A Beacon For The Blind - free ebook by Winifred Holt

A BEACON FOR THE BLIND

Photo. Emery Walker PROFESSOR AND MRS. FAWCETT From the painting by Ford Madox Brown, now in the National Portrait Gallery...

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Forward

There has been no more striking example in our time of how self-reliance and strength of purpose can triumph over adverse fortune than that presented by the career of Henry Fawcett. The story of his life as it is to be told in this book will give ample illustrations of his fortitude and his perseverance. All that I, an old friend of his, need speak of is a quality hardly less remarkable than was his energy. I mean his cheerfulness. It was specially wonderful and admirable in one afflicted as he

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Introduction

‘I wish we had Fawcett here to-day. At this crisis England needs him sorely.’ These words, said with much feeling by the late Lord Avebury, were spoken to the writer of this book only two years ago. Fawcett is not needed only in England. His is the type of man needed sorely to-day and every day in every empire and democracy under the sun. His example of valour against odds is just as necessary for America as for the Mother Country, for the men who are now doing the world’s work as for the lads w

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CHAPTER I WATERLOO, THE MAYOR, AND THE BABY

The Fisherman—The Battle of Waterloo—The Mayor of Salisbury—The Mayor’s Son—The Market-place—The Circus—Boarding-School and Fun—A Diary. One midsummer day in 1815 a young draper’s assistant was gently fishing in the Salisbury Avon. William Fawcett was but lately come to Salisbury, yet he already knew his river. While trying a deep pool in the shadow of a bridge near the town he was startled by shouts from the roadway above. ‘News from the army! A great victory! Boney in flight!’ The fisherman fo

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CHAPTER II THE BOY LECTURER

A Lecture on the uses of Steam—Parliamentary Ambitions—King’s College—Politics in the Fifties—Cribbage and Cricket. Fawcett was interested in the scientific lectures, and he had a very good time. Professor Tyndall took them out surveying. Harry comments on a lecture at which he heard that there ‘is fire in everything, even ice’; he also records some chemical experiments in the laboratory. In September the diary states, ‘I began writing my lecture on phonography, on the uses of steam without copy

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CHAPTER III THE TALL STUDENT

Peterhouse—Quoits and Billiards—Trinity Hall—A Fellowship—Lincoln’s Inn. Harry knew that for his father’s sake it was necessary for him to be self-supporting as soon as possible, and therefore chose his college on purely financial grounds. He went to Peterhouse, where the fellowships could be held by laymen, and were reported to be of unusual value. His great friend, Sir Leslie Stephen, saw him there for the first time. We cannot do better than quote from Sir Leslie’s biography of Fawcett the im

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CHAPTER IV A SET BACK

A Trip to France—Wiltshire French—A Discouragement. In 1857 the great Critchett warned him against making any exertion, and forbade his reading. Though he appeared cheerful as usual with his family, a friend recalls that during his entire career he had never known him to be so depressed. In 1857 he was glad to find occupation by taking a pupil to Paris. Miss Fawcett went with them. The pupil was to read mathematics and to learn French, while it was hoped that the master’s eyes might benefit unde

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CHAPTER V DARKNESS

A Shooting Accident—Blindness—Readjustment. Unfortunate as was the fate which condemned him to so much trouble with his eyes, it was a fortunate and strange preparation for what was to follow. Obedient to his physician’s injunctions to give up work, Fawcett remained with his family near Salisbury. On 15 September 1858, he went shooting with his father. Together they climbed Harnham Hill. Fawcett turned to look back at the glorious view, bathed in an autumn light, the trees, already turning to go

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CHAPTER VI HAPPINESS

The Clear-sighted Man—A Scot’s Accent—Mountain Climbing—Skating—Riding, etc. His friends all testify to his spirit, his normal view of life frequently making them forget the fact of his blindness. A distinguished writer and diplomat, who had known Fawcett, on being asked what impression had been produced on him, replied quickly and quite simply, ‘I think that he was an extraordinarily clear-sighted man.’ Stephen in his biography uses this sentence: ‘Fawcett had come to see more distinctly the re

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CHAPTER VII DISTRACTION

Fishing—In the Commons—Need for Distraction—What Helen Keller thinks—Sir Francis Campbell—Leap Frog—Despair and Cheer—Paupers and Political Economy. It sometimes seems inconsistent that one so acutely sensitive as Fawcett was to suffering of all kinds should not have hesitated to get pleasure from a sport involving the necessary cruelty of fishing. In discussing this, Fawcett at times would maintain the usual ground of the fishes insensibility to pain, but again he would frankly justify it as th

