While accompanying her husband on his travels ‘down under’, Dolly broached the subject of Stanley renouncing the American citizenship he had taken in 1885 and reclaiming his British nationality once again. Throughout the tour, well-wishers had enquired why the Queen had not given Stanley any official recognition and he had patiently replied that as an American, he was unable to receive a knighthood or any other title bestowed by the Queen. But in his fiftieth year, Stanley began thinking that a title in front of his name would signify full recognition of his achievements and that it mattered not a jot whether those achievements had been gained by him as a Welshman, Englishman or an American. It would also be nice for Dolly to have a title, and Lady Dorothy Stanley had a pleasing ring to it.
Back in England, Stanley wrote to the Home Secretary asking to resume his British citizenship. A reply informed him that he would need to prove he had spent a total of five years residing in Britain and on checking his diaries, Stanley discovered he had been a resident for five years and ten months. On 20 May 1892, Henry Morton Stanley took the British Oath of Allegiance and became a British subject once again.
Dolly wrote:
Soon after our marriage, I thought of Parliament for Stanley. It seemed to me that one so full of energy, with such administrative power and political foresight, would find in the House of Commons an outlet for his pent-up energy. I also felt he needed men’s society. . . . To be shut up in a London house was certainly no life for Stanley; also, at the back of my mind was the haunting fear of his returning to the Congo. I thought that, once in Parliament, he would be safely anchored. At first he would not hear of it, but his friend, Mr. Alexander Bruce, of Edinburgh, joined me in persuading Stanley to become a Liberal-Unionist candidate for the London constituency of North Lambeth. We went into the battle just ten days before polling day. We were quite ignorant of electioneering, and I must say we had a dreadful ten days of it.
North Lambeth was one of London’s largest working-class constituencies, extending from York Road, directly opposite Richmond Terrace on the other side of the River Thames, to Crystal Palace.
On 20 June 1892, Stanley told his journal: ‘Have consented to contest the constituency against Alderman Coldwells, Radical. I accepted because D. is so eager for me to be employed, lest I fly away to Africa.’ In a printed address, Stanley informed the electorate:
I am, as you know, a man of the people. Whatever I have achieved in life has been achieved by my own hard work, with no help from privilege, or favour of any kind. My strongest sympathies are with the working classes . . . and if you will do me the honour to return me to parliament, I promise to be active and faithful in the discharge of my duties to my constituency.
On 27 June Stanley addressed voters from a cart in Lambeth High Street. Dolly was thrilled to see him attempting to get so close to the people he hoped to represent in Parliament. For his part, Stanley hated the experience and swore he would never again appear in such an undignified fashion.
Two days later he held an election meeting at Hawkeston Hall, Lambeth where the great explorer was howled down by an organised rabble of costermongers imported by Alderman Coldwells for the purpose of frightening off his political rival. A ringleader was stationed in the gallery where he used a folded newspaper to signal a new round of interruptions to his henchmen to make as much noise as possible. At one stage Dolly, who shared the platform with her husband, stood up and yelled at the rabble: ‘When all of you and I are dead and forgotten, the name of Stanley will live, revered and loved.’ Few people heard her. The platform was stormed and Stanley and Dolly fled from the hall. When they attempted to climb into their brougham and drive away, the mob held on to the door of the carriage and tore it off.
Stanley was shaken, having thought that the election would bring him a landslide victory based on his reputation and a few public appearances. If this sort of disturbance had happened in Africa, he would have reached for his Winchester or his whip and fought his way out of trouble. But this was an altogether different – and dirtier – game and one totally unfamiliar to him. For once, Stanley was relieved to be beaten, even though the majority against him was only 130. ‘I have been through some stiff scenes in my life, but I never fell so low in my estimation as I fell that day; to stand there being slighted, insulted by venomous tongues every second, and yet to feel how hopeless, nay impossible, retort was and to realise that I had voluntarily put myself in a position to be bespattered with as much foul reproaches as those ignorant fools chose to fling at me,’ Stanley recalled.
