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Bamberger, Édouard Adrien

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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French deputy and physician; born at Strasburg Sept. 25, 1825. After obtaining the degree of B. A. in 1843 he devoted himself to medicine, in which he obtained a doctor's degree in 1847. Although active in the medical profession, he devoted himself to philosophy and general literature. He moved to Metz in 1858, and in 1867 he was elected member and later vice-president of its Educational League, before which he delivered a great number of lectures on philosophy, science, and hygiene. He also contributed to divers journals essays advocating compulsory education, abolition of capital punishment, and freedom in thought. Attached as he was to republican ideas, he strenuously opposed the policy of Napoleon III. and indicated its dangers. At the election of a national assembly to consider the peace preliminaries of Feb. 8, 1871, he was elected parliamentary representative for the Moselle district with 33,632 votes. Having voted against the treaty which severed his native country (Alsace-Lorraine) from France, he tendered his resignation, together with his colleagues of the annexed departments. However, after the insurrection of March 18, 1871, following a call of Thiers, he resumed his seat as a deputy at Versailles. At the election of Feb. 20, 1876, he was elected representative for Neuilly-on-the-Seine with 4,893 (of 9,536) votes. He took his seat among the republican majority and voted steadily with them. After May 16, 1877, he was a member of the protesting group of 363, and at the dissolution of Parliament (by MacMahon) he was reelected Oct. 14, 1877, in the second parliamentary district (conscription) of St. Denis, with the strong vote of 8,871 against 3,204 obtained by his opponent, Pierre Leonce Detroyat, editor of "Liberté," a Bonapartist paper. But at the elections of August, 1881, owing to the indifference of a certain number of moderate republicans, he was defeated by his opponent, Dr. Villeneuve, a socialist and communard. In 1881 Bamberger was appointed assistant librarian to the Museum of Natural History, which position he has since occupied.

Although detached from practical Judaism, Bamberger has remained a Jew by conviction, and never concealed the religion in which he was born. During the parliamentary debates on the law concerning child-labor he urged that Jewish apprentices be exempt from working on Saturday. His amendment was, however, rejected. Bamberger published: "Etude sur le Travail des Enfants dans les Manufactures" (1873-74); "Etude sur le Socialisme en Russie," etc.