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Horatio Bottomley was born in Bethnal Green, London, on 23 March 1860. He spent 14 years growing up in an orphanage, and then joined a firm of legal shorthand writers where he learnt something about the court system. His first personal experience of the courts was in 1885 where he personally defended a printing and publishing firm of his from bankruptcy and the fact that substantial funds were missing from its accounts.

He then moved on to promoting Western Australian gold mining projects, some genuine, but others based on misrepresentation and fraud. He then moved on to British stocks. He founded the Financial Times and was its first Chairman as a means of puffing his projects. In 1908 he was charged with conspiracy to defraud, but the chaos of his record systems prevented a conviction, and instead he was forced into bankruptcy in 19121912 is a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar) Events January 1 Establishment of Republic of China. January 6 New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U. January 17 British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four begin the, forcing him out of ParliamentThe Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme (it alone has parliamentary sovereignty) legislative institution in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories. At its head is the Sovereign; it also includ where he had been a LiberalThe Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which wo MP since 1905Events January-April January 22 Massacre of Russian demonstrators at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, one of the triggers of the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905. January 26 The Cullinan Diamond is found near Pretoria, South Africa at the Premier.

In World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of he established the patriotic journal John BullWorld War 1 recruiting poster For real people with this name, see: John Bull (disambiguation). John Bull is a literary and cartoon character created to personify Britain by Dr. John Arbuthnot in 1712 and popularized first by British print makers and then, spoke on many recruiting platforms (taking a large fee for doing so), pressed for a more aggressive prosecution of the war, and attacked anybody he deemed less patriotic than himself. In 1918Events January January 8 President Woodrow Wilson announces his " Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I. February February 3 The Twin Peaks Tunnel begins service in San Francisco as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world (11,920 feet long). he returned to Parliament as an Independent MP (with almost 80% of the vote). He created the "John Bull Victory Bond Club" (a forerunner of Premium BondA Premium Bond is a bond issued by the United Kingdom government's National Savings & Investments scheme. The government promises to buy back the bond on request for its original price. The government pays interest on the bond, but instead of the interests) as a mechanism for small savers to lend money to the Government, receiving prizes rather than interest; again a combination of fraud and mismanagement sank the scheme in 1921. He was charged with fraud, and the following year he was convicted, sentenced to seven years and expelled from Parliament.

A famous story says that a prison visitor found him making mailsacks and asked him "Bottomley! Sewing?" to which he replied "No, reaping". He was released from jail in 1927 and died in penury on 26 May 1933.