ver--at the age of fifteen--there was no question
of the University: a rigorous life awaited him and he began at once to
work in his father's business. The mill stood close beside his father's
house at Greenbank near Rochdale, some ten miles northward from
Manchester, and had been built in 1809 by Jacob Bright, out of a capital
lent to him by two members of the Society of Friends. Here he received
bales of new cotton by canal or from carriers, span it in his mill, and
gave out the warp and weft thus manufactured to handloom weavers, whom
he paid by the piece to weave it in the weaving chamber at the top of
their own houses. He then sold the fully manufactured article in
Manchester or elsewhere. In such surroundings, many a clever boy has
developed into a hard-headed prosperous business man; material interests
have cased in his soul, and he has been content to limit his thoughts to
buying and selling, to the affairs of his factory and his town, and he
has heard no call to other fields of work. But John Bright's education
in books and in life was only just beginning, and though it may be
regrettable that he missed the leisured freedom of university life, we
must own that he really made good the loss by his own effort (and that
without neglecting the work of the mill), and thereby did much to
strengthen the independence of his character.

In the mill he was the earliest riser, and often spent hours before
breakfast at his books. History and poetry were his favourite reading,
and periodicals dealing with social and political questions; his taste
was severe and had the happiest effect in chastening his oratorical
style. To him, as to the earnest Puritans of the seventeenth century,
the Bible and Milton were a peculiar joy; no other stories were so
moving, no other music so thrilling to the ear. In his family there was
no want of good talk. His mother, who died in 1830, was a woman of great
gifts, who helped largely in developing the minds of her children.
After her death John continued to live with his sisters, who were clever
and original in mind, becoming the leader in the home circle, where
views were freely exchanged on the questions of the day.

The Society of Friends was adverse to political discussion, as
interfering with the religious life. But the Brights could not be kept
from such a field of interest; and during these years theirs, like many
other quiet homes, was stirred by the excitement roused by the fortunes