Born in 1860, Horatio Bottomley lost both his parents by 1865 and spent five years in an orphanage in Birmingham. He became an office boy in a firm of solicitors, and by the age of 23 was a partner in a transcription firm. Over a career spanning four decades he would find fame (and notoriety) as a company promoter and proprietor of the ultra-nationalistic magazine John Bull. Despite several bankruptcies, his skills as an orator saw him elected to Parliament twice and he was considered for a cabinet post.
What was the scam?
What happened next?
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