at home were quiet, but not inactive. In 1870 he was invited
to become the first chairman of the new School Board for London, and he
held this office three years. Board work was always uncongenial to him,
and the subject was, of course, unfamiliar; but he gave his best efforts
to the cause and did other voluntary work in London. This came to an end
in 1876, when his eyesight failed, and for nearly two years he had much
suffering and was in danger of total blindness for a time. A second
operation saved him from this, and in 1878 he put forth his strength in
writing and speaking vigorously, but without success, against Lord
Lytton's Afgh[=a]n War. In June, 1879, he was stricken with sudden
illness, and died a week later in his seventieth year. It was hardly to
be expected that one who had spent himself so freely, amid such stirring
events, should live beyond the Psalmist's span of life.

He had started at the bottom of the official ladder; by his own efforts
he had won his way to the top; and his career will always be a notable
example to those young Englishmen who cross the sea to serve the Empire
in our great Dependency with its 300 million inhabitants. How the
relations between India and Great Britain will develop--how long the
connexion will last may be debated by politicians and authors; it is in
careers like that of John Lawrence (and there were many such in the
nineteenth century) that the noblest fruit of the connexion may be
seen.

JOHN BRIGHT

1811-89

1811. Born at Greenbank, Rochdale, November 16.
1827. Leaves school. Enters his father's mill.
1839. Marries Elizabeth Priestman (died 1841).
1841. Joins Cobden in constitutional agitation for Repeal of Corn Laws.
1843. Enters Parliament as Member for Durham.
1846. Corn Laws repealed.
1847. Marries Margaret Leatham (died 1878).
1847. Member for Manchester.
1854-5. Opposes Crimean War.
1856-7. Long illness.
1857. Unseated for Manchester. Member for Birmingham.
1861. Supports the North in American Civil War.
1868. President of Board of Trade in Gladstone's first Government.
1870. Second long illness.
1880. Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster in Gladstone's second Government.
1882. Resigns office over bombardment of Alexandria.
1886. Opposes Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill.
1889. Dies at Rochdale, March 29.

JOHN BRIGHT

TRIBUNE

The word 'tribune' comes to us from the early days of the Roman
Republic; and even in Rome the tribunate was unlike