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British Secular Union
The British Secular Union was a secularist organisation, founded in August 1877, primarily as a response to what its founders regarded as the "dictatorial" powers of Charles Bradlaugh as President of the National Secular Society. The founding members were Kate Watts, Harriet Law, George William Foote and Josiah Grimson; George Holyoake had accepted the nomination of Vice President of the National Secular Society so only gave support for the formation.Edward Royle, ''Radicals, Secularists, and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866-1915'', Manchester University Press, 1980, p.18. The group adopted the '' Secular Review'' as their official paper. The British Secular Union had broadly the same goals as the National Secular Society but distanced themselves from Bradlaugh's style, especially when it came to the ''Knowlton Pamphlet'', which advocated birth control.Edward Royle, ''Radicals, Secularists, and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866-1915'', Manchester ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The 60% smaller island of Ireland is to the west—these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, form the British Isles archipelago. Connected to mainland Europe until 9,000 years ago by a landbridge now known as Doggerland, Great Britain has been inhabited by modern humans for around 30,000 years. In 2011, it had a population of about , making it the world's third-most-populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The term "Great Britain" is often used to refer to England, Scotland and Wales, including their component adjoining islands. Great Britain and Northern Ireland now const ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secularist
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations. Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a similar position seeking to remove or to minimize the role of religion in any public sphere. The term "secularism" has a broad range of meanings, and in the most schematic, may encapsulate any stance that promotes the secular in any given context. It may connote anti-clericalism, atheism, naturalism, non-sectarianism, neutrality on topics of religion, or the complete removal of religious symbols from public institutions. As a philosophy, secularism seeks to interpret life based on principles derived solely from the material world, without recourse to religion. It shifts the focus from religion towards "temporal" and material concerns. There are distinct traditions of secularism in the West, like the French, Turkish and Anglo-American mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851. In 1880, Bradlaugh was elected as the Liberal MP for Northampton. His attempt to affirm as an atheist ultimately led to his temporary imprisonment, fines for voting in the House of Commons illegally, and a number of by-elections at which Bradlaugh regained his seat on each occasion. He was finally allowed to take an oath in 1886. Eventually, a parliamentary bill which he proposed became law in 1888, which allowed members of both Houses of Parliament to affirm, if they so wished, when being sworn in. The new law resolved the issue for witnesses in civil and criminal court cases. Early life Born in Hoxton (an area in the East End of London), Bradlaugh was the son of a solicitor's clerk. He left school at the age of eleven and then worked as an off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Secular Society
The National Secular Society (NSS) is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of it. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866. Objectives The NSS, whose motto is "Challenging religious privilege", campaigns for a secular state where there is no established state religion; where religion plays no role in state-funded education, does not interfere with the judicial process nor does it restrict freedom of expression; where the state does not intervene in matters of religious doctrine nor does it promote or fund religious activities, guaranteeing every citizen's freedom to believe, not to believe or to change religion. Although the organisation was explicitly created for those who reject the supernatural, the NSS does not campaign to eradicate or prohibit religion, arguing that freedom of religion, as well as freedom from religi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kate Watts
Eunice Kate Watts (née Nowlan; – 25 February 1924) was a British secularist and feminist writer and lecturer. She was one of the most prominent women active in the British freethought movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She was born in London to William and Eunice Nowlan, a freethinking family. In 1870 she married Charles Watts (after the death of his first wife, Mary Ann), and their daughter Kate Eunice Watts was born in May 1875. She was a committed advocate of female education and emancipation. Her series of articles 'The Education and Position of Women' in the ''Secular Review'' in 1879 argued that women should have the freedom to earn their own living, live in equal terms with their husbands if they chose to marry, and live a single life without fear of social opprobrium. She also wrote the pamphlet ''Christianity: Defective and Unnecessary'' Watts rose to prominence for her opposition to then NSS President & Founder Charles Bradlaugh's involvemen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harriet Law
Harriet Teresa Law (née Frost, 5 November 1831 – 19 July 1897) was a leading British freethinker in 19th-century London. The daughter of a small farmer, she was raised as a "Strict Baptist" but later converted to atheism. She became a salaried speaker for the secularist movement and addressed many often hostile audiences around the country. She was invited to sit on the general council of the First International, the only woman to do so, where she engaged in debate with prominent communists including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. From 1877 to 1878 she published ''The Secular Chronicle'', which covered subjects such as socialism, atheism and women's rights. Early years Harriet Teresa Frost was born in Ongar on 5 November 1831. She was brought up as a Strict Baptist. Her father was a small farmer, but when his business failed he moved with his family to London's East End. Law taught in a Sunday school to bring some income to the family. In the 1850s she began debating with O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George William Foote
