rt in the social, educational and
political life of his native town. He was one of the founders of the
Rochdale Literary and Philosophical Society, took a leading part in its
debates, and on returning from a holiday journey in the East, gave the
society a lecture on his travels. He first met Richard Cobden in 1836 or
1837. Cobden was an alderman of the newly formed Manchester corporation,
and Bright went to ask him to speak at an education meeting in Rochdale. "I
found him," said Bright, "in his office in Mosley Street, introduced myself
to him, and told him what I wanted." Cobden consented, and at the meeting
was much struck by Bright's short speech, and urged him to speak against
the Corn Laws. His first speech on the Corn Laws was made at Rochdale in
1838, and in the same year he joined the Manchester provisional committee
which in 1839 founded the Anti-Corn Law League He was still only the local
public man, taking part in all public movements, especially in opposition
to John Feilden's proposed factory legislation, and to the Rochdale
church-rate. In 1839 he built the house which he called "One Ash," and
married Elizabeth, daughter of Jonathan Priestman of Newcastle-on-Tyne. In
November of the same year there was a dinner at Bolton to Abraham Paulton,
who had just returned from a successful Anti-Corn Law tour in Scotland.
Among the speakers were Cobden and Bright, and the dinner is memorable as
the first occasion on which the two future leaders appeared together on a
Free Trade platform. Bright is described by the historian of the League as
"a young man then appearing for the first time in any meeting out of his
own town, and giving evidence, by his energy and by his grasp of the
subject, of his capacity soon to take a leading part in the great
agitation." But his call had not yet come. In 1840 he led a movement
against the Rochdale church-rate, speaking from a tombstone in the
churchyard, where it looks down on the town in the valley below. A very
happy married life at home contented him, and at the opening of the Free
Trade hall in January 1840 he sat with the Rochdale deputation,
undistinguished in the body of the meeting. A daughter, Helen, was born to
him; but his young wife, after a long illness, died of consumption in
September 1841. Three days after her death at Leamington, Cobden called to
see him. "I was in the depths of grief," said Bright, when unveiling the
statue of his friend at Bradford in 1877, "I migh