Part 2

BRADLAUGH, CHARLES (1833-1891), English free-thinker and politician, was born at Hoxton, London, on the 26th of September 1833. His father was a poor solicitor's clerk, who also had a small business as a law stationer, and his mother had been a nursemaid. At twelve years old he became office-boy to his father's employer, and at fourteen wharf-clerk and cashier to a coal merchant in the City Road. He had been baptized and brought up in the Church of England, but he now came into contact with a group of free-thinkers who were disciples of Richard Carlile. He was hastily labelled an "atheist," and was turned out of his situation. Thus driven into the arms of the secularists, he managed to earn a living by odd jobs, and became further immersed in the study of free-thought. At the end of 1850 he enlisted as a soldier, but in 1853 was bought out with money provided by his mother. He then found employment as a lawyer's clerk, and gradually became known as a free-thought lecturer, under the name of "Iconoclast." From 1860 he conducted the _National Reformer_ for several years, and displayed much resource in legal defence when the paper was prosecuted by the government on account of its alleged blasphemy and sedition in 1868-1869. Bradlaugh became notorious as a leading "infidel," and was supported by the sympathy of those who were enthusiasts at that time for liberty of speech and thought. He was a constant figure in the law courts; and his competence to take the oath was continually being called in question, while his atheism and republican opinions were adduced as reasons why no jury should give damages for attacks on his character. In 1874 he became acquainted with Mrs Annie Besant (b. 1847), who afterwards became famous for her gifts as a lecturer on socialism and theosophy. She began by writing for the _National Reformer_ and soon became co-editor. In 1876 the Bristol publisher of an American pamphlet on the population question, called _Fruits of Philosophy_, was indicted for selling a work full of indecent physiological details, and, pleading guilty, was lightly sentenced; but Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant took the matter up, in order to vindicate their ideas of liberty, and aggressively republished and circulated the pamphlet. The prosecution which resulted created considerable scandal. They were convicted and sentenced to a heavy fine and imprisonment, but the sentence was stayed and the indictment ultimately quashed on a technical point. The affair, however, had several side issues in the courts and led to much prejudice against the defendants, the distinction being ignored between a protest against the suppression of opinion and the championship of the

## particular opinions in question. Mrs Besant's close alliance with

Bradlaugh eventually terminated in 1886, when she drifted from secularism, first into socialistic and labour agitation and then into theosophy as a pupil of Mme Blavatsky. Bradlaugh himself took up politics with increasing fervour. He had been unsuccessful in standing for Northampton in 1868, but in 1880 he was returned by that constituency to parliament as an advanced Radical. A long and sensational parliamentary struggle now began. He claimed to be allowed to affirm under the Parliamentary Oaths Act, and the rejection of this pretension, and the refusal to allow him to take the oath on his professing his willingness to do so, terminated in Bradlaugh's victory in 1886. But this result was not obtained without protracted scenes in the House, in which Lord Randolph Churchill took a leading part. When the long struggle was over, the public had gradually got used to Bradlaugh, and his transparent honesty and courageous contempt for mere popularity gained him increasing respect. Experience of public life in the House of Commons appeared to give him a more balanced view of things; and before he died, on the 30th of January 1891, the progress of events was such that it was beginning to be said of him that he was in a fair way to end as a Conservative. Hard, arrogant and dogmatic, with a powerful physique and a real gift for popular oratory, he was a natural leader in causes which had society against them, but his sincerity was as unquestionable as his combativeness.

His _Life_ was written, from a sympathetic point of view, with much interesting detail as to the history of secularism, by his daughter, Mrs Bradlaugh Bonner, and J.M. Robertson (1894).

BRADLEY, GEORGE GRANVILLE (1821-1903), English divine and scholar, was born on the 11th of December 1821, his father, Charles Bradley, being at that time vicar of Glasbury, Brecon. He was educated at Rugby under Thomas Arnold, and at University College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1844. He was an assistant master at Rugby from 1846 to 1858, when he succeeded G.E.L. Cotton as headmaster at Marlborough. In 1870 he was elected master of his old college at Oxford, and in August 1881 he was made dean of Westminster in succession to A.P. Stanley, whose pupil and intimate friend he had been, and whose biographer he became. Besides his _Recollections of A.P. Stanley_ (1883) and _Life of Dean Stanley_ (1892), he published _Aids to writing Latin Prose Composition_ and _Lectures on Job_ (1884) and _Ecclesiastes_ (1885). He took part in the coronation of Edward VII., resigned the deanery in 1902, and died on the 13th of March 1903.

