Acknowledgements

I was inspired to research this article by Robin Bradlaugh Bonner, my friend for over four decades, whose Great-great-grandfather was Charles Bradlaugh. Robin lives in Stoke Newington, not far from where Bradlaugh grew up. I have been pleased to accompany him on local walks to discover where his predecessor lived.

    During those walks we used notes by Di Ridley prepared for the Charles Bradlaugh Society. I am indebted to her for both the inspiration for this research and the sources she used.

    I have referred to the biography of Bradlaugh titled Charles Bradlaugh: a record of his life and work, volume 1, by his daughter Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Bradlaugh’s daughter, and John Mackinnon Robertson. This is available as an ebook from The Project Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org.

     I have used secondary sources online for information on the growth of London in the early nineteenth century and the role of radical and Freethinker movements (see accompanying article about radicalism in Hackney). Any errors are mine.

Derek Perry

January 2021

London in the early nineteenth century

During the early 1800s, London was the capital of the mighty British Empire. Napoleon was dead and his French empire had been defeated by Wellington's army and Nelson's navy. Great Britain had secured its global supremacy. Despite the loss of its American colonies, it had a presence in Canada, the Caribbean, South Africa, India, Australia, and a scattering of colonies across the oceans.

    The driving force behind this empire was trade and naval supremacy. Although slavery was abolished in England in 1833, the enslavement of millions of Africans transported to the Americas generated the funds for the growth of British industry and commerce. The Empire provided the raw materials and markets for products from the new factories. The invention of the steam engine by British engineers revolutionised manufacturing, transport, and communications.

    Maps of the time show London’s burgeoning growth as wealth flowed into the city, attracting thousands of people for the opportunities it might offer, including grocers, brewers, furniture and clothing manufacturers, and others necessary to service this growing population. Lawyers and bankers built edifices in the City from where they controlled capital, the lifeblood of trade and industry. 

    Canals, railways, and dockyards were built, attracting labourers by the thousands. Fields were covered by streets with their houses, shops, and churches. Theatres, gardens, and public houses provided relaxation. The names of many of these manufacturers, traders, bankers, politicians, landowners, royalty, generals, and admirals are scattered over London in street names, statues, buildings, and monuments. 

    With this explosion of economic activity, the traditional roles of church and state came under scrutiny. The expanding towns generated overcrowding, squalor and disease. Reform movements for enfranchisement, religion, public health and factories inspired politicians, philanthopists and social commentators. Charles Bradlaugh was one of these radical thinkers.

    We know much less about the thousands of labourers, factory workers, shop assistants, domestic workers, clerks who sustained the City. They lived the interstices and outskirts of the City, in places like Hoxton. Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, published in 1838, was inspired by his frequent visits to Hoxton and Shoreditch. It was in Hoxton in 1833 that Charles Bradlaugh was born.

Young Bradlaugh: Church and School

Hoxton Square was originally built in the eighteenth century for the genteel better-off. However, by the turn of the nineteenth century, workshops had been built in the front gardens and the houses turned into warehouses and offices for the furniture trade. Cheap housing was erected in the side streets to house the working population.

Charles Bradlaugh’s father, also called Charles, married Elizabeth Trimby, a former nursemaid, moving to a four-room house at 5 Bacchus Walk, Hoxton. Charles senior was an unremarkable clerk, working for a solicitor in Bishopsgate, supplementing his income by selling legal stationery. His work may have been less dirty and onerous than a labourer’s but his wages and position in society were still low and the family was considered poor.

    In 1833 Elizabeth gave birth to her first child, Charles Bradlaugh. The building no longer exists but a plaque on a nearby council block records his birth. He was baptised at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch.  She would give birth to seven more children, two of whom died early.

Hoxton in 1827 showing Charles Bradlaugh’s birthplace at Bacchus Walk.
Right: Typical houses in Hoxton erected in 1809.

Urban development in Hackney, east of London

To the north-east of the City of London lies Hackney, a semi-rural scattering of small hamlets in the early years of the nineteenth century which provided an escape from the noise and squalor of London for richer citizens, some of whom built fine houses. 

    It was not merely a bucolic retreat for the better off; the surrounding fields were smallholdings growing vegetables and salads for London’s tables. Ponds near Hackney Marshes grew watercress. Cows and sheep were driven along Hackney Road to Smithfield from farms in Essex. By the 1820s, when William Cobbett disparagingly described London as ‘the great wen’, London was spreading far beyond its ancient city walls. Hackney’s rural idyll could not last.

The urbanisation of Bethnal Green and Hackney Road. From market gardens and ponds in 1804, to buildings, new roads, a canal, and Victoria Park in 1840. To the south, railway lines were being built.

    The Anglican Church and the Government were concerned about this urbanisation and its godless population. It was not just a concern for spiritual health that prompted action. The French Revolution, still in living memory, showed how an ungodly mob could bring down both Government and the Church. Acts of Parliament in 1818 and 1824 provided the funds to build new churches by the new Church Building Commission. Eventually, 612 new churches were built including St. Peter’s, Bethnal Green, in 1840-41. This church would have great significance for young Bradlaugh. Although he was a parishioner in its first decade of ministry, the church would singularly fail in its aim of dampening down his radical ideas.

