Horatio Bottomley | |
|---|---|
 Bottomley addressing a WWI recruiting rally inTrafalgar Square, London, September 1915 | |
| Member of Parliament forHackney South | |
| In office 28 December 1918 – 1 August 1922 | |
| Preceded by | Hector Morison |
| Succeeded by | Clifford Erskine-Bolst |
| In office 8 February 1906 – 16 May 1912 | |
| Preceded by | Thomas Herbert Robertson |
| Succeeded by | Hector Morison |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 23 March 1860 London, England |
| Died | 26 May 1933(1933-05-26) (aged 73) London, England |
| Political party | Liberal (1906–1912) Independent (1918–1922) |
Horatio William Bottomley (23 March 1860 – 26 May 1933) was an Englishfinancier,journalist,editor, newspaper proprietor,swindler, andMember of Parliament. He is best known for his editorship of the popular magazineJohn Bull, and for his nationalistic oratory during theFirst World War. His career came to a sudden end when, in 1922, he was convicted offraud and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.
Bottomley spent five years in anorphanage before beginning his career, aged 14, as an errand boy. Subsequent experience as asolicitor's clerk gave him a useful knowledge ofEnglish law, which he later put to effective use in his court appearances. After working as ashorthand writer andcourt reporter, at 24 he founded his own publishing company, which launched numerous magazines and papers, including, in 1888, theFinancial Times.[1] He overreached with an ambitiouspublic flotation of his company, which led to his firstarraignment on fraud charges in 1893. Despite evidence ofmalpractice, Bottomley, who defended himself, was acquitted. He subsequently amassed a fortune as a promoter of shares ingold-mining companies.
In 1906 Bottomley entered parliament as theLiberal Party member forHackney South. In the same year, he founded the popular magazineJohn Bull, which became a platform for Bottomley's trenchantpopulist views. Financial extravagance and mismanagement continued to blight his career, and in 1912 he had to resign from parliament after being declared bankrupt.The outbreak of war in 1914 revived his fortunes; as a journalist and orator, Bottomley became a leadingpropagandist for the war effort, addressing well over 300 public meetings. His influence was such that it was widely expected that he would enter the War Cabinet, although he received no such offer.
In 1918, having been discharged from bankruptcy, Bottomley re-entered parliament as an Independent member. In the following year, he launched his fraudulent "Victory Bonds" scheme which, when exposed, led to his conviction, imprisonment and expulsion from parliament. Released in 1927, he attempted unsuccessfully to relaunch his business career and eked out a living by lecturing and appearances in music halls. His final years before his death in 1933 were spent in poverty.
Bottomley was born on 23 March 1860, at 16 Saint Peter's Street,Bethnal Green in London, the second child and only son of William King Bottomley, a tailor's cutter, and Elizabeth, née Holyoake.[2] William Bottomley's background is obscure, but Elizabeth belonged to a family of well-known radical agitators—her brotherGeorge Jacob Holyoake was a founder of theSecularist movement and in later life a leading figure in the growth ofCo-operative societies.[3][4]
Among Holyoake's close associates wasCharles Bradlaugh, who founded the National Republican League and became a controversial Member of Parliament.[5] A longstanding friendship between Bradlaugh and Elizabeth Holyoake led to rumours that he, not William Bottomley, was Horatio's biological father—a suggestion that Bottomley, in later life, was prone to encourage.[6] The evidence is circumstantial, mainly based on the marked facial resemblance between Bradlaugh and Bottomley.[7][8]
William Bottomley died in 1864 and Elizabeth a year later. Horatio and his elder sister, Florence, were initially looked after by their uncle William Holyoake, an artist living in the London district ofMarylebone. After a year they were boarded out to foster-parents, at their uncle George Jacob's expense. This arrangement lasted until 1869 when Florence was formally adopted by her foster-family. At this point Holyoake felt unable to continue supporting Horatio financially, and arranged for him to be admitted toJosiah Mason's orphanage inErdington, Birmingham.[8][9] This was Horatio's home for the following five years. Some biographers have emphasised the cruelty and humiliation of his time there;[2][8] while discipline was certainly harsh, Horatio received a useful basic education, and won prizes for sporting activities. In later life he showed no resentment towards the institution, which he often visited, telling the children that "any success I have achieved in life started at this place."[10]