Dean Bradley's family produced various other members distinguished in literature. His half-brother, ANDREW CECIL BRADLEY (b. 1851), fellow of Balliol, Oxford, became professor of modern literature and history (1881) at University College, Liverpool, and in 1889 regius professor of English language and literature at Glasgow University; and he was professor of poetry at Oxford (1901-1906). Of Dean Bradley's own children the most distinguished in literature were his son, ARTHUR GRANVILLE BRADLEY (b. 1850), author of various historical and topographical works; and especially his daughter, Mrs MARGARET LOUISA WOODS (b. 1856), wife of the Rev. Henry George Woods, president of Trinity, Oxford (1887-1897), and master of the Temple (1904), London. Mrs Woods became well known for her accomplished verse (_Lyrics and Ballads_, 1889), largely influenced by Robert Bridges, and for her novels, of which her _Village Tragedy_ (1887) was the earliest and strongest.

BRADLEY, JAMES (1693-1762), English astronomer, was born at Sherborne in Gloucestershire in March 1693. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, on the 15th of March 1711, and took degrees of B.A. and M.A. in 1714 and 1717 respectively. His early observations were made at the rectory of Wanstead in Essex, under the tutelage of his uncle, the Rev. James Pound (1669-1724), himself a skilled astronomer, and he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on the 6th of November 1718. He took orders on his presentation to the vicarage of Bridstow in the following year, and a small sinecure living in Wales was besides procured for him by his friend Samuel Molyneux (1689-1728). He, however, resigned his ecclesiastical preferments in 1721, on his appointment to the Savilian professorship of astronomy at Oxford, while as reader on experimental philosophy (1729-1760) he delivered 79 courses of lectures in the Ashmolean museum. His memorable discovery of the aberration of light (see ABERRATION) was communicated to the Royal Society in January 1729 (_Phil. Trans._ xxxv. 637). The observations upon which it was founded were made at Molyneux's house on Kew Green. He refrained from announcing the supplementary detection of nutation (q.v.) until the 14th of February 1748 (_Phil. Trans._ xlv. 1), when he had tested its reality by minute observations during an entire revolution (18.6 years) of the moon's nodes. He had meantime (in 1742) been appointed to succeed Edmund Halley as astronomer royal; his enhanced reputation enabled him to apply successfully for an instrumental outfit at a cost of L1000; and with an 8-foot quadrant completed for him in 1750 by John Bird (1700-1776), he accumulated at Greenwich in ten years materials of inestimable value for the reform of astronomy. A crown pension of L250 a year was conferred upon him in 1752. He retired in broken health, nine years later, to Chalford in Gloucestershire, and there died on the 13th of July 1762. The printing of his observations was delayed by disputes about their ownership; but they were finally issued from the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in two folio volumes (1798, 1805). The insight and industry of F.W. Bessel were, however, needed for the development of their fundamental importance.

Rigaud's Memoir prefixed to _Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence of James Bradley, D.D._ (Oxford, 1832), is practically exhaustive. Other sources of information are: _New and General Biographical Dictionary_, xii. 54 (1767); _Biog. Brit._ (Kippis); Fouchy's "Eloge," _Paris Memoirs_ (1762), p. 231 (Histoire); Delambre's _Hist. de l'astronomie au 18^me siecle_, p. 413.

BRADSHAW, GEORGE (1801-1853), English printer and publisher, was born at Windsor Bridge, Pendleton, Lancashire, on the 29th of July 1801. On leaving school he was apprenticed to an engraver at Manchester, eventually setting up on his own account in that city as an engraver and printer--principally of maps. His name was already known as the publisher of _Bradshaw's Maps of Inland Navigation_, when in 1839, soon after the introduction of railways, he published, at sixpence, _Bradshaw's Railway Time Tables_, the title being changed in 1840 to _Bradshaw's Railway Companion_, and the price raised to one shilling. A new volume was issued at occasional intervals, a supplementary monthly time-sheet serving to keep the book up to date. In December 1841, acting on a suggestion made by his London agent, Mr W.J. Adams, Bradshaw reduced the price of his time-tables to the original sixpence, and began to issue them monthly under the title _Bradshaw's Monthly Railway Guide._ In June 1847 was issued the first number of _Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide_, giving the time-tables of the Continental railways just as _Bradshaw's Monthly Railway Guide_ gave the time-tables of the railways of the United Kingdom. Bradshaw, who was a well-known member of the Society of Friends, and gave considerable time to philanthropic work, died in 1853.

