Chapter IX

A BLIND MAN WHO BECAME POSTMASTER-GENERAL OF ENGLAND.

On August 26th, 1833, just four years before Queen Victoria began to reign, Henry Fawcett was born at Salisbury, England. He was sent to a Dame's school where he did not get on very well. The teacher said that he had a head like a colander, and he was so slow in learning his lessons that he became known as the dunce of the class. Young Harry himself admitted that he did not enjoy school. He loved to be out in the open and in the woods, but he went like a snail, unwillingly, to school.

There was one thing which never failed him and that was his appetite. He was always complaining that he did not get enough to eat. When his family moved away from Salisbury Harry went to a boarding-school, and in nearly every letter he wrote home he said he was nearly starving. In one letter to his mother he said: "Please, when the family has quite finished with the ham bone, send it on to me." However, in spite of his complaints, he grew stronger and bigger every day, until by the time he was ten he was several inches taller than his school mates of his own age.

When he was fourteen he was sent to a school known as Queenwood College and he began to take more interest in his studies. He worked hard while at this school and when he was nineteen he entered the famous Cambridge University. Henry Fawcett was popular with the other students from the first day that he entered Cambridge. He was very tall--over six feet three inches in height--and he moved around the college halls and over the campus with enormous long strides. He had an exceedingly happy and good-natured disposition and was welcome everywhere.

His greatest ambition in life was to fit himself for service as a member of the British Parliament. He desired to enter Parliament for no other reason than that of serving his fellowmen. There were so many laws which seemed to him to be cruel and unjust; so many heavy burdens weighing upon the shoulders of the poorer classes, that he longed with all his heart to be in a position where he could help to make things better.

In order to fit himself for Parliament he began to study law, but he had considerable trouble with his eyes. This was so serious that he was forbidden to do any reading until they were better. He did not complain, but obeyed the physician's orders. He went to stay with his family at Salisbury. It was during this visit that a terrible thing happened. On the morning of September 15, of 1858, he and his father began to climb Harnham Hill, from which a very fine view of the surrounding country could be obtained. Both father and son had their guns, for they hoped to secure some partridge. As they were crossing a field, Henry advanced in front of his father. A partridge arose and the father, who did not see just how near Henry was, fired, and some of the stray shot entered Henry's eyes, and from that moment until his death he was totally blind.

Henry Fawcett was just twenty-five when this terrible accident happened. He was taken back to his father's house in a cart. He remained perfectly calm as he listened to the doctor's verdict. The curtain had fallen and never again could he see the things which other people saw, nor read the books and papers he so dearly loved. But from that day until his death, twenty-six years later, no one ever heard him complain nor give any outward sign of the terrible disappointment which he must have felt. He did not wish people to openly sympathize with him, and the scores of letters which he received from well-meaning people, intended to console him in his misfortune, really gave him pain. He wanted people to forget that he was blind and treat him as one of themselves.

He straightway determined that he would continue to prepare himself to serve the people in Parliament. He knew that he was handicapped, in such manner as perhaps no other statesman had ever been, still he showed a courage and perseverance which was extraordinary.

Soon after his accident he began to walk about in the open. He naturally stumbled at his first step. When some one caught him by the arm to pick him up he said: "Leave me alone; I've got to learn to walk without seeing and I mean to begin at once--only tell me when I am going off the road."

All who knew Henry Fawcett at this time bear witness to his amazing courage and cheerfulness. If he had a heavy heart, he said nothing of it to others. Especially was this true in his relations with his father and mother. Whenever he was with them he was the life of the home, full of mischief as a schoolboy, and with a hearty laugh that made the house ring. "I want to live to be ninety," he said, and he meant it. He was the soul of kindness and good nature. No one ever knew him to say a cruel or unkind thing, or to spread a report that would injure any one. Throughout his life he sought to promote good-will and understanding and he was never happier than when he was helping some one who was in difficulty.

He had a remarkable memory for voices--that is a faculty which often becomes acute in blind people. It was said of him that if he heard a voice once he never forgot it. Sometimes when spoken to by a person whom he had not heard for many years, a puzzled look would cross his face, but it would suddenly clear up as he called the person by name. His sense of hearing became so keen that he could tell when his friends were not feeling as well as usual from their voices. Often he would startle them by saying: "What's the matter with you to-day, you're looking pale?" A man who had not been near him for twenty years once spoke to him and without a moment's hesitation Fawcett called him by name.