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CHAPTER VIII THE PROBLEM OF THE POOR

A Prime Object—Lincoln—Leslie Stephen—Daily Life at Cambridge—Deepening Interest in Social Questions. When Fawcett first began to pick up the threads of his life again he planned to continue reading for the Bar, and obtained special facilities from the Council of Legal Education. But about a year after his blindness he decided to give up law altogether. There have been successful blind lawyers, but Fawcett’s goal was not law but Parliament, and he shrewdly perceived that he might make his way to

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CHAPTER IX THE GOOD SAMARITAN

‘Ask Fawcett’—The Ancient Mariners and the Diplomat—Christmas Exceedings—Fawcett as Host—A Bore foiled—The British Association. But if no respecter of persons, Fawcett unfailingly took every opportunity to play the good Samaritan. Were a friend in trouble, this great rough comforter was the first at hand to help. If ill, he had probably from the beginning been sitting daily at the patient’s bedside, bringing good cheer, or aiding in the thousand and one ways which his understanding of suffering,

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CHAPTER X THE YOUNG ECONOMIST

Championing Darwin—Darwin at Downe—Salisbury Gossip—Meeting Mill—Fawcett for Lincoln and the Union—John Bright’s Dog—Chair of Political Economy. In consequence of that Oxford meeting Fawcett entered another arena. Bishop Wilberforce, representing the attitude of many not narrow-minded men, took that occasion to attack Darwin’s recently published Origin of Species . Fawcett, indignant at the theological onslaught on the new theories, published an article in Macmillan’s Magazine in which he valian

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CHAPTER XI A PROGRAMME OF HELPFULNESS

The Triumph over Blindness—The Professor’s Audience—Free Trade and Protection—The Luxury of Light—The Malady of Poverty. His election to a professorial chair meant much to Fawcett and helped greatly to carry him successfully forward in the career which he had mapped out for himself. It proved two points of much significance in his life as a blind man: first, that his colleagues and the elder men in authority at Cambridge thought that he had the intellectual training and qualifications to develop

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CHAPTER XII THE SCHOOLS OF THE POOR

Need of Non-Sectarian Education—Charity and Pauperism—Friendship with Working Men—The Voice that linked. But co-operation without intelligence and education in all classes was impossible. Fawcett felt keenly the need of non-sectarian national education, especially for the rural population. Schools would enlighten the workman so that he could learn how to make his work more profitable to himself and others, and how to make the best of his free hours, and so work out his independence. To the argum

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CHAPTER XIII THE NEW M.P. AND THE CLUB

Thackeray and the Reform Club—The popular M.P.—The Assassination of Lincoln—Marriage. As Fawcett was often in London, his friends were anxious for him to belong to a club. He was put up for membership at the Reform Club, but to the chagrin of his friends, the committee was loath to admit a blind man. It felt that he would be helpless and in the way. It delegated a member to tell Fawcett tactfully the feeling in the matter. He received the news with entire good humour and calmness, remarking quie

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CHAPTER XIV THE WOMAN AND THE VOTE

The Home in London—Sympathy with Woman Suffrage—The Blind Gardener—Clubs—Hatred of Flunkeyism. His belief in Woman Suffrage probably began before he met his wife. It was but a month after his marriage that he voted for Mill’s motion in favour of extending the suffrage to women, the first time the question was introduced into the House of Commons. The hampered and restricted position of women industrially was a condition that stirred Fawcett strongly. He felt that to bring the necessary pressure

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CHAPTER XV BLIND SUPERSTITIONS

Speech before the British Association—Mill again—Bright and Lord Brougham—The Mythical Committee Room—Defeat at Southwark. Fawcett never deviated from his school-boy longing for a political career. But despite the recognition which he had obtained as a speaker and thinker, even his best friends felt that his dream of a political future was worse than impracticable. They tried to dissuade him from his purpose, and make him content with a writer’s life of study, thought and theory. Opposition, the

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CHAPTER XVI PURE POLITICS

Defeat at Cambridge and Brighton—Routing a Chimæra—Elected the Member for Brighton—The House of Commons. Fawcett’s day was no more free from political chicanery and wire-pulling than our own. Like all aspirants, he was sorely pressed to compromise with the underworld of politics, but he kept himself clear of the political mire, and made no promise which he could not justly fulfil. While waiting for his next chance his life was as usual busy and happy, labouring over papers for Macmillan’s Magazi

