Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Bright, James Franck
BRIGHT, JAMES FRANCK (1832-1920), master of University College, Oxford, was born in London 29 May 1832, the second son of Richard Bright, M.D. [q.v.], the discoverer of the true causes and nature of ‘Bright’s disease’. His mother, his father’s second wife, was Eliza, daughter of Captain Benjamin Follett, of Topsham, Devon, and sister of Sir William Webb Follett [q.v.], solicitor-general in both of Sir Robert Peel’s administrations, and attorney-general in 1844. Bright went in that year to Rugby, which was then under the headmastership of Archibald Tait, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and still inspired with the traditions of Dr. Arnold. There he made some lifelong friendships with men of future mark, more especially with George Joachim Goschen (afterwards Viscount Goschen), Thomas Jex-Blake (subsequently head master of Rugby), and Horace Davey (afterwards Baron Davey of Fernhurst). In 1850 he went up to University College, Oxford, then under the mastership of Dr. Frederick Plumptre, and in December 1854 obtained a first class in the school of law and modern history. He had originally intended to follow his father’s profession of medicine, but finally decided to take holy orders. He was ordained deacon in 1856 and priest in 1876, and became B.D. and D.D. in 1884.
Meanwhile Bright had been offered a temporary post as a junior master at Marlborough College. The head master, Dr. George Cotton [q.v.], was so well pleased with his work that in 1855 he promoted him to the mastership of the modern school, which had just been started. Bright has left an account of the school when Cotton was appointed head master in 1852. ‘It was’, he wrote, ‘in a very bad state: there was a great deal of bullying of a severe character; one boy, for instance, was periodically half-hanged; another tall ruffian used to take a small boy into Savernake forest, and, giving him twelve yards’ start, proceeded to pot him with a pistol.’ There was also a fixed hostility to the masters. The organization of games was scarcely perceptible. The arrangement of the school buildings lent itself to disorder—immense dormitories and schoolrooms in which certain privileged boys were allowed to sit out of school hours, where they cooked illicit meals, but where it was nearly impossible to read or study; and an enormous big-school room, the scene of all sorts of pranks and bullying, into which all the unprivileged were crowded. Something had been done by Cotton with the help of E. S. Beesly and other masters before the arrival of Bright, who at once joined the reformers. He was specially successful in improving the relations between the masters and the boys, in reorganizing the schoolrooms, and in introducing changes after the model of his old school, Rugby. Finding that there was a deficiency of suitable books on English history for boys, Bright also began his well-known History of England. In 1860 he opened Preshute House, the first private house to be established at Marlborough, and in 1864 married Emmeline Theresa, daughter of the Rev. Edmund Dawe Wickham, vicar of Holmwood, Surrey. At Marlborough he remained to see the great prosperity of the school under the new head master, George Granville Bradley [q.v.], appointed in 1858.
Bradley’s departure from Marlborough to University College, Oxford, in 1870 was a great loss to Bright, but it was the death of his wife in 1871 which finally induced him to abandon his school work. She was a very clever, lively woman, who had been of the greatest assistance to him and to whom he was deeply attached. In 1872, therefore, he retired, intending to devote himself to literary work, and especially to the completion of the second volume of his History of England; but in 1873 Bradley offered him the post of lecturer in modern history at University College, with the promise of a fellowship, while Balliol and New College also agreed to add him to their staffs.
When Bright took up his new post (he was elected a fellow in 1874) the condition of University College was not very satisfactory. In the later days of Dr. Plumptre the college had been distinguished rather for athletics, especially on the river, than for success in the schools. Dr. Bradley had therefore raised the standard of the entrance examination. In consequence many of the sons of the old clientèle had failed to obtain admission, yet the college had not succeeded in attracting many men of high intellectual calibre. The college was therefore declining in numbers and
in reputation, while the relations between the tutors and the undergraduates were by no means friendly. Among other insubordinate practices in fashion was that of screwing up the dons in their rooms. In time, however, Bradley’s reforms had due effect, and in the revival of the prosperity of the college the new members whom he added to his staff, especially Bright and Samuel Henry Butcher [q.v.], gave him valuable assistance.
Bright’s character well fitted him for the work of conciliating the undergraduates. With great elevation of mind and high principle he combined a genuine sympathy for every form of wholesome energy, physical and intellectual, and was ever ready with encouragement and advice. In the university Bright took a prominent part in the division of the old school of law and modern history, and in the establishment of intercollegiate lectures open to all members of the university. Adopted first by the modern history tutors, the latter reform was eventually extended to the other faculties, and proved advantageous. If it resulted in some overcrowding of lecture rooms, it undoubtedly improved the character of the lectures by allowing each tutor to devote himself to fewer subjects. Bright’s own lectures, more particularly those on foreign history during the eighteenth century, were well attended, and were appreciated for their breadth of treatment.
So invaluable had been Bright’s work as a tutor, and for some time as dean of the college, that, when Bradley was called to the deanery of Westminster in 1881, Bright was elected to succeed him as master. Henceforth he devoted most of his time to the general administration of the college and to university work, while he spent his leisure moments in completing his History of England. In the improvement of the college he was materially assisted by his great friend Arthur Dendy, bursar of the college, R. W. Macan, who succeeded him as master, and H. M. Burge, eventually bishop of Oxford, his son-in-law. He took a leading part in the conversion of ‘the hall’ and no. 90 High Street into the Durham buildings, in the extension of the dining-hall, and in the restoration of its fine hammer-beam roof. On his retirement from the mastership he appropriated his pension to the assistance of poor students of his college, and in his will left £2,500 for the same purpose.
Bright was an active member of the hebdomadal council of the university. He strenuously supported the proposal, not adopted until 1920, to throw open the theological degrees to others than members of the Church of England, and he was a firm and generous advocate of university education for women. He also took an active part in municipal affairs, and was a member of the city council from 1897 to 1901. He initiated the experiment of a technical school and presented a site in St. Clement’s for the purpose. He was also treasurer of the Radcliffe infirmary (1883-1893).
Bright felt deeply the death (1905) of his sister-in-law, Miss Wickham, who had controlled his house and helped him in his literary work since his wife’s death, and in the following year he resigned his mastership. He retired to Hollow Hill, a house belonging to his son-in-law, William Carr, of Ditchingham Hall, Norfolk. Here he took a leading part in county work as J.P. and poor law guardian. He died 22 October 1920, in his eighty-ninth year. He had four daughters.
Bright was in theology of the progressive school, and in politics a liberal with certain radical tendencies. Although somewhat visionary, changeable in his opinions, and apt at times to be discouraged, it was his moral elevation and his sincerity which earned him general respect, while his affectionate nature endeared him to his friends, who included persons of every shade of religious and political thought.
In addition to his History of England (5 vols., 1875-1904), Bright published Lives of Maria Theresa and Joseph II in the ‘Foreign Statesmen’ series (1897).
[The Times, 25 October 1920; private information; personal knowledge.]