Horatio Bottomley
Encyclopedia
Horatio William Bottomley (23 March 1860 – 26 May 1933) was a British financier, swindler, journalist
, newspaper
proprietor, populist politician
and Member of Parliament
(MP).
, London
on 23 March 1860. He was orphaned at the age of 4 and spent 14 years growing up in an orphanage
. His uncle George Holyoake
arranged for him to join a firm of legal shorthand
writers where he learned something about the court system. His first experience of the courts was in 1885 where he defended a printing and publishing firm of his from bankruptcy
and the fact that substantial funds were missing from its accounts.
n gold mining projects, some genuine but others based on misrepresentation and fraud. He then moved on to British stocks. He developed a considerable talent for persuading members of the public to part with their money in order to invest in his various schemes. In 1888, he founded the Financial Times
and was its first Chairman as a means of puffing his projects. In 1908 he was charged with conspiracy to defraud but the chaos of his record systems produced a hung jury
and instead he was forced into bankruptcy in 1912, forcing him out of Parliament
.
MP for Hackney South
in 1906, was re-elected in 1910, and thrown out for bankruptcy in 1912.
. John Bull was originally strongly anti-Serbian but by 15 August 1914 Bottomley had reversed its position and supported the war effort. Bottomley argued that Germany "must be wiped off the map of Europe", with her colonies and navy divided between Britain and France. He also attacked the Kaiser and Germans (called "Germhuns") generally and those living in Britain: "As I have said elsewhere you cannot naturalize an unnatural beast—a human abortion—a hellish fiend. But you can exterminate it". Bottomley advocated the confiscation of all German property, the internment of all Germans and the requirement of naturalized Germans to wear a distinctive badge. Bottomley also campaigned to get the Kaiser's banner removed from St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Bottomley also strongly attacked that section of the Labour Party
which opposed the war, and argued that Keir Hardie
and Ramsay MacDonald
should be court-martialled for high treason. MacDonald responded to these attacks by claiming Bottomley to be of "doubtful parentage, who had lived all his life on the threshold of jail". Bottomley retaliated by producing a facsimile of MacDonald's birth certificate which showed he was illegitimate.
Although it is illegal for servicemen to send complaints to the press, Bottomley set up a column in John Bull where servicemen were encouraged to send an account of their grievances, upon which a company which advertised in the paper would send a parcel to them. The government thought about prosecuting Bottomley for this but they did not bring proceedings against him because they saw the usefulness of such a "safety valve". Within six months of the Great War
one serious journalist wrote that "next to Kitchener the most influential man today is Mr. Horatio Bottomley".
In 1915 Bottomley wrote articles for the Sunday Pictorial, with their success making him "the most famous journalist in Britain" through a mixture of "down-to-earth religiosity, patriotism and Radicalism".
He pressed for a more aggressive prosecution of the War by Great Britain and attacked anybody he deemed less patriotic than himself. He advocated the unconditional surrender of Germany and a march on Berlin.
he returned to Parliament as an Independent MP for Hackney South (with almost 80% of the vote). In May 1919 Bottomley founded The People's League hoping it would be 'a great Third Party' that would represent 'the People' against organised labour
and organised capital
. He supported General Dyer
after the Amritsar massacre. Bottomley became a famous and popular figure for his patriotic and political activities. He was also well known for numerous Court appearances in libel and other cases, in which he frequently acted for himself, often with success. He was on one occasion described by Mr Justice Henry Hawkins as the ablest advocate Hawkins had ever listened to, as a result of which the judge offered Bottomley his wig.
s), purportedly as a mechanism for small savers to lend money to the Government, receiving prizes rather than interest; again a combination of fraud and mismanagement sank the scheme in 1921. He was charged with fraud, perjury and false accounting. Jeremiah Lynch (1888-1953), an Irish-born detective who had already earned a reputation for trapping wartime German spies, was instrumental in building up the case against Bottomley, and went on to become a founder member of the original Flying Squad. (The Times, Obituary, 15 July 1953). In 1922, Bottomley was convicted of fraudulent conversion of shareholders' funds, sentenced to seven years jail and expelled from Parliament.
A famous story says that the prison chaplain of Wormwood Scrubs
found him making mail sacks and asked him "Bottomley! Sewing?" to which he replied "No, reaping". He also became again bankrupt. On one occasion when he attended the Bankruptcy Court from Wormwood Scrubs
but dressed in his civilian clothes, a friend remarked on the creases in his coat. Bottomley replied, "Never Mind. When I get back, I change for dinner." He was released from gaol in 1927 and, after parading himself around seedy music-halls in a mawkish one-man show, died in penury on 26 May 1933.
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
, the English actor, playwright and composer of popular music Noel Coward
, lost a black leather wallet. In February 1981 during pre-production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
, American actor Henderson Forsythe
found Noel Coward's missing wallet stuffed inside of a broken tuba that had fallen upon him whilst he had been rummaging in a storage cupboard. Curiously, Coward's wallet also contained a small studio photograph of Bottomley. The discovery of the wallet provoked speculation that Coward had been planning a dramatic performance about Bottomley's strange life. This speculation arose because at the time that Cavalcade was playing at the Theatre Royal, Bottomley was appearing in a music hall nearby, performing the above mentioned one-man show about himself. Horatio Bottomley died in May 1933 and no record of a Coward penned musical about his life has ever been discovered.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
proprietor, populist politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP).
