John Bedford Leno - A Second English Civil War

A Second English Civil War

Gustave Paul Cluseret fled Ireland and arrived in London just after the Reform League's Hyde Park demonstration in 1867. He met a dozen members of the Reform League, including John Bedford Leno, in a private room of the "White Horse" in Rathbone Place. He proposed that they create civil war in England and offered the service of two thousand sworn members of the Fenian body, and that he would act as their leader.

John Bedford Leno was the first to reply and denounced the proposal, stating that it would surely lead to their "discomfiture and transportation", and added that the government would surely hear of the plot. During subsequent speeches Leno noticed that only a matchboard partition divided the room they occupied, with another adjoining room, and that voices could be heard on the other side. Leno declared his intention to leave at once, the others agreed, and the room was soon cleared. The next day the meeting was fully reported in the Times, although Leno's speech had been attributed to George Odger, who had in fact supported Cluseret's proposal. Leno concluded that there had been a leak and that the traitor had been none other than Robert Hartwell, the editor of The Bee-Hive journal.

John Bedford Leno was fully satisfied with the success of the Reform League and, being opposed to unnecessary violence, bitterly opposed the interference of Cluseret, as did most of the other members of the Reform League. Cluseret's "call to arms" was rejected and he left England for Paris to start his War of the Commune.