St. Peter’s, Bethnal Green, attended by Charles Bradlaugh.

The area to the south of Hackney Road was developed by small local house builders. On the north side, attractive Georgian terraces had been erected for the ‘better sort’ in the 1820s some of which can still be seen today. To the south of Hackney Road, the houses were ‘fourth grade’, usually two-storey with no water or toilet, sharing pumps and privies with several houses. Nevertheless, these were an improvement on local tenements and slums and at rents just affordable by a diligent clerk or artisan.

    From 1845 to 1853, 24 houses were built in Warner Place and eight in Wellington Place. Around a new church, 35 houses were built between 1852 and 1855. The pond to the south was filled in and more houses erected in the 1860s at Nelson Place. 

    Although the date has not been established, it is likely that the Bradlaughs moved to Warner Place South at about the time the new church was built. The house no longer exists, and some assumptions must be made. The house at 13 Warner Place South may have been newly built, possibly between 1835 and 1837 and is likely to have been a typical ‘fourth grade’ terraced house as illustrated above. It is described as having seven rooms. The location is now the site of a park, opposite the entrance to Nelson Gardens.

    Despite its simplicity, and lack of amenities, this was suitable for a clerk with a growing family, at a rent of seven shillings a week. It would be the Bradlaugh family home for some 20 years or more. The new home provided a settled existence. As was usual for such a family, they were church-going orthodox Anglicans, with St. Peter’s, across the road, providing a community and spiritual focus.

Birdcage Walk / Bethnal Green area in the 1840s. The Bradlaugh family lived at several addresses until moving to a new house at 13 Warner Place South. St Peter's Church was opposite the house.The circled areas are the locations of schools attended by Charles Bradlaugh to age 11.

Typical housing built in the area south of Hackney Road in the
mid-1800s. The cost of renting was £20 per year.

Charles was sent to school nearby in Abbey Street, Bethnal Green, in 1840, age 7. However, his parents removed him following excessive capital punishment, the scars still showing when he joined the army. He moved to another school for a short time and then to Marshall’s Boys Academy in Coldharbour Street. He remained here until 1844 when, at age 11, his formal education ended.

    With his childhood and education completed, Charles Bradlaugh was set to work as an errand boy at Lepard & Son, solicitors, at 9 Cloak Lane in the City where his father was employed as a confidential clerk. In 1847, age 14, he joined the coal merchants Green, Son and Jones at City Road Basin as a wharf clerk and cashier.

    Bradlaugh, even at this young age, was taller than his contemporaries and possessed a sharp intellect. He read avidly, walking to his workplace (running, according to his daughter Hypatia) to save the omnibus fare to buy books. He became a Sunday school teacher at his local church, St. Peter’s. He had the knowledge and confidence to question the assumptions of the time.

    On 10 April 1848, the Chartists organised a mass demonstration at Kennington in south London to present a petition calling for the reform of Parliament. The government was terrified that this might be the spark for revolution. The Queen escaped to the Isle of Wight and thousands of troops and police were drafted in. They banned the demonstration, set up cannons in Hyde Park, fortified bridges, and prevented the march crossing Blackfriars Bridge.

    Bradlaugh did not attend but made a speech on the same day in support of the Kennington demonstration at Bonner’s Fields, Victoria Park. Although the Kennington demonstration was stopped, protests continued during that summer.

Police occupying Bonner’s Fields on 12 June 1848.

Mass protests across Britain were planned for Whit Monday, 12 June 1848, including Bonner’s Fields. The police had orders to prevent processions and arrest speakers. Bonner’s Fields was occupied by 1600 police, 100 mounted police, 500 former soldiers and Horse Guards. On the day, with heavy rain and the arrest of the Chartist leader, Ernest Jones a few days earlier, the rally did not take place. A report of Bradlaugh being hit by a police truncheon may have been at this rally.

    Bradlaugh continued to work diligently for the church. When he turned 15 years old in September 1848, the Reverend John Graham Packer, the vicar of St. Peter’s, put him forward for confirmation by the Bishop of London. Bradlaugh prepared for this by studying the Thirty-nine articles of the Church of England and the four Gospels. With his already well-developed intellectual thoroughness, he found discrepancies. To reconcile them, he wrote to Mr Packer asking for ‘aid and explanation’. The response was calamitous. Packer denounced the enquiries as ‘atheistical’ and suspended Bradlaugh from his duties as a Sunday school teacher.

    Bradlaugh was horrified; he still considered himself a Christian and being banned from the Sunday school would have been shameful. Unable to attend church services, on Sundays he would go to open-air meetings at Bonner’s Fields. There he came across a group of Freethinkers, including Eliza Sharples, the partner of Richard Carlile. Carlile was a radical agitator; he had published pamphlets including Paine’s Rights of Man and The Age of Reason and distributed the weekly Black Dwarf. He was one of the scheduled main speakers at the Manchester meeting which became the Peterloo Massacre. He had been prosecuted for blasphemy, blasphemous libel and sedition and imprisoned for three years with a fine of £1500. His wife and sister were also imprisoned. He died in poverty in 1842.