In 1874, when Horatio was 14 and due to leave the orphanage, he ran away without waiting for the formalities. His aunt Caroline Praill—his mother's sister—who lived in nearbyEdgbaston, gave him a home, while he worked as an errand boy in a Birmingham building firm. This arrangement lasted only a few months before Horatio, impatient to be reunited with his sister from whom he had been separated for six years, went to London where he began an apprenticeship with a wood engraver.[11]
Bottomley soon gave up his apprenticeship, and after a series of humdrum jobs found work in the offices of aCity firm ofsolicitors. Here he picked up a working knowledge of English legal procedures and was soon carrying a workload far exceeding the normal duties of an office junior.[12] With his uncle's encouragement he learned shorthand atPitman's College, a skill which helped him to get a better job with a larger legal firm. He also came into closer contact with the Holyoake circle, where he acted as an unpaid assistant in the group's publishing activities. He met Bradlaugh, who encouraged the young man to read more widely and introduced him to the ideas ofCharles Darwin,Thomas Huxley andJohn Stuart Mill.[13] Bottomley was strongly influenced by Bradlaugh, whom he considered his political and spiritual mentor.[14]
As Bottomley emerged fromadolescence to maturity he began to show signs of the characteristics that would be much in evidence in his later life: greed for fleshly pleasures, a thirst for fame, spontaneous generosity, combined with a charm that, according to his biographerJulian Symons, could "tempt the banknotes out of men's pockets".[15]
In 1880 Bottomley married Eliza Norton, the daughter of a debt collector. Bottomley's biographers have tended to regard this early, unambitious marriage as a mistake on his part; she was not equipped, intellectually or socially, to help him advance in the world.[15] They had a daughter, Florence, who married firstly American millionaireJefferson Davis Cohn,[16][17][18] and secondly successful South African planter Gilbert Moreland.[19] In the year of his marriage, Bottomley left his job to become a full-time shorthand writer for Walpole's, a firm that provided recording and transcription services for the law courts. His competence impressed his employers sufficiently for them, in 1883, to offer him a partnership, and the firm became Walpole and Bottomley.[20][21]
Bottomley's association with Bradlaugh had awakened his interests in publishing and politics, and in 1884 he launched his first entrepreneurial venture, a magazine called theHackney Hansard. This journal recorded the business of Hackney's local "parliament"—essentially a debating society that mirrored the proceedings at Westminster. Advertisements from local tradesmen kept the paper mildly profitable. Bottomley produced a sister-paper, theBattersea Hansard, covering that borough's local parliament, before merging the two intoThe Debater.[22]
In 1885 he formed the Catherine Street Publishing Association and, using borrowed capital, acquired or started several magazines and papers. These included, among others, theMunicipal Review, a prestigious local government publication;Youth, a boys' paper on whichAlfred Harmsworth, the future press magnate Lord Northcliffe, worked as a sub-editor; and theFinancial Times.[23] The last-named was set up to rival theFinancial News, London's first specialist business paper, which had been founded in 1884 byHarry Marks, a former sewing-machine salesman.[24][25] In 1886 Bottomley's company acquired its own printing works through a merger with the printing firm of MacRae and Co., and after the absorption of another advertising and printing firm, became MacRae, Curtice and Company.[26]
At the age of 26, Bottomley became the company's chairman.[27] His advance in the business world was attracting wider notice, and in 1887 he was invited by theLiberal Party inHornsey to be their candidate in a parliamentary by-election. He accepted, and although defeated byHenry Stephens, the inkmagnate, fought a strong campaign which won him a congratulatory letter fromWilliam Gladstone.[21] His business affairs were proceeding less serenely; he quarrelled with his partner Douglas MacRae, and the two decided to separate. Bottomley described the "Quixotic impulse" that led him to let MacRae divide the assets: "He was a printer, and I was a journalist—but he took the papers and left me the printing works".[28]
Undismayed by the loss of his papers, Bottomley embarked on an ambitious expansion scheme. On the basis of a lucrative contract to print theHansard reports of debates in the Westminster parliament, at the beginning of 1889 he founded the Hansard Publishing Union Limited,floated on theLondon Stock Exchange with a capital of £500,000. Bottomley boosted the company's credentials by persuading several notable City figures to join the company's board of directors. These included Sir Henry Isaacs, theLord Mayor-elect of London,[29] Coleridge Kennard, co-founder (with Harry Marks) of the LondonEvening News,[30] andSir Roper Lethbridge, theConservative MP forKensington North.[28]