BRADSHAW, HENRY (c. 1450-1513), English poet, was born at Chester. In his boyhood he was received into the Benedictine monastery of St Werburgh, and after studying with other novices of his order at Gloucester (afterwards Worcester) College, Oxford, he returned to his monastery at Chester. He wrote a Latin treatise _De antiquitate et magnificentia Urbis Cestriae_, which is lost, and a life of the patron saint of his monastery in English seven-lined stanza. This work was completed in the year of its author's death, 1513, mentioned in "A balade to the auctour" printed at the close of the work. A second ballad describes him as "Harry Braddeshaa, of Chestre abbey monke." Bradshaw disclaims the merit of originality and quotes the authorities from which he translates--Bede, William of Malmesbury, Giraldus Cambrensis, Alfred of Beverley, Henry of Huntingdon, Ranulph Higden, and especially the "Passionary" or life of the saint preserved in the monastery. The poem, therefore, which is defined by its editor, Dr Carl Horstmann, as a "legendary epic," is rather a compilation than a translation. It contains a good deal of history beside the actual life of the saint. St Werburgh was the daughter of Wulfere, king of Mercia, and Bradshaw gives a description of the kingdom of Mercia, with a full account of its royal house. He relates the history of St Ermenilde and St Sexburge, mother and grandmother of Werburgh, who were successively abbesses of Ely. He does not neglect the miraculous elements of the story, but he is more attracted by historical fact than legend, and the second book narrates the Danish invasion of 875, and describes the history and antiquities of Chester, from its foundation by the legendary giant Leon Gaur, from which he derives the British name of Caerleon, down to the great fire which devastated the city in 1180, but was suddenly extinguished when the shrine of St Werburgh was carried in procession through the streets. _The Holy Lyfe and History of saynt Werburge very frutefull for all Christen people to rede_ (printed by Richard Pynson, 1521) has been very variously estimated. Thomas Warton, who deals with Bradshaw at some length,[1] quotes as the most splendid passage of the poem the description of the feast preceding Werburgh's entry into the religious life. He considered Bradshaw's versification "infinitely inferior to Lydgate's worst manner." Dr Horstmann, on the other hand, finds in the poem "original genius, of a truly epic tone, with a native simplicity of feeling which sometimes reminds the reader of Homer." Most readers will probably adopt a view between these extremes. Bradshaw expresses the humblest opinion of his own abilities, and he certainly had no delicate ear for rhythm. His sincerity is abundantly evident, and his piety is admitted even by John Bale[2], hostile as he was to monkish writers. W. Herbert[3] thought that a _Lyfe of Saynt Radegunde_, also printed by Pynson, was certainly by Bradshaw. The only extant copy is in the Britwell library.

Pynson's edition of the _Holy Lyfe_ is very rare, only five copies being known. A reprint copying the original type was edited by Mr. Edward Hawkins for the Chetham Society in 1848, and by Dr Carl Hortsmann for the Early English Text Society in 1887.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _History of English Poetry_ (ed. W.C. Hazlitt, 1871; iii. pp. 140-149).

[2] _Scriptorum Illustrium, cant. ix._ No. 17.

[3] Ames, _Typographical Antiquities_ (ed. W. Herbert, 1785; i. p. 294).

