ABSTRACT
Born on 26 September 1833, the son of a solicitor’s clerk who brought up a family of five children on two pounds a week, Charles Bradlaugh had a childhood and youth very different from those of Mrs Besant. Unabashed Bradlaugh, having had fair warning of what was before him, continued to pursue his inquiries, making the scantiest sort of living, but reading and studying all the time, learning Hebrew with one friend, French with another, and Greek, Latin and Arabic at odd moments! In 1873 Bradlaugh returned from America to contest Northampton for the second time, and was for the second time defeated; but whereas the margin had been over a thousand on the first occasion, the deficit had been reduced to 143 votes. The death of one of the members led to a renewed contest in 1874, in which Bradlaugh was once more defeated.