Dolly persuaded him to remain a Liberal-Unionist candidate and he faint-heartedly agreed, thinking he would not have to face another election for a further four years. His only condition was that he would ‘never ask for a vote, never do any silly personal canvassing in high streets or by-streets, never to address open-air meetings, cart or wagon work, or to put myself in any position where I can be baited like a bull in the ring. The honour of MP is not worth it.’ At occasional meetings he spoke about Empire, duty, commerce, home rule in Ireland, the great opportunities offered to Britain by Africa and how railways would transform the dark continent. He took trouble with his speeches, even though Dolly often wished he had ‘greater and better-educated audiences’ to hear them.
In January 1893, Stanley wrote to Dolly from Cambridge where he was lecturing:
Having announced my intention of standing again as candidate for N. Lambeth, I propose doing so, of course, for your sake; but after my experience in North Lambeth you must not expect any enthusiasm, any of that perseverant energy, which I may have shown elsewhere, and which I still show in an honourable sphere. But this political work involves lying, back-biting, morally damaging your opponent in the eyes of the voters, giving and receiving wordy abuse, which reminds me of English village squabbles; and I cannot find the courage either to open my lips against my opponent or to put myself in a position to receive from him and his mindless myrmidons that filthy abuse they are only too eager to give. . . . Six or seven years ago I was a different man altogether, but this last expedition has sapped my delight in the rude enjoyment of life, though never at any time could I have looked upon electioneering as enjoyable. The whole business seems to be degrading.
To remain busy, Stanley spent time lecturing, producing a book of African short stories called Tales from Africa every bit as good as Kipling’s Jungle Book and starting work on his memoirs, which he intended to be the only true account of his life. In its pages he planned to confess the full story of his birth in Wales, workhouse upbringing, childhood, escape to New Orleans, his meeting with Henry Hope Stanley, role in the Civil War, life as a frontier reporter and foreign correspondent, and to describe in detail the search for Livingstone and his subsequent adventures in Africa, ending with the relief of Emin Pasha and marriage to Dolly. But the prospect of going back over his life and recalling so much that was painful was gruelling and he found the work difficult, picking up his pen only occasionally to write when he could summon sufficient energy.
Parliament was dissolved in June 1895 and Stanley reluctantly prepared for another election battle, which he half hoped he would lose again. Dolly had other ideas. ‘I realised that since usage and custom demanded that the Parliamentary candidate shall call on the voters, and that Stanley positively, and I think rightly, refused to do so, we were in danger of losing the constituency,’ she wrote. ‘I realised that whichever way the workingman means to vote, he likes to feel he has something you want, something he can give. He likes even to refuse you, and oblige you to listen to his views and his principles. So, if you do not choose to go and kow-tow before him, he puts you down as “no good” or, at any rate, “not my sort”. After our defeat, therefore, in 1892, I resolved to “nurse” North Lambeth, since that is the accepted term, and to do so in my own way.’
Dolly threw herself into the election campaign, occasionally joined by her famous husband. They used committee rooms in Westminster Bridge Road as campaign headquarters and Dolly persuaded ladies from the Conservative Association to help with canvassing. On 10 July 1895, the Evening Standard reported: ‘Mr. H.M. Stanley paid early visits to his committee rooms today and was met with a cordial greeting. The meetings on Mr. Stanley’s behalf have so far been marked by great enthusiasm and have been very different from those of 1892, which were characterised by disgraceful radical rowdyism.’
On the eve of the election, a leading Liberal journal wrote that ‘Mr. Stanley’s course through Africa has been like that of a red hot poker drawn across a blanket and that he nightly sleeps on a pillow steeped in blood.’ On election day itself the Evening Standard reported: ‘There are no lack of canvassers for the Unionist candidate. There are several smart equipages in the district in the interests of Mr. Stanley and small trades people in Lambeth Walk and New Cut have brought out their traps and even coster barrows to convey voters to the poll. Mr. Stanley is assisted by a large and enthusiastic body of workers, amongst whom, by no means the least powerful ally, is Mrs. Stanley.’