This board approved the purchase by Bottomley of several printing businesses—he used intermediaries to disguise his considerable personal profits from these transactions.[31] He also persuaded the board to give him £75,000 as a down payment for some publishing firms in Austria for which he was negotiating, although the firms were not acquired.[32] These outgoings and other expenses absorbed the Union's capital, and with few significant revenue streams it quickly ran out of money. Nonetheless, without any statement of accounts, in July 1890 Bottomley announced a profit for the year of £40,877 and declared a dividend of eight percent.[31]
The funds for the dividend payment were raised by adebenture of £50,000. By the end of 1890, many City figures were suspicious of the Hansard Union, and were calling it "Bottomley's swindle". Despite Bottomley's outward optimism, in December 1890 the company defaulted on the payment of debenture interest and in May 1891, amid growing rumours of insolvency, the debenture holders petitioned for the company's compulsory winding-up.[29] In the same month Bottomley, who had taken at least £100,000 from the company, filed a petition forbankruptcy. Under examination by theOfficial Receiver, he could not say where the money had gone and professed total ignorance of the company's book-keeping. After further enquiries, theBoard of Trade instituted prosecutions for fraud against Bottomley, Isaacs and two others.[31]
The trial began in theHigh Court of Justice on 30 January 1893, beforeSir Henry Hawkins; Bottomley conducted his own defence.[33] To most observers the case against him seemed impregnable.[2][31] It was established that, through his nominees, Bottomley had repeatedly bought companies for far less than the prices approved by the Hansard Union directors, and had pocketed the difference. Bottomley did not deny this, insisting that use of nominees was an accepted commercial practice and that his actual profits had been much smaller than reported; his expenses, he said, had been enormous.
He was helped in his case by the slackness with which the prosecution presented its evidence, and their failure to call key witnesses. He was further helped by the indulgence which Hawkins showed him, and by his own convincing oratory. The essence of his argument was that he was the victim of machinations by the Official Receiver and the Debenture Corporation, who had been determined to win prestige by bringing Bottomley down and wrecking his company.[34][35] On 26 April, after Hawkins had summed up massively in his favour, Bottomley was acquitted, along with the other defendants.[36]
The Hansard Union case, far from damaging Bottomley's reputation, had left a general impression that he was a financial genius.[37] He avoided the stigma of bankruptcy by arranging a scheme of repayment with his creditors,[38] and swiftly embarked on a new career promotingWestern Australian gold mining shares.[39] The discovery of gold inKalgoorlie and adjoining areas in the early 1890s had created an easily exploitable investment boom; as Bottomley's biographer Alan Hyman observes, "A hole in the ground ... could be boosted into a very promising gold-mine, and investors only found that they had backed a loser after the mine had been floated as a public company and they had paid hard cash for their shares".[39]
By 1897, through skilful exploitation of demand and by frequent reconstruction of failing companies, Bottomley had accumulated a considerable personal fortune. It was, the historianA.J.A. Morris asserts, "a truly amazing success story, the product of reckless audacity, astonishing energy, and extreme good fortune".[2] Bottomley won plaudits when he announced that he would pay £250,000 to the creditors of the Hansard Union; the bulk of this payment was offered in shares in one or other of his mining promotions.[40]
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As his wealth increased, Bottomley adopted an increasingly ostentatious lifestyle. In London he lived in a luxurious apartment inPall Mall. He took numerous mistresses, whom he visited in several discreet flats in different districts of London.[41] He owned several racehorses, which achieved prestigious victories—theStewards' Cup atGoodwood, and theCesarewitch atNewmarket—but he often lost large sums through unwise bets.[42] Quite early in his rise to wealth he bought a modest property inUpper Dicker, nearEastbourne in East Sussex. He called it "The Dicker", and over the years extended and developed it into a large country mansion, where he entertained extravagantly.[43]
Bottomley had retained his parliamentary ambitions and in 1890, before the Hansard Union crash, had been adopted as the Liberal candidate forNorth Islington. According to Symons, when he resigned the candidature on the commencement of bankruptcy proceedings, he had the constituency in his pocket.[44] By 1900 his star was again in the ascendant, and he was invited by theHackney South Liberals to be their candidate in that year'sgeneral election. He lost by only 280 votes, after a bitterly fought campaign in which Bottomley was described in a newspaper article as a "bare-faced swindler ... [whose] ... place is at theOld Bailey, not at Westminster". He was subsequently awarded £1,000 libel damages against the writer, Henry Hess.[45]