BRADSHAW, HENRY (1831-1886), British scholar and librarian, was born in London on the 2nd of February 1831, and educated at Eton. He became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and after a short scholastic career in Ireland he accepted an appointment in the Cambridge university library as an extra assistant. When he found that his official duties absorbed all his leisure he resigned his post, but continued to give his time to the examination of the MSS. and early printed books in the library. There was then no complete catalogue of these sections, and Bradshaw soon showed a rare faculty for investigations respecting old books and curious MSS. In addition to his achievements in black-letter bibliography he threw great light on ancient Celtic language and literature by the discovery, in 1857, of the _Book of Deer_, a manuscript copy of the Gospel in the Vulgate version, in which were inscribed old Gaelic charters. This was published by the Spalding Club in 1869. Bradshaw also discovered some Celtic glosses on the MS. of a metrical paraphrase of the Gospels by Juvencus. He made another find in the Cambridge library of considerable philological and historical importance. Cromwell's envoy, Sir Samuel Morland (1625-1695), had brought back from Piedmont MSS. containing the earliest known Waldensian records, consisting of translations from the Bible, religious treatises and poems. One of the poems referred the work to the beginning of the 11th century, though the MSS. did not appear to be of earlier date than the 15th century. On this Morland had based his theory of the antiquity of the Waldensian doctrine, and, in the absence of the MSS., which were supposed to be irretrievably lost, the conclusion was accepted. Bradshaw discovered the MSS. in the university library, and found in the passage indicated traces of erasure. The original date proved to be 1400. Incidentally the correct date was of great value in the study of the history of the language. He had a share in exposing the frauds of Constantine Simonides, who had asserted that the _Codex Sinaiticus_ brought by Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai was a modern forgery of which he was himself the author. Bradshaw exposed the absurdity of these claims in a letter to the _Guardian_ (January 26, 1863). In 1866 he made a valuable contribution to the history of Scottish literature by the discovery of 2200 lines on the siege of Troy incorporated in a MS. of Lydgate's _Troye Booke_, and of the _Legends of the Saints_, an important work of some 40,000 lines. These poems he attributed, erroneously, as has since been proved, to Barbour (q.v.). Unfortunately Bradshaw allowed his attention to be distracted by a multiplicity of subjects, so that he has not left any literary work commensurate with his powers. The strain upon him was increased when he was elected (1867) university librarian, and as dean of his college (1857-1865) and praelector (1863-1868) he was involved in further routine duties. Besides his brilliant isolated discoveries in bibliography, he did much by his untiring zeal to improve the standard of library administration. He died very suddenly on the 10th of February 1886. His fugitive papers on antiquarian subjects were collected and edited by Mr F. Jenkinson in 1889.

An excellent _Memoir of Henry Bradshaw_, by Mr G.W. Prothero, appeared in 1888. See also C.F. Newcombe, _Some Aspects of the Work of Henry Bradshaw_ (1905).

