Henry Arthur
Bright was representative of a not insignificant number of Liverpool citizens
who, whilst nominally engaged in their family business, took advantage of their
substantial wealth to pursue a wide array of intellectual interests and
philanthropic causes.
He was born
on 9th February 1830, the son of a merchant, Samuel Bright, and his
wife Elizabeth Anne (née Jones) , daughter of a prominent Liverpool banker. The
family lived in a substantial mansion, Sandheys, situated on Mill Lane
L12, which still stands and was once part of the Holly Lodge campus. Henry
Bright lived there until his marriage in 1861.
His
education began at Rugby School, followed by Trinity College Cambridge
(1847-51). Being a non-conformist and unwilling to subscribe to the thirty-nine
articles of the Church of England he was not able to graduate until after the
repeal of the Test Act in 1856. On leaving Cambridge he was made a partner in
his father’s firm of Gibbs, Bright & Co which had recently started the
Eagle Line packet-ship service to Australia using Brunel’s famous Great
Britain converted into a four-master using auxiliary steam.
He seems to
have played a minimal part in the running of the business but busied himself
with other pursuits, He was a prolific writer, publishing in the Athenaeum
for over a decade, and pieces for religious publications such as the Unitarian Enquirer,
the Christian Reformer and Christian Life. A member of a number
of literary societies he produced several significant papers of literature and
history and a book on his family history The Brights of Colwall (1872).
The only book which was well-known at the time was A Year in a Lancashire
Garden (1879) subsequently republished as A Year in a Victorian Garden.
In 1852, on
a visit to the USA, Bright met the celebrated writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and
their friendship continued when he was made American Consul in Liverpool. He
learned from Hawthorne of the brutal treatment meted out to American sailors
and was moved to involve himself in work on behalf of seamen. He was elected
chairman of the Sailors’ Home in Canning Place in 1867 and 1877 and was
credited with bringing about the opening of a dispensary opposite the Sailors’ Home
in1877, and the opening of a second home, in Luton Street in 1878.
In 1861 Henry
Bright married Mary Elizabeth Thompson. Initially living at Needwood House,
Laurel Road L7, in 1869 he built a substantial mansion, Ashfield,
located in Thomas Lane, Knotty Ash L14. In 1921 the Bright family bequeathed
the house to the city of Liverpool on condition that it was held in trust to be
used as a home for ‘girls of feeble mind’. The house was renamed
Thingwall House and remained in use until the 1990’s. There then followed many
years of discussion and proposals for its future, during which the building
became dilapidated and the extensive grounds overrun. At one time Ken Dodd, who
lived nearby, wanted it to become a museum of comedy, offering his own
collection of artefacts. In the end, following a fire caused by arson, the building
was demolished in 2004 and now only the lodge remains.
In 1882, his
health declining, Bright moved to France hoping the climate would improve his
condition. He returned to Liverpool in 1884, dying at Ashfield on the 5th
of May. His estate was valued at £45,552
(about £7 million in 2022).
In his
monumental work, Liverpool’s Legion of Honour [1893] B. Guinness Orchard
described him as “a man of rare talent, culture and refinement”.