By the turn of the 19th–20th centuries the boom in speculative shares had abated; some of Bottomley's fellow promoters, such asWhitaker Wright, were facing charges of fraud and misrepresentation.[46] Bottomley ceased his operations, and resumed his earlier role of newspaper proprietor. In 1902 he bought a failing London evening paper,The Sun,[47] to which he contributed a regular column, "The World, the Flesh and the Devil". Another feature was Bottomley's employment of celebrity guest editors for special editions; among these were the comedianDan Leno, thecricketerKumar Shri Ranjitsinhji and the labour leaderBen Tillett.[48]
The paper was not a financial success, and Bottomley sold it in 1904.[47] He had not given up altogether on speculative money-making schemes, and in 1905 began an association with the financierErnest Hooley. Among their joint enterprises was the promotion of the defunct, dryBasingstoke Canal as a major inland waterway, the "London and South-Western Canal".[46] Bottomley later made a substantial out-of-court settlement of an action brought by investors who had bought worthless shares in the canal.[49][n 1][51]
[I intend] to give the government an independent and, I hope, an intelligent support, so long as it proceeds on the lines of robust and healthy democracy, but I am also here to oppose all fads and 'isms and namby-pamby interference with the liberty and freedom of our common citizenship.
In thegeneral election of January 1906 Bottomley was again the Liberal candidate for Hackney South. After a vigorous campaign he defeated his Conservative opponent by more than 3,000[53]—the largest Liberal majority in London, he informed the House of Commons in his maiden speech on 20 February 1906.[52] According to Hyman, this speech was received in "chilling silence" by a House that was well aware of Bottomley's chequered reputation.[54]
Over the following months and years, he overcame much of the initial hostility, partly by his self-deprecating good humour (as when he described himself as "more or less honourable")[2] but also because his populist approach to legislation was attractive. He proposed rational reforms of the betting industry and of licensing hours and the introduction of state Old Age Pensions. Extra revenues could be raised, he suggested, by stamp duty on share transfers, taxes on foreign investment, and by appropriating dormant bank balances.[55][56] He drew the government's attention to the long hours worked by domestic servants,[57] and introduced a private bill limiting the working day to eight hours.[58] He privately confided to the journalistFrank Harris that his ambition was to becomeChancellor of the Exchequer.[59]
Alongside his parliamentary duties, Bottomley was engaged in launching his biggest and boldest publishing venture, the weekly news magazineJohn Bull, half of the initial capital for which was provided by Hooley.[60] From its first issue on 12 May 1906John Bull adopted atabloid style that, despite occasional lapses in taste, proved immensely popular.[61] Among its regular features, Bottomley revived his "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" column fromThe Sun, and also adapted that paper's slogan: "If you read it in John Bull, it is so".[62] Bottomley persuadedJulius Elias, managing director ofOdhams Limited, to handle the printing, but chaotic financial management meant that Odhams were rarely paid. This situation was resolved when the entire management of the magazine, including the handling of all receipts and payments, was transferred to Elias,[63][64] leaving Bottomley free to concentrate on editing and journalism. Circulation rose rapidly, and by 1910 had reached half a million copies.[65]
In June 1906 Bottomley announced the John Bull Investment Trust, in which, for a minimum subscription of £10, investors could share "that special and exclusive information which is obtainable only as the result of extensive City experience".[66] Bottomley's earlier City activities were coming under scrutiny, particularly the multiple reconstructions of his now-bankrupt Joint Stock Trust Company. After a long investigation, which Bottomley did all he could to frustrate, in December 1908 he was summoned to appear at theGuildhall Justice Room, before a court of aldermen.[n 2] As with the Hansard prosecution, the case against Bottomley appeared overwhelming; share issues in the Joint Stock Trust had been repeatedly re-issued, perhaps as many as six times. Once again Bottomley succeeded in obscuring the details and, by the power of his courtroom oratory, persuaded the court that the summons should be dismissed.[68][69]
