Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 1 (of 2) / With an Account of his Parliamentary Struggle, Politics and Teachings. Seventh Edition

by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner; J. M. Robertson

"My God!" exclaimed my grandfather, who invoked the Deity as indifferently as if he had been a Christian.

My father was silent for some minutes, and then as, in a few short sentences, he told the story, my sister and I realised how heavy had been his care on the previous day whilst he had tried to make merry with us.

William Robert Bradlaugh was twelve years younger than his brother Charles, and was only seven years old at the time of their father's death. He was educated at an Orphan Asylum, and on his leaving this institution my father found situations for him, which, however, for one reason or another, he did not keep. At one time, after he had been very ill, I remember that he passed his time of convalescence at our house, where he found all the kindness and comfort it was a brother's part to bestow. To the distress of his relatives, and especially to the grief of his mother, he took to excessive drinking. His mother he completely neglected, even during the long illness which kept her to her room before her death.

Surprise has often been expressed at the evident estrangement between the brothers; and this has been especially the case with religious persons after they have listened to, or heard of, the public protestations of religion and love for my father which have fallen from the Christian, protestations which the Atheist has received in silence. He, who so well knew the worth of these phrases, preferred to let himself be misunderstood by his silence rather than utter the miserable truth.

The story my father had to tell us that Christmas Eve was that his brother Robert (he was always called by his second name) had been arrested on the charge of embezzling various small sums from his employer. During the next few days, while he was under remand, he wrote from the House of Detention, thanking my father for his kindness to his wife, protesting his innocence, and expressing himself as "perfectly happy and contented," knowing he could clear himself from all charges, and asking my father's help in his defence. At the final examination in the Police Court the case was sent up for trial at the Middlesex Sessions, and at his brother's request my father instructed a solicitor to appear for him. Mrs W. R. Bradlaugh warmly expressed her gratitude to him for his kindness, hoping that some day she might be able to repay him; "Were it not for you," she said, "I do not know what I should do." Her husband, released on bail, protested that he would neither see nor speak to his brother until he had proved his innocence.

On the 8th of January my father wrote his sister, Mrs Norman, promising to allow his brother's wife a small weekly sum in the event of Robert's conviction, adding that they had already had £12, 10s. from him in six weeks. He was, as we know, himself so heavily involved in money difficulties that the smallest unforeseen expense made a serious addition to him; despite this, a week later he sent more money, and promised to pay the solicitor's costs. More, he vowed he would not do, "either for name or for money's sake." He felt the disgrace keenly, and considered moreover that his brother had no moral claim upon him, "for" as he wrote his sister, "when he was in full work, and I in distress, he did not even help me to keep his mother, who loved him so well." At the Middlesex Sessions a sentence of six months' imprisonment was passed, at the end of which Robert once more wrote his brother, thanking him for the kindness he had shown to his wife, and acknowledging his indebtedness to the extent of £30, which he talked about repaying on some future occasion. At the same time he assured my father that his feelings should not again be harrowed by any misconduct on his (Robert's) part: henceforth his living should be honestly obtained, or he would starve.

My father sent his brother some more money. Then, of course, came other applications, coupled at length with the request that the money should be sent direct, and not, as was my father's custom, through his sister, Mrs Norman. But my father would not consent to this. He told his sister of Robert's demand, adding that if she would take charge of the money he would send what he was able; if she would not, he would send nothing. My aunt was perplexed; she did not know what to do. Although she had had her sister-in-law and the child at her house during Robert's absence, she had not seen her since his return, and she felt that she did not want to force her brother Robert to receive further kindness through her hands. However, she at last consented to continue to act as intermediary; consequently every penny that Mr Bradlaugh sent his brother passed through her hands.

Just before my father went to America, in the autumn of 1874, Robert (who, a few years later, alleged that in 1872 his brother cast him off) suggested that he should go to the States with him, and be introduced by him as a young man whom he had known for some time; but it is hardly necessary to say that my father did not acquiesce in this proposal. In the following year, while still receiving pecuniary assistance from his brother, Mr W. R. Bradlaugh attended some of Moody and Sankey's meetings, and there professed "conversion," although, as he was brought up and educated in the tenets of the Church of England, and was never at any time a Freethinker, it is difficult to understand from what he was converted. One day my Aunt Lizzie was somewhat surprised at receiving a visit from him. He had been to her house only a day or two before to receive a sovereign which my father had sent at his request, and she was not expecting to see him again so soon. He walked into the house, triumphantly exclaiming that he had got "another berth," at the same time showing her a sheet of the Christian Herald in connection with which he had been given employment.

From that day until my father's death his brother never ceased to try and annoy him—always, of course, under the cloak of religion and love. He would send him religious books—the last came at the New Year of 1891. "This is from my beautiful brother," said my father, as he dropped it into the wastepaper basket. He sometimes lectured in the same town, on the same date as my father, and the hall engaged for his lectures would perhaps be quite close to the one in which Mr Bradlaugh was speaking. He would be announced, maybe, merely as "Mr Bradlaugh," or even as "the brother of Charles Bradlaugh," or "the brother of the Member for Northampton," and would very likely entreat his audience to unite with him in prayer for his "brother Charles Bradlaugh." He had named his son "Charles," and in a letter written to his brother in 1880, he had recourse to the following unmanly taunt: "I want not to trade upon your name; it has never helped me, it dies with yourself, and is to be perpetuated by the son of one whom you at present hate." My father's own son, who also bore his name and of whom he had been so proud, had then been dead ten years.

Mr W. R. Bradlaugh did not confine himself to these annoyances—which, after all, were petty, and even if they irritated at the time, could be easily endured—but he has been responsible for various false and injurious statements concerning my father's personal character. Some of these were circulated during his lifetime, but he remained silent with every provocation to speak. Even in a "private and confidential" letter to the editor of a friendly paper which had carelessly quoted some extremely malicious falsehoods alleged to have been uttered by Mr W. R. Bradlaugh, my father only said that, "being under great obligation" to him, his brother tried to injure him.