HORATIO BOTTOMLEY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 123, 27 May 1933, Page 14

HORATIO BOTTOMLEY

A CHEQUERED CAREER

SHOWY AND! INGENIOUS

Horatio Bottomley,I'whose. 4eath i* reported today, }vas for. a, Jong time one of the most picturesque* -figures in Great Britain. '"'"';'.','. During the wav '.'. B'ottoniley m» known as "the soldier's friend," and his newspaper "John' Bull "aligned itself with the forces of Lord Birkenhead in a campaign sketched by that master of the Press: in the phrase "Trust the Array." After the war Bottoniley added his name to the list of fraudulent converters of money and went to prison. , ; ' '• . Bottomley was born in 1860 and was educated at Mason's College, Birmingham. He was interested, in financial undertakings in ,London long b'ofore he hit upon the ingenious scheme 6i fraud which finally Bent him to prison. He promoted West Australian gold-inin-ing companies, founded the "Financial Times," became proprietor of the "Sun" newspaper,, and afterwards established "John Bull," of which, he was also acting-editor. Ho was a nophew of George Jacob Holyoake, thefounder of the. modern co-operative movement, and claimed to bevclosely associated with Charles Bradlaugh in-his political work. . In politics he iwas fairlyisuccessful, contesting the Hornsey Division of Middlesex without success- in 1887 and South Hackney in 1900, but entering the House of Commons for South Hackney in 1906 and remaining there>until 1912, whilo he was ic-electpd. in 1918. He claimed authorship of the "Business Government Idea," as he phrased it, and also boasted that he was "the best lay lawyer in the country," this ascertion arising from the fact that he-twice successfully conducted his own defence in' cases where tho Crown proceeded against him. .- During the war years Bottomley may have been a patriot, but he was.not. above capitalising other people's enthusiasm for their country. He conceived a Victory Bond scheme as a means of exploiting patriotism and tho gambling instinct at the same' time* The Victory Bonds were issued by the Government at £5. Bottomley invited subscriptions at £1 or more on the understanding that tho interest was to bo dr^wnfor as in a lottery and tho capital- investment should- remain intact. • So strong was the ■ bait and so> wide the man's fame that; .30,000 people trusted him with their ■ money, -subscriptions coming in. at' the • rate of £10,000 a day. He was sentenced on May-16, 1922, to seven years'. Imprisonment for fraudulent conversion of National War Bonds, of. an allotment letter for, Victory Bonds and of bankers' drafts, and was released on "ticket-of-leave" in 1927 after having served a- little over five years. "Whatever may have been, my faults, I have paid," he declared in an article published after his release, "But I must assert hero and now. even though they wcro tho last words to pass my lips, I never owe 4 the debt." : ' But even then the man wa# not crushed. "I do feel that with the a* sistanee of an enlightened and patriotic Press I may be the means—once I have cleared by character—-of introducing into the life of the Nation some degree of its lost spirit of robust indepen* dence," he wrote later in the sam* article. ' "And God knows I have undergone l great training for tho task," he saj4 "Let no man prate of human affair* until he has seen humanity in all it« phases." And no man can possibly knoy his fellow-creatures until he has 'been initiated into the mysteries of that wallcd-in world in which I have, bee» hidden for tho past five years."