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CHAPTER XVII A PROPHETIC QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT

The Blind and Silent M.P.—His First Speech—Protecting Cattle, Neglecting Children—Industry earns Penury—Mill ‘out.’ Surrounded by these picturesque personages already so familiar to him, some by repute, and some by personal friendship, the blind M.P. quietly took his place. He had to learn the ways of the House, and, duly estimating the value of the unspoken word, said very little during his first Parliament. In view of his subsequent career, it is suggestive that Fawcett spoke in Parliament alm

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CHAPTER XVIII GLADSTONE PRIME MINISTER

Opposition to Gladstone—‘The most Thorough Radical Member in the House’—Growing Dissatisfaction with the Government—The Irish Universities Bill—Helping to Defeat his own Party. In the new Parliament Gladstone became Prime Minister for the first time. Fawcett had much appreciation of his leader’s wonderful powers, of his ability as a financier, of his sincerity as a reformer, and of his right to the support of the Liberal party. But the ramifications, subtleties and luminosities of Gladstone’s ma

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CHAPTER XIX THE STOLEN COMMONS

The Disappearance of the English Playgrounds and Commons—Fawcett’s first Protest—The Annual Enclosure Bill stopped by his energetic Action. Fawcett used to say that there was no part of his public work on which he looked with so much unalloyed satisfaction as on his work for the commons. Perhaps a few words show what a complicated question he had to deal with, and how great the need was for the strong and courageous action which he took in this matter. He would see the urgency as only those coul

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CHAPTER XX THE FIGHT FOR THE FOREST

The Commons Preservation Society—The saving of Epping Forest—The Queen’s Rights—The Lords of the Manors’ Rights—The People’s Rights. A society had been founded in 1865, called the Commons Preservation Society, which had for object to defend the public rights in the commons round London. Two years later Fawcett joined their committee and attended their meetings sedulously. One of his first actions was to recommend that the sphere of their operations be extended to the country at large. He found t

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CHAPTER XXI FOR THE PEOPLE’s WOODS AND STREAMS

Saving the Forests—‘The monstrous Nation’—Walking with Lord Morley—The Boat Race—Safeguarding the Rivers. Fawcett had the knack of saving time and getting the most out of it. One spring day when he was going to pay a promised visit, absent-mindedly he put his hand to his hair, which he found rather long. Discovering that he had five minutes to spare, he shouted in his cheerful loud voice to the cabby through the opening in the roof of the hansom: ‘stop at the first hairdresser’s shop.’ Arrived t

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CHAPTER XXII WHAT INDIA PAID

India pays for English Hospitality—Royal English generosity to India paid for by India—How to deal with an angry opponent—Indian Finance and the poor Ryot—Gratitude from India—How Fawcett prepared his Speeches. The purpose of this chapter is not to comment on the condition of India, and of its government in Fawcett’s time, but through these new labours of his to know him better, to show how gallantly he fought for a poor remote people, and how poignantly he brought their needs before their Engli

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CHAPTER XXIII THE ‘ONE MAN WHO CARED FOR INDIA’

Defeated at Brighton—Spectacles and the Man—Elected for Hackney. In spite of many warnings that his Indian policy would be unpopular, his adherence to his high ideal of a truly Imperial citizenship proved a good campaign asset, and Fawcett’s constituents were proud of him, and absorbed in his expositions of Indian affairs. Notwithstanding that he lost his seat at Brighton at the next general election, he was soon in the House again, representing another constituency. The prominence of his positi

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CHAPTER XXIV FAMINE, TURKS AND INDIANS

Punch and Fawcett—The Indian Famine—Parliamentary Interest aroused in India—Bulgarian Atrocities—Afghanistan War—Gladstone’s Faith in Fawcett—A £9,000,000 Mistake. He was becoming one of the most prominent figures in the House of Commons, and as such is frequently mentioned in the political diary with which Punch has amused more than two generations. Punch gives vivid glimpses of our hero ‘hitting out in fine style,’ giving ‘a well deserved rap over the knuckles’ to some not too scrupulous speak

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CHAPTER XXV LIBERALS IN POWER

General Expectation that Fawcett would join the Cabinet—The Importance of a Fish—Postmaster-General—Queen Victoria interested—Post Office Problems—Scientific Business Management anticipated—Women’s Work—A Likeness to Lincoln. It is doubtful if anything but incessant struggles, the single-handed upholding of forlorn hopes, the fighting of battles with no other ammunition than irrefutable fact, and finally, the frequent victory over overwhelming difficulties, could have fitted Fawcett for the grea

