urer. John was the second of eleven
children, the oldest of whom died in infancy. The family were devoted
members of the Society of Friends, and the subject of this sketch still
adheres to the hereditary faith. John's health, during childhood, caused
much solicitude to his parents. His constitution was apparently feeble,
and it was found that study injured his already delicate system. At the
age of fifteen he was taken from school, and placed in his father's
counting-room. Mr. Jacob Bright was a shrewd, yet highly honorable man,
entirely engrossed in the superintendence of his business, and an adept
in the conduct of his manufactory. It was his ambition that his sons
should follow in his footsteps, and should become, like himself,
influential members of the commercial community. He doubtless
underrated, as the class to which he belonged are apt to do in England,
the value of a university education; and as soon as the boys reached the
suitable age, they were set to work in the mills. Had John Bright
received the culture which a residence at Oxford or Cambridge would have
afforded him, he would doubtless have occupied a place in the first rank
of that group of accomplished statesmen who now grace either House of
Parliament, and whose elegant erudition is as conspicuous as their
enlightened statecraft. As it was, we find him spending his youth at the
desk, learning how to buy and sell, and how to rule the miniature
commonwealth which an English manufactory presents. In the discharge of
these duties he proved himself skilful, prompt, and energetic.

As he grew to manhood, however, a new interest and a new ambition awoke
within him. He had always been more of a thinker than the other members
of his family. When scarcely twenty, he had addressed the people of
Rochdale in favor of the great Reform of 1832, and with the effect of
giving him at that early age a local popularity. He had seemingly thrown
his vigorous mind into the study of the complex elements of the
Constitution, with especial reference to those parts which affected
commerce and manufactures. From such studies he had become the confirmed
disciple of those doctrines which, with a narrower view to
self-interest, the commercial class almost universally adopted. When the
passage of the Reform Bill had quieted for a while the agitation on that
score, Mr. Bright, his interest being now thoroughly awakened to the
excitements of a public career, turned his attention to th