One of the prosecuting team at the Guildhall observed that it would be a long time before anyone risked another prosecution against Bottomley: "But he might ... grow careless, and then he will fail".[70] Despite the adverse publicity, Bottomley was returned by the electors of Hackney South at each of the two 1910 general elections; his tactics included recruiting men in boots tipped and heeled with iron, who marched outside his opponent's meetings and rendered the speeches inaudible.[71][72] In June 1910 he founded the John Bull League, with a mission to promote "commonsense business methods" into government; readers of the magazine could join the League for a shilling (5p) a year.[73][74] Although still nominally a Liberal, Bottomley had become a trenchant critic of his party, and often aligned himself with theConservative opposition in attackingAsquith's government.[2]
Bottomley's parliamentary ambitions were suddenly halted in 1912 when he was successfully sued for £49,000 by one of his Joint Stock Trust victims. Unable to pay, and with massive debts, he was bankrupted with liabilities totalling £233,000.[75] Since bankrupts are ineligible to sit in the House of Commons, he had to resign his seat; after his departure, the futureLord Chancellor,F. E. Smith, wrote that "[h]is absence from the House of Commons has impoverished the public stock of gaiety, of cleverness, of common sense".[76][n 3] Before his bankruptcy, Bottomley had ensured that his main assets were legally owned by relatives or nominees, and was thus able to continue his extravagant lifestyle.[46][78]John Bull remained an ample source of funds, and Bottomley boasted that although nominally bankrupt, "I never had a better time in my life—plenty of money and everything else I want as well".[79]
After leaving the House of Commons, Bottomley denounced Parliament in the pages ofJohn Bull as a "musty, rusty, corrupt system" that urgently needed replacement.[2] Through his newly formed Business League he addressed large crowds as he called for government run by businessmen not politicians.[80] As always, Bottomley's lifestyle required fresh sources of income, and in 1912John Bull began to organise competitions for cash prizes.[76] Bottomley successfully sued the secretary of theAnti-Gambling League for suggesting that many of the prizewinners wereJohn Bull nominees or employees, but received only afarthing in damages.[81][n 4] These competitions helped to raise the magazine's circulation to 1.5 million.[76]
In 1913 Bottomley met a Birmingham businessman, Reuben Bigland, and together they began running large-scale sweepstakes and lotteries, operated from Switzerland to circumvent English law.[83][84] Again doubts arose about the genuineness of declared winners; the winner of the £25,000 sweepstake for the 1914 Derby proved on enquiry to be the sister-in-law of one of Bottomley's close associates. Bottomley insisted this was a coincidence; years later, it was revealed that all but £250 of the prize had been paid into a bank account controlled by Bottomley.[85]
Bottomley initially misread the international crisis that developed during the summer of 1914. After the murder of the AustrianArchduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June inSarajevo, allegedly with Serbian complicity,John Bull described Serbia as "a hotbed of cold-blooded conspiracy and subterfuge", and called for it to be wiped from the map of Europe. When Britain declared war on theCentral Powers on 4 August, Bottomley quickly reversed his position, and within a fortnight was demanding the elimination of Germany.John Bull campaigned relentlessly against the "Germhuns", and against British citizens carrying German-sounding surnames—the danger of "the enemy within" was a persistent Bottomley theme.[86]
On 14 September 1914 he addressed a large crowd at theLondon Opera House, the first of many mass meetings at which he deployed his trademark phrase, "the Prince of Peace, (pointing to the Star of Bethlehem) that leads us on to God"—words which according to Symons moved many hearts.[87][88] At the "Great War Rally" at theRoyal Albert Hall on 14 January 1915, Bottomley was fully in tune with the national temper when he proclaimed: "We are fighting all that is worst in the world, the product of a debased civilisation".[89][90]
During the war, in his self-appointed role as spokesman for the "man in the street",[91] Bottomley addressed more than 300 public meetings, in all parts of the country.[92] For recruitment rallies he provided his services free; for others, he took a percentage of the takings.[93][n 5] His influence was enormous; the writerD. H. Lawrence, who detested Bottomley, thought that he represented the national spirit and that he might become prime minister.[95]
In March 1915 Bottomley began a regular weekly column for theSunday Pictorial.[96] On 4 May, after thesinking of theLusitania, he used this column to label the Germans as "unnatural freaks", and called for their extermination. Britain's war effort, he maintained, was being hampered by squeamish politicians; he reserved particular venom for theLabour Party leaders,Keir Hardie andRamsay MacDonald, who opposed the war, and demanded they be tried forhigh treason. Macdonald's riposte—to label Bottomley "a man of doubtful parentage who had lived all his life on the threshold of jail"—backfired when the latter published Macdonald's birth certificate which showed that the Labour leader was himself illegitimate.[97] Bottomley also criticized the neutrality policy of the United States, arguing the USA was using the war to increase its economic power at the expense of the European powers. Bottomley launched a series of attacks on PresidentWoodrow Wilson that lasted until theUS entered the war in 1917.[98]
