Horatio Bottomley Quotes

Horatio William Bottomley was an English financier, journalist, editor, newspaper proprietor, swindler, and Member of Parliament. He is best known for his editorship of the popular magazine John Bull, and for his patriotic oratory during the First World War. His career came to a sudden end when, in 1922, he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

Bottomley spent five years in an orphanage before beginning his career, aged 14, as an errand boy. Subsequent experience as a solicitor's clerk gave him a useful knowledge of English law, which he later put to effective use in his court appearances. After working as a shorthand writer and court reporter, at 24 he founded his own publishing company, which launched numerous magazines and papers, including, in 1888, the Financial Times.He over-reached himself with an ambitious public flotation of his company, which led to his first arraignment on fraud charges in 1893. Despite evidence of malpractice, Bottomley, who defended himself, was acquitted. He subsequently amassed a fortune as a promoter of shares in gold-mining companies.

In 1906 Bottomley entered parliament as Liberal Party member for Hackney South. In the same year he founded the popular magazine John Bull, which became a platform for Bottomley's trenchant populist views. Financial extravagance and mismanagement continued to blight his career, and in 1912 he had to resign from parliament after being declared bankrupt.

The outbreak of war in 1914 revived his fortunes; as a journalist and orator Bottomley became a leading propagandist for the war effort, addressing well over 300 public meetings. His influence was such that it was widely expected that he would enter the War Cabinet, although he received no such offer.

In 1918, having been discharged from bankruptcy, Bottomley re-entered parliament as an Independent member. In the following year he launched his fraudulent "Victory Bonds" scheme which, when exposed, led to his conviction, imprisonment and expulsion from parliament. Released in 1927, he attempted unsuccessfully to relaunch his business career, and eked out a living by lecturing and appearances in music halls. His final years before his death in 1933 were spent in poverty. Wikipedia

✵ 23. March 1860 – 26. May 1933

Famous Horatio Bottomley Quotes

“I have not had your advantages, gentlemen. What poor education I have received has been gained in the University of Life.”

Horatio Bottomley

Speaking at the Oxford Union, December 2, 1920; quoted in Beverley Nichols 25: Being a Young Man's Candid Recollections of his Elders and Betters (London, 1926), ch. 7, p. 69.
Sometimes said to have been the first usage of this now ubiquitous cliché, though in fact the phrase university of life had been in use for many years. Some early instances:
"The disciplined minds that go from [their university's] walls will be its jewels…It will worthily introduce them to the University of Life." ~ The New Englander and Yale Review (February 1853), p. 70.
"The late Professor Greenleaf…who, not born to affluence, and not bred up to scholarly studies, achieved an honorable scholarship in the university of life". ~ Cornelius Conway Felton An Address Delivered before the Association of the Alumni of Harvard College, July 20, 1854 (Cambridge, Mass., 1854), p. 7.
"But God be thanked…for the university of life where we may acquire, at the same time that we put in practice, the rules which are to fit us for, and conduct us through the eternities." Elizabeth D. Livermore Zoë (Cincinnati, 1855), p. 14.
"When our men go into the great university of life…there are few, indeed, who have practical reason to regret that so many years were spent in the severe but salutary discipline imposed by the University of Dublin." ~ The Dublin University Magazine (April 1858), p. 419.

“No, reaping.”

Horatio Bottomley

S. Theodore Felstead Horatio Bottomley: A Biography of an Outstanding Personality (London, 1936), ch. 1.
To a prison visitor who, finding him stitching mailbags, asked "Sewing, Bottomley?"

“Well, damn it all, it's only sixpence, I know, but I suppose he has to begin somewhere.”

Horatio Bottomley

Robert Graves & Alan Hodge The Long Week-end (London, 1940), ch. 5, p. 67.
Of one of his office-boys who had been caught stealing a small postal order.