Early life
Horatio Bottomley was born in Bethnal GreenBethnal Green
Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on 23 March 1860. He was orphaned at the age of 4 and spent 14 years growing up in an orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
. His uncle George Holyoake
George Holyoake
George Jacob Holyoake , English secularist and co-operator, was born in Birmingham, England. He coined the term "secularism" in 1851 and the term "jingoism" in 1878.-Owenism:...
arranged for him to join a firm of legal shorthand
Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphē or graphie...
writers where he learned something about the court system. His first experience of the courts was in 1885 where he defended a printing and publishing firm of his from bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
and the fact that substantial funds were missing from its accounts.
Company promotions
He then moved on to promoting Western AustraliaWestern Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
n gold mining projects, some genuine but others based on misrepresentation and fraud. He then moved on to British stocks. He developed a considerable talent for persuading members of the public to part with their money in order to invest in his various schemes. In 1888, he founded the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
and was its first Chairman as a means of puffing his projects. In 1908 he was charged with conspiracy to defraud but the chaos of his record systems produced a hung jury
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
and instead he was forced into bankruptcy in 1912, forcing him out of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
.
Political career
He entered the Parliament as the LiberalLiberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
MP for Hackney South
Hackney South (UK Parliament constituency)
Hackney South was a parliamentary constituency in "The Metropolis" . It was represented by nine Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, only two of whom, Horatio Bottomley and Herbert Morrison, were returned.- History :The constituency was created...
in 1906, was re-elected in 1910, and thrown out for bankruptcy in 1912.
John Bull and the Great War
In 1906 he established the patriotic journal John BullJohn Bull (magazine)
John Bull Magazine was a weekly periodical established in the City, London EC4, by Theodore Hook in 1820.-Publication dates:It was a popular periodical that continued in production through 1824 and at least until 1957...
. John Bull was originally strongly anti-Serbian but by 15 August 1914 Bottomley had reversed its position and supported the war effort. Bottomley argued that Germany "must be wiped off the map of Europe", with her colonies and navy divided between Britain and France. He also attacked the Kaiser and Germans (called "Germhuns") generally and those living in Britain: "As I have said elsewhere you cannot naturalize an unnatural beast—a human abortion—a hellish fiend. But you can exterminate it". Bottomley advocated the confiscation of all German property, the internment of all Germans and the requirement of naturalized Germans to wear a distinctive badge. Bottomley also campaigned to get the Kaiser's banner removed from St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Bottomley also strongly attacked that section of the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
which opposed the war, and argued that Keir Hardie
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
and Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
should be court-martialled for high treason. MacDonald responded to these attacks by claiming Bottomley to be of "doubtful parentage, who had lived all his life on the threshold of jail". Bottomley retaliated by producing a facsimile of MacDonald's birth certificate which showed he was illegitimate.
Although it is illegal for servicemen to send complaints to the press, Bottomley set up a column in John Bull where servicemen were encouraged to send an account of their grievances, upon which a company which advertised in the paper would send a parcel to them. The government thought about prosecuting Bottomley for this but they did not bring proceedings against him because they saw the usefulness of such a "safety valve". Within six months of the Great War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
one serious journalist wrote that "next to Kitchener the most influential man today is Mr. Horatio Bottomley".
In 1915 Bottomley wrote articles for the Sunday Pictorial, with their success making him "the most famous journalist in Britain" through a mixture of "down-to-earth religiosity, patriotism and Radicalism".
Public speaking
He spoke on many recruiting platforms (sometimes taking a large fee for doing so and at other times without payment). He displayed on these occasions a ready wit, and a considerable talent for popular oratory. His first recruiting speech was made six weeks after the beginning of the War at the London Opera House. The official recruiting function held there a few weeks earlier yielded fewer results than Bottomley's. 25,000 people went to the Opera House, with 5,000 being admitted. After making a recruiting speech at Hull 1,000 men enlisted, his greatest success. His patriotic lecture tour speeches had a higher tone than his newspaper articles and the more money he was paid for a speech the higher the tone Bottomley would employ.He pressed for a more aggressive prosecution of the War by Great Britain and attacked anybody he deemed less patriotic than himself. He advocated the unconditional surrender of Germany and a march on Berlin.
Postwar political career
In the United Kingdom general election, 1918United Kingdom general election, 1918
The United Kingdom general election of 1918 was the first to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918, which meant it was the first United Kingdom general election in which nearly all adult men and some women could vote. Polling was held on 14 December 1918, although the count did...
he returned to Parliament as an Independent MP for Hackney South (with almost 80% of the vote). In May 1919 Bottomley founded The People's League hoping it would be 'a great Third Party' that would represent 'the People' against organised labour
Manual labour
Manual labour , manual or manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and also to that done by working animals...
and organised capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...
