Horatio Bottomley and the Far Right Before Fascism (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right)

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We have remained silent with regard to certain facts which have been in our possession for a long time. First of all, we knew that he was registered as James MacDonald Ramsay – and that, therefore, he had obtained admission to the House of Commons in false colours, and was probably liable to heavy penalties to have his election declared void. But to have disclosed this state of things would have imposed upon us a very painful and unsavoury duty. We should have been compelled to produce the man’s birth certificate. And that should have revealed what today we are justified in revealing – for the reason we will state in a moment. It would have revealed “James Ramsay Macdonald”, MP for Leicester, late “leader” of the Labour Party, late member of a Royal Commission, under the seal of His Majesty, the leading light of the “Union of Democratic Control” – libeller and slanderer of his country – it would have revealed him as the illegitimate son of a Scotch servant girl.” In one respect at least, Horatio Bottomley resembled many of the most notable - and some of the most notorious - men in history. After every big physical and mental effort, whether in finance, the law, public oratory, journalism, or politics, he turned with unfailing regularity to the fair sex for solace, oblivion, and refreshment. Domestic Servants". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Hansard online. 25 August 1909. pp.col. 2092. Archived from the original on 26 March 2016 . Retrieved 2 July 2016.

Alvin Sullivan, ed. British Literary Magazines: The Romantic Age, 1789–1836. Greenwood Press, 1983, pp. 203–207. A prisoner in the prison in which many years ago I worked as a doctor came into my consulting room with a volume of Wittgenstein under his arm.

I confess that such a series of transactions [as Bottomley’s] as it has been my duty to travel through in this case I have never seen before. In the course of a somewhat long professional life I have known many Company-mongers, many Company promoters, and many dealers in shares, but I confess I have never seen a transaction which has impressed me more deeply than this one.

Mr Bottomley Expelled the House". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Hansard online. 1 August 1922. pp.col. 1285–88. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016 . Retrieved 2 July 2016.

Bottomley's obituaries dwelt on the common theme of wasted talent: a man of brilliant natural abilities, destroyed by greed and vanity. "He had personal magnetism, eloquence, and the power to convince", wrote his Daily Mail obituarist. "He might have been a leader at the Bar, a captain of industry, a great journalist. He might have been almost anything". [147] The Straits Times of Singapore thought that Bottomley could have rivalled Lloyd George as a national leader: "Though he deserved his fate, the news of his passing will awaken the many regrets for the good which he did when he was Bottomley the reformer and crusader and the champion of the bottom dog". [148] A later historian, Maurice Cowling, pays tribute to Bottomley's capacity and industry, and to his forceful campaigns in support of liberty. [108] In his sketch for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Morris delivers a different judgement: "[H]e claimed to serve the interests of others, but sought only his own gratification". [2]