Although the government was wary of Bottomley it was prepared to make use of his influence and popularity. In April 1915 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer,David Lloyd George, asked him to speak to shipworkers on theRiver Clyde, who were threatening industrial action. After Bottomley's intervention the strike was averted.[93] In 1917 he visited thefront in France, where, after dining withField MarshalSir Douglas Haig, he was a considerable success with the troops; his later visit to theGrand Fleet atScapa Flow was a similar success.[99] He hoped that these morale-boosting activities would lead to a formal government position, but although from time to time there were rumours of a Cabinet post, no appointment was announced.[100][101] In the later stages of the war Bottomley was a regular critic of the National War Aims Committee (NWAC), a cross-party parliamentary body formed in 1917 to revitalise Britain's commitment to victory and to underline the justice of its cause.[102][103] Bottomley described the committee as "a dodge for doctoring public opinion", and in January 1918 told Lloyd George, who had become prime minister in December 1916, that NWAC had failed in its purpose and should be replaced by a Director of Propaganda—but to no avail.[91]
In 1917,The Royal Magazine published Bottomley's article "Why Not a Women's Parliament?", suggested as a form of compromise with what he termed the "Suffragette Problem". He suggested that the war would guarantee that "things will never be the same again" and the status of women be profoundly changed.[104]
Although in 1912 Bottomley had expressed contempt for parliament, he privately hankered to return.[105] When the war ended in November 1918 and a general election was announced, he knew that to be a candidate in that election he needed a discharge from his bankruptcy. A payment of £34,000 in cash and bonds, and some hasty reorganisation of outstanding debts, was sufficient for an acquiescent Official Receiver to grant the discharge just in time for Bottomley to hand in his nomination papers in Hackney South.[106] In thegeneral election on 14 December 1918 he stood as an Independent, under the slogan "Bottomley, Brains and Business", and achieved a massive victory, with almost 80 per cent of the votes cast. "I am now prepared to proceed to Westminster to run the show", he informed a local newspaper. He would be, he said, the "unofficial prime minister ... watching the government's every move" to ensure that it acted in the interests of "our soldiers, sailors and citizens".[107]
The 1918 parliament was dominated byLloyd George's Liberal–Conservative coalition, which faced a fragmented and unorganised opposition.[108] In May 1919 Bottomley announced the formation of his "People's League", which he hoped would develop into a fully fledged political party with a programme opposing both organised labour and organised capital.[109] No mass movement emerged, but Bottomley joined with other Independent MPs to form theIndependent Parliamentary Group, with a distinct policy stance including the enforcement of war reparations, the superiority of Britain over theLeague of Nations, exclusion of undesirable aliens, and "the introduction of business principles into government".[108] The group was reinforced through by-election victories of other Independents—includingCharles Frederick Palmer,John Bull's deputy editor, until his premature death in October 1920.[110]
Bottomley was, at least for a year or so, a diligent parliamentarian who spoke on a range of issues, and from time to time teased the government as when, during theIrish Troubles, he asked whether, "in view of the breakdown ofBritish rule in Ireland, the government will approach America with a view to her accepting the mandate for the government of that country".[111] On other occasions he helped the government, as when in January 1919, he was called upon in his role of "Soldier's Friend" to help pacify troops inFolkestone andCalais who were in a state of mutiny over delays in their demobilisation.[112][113]
In July 1919 Bottomley announced his "Victory Bonds Club", based on the government's latest issue ofVictory Bonds. Normally, these bonds cost £5; in Bottomley's club, subscribers bought units for a minimum payment of £1, and participated in an annual draw for prizes—up to £20,000, he said—funded from accrued interest.[114] Contrary to Bottomley's public statements, not all the money subscribed was used to buy bonds. He had ambitions to become a press baron, to rival such as the LordsRothermere andBeaverbrook.
