Four weeks from the day of his Glasgow lectures,[99] my father was arrested at Huddersfield. Two accounts of this were given in the National Reformer, one from the pen of Mr Bradlaugh, and one from that of a gentleman who was with him the greater part of the time. It was a case of "the Devonport blunder" being repeated by "the Religious Party of Huddersfield."
The Philosophical Hall, which for some little time previously had been used as a theatre, had been duly taken for "three lectures by Iconoclast;" there was a written agreement, the deposit paid, and a harmonium taken by the Huddersfield Freethought Society into the Hall. Placards announcing the subjects of the lectures ("Temperance," "Reform," and "The Twelve Apostles ") and the name of the lecturer were posted more than a fortnight beforehand throughout the town and upon the hall itself. On Saturday, at the eleventh hour, the proprietor, Mr Morton Price, secretly urged by persons too cowardly to appear themselves—at least, so it was rumoured—resolved that the lectures should not take place, and on Sunday morning Mr Bradlaugh "found the doors of the building locked and barred, and the police authorities on the alert. I tried," he tells us, "to gain admittance, but the wooden barriers were far stronger than my shoulders, and after bruising myself more than the doors, and waiting in the rain for about forty minutes, while some sort of iron bar was vainly searched for, I returned very disconsolate to my lodgings. Several members of the Huddersfield Society begged me to lecture in Senior's schoolroom, but I positively refused; there were friends in from the country for miles round who could not be contained in so small a meeting-place. The Yorkshire energy was roused, and a dozen volunteers started to open the door; I followed, and came in time to twist a crowbar into curious shapes, and be arrested by the police and lodged in the station. At first I was ordered into a cell; my money, watch and chain, keys, toothpick, and other dangerous weapons being taken from me. As, however, since Devonport, where the lock-up was damp, I object to cells on principle, I gently argued the matter, and ultimately the presiding authority announced that I should be let out if I could get a magistrate to become bail. This was not very probable, and looked like being locked up for two whole days, but two good friends not only started to arrange with some local magistrate about bail, but actually succeeded. During the time they were absent I had, however, effected my own release from custody without any bail at all.... When the charge was entered by Superintendent Hannan, who, I am bound to say, behaved in a most gentleman-like and courteous manner, I again discussed the matter, and ultimately the stage-manager said he would find bail if I would agree not to lecture. This I indignantly refused. I came to lecture, and I meant to lecture; and after many pour parlers, I walked out of custody without any other condition than my word of honour to appear before the magistrates to answer the charge on the following Tuesday. The news spread like wildfire, and I had an enormous audience, crowding the theatre from floor to ceiling, the chiefs of the police honouring us with their presence."
People had come from far and near to hear him lecture—from Dewsbury, Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Manchester, and elsewhere, and great was the dismay when it was found that the Hall doors were closed against them. When it was known that he would not lecture in the schoolroom, and he had determined to make an effort to force the doors, volunteers for the work immediately stepped forward; they begged him "to keep out of action" until the doors were down; but to look on whilst others got into trouble never came easy to my father. So he took a crowbar and helped with the rest, and the twisted iron was preserved in triumph by some Huddersfield friends until a few years ago. They attacked the pit and gallery door in Bull and Mouth Street, and their united exertions soon threw it open to the crowd impatiently waiting to enter. The Police Office was next door to the Philosophical Hall, so the police were able to watch the proceedings with little trouble to themselves. When they arrested Mr Bradlaugh, so great was the indignation of the crowd that they even threatened to rescue him by main force, and guards of police were hastily put at all weak places. It was, however, Mr Bradlaugh himself who relieved the fears of his captors. He sent a message to his friends, asking them to leave peacefully and without disorder, assuring them that he would be all right. In compliance with his request the people who thronged the hall quietly dispersed, only one person remaining behind to keep possession of the theatre. Messrs Armitage and Mitchell rushed off in a cab to find a magistrate liberal enough to become bail for the imprisoned Atheist, and during their absence—on what seemed an impossible errand—Mr Bradlaugh sent word from the police station to the committee that he would lecture at half-past six. This message was received with the wildest enthusiasm, but since Mr Bradlaugh was still in the hands of the police and it was then four o'clock, it seemed, on reflection, highly improbable. But the first messenger was rapidly followed by a second, bringing word that "Iconoclast" was free once more. On his appearance on the platform of the Philosophical Hall at the appointed time the enthusiasm and excitement were unbounded, and his lecture on "Reform" was said to have been "one of the most splendid and eloquent he had yet delivered."
