saddened the last years of his life. A collection of Bright's speeches was pub lished at London in 1868, and his Public Letters in 1885. Consult: Barnett-Smith. Life and Sperrhes of John Bright (New York, 1881). and Robertson. Life and Times of John Bright (Lon don, 1883).