BRADSHAW, JOHN (1602-1659), president of the "High Court of Justice" which tried Charles I., was the second son of Henry Bradshaw, of Marple and Wibersley in Cheshire. He was baptized on the 10th of December 1602, was educated at Banbury in Cheshire and at Middleton in Lancashire, studied subsequently with an attorney at Congleton, was admitted into Gray's Inn in 1620, and was called to the bar in 1627, becoming a bencher in 1647. He was mayor of Congleton in 1637, and later high steward or recorder of the borough. According to Milton he was assiduous in his legal studies and acquired considerable reputation and practice at the bar. On the 21st of September 1643 he was appointed judge of the sheriff's court in London. In October 1644 he was counsel with Prynne in the prosecution of Lord Maguire and Hugh Macmahon, implicated in the Irish rebellion, in 1645 for John Lilburne in his appeal to the Lords against the sentence of the Star Chamber, and in 1647 in the prosecution of Judge Jenkins. On the 8th of October 1646 he had been nominated by the Commons a commissioner of the great seal, but his appointment was not confirmed by the Lords. In 1647 he was made chief justice of Chester and a judge in Wales, and on the 12th of October 1648 he was presented to the degree of serjeant-at-law. On the 2nd of January 1649 the Lords threw out the ordinance for bringing the king to trial, and the small remnant of the House of Commons which survived Pride's Purge, consisting of 53 independents, determined to carry out the ordinance on their own authority. The leading members of the bar, on the parliamentary as well as on the royalist side, having refused to participate in proceedings not only illegal and unconstitutional, but opposed to the plainest principles of equity, Bradshaw was selected to preside, and, after some protestations of humility and unfitness, accepted the office. The king refused to plead before the tribunal, but Bradshaw silenced every legal objection and denied to Charles an opportunity to speak in his defence. He continued after the king's death to conduct, as lord president, the trials of the royalists, including the duke of Hamilton, Lord Capel, and Henry Rich, earl of Holland, all of whom he condemned to death, his behaviour being especially censured in the case of Eusebius Andrews, a royalist who had joined a conspiracy against the government. He received large rewards for his services. He was appointed in 1649 attorney-general of Cheshire and North Wales, and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and was given a sum of L1000, together with confiscated estates worth L2000 a year. He had been nominated a member of the council of state on the 14th of February 1649, and on the 10th of March became president. He disapproved strongly of the expulsion of the Long Parliament, and on Cromwell's coming subsequently to dismiss the council Bradshaw is said, on the authority of Ludlow, to have confronted him boldly, and denied his power to dissolve the parliament. An ardent republican, he showed himself ever afterwards an uncompromising adversary of Cromwell. He was returned for Stafford in the parliament of 1654, and spoke strongly against vesting power in a single person. He refused to sign the "engagement" drawn up by Cromwell, and in consequence withdrew from parliament and was subsequently suspected of complicity in plots against the government. He failed to obtain a seat in the parliament of 1656, and in August of the same year Cromwell attempted to remove him from the chief-justiceship of Cheshire. After the abdication of Richard Cromwell, Bradshaw again entered parliament, became a member of the council of state, and on the 3rd of June 1659 was appointed a commissioner of the great seal. His health, however, was bad, and his last public effort was a vehement speech, in the council, when he declared his abhorrence of the arrest of Speaker Lenthall. He died on the 31st of October 1659, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His body was disinterred at the Restoration, and exposed on a gibbet along with those of Cromwell and Ireton. Bradshaw married Mary, daughter of Thomas Marbury of Marbury, Cheshire, but left no children.

BRADWARDINE, THOMAS (c. 1290-1349), English archbishop, called "the Profound Doctor," was born either at Hartfield in Sussex or at Chichester. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, where he took the degree of doctor of divinity, and acquired the reputation of a profound scholar, a skilful mathematician and an able divine. He was afterwards raised to the high offices of chancellor of the university and professor of divinity. From being chancellor of the diocese of London, he became chaplain and confessor to Edward III., whom he attended during his wars in France. On his return to England, he was successively appointed prebendary of Lincoln, archdeacon of Lincoln (1347), and in 1349 archbishop of Canterbury. He died of the plague at Lambeth on the 26th of August 1349, forty days after his consecration. Chaucer in his _Nun's Priest's Tale_ ranks Bradwardine with St Augustine. His great work is a treatise against the Pelagians, entitled _De causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum_, edited by Sir Henry Savile (London, 1618). He wrote also _De Geometria speculativa_ (Paris, 1530); _De Arithmetica practica_ (Paris, 1502); _De Proportionibus_ (Paris, 1495; Venice, 1505); _De Quadratura Circuli_ (Paris, 1495); and an _Ars Memorativa_, Sloane MSS. No. 3974 in the British Museum.

See Quetif-Echard, _Script. Praedic._ (1719), i. 744; W.F. Hook, _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_, vol. iv.

BRADY, NICHOLAS (1659-1726), Anglican divine and poet, was born at Bandon, Co. Cork, on the 28th of October 1659. He received his education at Westminster school, and at Christ Church, Oxford; but he graduated at Trinity College, Dublin. He took orders, and in 1688 was made a prebendary of Cork. He was a zealous promoter of the Revolution and suffered in consequence. When the troubles broke out in Ireland in 1690, Brady, by his influence, thrice prevented the burning of the town of Bandon, after James II. had given orders for its destruction; and the same year he was employed by the people of Bandon to lay their grievances before the English parliament. He soon afterwards settled in London, where he obtained various preferments. At the time of his death, on the 20th of May 1726, he held the livings of Clapham and Richmond. Brady's best-known work is his metrical version of the Psalms, in which Nahum Tate collaborated with him. It was licensed in 1696, and largely ousted the old version of T. Sternhold and J. Hopkins. He also translated Virgil's _Aeneid_, and wrote several smaller poems and dramas, as well as sermons.