‘This Tribune of the People, this Uncrowned King of Britain’: Horatio Bottomley – Shame, the Public Sphere and the Betrayal of Populism

Abstract

The growth of newspapers and the consumption of the many and various products they frequently contained became a vibrant and thriving culture by the second decade of the twentieth century. This commercial world was an embryo culture that was ripe for exploitation and this duly arrived in the shape of Horatio Bottomley. Using the credulity of those who followed the world through newspapers and their stories Bottomley defrauded many out of significant sums during the Edwardian mining boom. After several close shaves he eventually decided defrauding the many out of much smaller sums was a safer and more profitable form of enterprise. Through his own newspaper clubs and competitions he attracted considerable sums of money which inevitably were used to bail out his previous fraudulent schemes. Bottomley was eventually brought down and shamed by his flagrant disregard for the important new sacred cause after the First World War. Defrauding ex-servicemen and their widows made him a pariah and his whole fraudulent career became subject to scrutiny.