Henry Fawcett made two unsuccessful attempts to enter Parliament. He was defeated in Cambridge in 1863 by only eighty-one votes and a few months later he was defeated in Brighton. Many people voted against him because they thought that blindness was too severe a handicap for any man to become really useful in that great assembly. He himself did not think so, however, and he made a third attempt in 1865--when he was thirty-two years of age--and this time he was elected.

It was a proud day for Henry Fawcett when he entered Parliament. After he became blind no one, not even those who loved him most, believed that it was possible. Only a determination that absolutely refused to be thwarted, made his election possible.

Surrounded by many of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth century, the blind man quietly took his place in Parliament. During his first session there he said very little. He had to learn the ways of Parliament, which is a difficult task for any one, and made much harder in his case. He made his first speech in March, 1866. Unlike most men he had no notes to help him. He had to rely altogether upon his fine memory. His speech was listened to with rapt attention. The picture of this tall, sightless man with earnest voice and manner, cast a spell over the House, and even those who disagreed with him were deeply impressed by his fine appearance and earnest manner.

In the years which followed Henry Fawcett made a great many speeches in Parliament. He was by no means a silent member. In every good cause which came up for discussion his voice was heard, and always on the side of those who needed help. Not only the struggling people of the British Isles interested him, but for several years he fought very hard on behalf of the poor people in far-off India. He became such a champion of the Indians that he was nicknamed, "The member for India," and he received many letters expressing deep gratitude from those people whom he could never hope to see.

He entered into a great many political battles, but there was one thing which even his opponents admitted; that was he never sought anything for himself. He laboured hard to help those whose lot he considered was less fortunate than his own.

In 1880 Henry Fawcett was made Postmaster-General of England, a position of very great importance and responsibility. There were over ninety thousand employees under the administration of the postoffice.

One bright spring day Henry Fawcett took up his duties at the General Post Office. He was introduced to the heads of the various departments and to those next in rank. As he began to warmly shake the hands of all to whom he was being introduced, some one whispered to him, "It is not usual for Her Majesty's Postmaster-General to shake hands with any one in the office below the rank of head of a department." It took a good deal to make Henry Fawcett indignant, but that remark pretty nearly did it. He said, "I suppose I am at liberty to make what use I like of my own hands."

He took a very great interest in all who in any way served the Post Office. From the first day that he took over his position he laboured hard to improve working conditions. He interested himself in every employee and nothing ever seemed too much trouble to this blind man of almost infinite patience and sympathy. No doubt his wonderful kindness meant that some took unfair advantage of him, but he found his supreme happiness in realizing that never before in the history of the great English Post-Office system had the work been done so thoroughly and to the satisfaction of the public. One of the great statesmen of that day said that, "The Postoffice could never have a more capable Postmaster-General, nor its officers a truer friend."

In December, 1883, he was taken seriously ill with diphtheria, and this was followed by typhoid fever. For a while his life was despaired of, and it illustrates what a large place in the life of his country the blind man had filled, to know that all England read the bulletins which told of his condition. The Queen herself, telegraphed every day, and sometimes oftener.

Mr. Fawcett recovered from this illness and was soon at work again as hard as ever. The following year he was honoured with degrees from many great universities, including Oxford and Glasgow. Then in November, 1884, he was taken suddenly ill and quietly passed away in the presence of his wife and daughter and several friends. He who had lived in total darkness for nearly thirty years; years in which he was never once heard to murmur or complain, passed into the eternal light of God's presence.

A whole nation mourned deeply when this man of such magnificent courage was laid to rest in the quiet churchyard at Salisbury, where he had been born. Tributes to his memory were paid to him by the greatest in the land. Queen Victoria wrote a most touching letter to his widow, and Hon. W. E. Gladstone said that no man had become more deeply enshrined in the memory of his fellow-countrymen. The terrible handicap of blindness had not prevented Henry Fawcett from becoming one of the greatest men of his generation.