. He supported General Dyer
Reginald Dyer
Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer CB was a British Indian Army officer who as a temporary Brigadier-General was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar ....
after the Amritsar massacre. Bottomley became a famous and popular figure for his patriotic and political activities. He was also well known for numerous Court appearances in libel and other cases, in which he frequently acted for himself, often with success. He was on one occasion described by Mr Justice Henry Hawkins as the ablest advocate Hawkins had ever listened to, as a result of which the judge offered Bottomley his wig.
Imprisonment and death
Bottomley created the "John Bull Victory Bond Club" (a forerunner of Premium BondPremium Bond
A Premium Bond is a lottery bond issued by the United Kingdom government's National Savings and Investments scheme. The government promises to buy back the bond, on request, for its original price. They were introduced by Harold Macmillan in his 1956 budget....
s), purportedly as a mechanism for small savers to lend money to the Government, receiving prizes rather than interest; again a combination of fraud and mismanagement sank the scheme in 1921. He was charged with fraud, perjury and false accounting. Jeremiah Lynch (1888-1953), an Irish-born detective who had already earned a reputation for trapping wartime German spies, was instrumental in building up the case against Bottomley, and went on to become a founder member of the original Flying Squad. (The Times, Obituary, 15 July 1953). In 1922, Bottomley was convicted of fraudulent conversion of shareholders' funds, sentenced to seven years jail and expelled from Parliament.
A famous story says that the prison chaplain of Wormwood Scrubs
Wormwood Scrubs (HM Prison)
HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs is a Category B men's prison, located in the Wormwood Scrubs area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, in inner west London, England. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service....
found him making mail sacks and asked him "Bottomley! Sewing?" to which he replied "No, reaping". He also became again bankrupt. On one occasion when he attended the Bankruptcy Court from Wormwood Scrubs
Wormwood Scrubs
Wormwood Scrubs, known locally as The Scrubs, is an open space located in the north-eastern corner of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London. It is the largest open space in the Borough, at 80 ha , and one of the largest areas of common land in London...
but dressed in his civilian clothes, a friend remarked on the creases in his coat. Bottomley replied, "Never Mind. When I get back, I change for dinner." He was released from gaol in 1927 and, after parading himself around seedy music-halls in a mawkish one-man show, died in penury on 26 May 1933.
Noel Coward
In May 1931, whilst directing his latest play CavalcadeCavalcade (play)
Cavalcade is a play by Noël Coward. It focuses on three decades in the life of the Marryotts, a quintessential British family, and their servants, beginning at the start of the 20th century and ending on New Year's Eve in 1929....
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, the English actor, playwright and composer of popular music Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, lost a black leather wallet. In February 1981 during pre-production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall...
, American actor Henderson Forsythe
Henderson Forsythe
Henderson Forsythe was an American actor. Forsythe was known for his role as Dr. David Stewart #2 on the soap opera As the World Turns, a role he played for 32 years, and for his work on the New York stage....
found Noel Coward's missing wallet stuffed inside of a broken tuba that had fallen upon him whilst he had been rummaging in a storage cupboard. Curiously, Coward's wallet also contained a small studio photograph of Bottomley. The discovery of the wallet provoked speculation that Coward had been planning a dramatic performance about Bottomley's strange life. This speculation arose because at the time that Cavalcade was playing at the Theatre Royal, Bottomley was appearing in a music hall nearby, performing the above mentioned one-man show about himself. Horatio Bottomley died in May 1933 and no record of a Coward penned musical about his life has ever been discovered.
Quotes
- But he was irredeemably, utterly, psychotically corrupt. He built a string of other businesses on nothing more than fresh air: but there were always useful and distinguished idiots on the board, so he could tell the shareholders' meeting: "I would love to pay you a dividend, but my directors won't let me."
Matthew Engel in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Tuesday 30 November 1999
- Bottomley's capacity for self-advertisement was immense. His ambition was Napoleonic. His fall - when it came in 1922 - complete. His capacity and industry were enormous also...if he had a humbug of his own, he made mincemeat of the humbug of others, excoriating the more extreme claims made on behalf of the League of Nations, dismissing most forces in international politics except those based on power and ridiculing the naivest sorts of Labour claim to have discovered an inexhaustible supply of wealth and wages.
Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour: 1920 - 1924 (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 53.
- ..."on the night when it was known that F.E. [Smith, Lord Birkenhead] was going to the Woolsack [i.e., becoming Lord Chancellor], he was accosted by Bottomley in the smoking-room of the House of CommonsBritish House of CommonsThe House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
and congratulated upon the appointment. Bottomley added, 'Upon my soul, F.E., I shouldn't have been surprised to hear that you had been made Archbishop of Canterbury.' 'If I had,' replied the Lord Chancellor, 'I should have invited you to come to my installation.' 'That's damned nice of you,' said Bottomley. 'Not at all. I should have needed a crookCrosierA crosier is the stylized staff of office carried by high-ranking Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran and Pentecostal prelates...
.'
Gilbert, Michael, "The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes", Oxford University Press, 1986, p 282.
External links
- Absolute bounders we have loved, The Guardian Tuesday 30 November 1999
- Swift kick in the wallet Business Times, Sunday Times (South Africa), 25 May 1997