In October 1919 he used War Bonds funds to buy two obscure newspapers, theNational News and theSunday Evening Telegram. The papers were not financially successful, and in 1921 Bottomley closed theTelegram and changed the name of theNational News toSunday Illustrated.[115] To bolster its fortunes, he transferred hisSunday Pictorial column to theIllustrated, and mounted an expensive promotional campaign, but with little benefit. The paper languished, while Bottomley lost the large income and readership that went with thePictorial.[116] His fortunes declined further when, in 1920, Odhams revoked the pre-war partnership agreement and took full control ofJohn Bull. Bottomley was made editor for life, but a year later Odhams terminated this arrangement with a final pay-off of £25,000, which ended Bottomley's connection with the paper.[117][118]
Meanwhile, dogged by poor administration and inadequate accounting, the Victory Bonds Club was sliding into chaos. Public unease grew, and soon hundreds of subscribers were demanding their money back—slipshod record-keeping meant that some were repaid several times over.[119] Bottomley's position worsened when he fell out with Bigland, after refusing to finance his former associate's scheme for turning water into petrol.[120] The two had quarrelled during the war, when Bigland had attacked Bottomley in print.[121] They had later reconciled,[122] but after their second dispute Bigland turned vengeful. In September 1921 he published a leaflet describing the War Bond Club as Bottomley's "latest and greatest swindle".[123] Against the advice of his lawyers, Bottomley sued for criminal libel, and brought other charges against Bigland of blackmail and extortion.[124] The preliminary hearing, atBow Street Magistrates' Court in October 1921, at which Bottomley's methods were revealed, proved disastrous to his credibility.[2] Nevertheless, Bigland was committed for trial at theOld Bailey on the libel charge, and to Shropshire Assizes on charges of attempted extortion.[125]
The libel trial began on 23 January 1922; to prevent further damaging disclosures in court, Bottomley's lawyers offered no evidence, and Bigland was discharged.[126] The extortion case went ahead inShrewsbury on 18 February 1922, at the end of which it took the jury only three minutes to find Bigland not guilty. Bottomley, himself now under police investigation, was ordered to pay the costs of the trial. A few days afterwards, he wassummoned to appear atBow Street, on charges of fraudulent conversion of Victory Bond Club funds. After a brief hearing he was committed for trial at the Old Bailey.[127]
Bottomley's trial began on 19 May 1922, beforeMr Justice Salter. As the case was beginning, Bottomley secured the agreement of the prosecuting counsel,Travers Humphreys, to a 15-minute adjournment each day so that he, Bottomley, could drink a pint of champagne, ostensibly for medicinal purposes.[128] He faced 24 fraud charges, involving amounts totalling £170,000.[129] The prosecution produced evidence that he had regularly used Victory Bonds Club funds to finance business ventures, private debts and his expensive lifestyle.[130][131]
Bottomley, who defended himself, claimed that his legitimate expenses in connection with the club, and repayments made to Victory Bonds Club members, exceeded total receipts by at least £50,000: "I swear I have never made a penny out of it. I swear before God that I have never fraudulently converted a penny of the Club's money".[132] The weight of evidence suggested otherwise; Salter's summing up, described by a biographer as "masterly; lucid and concise, yet complete",[133] went heavily against Bottomley, and the jury required only 28 minutes to convict him on all but one of the charges. He was sentenced to seven years'penal servitude.[134] Humphreys commented later: "It was not I that floored him, but Drink".[135]
After the dismissal of his appeal in July, Bottomley was expelled from the House of Commons. TheLeader of the House,Sir Austen Chamberlain, read out a letter in which Bottomley insisted that, however unorthodox his methods, he had not been guilty of conscious fraud; he accepted that his predicament was entirely his own fault. Chamberlain then moved Bottomley's expulsion, which was carried without dissent. One member expressed regret, "remembering the remarkable position which he [had] occupied in the country".[136] Bottomley spent the first year of his sentence inWormwood Scrubs where he sewed mailbags,[n 6] and the remainder inMaidstone Prison where, although conditions were squalid, he was given lighter work.[139] He was released on 29 July 1927, after serving just over five years, and returned to The Dicker, still his family home, owned at the time of his bankruptcy by his son-in-law, Jefferson Cohn.[140][141]
