MR. BRADLAUGH'S BIRTHPLACE.
On p. 3 it is stated that Mr. Bradlaugh was born at No. 5, Bacchus Walk, Hoxton, but this appears to be an error, of which I only became aware in 1905. In that year the London County Council had under consideration the question of placing a tablet on the house in which my father was born, and they wrote me for the purpose of obtaining documentary or other evidence as to the identity of the house. As a result of careful inquiries I found that the birthplace of my father was No. 31, and not No. 5, as I had previously believed. As it was possible that the street had been renumbered, the London County Council undertook to try to find out, and Mr. Gomme, Clerk to the Council, subsequently wrote me that although this point could not be determined with exactitude:
"The probabilities are that the street had not been renumbered since the date of Bradlaugh's birth. If such is the case the house in which he was born has disappeared, for about 1883, No. 31 Bacchus Walk was with a block of other houses in the street demolished to provide a site for the present St. John's Road School, Hoxton. On my reporting these facts, the Committee of the Council dealing with the matter regretfully decided that under the circumstances they could take no further action with regard to this house.
"It will interest you to know that the Committee have also taken steps with a view to the erection of a tablet on No. 20, Circus Road, S. John's Wood, where your father died, after having resided there for a considerable period. The owner of the house, however, refused to consent to the erection of a tablet, and the Committee were thus compelled to abandon the idea of indicating this house."
H. B. B.
[APPENDIX II.]
LORD DUFFERIN AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
The following significant correspondence between Lord Dufferin and Mr. Bradlaugh is now (1908) included for the first time in this biography.
Lord Dufferin's letters are written throughout in his own handwriting, and the draft of my father's letter is written by his own hand. I am the more fortunate in having this, because it was very rare indeed for him either to make a draft of his letters or to write at such length. The occasion was, however, one of more than usual importance. Lord Dufferin sent with his letter a copy of the speech he delivered at the St. Andrew's dinner, Calcutta, on November 30, 1888, ten days before he ceased to be Viceroy of India. It makes a booklet of 21 quarto pages, and it is to this that reference is made in the letters.
H. B. B.