    In 1829, Carlile and Eliza Sharples became long-term partners. They never married and they had three children, Hypatia, Theophila and Julian. In 1848, six years after Carlile’s death, she was managing Eree’s Coffee House at number 1 Warner Place on behalf of the Freethinkers who met at Bonner’s Fields. Eliza Sharples escaped the strict religiosity of Bolton and went to London in 1832, starting a weekly publication called Isis dedicated to ‘the young women of England for generations to come or until superstition is extinct’. She rejected the Church of England but remained a Deist. She defended her partnership with Carlile, writing, ‘a marriage more pure and moral was never formed’. 

    The Freethinkers built a small hall behind the coffee house. Bradlaugh would attend their meetings where he would argue for Christian belief. Here came across the ideas of Carlile and others like Robert Taylor who had been called ‘The Devil’s Chaplain’. Those who met at the coffee house and hall were considered dangerous and called ‘infidels’.

    Bradlaugh would return each evening to his home just a hundred yards away, passing the church, his mind undoubtedly in turmoil. At home, there is no evidence that he was unwelcome. Although little is known of his father, he was not a churchgoer and simply followed orthodoxy. Bradlaugh would later speak of his father and his mother with tenderness and affection. He was protective and caring of his sisters. However, Mr Packer had gained a foothold in the family, insisting that the younger children attended Sunday school and inveigling the family to hang edifying religious texts on the walls of their sitting room, including one describing those who denied God as ‘fools’. This pernicious influence eventually led to an incident when Bradlaugh Senior took away advertising boards from the Warner Place Hall and threatened to burn them.

    Bradlaugh wrongly thought that a reasoned argument might help his case. He presented Packer with a copy of Taylor’s Diegesis, an analysis of Christian mythology by this former Anglican priest (and blasphemous showman). It was unlikely to go down well with Packer who Bradlaugh would later describe as ‘mendacious’, a typical understatement. Packer was insulted and used his influence over Bradlaugh Senior to threaten to have Bradlaugh sacked by his coal merchant employer. He was given three days to ‘change his opinions or lose his situation’. Three days later, Bradlaugh packed his bags, kissed his sister goodbye, and left home. His childhood was over. 

    Bradlaugh moved to the freethinking milieu of Eliza Sharples' home near what is now Broadway market. From then onwards, his enemy would be religious bigotry.

Charles Bradlaugh at twenty years old.

Later life (a summary)[1]

Charles Bradlaugh sought lodgings at the Warner Street Temperance Hall with Elizabeth Sharples, widow of Richard Carlile, the freethinking publisher who had died in 1843. Here he began his career as a freethought lecturer but soon took the Queen’s shilling and was sent with the 7th Dragoon Guards to Ireland, an experience that deeply affected his political outlook.

    On return to civilian life in 1852, he worked as a solicitor’s clerk and soon became an expert in the law. At the same time, his reputation as a freethought lecturer grew under the pseudonym Iconoclast. His enormous energy and ability as a platform orator were quickly recognised by the secularist movement and he was invited to co-edit a new paper, the National Reformer, with which his name was to be associated for the rest of his life, as editor between 1860-64 and 1866-90, and as owner from 1862. In 1866 he formed the National Secular Society with himself as President, a post he was to hold every year, except 1871-74, until 1890.

    In 1877, in association with Mrs Annie Besant, he republished a pamphlet on birth control entitled The Fruits of Philosophy, for which he was prosecuted on grounds of obscenity. Bradlaugh lost but escaped penalty on a technicality.

He was elected as an MP for Northampton in 1880 but he refused to take the religious oath in order to take his seat in Parliament. A by-election was called, and he was elected again. This process recurred several times until a new Speaker of the House of Commons conceded that he should be allowed to take his seat after making a non-religious affirmation. In 1888 Bradlaugh’s Oaths Act enabled non-religious affirmations to be accepted as an alternative to religious oaths.

    Bradlaugh married Susannah Lamb Hooper in 1855. She bore him a son and two daughters but later suffered from alcoholism. The marriage broke up in 1870 and Mrs Bradlaugh died in 1877. Of the three children, only one survived her father, the younger daughter, Hypatia, who embodied his spirit and courage, and continued as an active worker and speaker for the next forty years. 

    Bradlaugh died on 30 January 1891. His funeral was attended by 3,000 mourners, including a 21-year-old Mohandas Gandhi. He is buried in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.

    In 1898, Bradlaugh's daughter Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner wrote a pamphlet in answer to the question that was often addressed to her: whether her father ‘changed his opinions and became a Christian’ before he died. Bonner laid out all the evidence and concluded that her father gave no indication that his opinions had changed in the smallest way.

Copyright 2023 Derek Perry

[1] This summary is compiled from various online sources including liberalhistory.org, humanists.uk, Wikipedia etc, with acknowledgments.