Henry Labouchère

Henry Du Pré Labouchère (9 November 1831 – 15 January 1912) was a prominent English politician, writer, publisher and theatre owner in the Victorian era and Edwardian era. He married actress Henrietta Hodson.

Life and career

Labouchère was born in London, into a family which had made a fortune in finance. He was the nephew of Whig politician Henry Labouchere, 1st Baron Taunton, who, despite disapproving of his rebellious nephew, helped the young man's early career and left him a sizeable inheritance when he died leaving no male heir.

Early career

After being educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, Labouchère (without his prior knowledge) was found a place in the British diplomatic service by his family. Between 1854 and 1864, Labouchère served as a minor diplomat in Washington, DC, Munich, Stockholm, Frankfurt, St. Petersburg, Dresden, and Constantinople. He was, however, not known for his diplomatic demeanour, and after several acts of impudence over the years, he was finally dismissed from the service for refusing a posting to Buenos Aires.

The year after his dismissal, Labouchère was elected as a Member of Parliament for Windsor, as a Liberal. In 1867, he moved to a seat in Middlesex. In the 1868 election, he lost his seat, and did not return to the House of Commons for 12 years.

In 1867, Labouchère and his partners engaged architect C. J. Phipps and artists and Albert Moore and Telbin to remodel the large St. Martins Hall to create Queen's Theatre, Long Acre. [Sherson, Erroll. London's Lost Theatres of the Nineteenth Century, Chapter IX, p. 201 (Ayer Publishing, 1925) ISBN 0405089694] A new company of players was formed, including Charles Wyndham, Henry Irving, J. L. Toole, Ellen Terry, and Henrietta Hodson. By 1868, Hodson and Labouchère were living together out of wedlock, [ [http://www.labouchere.co.uk/linkpages/labbyanddora.htm "Labby and Dora"] (Labouchere genealogy site) accessed 1 April 2008] as they could not marry until her first husband died in 1887. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9A0CE4DA123BE033A25754C1A9679C94629FD7CF&oref=slogin "London Facts and Gossip"] 17 January 1883 "The New York Times" accessed 1 April 2008] Labouchère bought out his partners and used the theatre to showcase Hodson's talents, [ [http://www.gabrielleray.150m.com/ArchiveTextH/HenriettaHodson.html Feature on Hodson in Footlights Notes] ] although the theatre eventually sustained losses and closed in 1879, shortly after Hodson's retirement from the stage. The couple finally married in 1887. Their one child together, Mary Dorothea (Dora) Labouchère, had been born in 1884. Hodson's cousin was theatre producer George Musgrove.

Journalist and writer

During the break in his Parliamentary career, Labouchère gained renown as a journalist, editor, and publisher, sending witty dispatches from Paris during the siege in 1870. His style and fearlessness gained a large audience for first his reporting, and later his personal weekly journal, "Truth" (started in 1877), which was often sued for libel. ["The Times", 31 December 1957, p. 6] Labouchère's claims to being impartial were ridiculed by his critics, including W. S. Gilbert (who had been an object of Labouchère's theatrical criticism) in Gilbert's comic opera "His Excellency" ("see illustration at right"). In 1877, Gilbert had engaged in a public feud with Labouchère's lover, Henrietta Hodson. [ [http://faculty.winthrop.edu/vorderbruegg/winthropweb/vitaindex/gilbert.html Vorder Bruegge, Andrew "W. S. Gilbert: Antiquarian Authenticity and Artistic Autocracy" (Associate Professor, Department Chair, Department of Theatre and Dance, Winthrop University). Professor Vorder Bruegge presented this paper at the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States annual conference in October 2002] , accessed March 26, 2008]

Return to Parliament

Labouchère returned to Parliament in the 1880 election, when he and Charles Bradlaugh, both Liberals, won the two seats for Northampton. (Bradlaugh's then-controversial atheism led Labouchère, a closet agnostic, to refer sardonically to himself as "the Christian member for Northampton".)

In 1885, Labouchère drafted the Labouchere Amendment, outlawing "gross indecency," not a euphemism for sodomy which was already a crime but rather any other sexual activity between men. This amendment allowed for the prosecution, in 1895, of Oscar Wilde, who was incarcerated for the crime.

During the 1880s, the Liberal Party faced a split between a Radical wing (led by Joseph Chamberlain) and a Whig wing (led by the Marquess of Hartington), with its party leader, William Ewart Gladstone straddling the middle. Labouchère was a firm and vocal Radical, who tried to create a governing coalition between the Radicals and the Irish Nationalists that would exclude or marginalize the Whigs. This plan was wrecked in 1886, when, after Gladstone came out for Home Rule, a large contingent of both Radicals and Whigs chose to leave the Liberal Party to form a "Unionist" party allied with the Conservatives.

Between 1886 and 1892, a Conservative government was in power, and Labouchère worked tirelessly to remove them from office. When the government was turned out in 1892, and Gladstone was called to form an administration, Labouchère expected to be rewarded with a cabinet post. Queen Victoria would not allow Gladstone to offer Labouchère an office, however; and the new Foreign Secretary, Lord Rosebery, was a personal enemy of Labouchère who would not offer him an ambassadorship.

After being snubbed for a second time by the Liberal leadership after their victory in the 1906 election, Labouchère resigned his seat, and retired to Florence. He died there seven years later, leaving a fortune of some two million pounds sterling to his daughter Dora, who was by then married to Carlo, Marchese di Rudini.

Notes

References

* Davis, H. W. C., and J. R. H. Weaver. "Dictionary of National Biography, 1912-1921". London : Oxford University Press, 1927.
* [http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=77 "Henry Du Pre Labouchere"] . The Twickenham Museum.
* Russell, George W. E. "Portraits of the Seventies". New York : Scribner, 1916.