On the following Tuesday Mr Bradlaugh had to appear before the Huddersfield magistrates. Though there were five upon the Bench—only two, G. Armitage, Esq., and S.W. Haigh, Esq.—heard the case. Naturally enough, the Court was densely crowded, and many were unable to obtain admission. Mr Nehemiah Learoyd prosecuted. This attorney was defined as "a gentleman according to Act of Parliament," though it does not appear that he had any other claim to the title. In the case against Mr Bradlaugh he conducted himself with such effrontery and coarseness as to make it more than ever evident that Acts of Parliament have their limitations. My father was charged with doing damage to the door of the Huddersfield Theatre to the amount of twenty-four shillings: after this charge was read another charge of committing a breach of the peace was brought forward. Mr Bradlaugh suggested that each charge should be gone into separately: Mr Learoyd would have them taken together, and the magistrates decided in his favour. The case for the prosecution was opened and witnesses called. Mr Bradlaugh raised an objection to the jurisdiction of the Court, and after some argument and some further examination of witnesses, the magistrates retired to consider the point. After an interval of ten minutes they returned, having decided in Mr Bradlaugh's favour that they had no jurisdiction. Mr Learoyd then, with unblushing effrontery, wished to proceed with the second charge—the breach of the peace; but he had elected at the outset to take both charges together, and by that he was compelled to abide. The decision of the magistrates was greeted with instant applause, which was of course rebuked by the Court. The case was reported at length by the Huddersfield Examiner and the Huddersfield Chronicle, and gained for Mr Bradlaugh many friends in Huddersfield and the surrounding districts. And thus for once was bigotry frustrated.
On the following Sunday Mr Bradlaugh was lecturing at Newcastle, and many people, women as well as men, came in distances of fifteen and twenty miles to hear him. One man told how he had come thirty-eight miles "to get a grip" of my father's hand. Two days after this he was at Northampton, where he found himself becoming quite "respectable," and, "to the horror of the saints and my own surprise," he said, he was permitted the use of the Mechanics' Institute for his discourses. A week or so later he was lecturing in the great Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on behalf of the widow and family of his late colleague, John Watts. He gave himself no rest in body or mind, nor did he seem to relax the strain for a moment. The old year closed, and 1867 opened with a course of lectures at the City Road Hall, at one of which, by the by, it is interesting to note that Mr Bradlaugh defended Mr Gladstone from an attack made upon his sincerity of purpose, "believing him to be the most able and honest statesman whom the people have on their side."
Notwithstanding all his lecturing, the great quantity of literary work he was then engaged upon, the Reform Demonstrations, and harassing private business, Mr Bradlaugh yet found time in the spring of 1867 to engage in a six nights' debate with the Rev. J. M'Cann, M.A., curate of St Paul's, Huddersfield. The discussion was arranged to take place in the theatre, or Philosophical Hall, which had been forcibly closed against the Freethinkers only a few months before. The preliminaries to the debate were a little ominous: in the first place Mr Bradlaugh was obliged to agree to the terms dictated by his religious antagonist (or his committee), otherwise there would have been no discussion; and above and beyond this the Rev. Mr M'Cann "refused to debate if the name Iconoclast be used, and therefore it will be Charles Bradlaugh who answers for the shortcomings of Iconoclast, despite the injury in business caused by the wide publicity recently given to the name and thus repeated."[100]
The debate arose out of some "Anti-Secularist lectures" which Mr M'Cann had been delivering in Huddersfield, presumably inspired thereto by the sensation caused by the theatre episode of the previous November. The subjects of these lectures were to be discussed for six nights, three hours each night, Mr Bradlaugh attacking and Mr M'Cann defending. Mr M'Cann, who was an Irishman, and who from the active part he was taking in the Literary and Scientific Society and other institutions of the town, was regarded as a "rising young man," rather disappointed many of the Freethinkers after the first two nights' discussion. Immovably confident in the ability of their own representative, they were anxious to see him meet someone worthy of his steel. Mr Bradlaugh's opinion, expressed at the conclusion of the six nights, was that Mr M'Cann was a fluent, ready speaker, honest and earnest, although no great debater.[101]
The year 1868 was a terribly busy one: the Irish question (of which I will speak later), the first Government prosecution of the National Reformer, and his first Parliamentary candidature for Northampton, kept my father constantly hard at work. During the year he lectured frequently in London, besides visiting Grimsby, Bedlington, Newcastle, Hull, West Bromwich, Birmingham, Kettering, Northampton, Huddersfield, Bradford, Sheffield, Ashton, Manchester, Bury, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Keighley, Sunderland, Plymouth, and other towns.
At Huddersfield he was always welcomed with the utmost enthusiasm, although some of the inhabitants still seemed determined to resist his visits. As the theatre was too small to accommodate all his auditors, the Huddersfield Committee took the circus for some addresses which he had arranged to deliver in the town in March. The Improvement Commissioners, however, eager to imitate the conduct of Mr Morton Price of a year and a half before, drew back from their agreement to let. Then a curious thing happened. When he was aware of the behaviour of the Commissioners, Mr Morton Price himself offered the Huddersfield Freethinkers the use of the theatre; and not only did he let it to them, but he gave a special advertisement of the meetings. The advertisement was so peculiarly and significantly worded that I reproduce it:
"Theatre Royal, Huddersfield.