On This Day
23 February 1855
John Bright delivers his ‘Angel of Death’ speech
Addressing the House of Commons on the Crimean War, Radical MP John Bright delivers possibly his greatest speech, ‘The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two side posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on; he takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansions of the wealthy and the cottage of the poor and the lowly, and it is on behalf of all these classes that I make this solemn appeal’. Bright paid a price for his opposition to the war, at the following general election in 1857 Bright, along with many of his anti-war colleagues, lost his Manchester seat.