When the polls closed, Stanley returned to Richmond Terrace while Dolly remained at the committee rooms as votes were counted. Late into the night she crept upstairs to a dark, empty attic, from where she could see the victory signal posted in the night sky from the returning office half a mile away – a red flash confirming they had won or a blue flash if the Radical candidate was returned.
‘As I knelt by the low window, looking out on the confused mass of roofs and chimneys, hardly distinguishable against the dark sky, I thought passionately of how I had worked and striven for this day; that because Stanley had consented to stand again, I had vowed (if it were possible, by personal effort, to help towards it) that he should be returned. I felt how great he was and I prayed that he might not be defeated and might keep him from returning to Africa,’ Dolly recalled.
The hours passed and Dolly began to doze. Suddenly ‘the sky flushed pink over the roofs,’ she recalled, ‘to the west a rosy fog seemed gently to rise, and creep over the sky; and soon, a distant, tumultuous roar came rolling like an incoming tide and I went down to meet Stanley.’ Stanley polled 2,878 votes while his opponent, C.P. Trevelyan (Labour) polled 2,473 – giving Stanley a majority of 405.
Downstairs, the committee rooms were starting to fill with cheering supporters. The door burst open and a group of men entered with Stanley in their midst ‘looking white and very stern. . . . He was seized, and swung up like a feather, on men’s shoulders and carried to a table at the further end of the room. As he passed me, I caught his hand; it was so cold, it seemed to freeze mine. He was called upon for a speech. “Speak to us Stanley,” was shouted. Stanley merely drew himself up and with a steady look, very characteristic, said quietly, “Gentlemen, I thank you and now good night.”’
Minutes later Stanley and Dolly were seated in a hansom cab making its way over Westminster Bridge towards Richmond Terrace. During the drive, they did not speak. In the hall of their home, Dolly thought he would say something about the victory, but he only smiled and said, ‘I think we both need a rest; and now for a pipe.’
Dolly was exhausted. The election campaign had been the hardest work she had ever undertaken and she fled to France for a rest, leaving Stanley behind in London for the 12 August 1895 opening of the fourteenth Parliament of Queen Victoria’s reign, with Arthur Balfour as its Prime Minister.
The journey from Richmond Terrace to the Houses of Parliament was less than three minutes by hansom cab, but Stanley decided that his new political role demanded purchase of a cab of his own to ferry him to and from the Palace of Westminster, across the river to his constituency and to the various clubs and institutions he had joined. The sophisticated black carriage, inscribed with the initials ‘HMS’ on the door, whisked Stanley around London in comfort as he sat back in the black leather, horsehair seat. He used the cab to make his parliamentary debut, arriving early to be met by a large crowd of well-wishers eager to cheer their new MP. On his way into the chamber, the doorkeeper greeted him with the words: ‘Mr Stanley, I presume?’
Stanley hated life as an MP. At the end of his first week as the member for North Lambeth, he was writing that the atmosphere in the House during the summer ‘is simply poisonous. I do not wonder, now, at the pasty, House of Commons complexion; 400 people breathing for ten or eleven hours the air of one room must vitiate it. Then my late hours, 2 and 3 a.m. simply torture to me. . . .’ He despised parliamentary business conducted ‘in a shilly-shally manner, which makes one groan at the waste of life. . . . It has become clearer to me, each day, that I am too old to change my open-air habits for the asphyxiating atmosphere of the House of Commons.’ Constituency business was ‘wearying’, requiring him to correspond with ‘hundreds of people I am unacquainted with, but who insist on receiving replies. This correspondence alone, entails a good three-hours’ work each day. The demands of the constituents consume, on average, another two hours. The House opens at 3 p.m. and business continues to any hour between midnight and 3 a.m. It is therefore impossible to obtain air or exercise.’
Stanley had hoped that his African experience and knowledge might make him useful during debates, but confessed that ‘I have, as a Member, less influence than the man in the street. On questions concerning Africa, someone wholly unacquainted with the continent, would be called upon to speak before me. I have far less influence than any writer in a daily newspaper; for he can make his living presence in the world felt, and, possibly, have some influence for good: whereas I, in common with other respectable fellows, are like dumb dogs. . . . Any illusions that I may have had, illusion that I could serve the Empire, advance Africa’s interests, benefit this country, were quickly dispelled.’