Although now 67 years old and in indifferent health, Bottomley tried to resurrect his business career. He raised sufficient capital to start a new magazine,John Blunt, as a rival toJohn Bull, but the new venture lasted little more than a year before closing, having lost money from the start.[142] In September 1929 he began an overseas lecture tour, which failed utterly, as did an attempt at a British tour during which he was received with indifference or hostility. By 1930 he was again bankrupt; his wife Eliza died that year, after which Bottomley's former son-in-law Jefferson Cohn (who owned it) evicted him from The Dicker.[143][n 7] For the remaining years of his life he lived with his long-time mistress, the actress Peggy Primrose, whom Bottomley, in his years of riches, had vainly tried to promote to stardom.[145]
Bottomley's last public venture was an engagement at theWindmill Theatre in September 1932, where he performed a monologue of reminiscences that, according to Symons, puzzled rather than amused his audience.[143] Following a health breakdown, he lived with Primrose in quiet poverty until his final illness.
Bottomley died at theMiddlesex Hospital on 26 May 1933 at the age of 73, and his body was cremated atGolders Green Crematorium a few days later. A large crowd heard the Reverend Basil Bourchier express the hope that "no one here today will forget what Mr Bottomley did to revive the spirits of our men at the Front".[146] Four years later, in accordance with Bottomley's wishes, Primrose scattered his ashes on theSussex Downs.[147]
If [Bottomley] 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.
Bottomley's obituaries dwelt on the common theme of wasted talent: a man of brilliant natural abilities, destroyed by greed and vanity. "He had personal magnetism, eloquence, and the power to convince", wrote hisDaily Mail obituarist. "He might have been a leader at the Bar, a captain of industry, a great journalist. He might have been almost anything".[148]The Straits Times of Singapore thought that Bottomley could have rivalled Lloyd George as a national leader: "Though he deserved his fate, the news of his passing will awaken the many regrets for the good which he did when he was Bottomley the reformer and crusader and the champion of the bottom dog".[149] A later historian,Maurice Cowling, pays tribute to Bottomley's capacity and industry, and to his forceful campaigns in support of liberty.[109] In his sketch for theOxford Dictionary of National Biography, Morris delivers a different judgement: "[H]e claimed to serve the interests of others, but sought only his own gratification".[2]
Among Bottomley's principal biographers, Hyman suggests that his financial fecklessness and disregard for consequences may have originated from his deprived background and sudden acquisition of wealth in the 1890s. "Success went to his head and he started spending money like a drunken sailor and could never break the habit." It was a wonder, says Hyman, that he stayed out of prison as long as he did.[150]G. R. Searle speculates that Bottomley was protected from prosecution because of his knowledge of wider scandals in the government, particularly after Lloyd George's coalition assumed power in 1916.[151] Symons acknowledges Bottomley's "wonderfully rich public personality" but suggests that there was no substance behind the presentation: throughout his adult life, Bottomley was "more a series of public attitudes than a person".[152]Matthew Engel, writing in 1999 inThe Guardian, notes his ability to charm the public even while swindling them; one victim, cheated of £40,000, apparently insisted: "I am not sorry I lent him the money, and I would do it again". If London had had a mayor in those days, says Engel, Bottomley would have won in a landslide.[153]
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| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forHackney South 1906–1912 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forHackney South 1918–1922 expelled 1 August 1922 after fraud conviction | Succeeded by |
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