Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/310

 , Anne and Elizabeth, with remainder to his bastard son (name unmentioned). The surname of his wife is unknown; but among the manuscripts of the dean and chapter of Canterbury is one intituled 'Littere fraternitatis concesse &hellip; Roberto Brakenbury Armigero et Agneti uxori ejus.' This probably refers to the same person. It is dated 1483. As he was a younger son, his style was properly 'generosus,' and 'armiger' was doubtless assumed by him on his appointment as esquire of the royal body after Richard III's accession. This fixes approximately the date of the letter.

A branch of the family is said to have been settled in Lincolnshire [see ], from which county their name was perhaps originally derived.



BRADLAUGH, CHARLES (1833–1891), freethought advocate and politician, born on 26 Sept. 1833 at Hoxton, was the eldest son of Charles Bradlaugh, solicitor's clerk, and Elizabeth Trimby. He was educated at local elementary schools, and at the age of twelve became office boy to the firm employing his father. Two years later he was clerk to a coal merchant. The strife which beset his life began early. At the age of fifteen he told his clergyman of some doubts which he had of a theological nature, and this resulted in his being compelled to leave home in 1849 and accept the hospitality of some political friends, one of whom was the widow of [q. v.] An attempt to make a living as a coal agent failed owing to the notoriety he was acquiring as an advocate of freethought, and in despair he enlisted in the army as a private soldier on 17 Dec. 1850. On the death of an aunt in 1853 his family procured his discharge, and he returned to London, where after a time he obtained employment as message boy to a solicitor. He was soon promoted to the management of the common law department in the office, and while serving in this capacity under various employers he acquired that knowledge of the law which he put to such effective use in the many law cases in which he found himself involved. On his return to London he had entered into the propaganda of freethought and radical principles at Sunday open-air meetings, and to shield himself in his week-day employment adopted the nom de guerre 'Iconoclast,' which he used until his first contest at Northampton in 1868. In 1858 he began the platform campaign in the provinces, which lasted until close upon his death, and which was marked in its earlier stages by riotous opposition and by frequent conflicts with the police authorities. His platform oratory and his powers of physical endurance rapidly won for him a large personal following, and he became the popular leader of an extreme party in the country, chiefly composed of working men, which combined freethought in religion and republicanism in politics. His connection with the freethought and republican weekly periodical, the 'National Reformer,' lasted from the founding of the paper in 1860 by some Sheffield freethinkers until his death, with a short break, 1863-6. He became proprietor of the paper in 1862. In 1858 he was secretary to the fund started to defend Mr. E. Truelove for publishing a defence of Orsini for attempting to assassinate Napoleon III; he was a member of the parliamentary reform league of 1866, and his resolution committed the league to set aside the police prohibition and go on with the meeting which led to the railings of Hyde Park being pulled down on 22 July 1866. He drew up the first draft (afterwards altered) of the Fenian proclamation issued in 1867. He was sent to Senor Castelar, the Spanish republican leader, in 1870 as the envoy of the English republicans, and on the establishment of the French republic in the same year he was nominated as candidate for a division of Paris; on the outbreak of the commune he went to act as an intermediary between Thiers and the communists, but was arrested at Calais and sent back.

Resolved to secure a seat in the House of Commons, Bradlaugh stood for Northampton in 1868, but was unsuccessful at the polls. His notoriety greatly alarmed the minds of the religious and conservative sections of the electors, and every effort was made to defeat him. A similar result attended his second candidature in the same constituency in 1874;