George William Foote (11 January 1850 – 17 October 1915) was an English secularist, freethinker, republican, writer and journal editor. Early life George William Foote was born in Plymouth, the son of William Thomas Foot (a customs officer) and Ann Winzar. Career In his ''Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh'' he recalls coming to London in January 1868 with "plenty of health and very little religion". He was taken to Cleveland Hall by a friend, and "heard Mrs. arrietLaw knock the Bible about delightfully. She was not what would be called a woman of culture, but she had what some devotees of 'culchaw' do not posses—a great deal of natural ability..." A few weeks later Foote heard Charles Bradlaugh speaking at the hall. He became involved with the secularism, freethought and republicanism, joining the Young Men's Secular Association, the National Secular Society, and contributing to Bradlaugh's ''National Reformer''. In 1877 Foote joined the anti-Bradlaughites in the break ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Holyoake
George Jacob Holyoake (13 April 1817 – 22 January 1906) was an English secularist, co-operator and newspaper editor. He coined the terms secularism in 1851 and " jingoism" in 1878. He edited a secularist paper, the ''Reasoner'', from 1846 to June 1861, and a co-operative one, ''The English Leader'', in 1864–1867. Early life George Jacob Holyoake was born in Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ..., where his father worked as a whitesmith and his mother as a button maker. He attended a dame school and a Wesleyan Sunday School, began working half-days at the same foundry as his father at the age of eight, and learnt his trade. At 18 he began attending lectures at the Birmingham Mechanics' Institute, where he encountered the socialist writings of Robert Ow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secular Review
''Secular Review'' (1876–1907) was a freethought/secularist weekly publication in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain that appeared under a variety of names. It represented a "relatively moderate style of Secularism," more open to old Owenite and new socialist influences in contrast to the individualism and social conservatism of Charles Bradlaugh and his ''National Reformer''.Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor, eds., ''Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland'' (Academia Press, 2009), p. 566. It was edited during the period 1882–1906 by William Stewart Ross (1844–1906), who signed himself "Saladin." History The journal was founded in August 1876 by George Jacob Holyoake, after he and George William Foote experienced difficulties with their collaborative editorship of the ''Secularist: A Liberal Weekly Review'' (1876–1877). In February 1877, Charles Watts assumed the editorship. A new series was started in June 1877, merging it wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Watts (secularist)
Charles Watts (27 February 1836 – 16 February 1906) was an English writer, lecturer and publisher, who was prominent in the secularist and freethought movements in both Britain and Canada. Life and career He was born in Bristol into a family of Methodists, and showed precocious talents, giving his first lecture at the age of 14. At the age of 16 he moved to London, and worked with his elder brother John Watts (1834-1866) in a printing office. Through this work the two brothers came into contact with freethinkers including Charles Southwell and Charles Bradlaugh. John Watts became an active proselytiser for secularism, and in 1863 was appointed editor of the ''National Reformer'', a radical periodical founded by Bradlaugh, with Charles as assistant editor. In 1864 the brothers formed a publishing business, Watts & Co. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annie Besant
Annie Besant ( Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights activist, educationist, writer, orator, political party member and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human freedom, she was an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule. She was also a prolific author with over three hundred books and pamphlets to her credit. As an educationist, her contributions included being one of the founders of the Banaras Hindu University. For fifteen years, Besant was a public proponent in England of atheism and scientific materialism. Besant's goal was to provide employment, better living conditions, and proper education for the poor. Besant then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society (NSS), as well as a writer, and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877 they were prosecuted for publishing a book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton. The scandal made them famous, and B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birth Control
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only became available in the 20th century. Planning, making available, and using birth control is called family planning. Some cultures limit or discourage access to birth control because they consider it to be morally, religiously, or politically undesirable. The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide guidance on the safety of birth control methods among women with specific medical conditions. The most effective methods of birth control are Sterilization (medicine), sterilization by means of vasectomy in males and tubal ligation in females, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and contraceptive implant, implantable birth control. This is follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