Yet life had its compensations. By 1896 when Stanley was aged fifty-five and Dolly forty-five, they decided to adopt a baby. They agreed the child should be an orphaned boy from Denbigh; a child who would benefit from two things denied to Stanley as a boy – loving parents and a home. The child was named Denzil Morton Stanley and, according to Dolly, her husband was ‘greatly rejoiced’ at the arrival of the little boy. He rushed out and bought picture books and toys more suited to a four year old, so great was his happiness at having a child at Richmond Terrace. He was baptised using water from Lake Albert which Stanley had brought back in a bottle years before.
Later in 1896 when Stanley was stricken with gastritis complicated by malaria, he loved to have baby Denzil placed beside him on the bed. One day when the child was there, Stanley looked to Dolly and said: ‘Ah, it is worthwhile now – to get well!’ Bouts of illness arrived without warning and with such intensity that his breathing was impeded. During malaria attacks, shivering preceding the hot stage was so violent that the bed he lay on would shake and the glasses on his bedside table vibrate and ring. Sometimes on a hot day, Dolly would come into the house after taking Denzil for a walk and find Stanley not in his study. She would rush upstairs to discover him in bed, covered in blankets, quilts and overcoats, his teeth chattering and pleading for hot-water bottles. Such was Africa’s legacy.
The pharmacist, Henry Wellcome, was a regular visitor to Richmond Terrace and brought quinine, instructing Dolly how to prepare 25 grains with a drop of Madeira – and then wait. At this time, Dolly wrote: ‘I vowed in my heart that he should never return to the country which had taken so much of his splendid vitality.’
To recuperate, Stanley and Dolly journeyed to Spain, visiting scenes he had covered as a young correspondent. While travelling on a train from Madrid, Stanley again suffered an attack of gastritis. When they arrived at midnight, he was in pain and hardly conscious. Dolly spoke no Spanish and knew no one in Madrid, so checked him into the nearest hotel and went in search of a doctor – but there was little that could be done. Day by day he grew weaker and in desperation, Dolly decided to take him home to England. By the time they reached Paris, Stanley had begun to recover and for the next two days he was free of pain, but spasms returned with redoubled violence ‘and it was with the greatest of difficulty that I succeeded in getting him back to our home in London’.
Dolly spent three months nursing Stanley. He accepted the pain and weakness, silently and stoically. Occasionally it returned – Dolly knew by the sound of Stanley’s voice when he called in the dead of night that the pain had come back. He was placed on a starvation diet, enfeebling him to such an extent he was unable to sit up in bed. The doctor changed his treatment, arranged for a masseur to come to the house each day to stimulate his now wasted limbs and ordered him to eat properly. By the end of 1896, his health had returned.
Later, writing to Dolly from Brighton, Stanley told his wife:
Warmest greetings to darling little Denzil, our own cherub! Possibly, I think too much of him. If I were not busy with work and other things, I should undoubtedly dwell too much on him, for, as I take my constitutional, I really am scarce conscious that I am in Brighton. For, look where I may, his beautiful features, lightened up with a sunny smile, come before my eyes all the time! I see him in your arms and I marvel at my great happiness in possessing you two! Believe it or not, as you like, but my heart is full of thankfulness that I have been so blessed. Denzil is now inseparable from you – and you from him – and together you complete the once vague figure of what I wished; and now the secret of my inward thoughts is realised, a pre-natal vision, embodied in actual existence.
Stanley had made up his mind not to stand for a second term in Parliament. Apart from the occasional speech about the importance of railways in Africa, he had hardly uttered a word from the floor of the House and his views were rarely sought. He could have been vocal on a number of issues: African trade, slavery and workhouses, but he chose not to be. The energy such issues required was simply not there and when he left Parliament in May 1898, he was ‘glad at the prospect of retiring and being quit of it all’.