One of the great English parliamentarians of the 19th
century has now been largely forgotten in his own country,
although his name in his own time was as well-known as
Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Robert
One of the great English parliamentarians of the 19th
century has now been largely forgotten in his own country,
although his name in his own time was as well-known as
Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Robert Peel and
Lord Palmerston, each of them significant prime ministers
in Great Britain’s most globally powerful era. His name
was John Bright, and he was the most important British
politician to take the side of the North in the U.S. Civil War.
He importantly helped keep England from assisting the
South, which might have led to an early Confederate victory
and the destruction of the American republic.
Abraham Lincoln admired John Bright greatly, and
communicated with him through an intermediary. The
night Lincoln was assassinated, a speech of Bright’s was
found in Lincoln’s vest pocket.
While the association with Lincoln and the U.S. Civil War
might give Americans today reason to take note of him,
Bright was also deeply involved with most of the important
British legislation of the mid-1800‘s, including English
economic and civil rights. When he died in 1885, the
prime minister, numerous former prime ministers,
cabinet officers, many of the top figures of English politics,
and a special representative of Queen Victoria (who was
then out of the country) were in attendance. He was
eulogized as one of the great men of his age.
Today, there is a statue of him in the House of Commons,
but only a relatively few Britons could tell you who he was
or what he accomplished.
Like so many important political figures in history who are
temporarily put 