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CHAPTER XXVI FRESH AIR, BLUE RIBBONS, AND POSTMEN

A Day with the Postmaster-General—How he worked Reform—The Parcel Post. By his intense love of the open air Fawcett kept mind and body fresh, and was eager and able to cope with his problems, and to welcome new ones. The late Sir Robert Hunter said: ‘He frequently walked up and down outside the post office in the middle of the day, while smoking his cigarette, and on Saturdays he either walked, or rowed on the Thames with an old friend or two. He rowed very badly, and caused much discomfort to h

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CHAPTER XXVII THE PENNIES OF THE POOR

Cheap Postal Orders—Savings Bank—Life Insurance—Two Post Office Pamphlets to help the People—Cheap Telegrams—Telephones—‘The Man for the Post’—‘Words are Silver, Silence is Gold.’ It had been felt for some time that it would be possible to send small sums of money by post more cheaply. The only method, that of Post Office Money Orders, in force when Fawcett became Postmaster-General, was well described by him when he said: ‘If a boy wanted to send his mother the first shilling he had saved, he w

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CHAPTER XXVIII AT HOME AND AT COURT

Appreciating Opponents—Hackney Address—Proportional Representation—Justice for Women—A State Concert—Humble Friendships—Pigs—Salisbury again. The same respect for the individuality of others which made Fawcett unwilling to punish a subordinate if he could honourably avoid it, which made him often detect good qualities in the offender to compensate for the offence, made him also quick to respect and admire an adversary, even when strongly repudiating his principles. Fawcett never forgot that his

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CHAPTER XXIX A GRAVE ILLNESS

Illness—Convalescence—Musical Discrimination. He was suffering from a cold, and complained of feeling ill. Mrs. Fawcett had been called away by the fatal illness of her cousin. When she returned to London, it was to hear that her husband’s illness was pronounced to be diphtheria, and it was rendered more serious later by typhoid and other complications. Until the end of December his condition was grave. During the first stage of the illness he had frequently been delirious, and remembered little

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CHAPTER XXX AMONG THE BLIND

A Leader of the Blind—Honours—His Last Speech. What his happy, successful life meant to the blind, and how he heartened them by his hearty personality, cannot be overestimated. ‘I went with him,’ says Mr. Dryhurst, ‘to a tea-meeting at Bethnal Green. It was night, and the Assembly Hall, which was low, was crowded with over one thousand blind people and their guides. Fawcett, who spoke briefly, was greeted with fervent enthusiasm when he entered, and when, in the course of the speech he exclaimed

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CHAPTER XXXI LIGHT

The Passing—The People grieve—Sorrow in Parliament—The Nation’s Loss—Letters from Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales (the late King Edward) and Gladstone—The Railroad Men’s Tribute—The Significance of his Life—India’s Loss—Fawcett’s Message. On Thursday morning, 6th November 1884, the two doctors who saw him found that his heart was weak, and he asked his secretary to notify the papers of his illness. Another doctor came from London, and when the three went to Fawcett’s room, they found that th

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MEMORIALS

To make this record complete the following descriptions of the Fawcett Memorials is appended, together with the copy of a letter from Mrs. Fawcett’s sister. There are three memorials in London, besides others elsewhere. The national memorial to Fawcett in Westminster Abbey bears the following inscription, written by Sir Leslie Stephen....

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HENRY FAWCETT BORN 26 AUGUST 1833. DIED 6 NOVEMBER 1884

After losing his sight by an accident, at the age of 24, he became Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge, Member of four Parliaments, and from 1880 to 1884, H.M. Postmaster-General. His inexorable fidelity to his convictions commanded the respect of statesmen. His chivalrous self-devotion to the cause of the poor and helpless won the affection of his countrymen and of his Indian fellow-subjects. His heroic acceptance of the calamity of blindness has left a memorable examp

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Extract from a Letter from Mrs. Fawcett’s Sister

‘A clergyman came to me one day in the street and asked if I was not Mrs. Fawcett’s sister. I said “Yes,” and then he told me his little story. ‘A friend of his had become blind and had lost hope and courage, and seemed unable to face the disaster; then some one reminded him of Mr. Fawcett, and read his life to him, and the poor man took fresh heart, and met his misfortune bravely. The clergyman added, “I do not know Mrs. Fawcett or any of his family, and could not let slip this chance of tellin

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