Eunice Kate Watts (née Nowlan; – 25 February 1924) was a British

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 si ...

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'' Madalyn Murray O'Hair, ''Biography of Charles Watts'', American Atheists
/ref> Watts rose to prominence for her opposition to then NSS President & Founder

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, Br ...

's involvement in the

Knowlton Trial Knowlton may refer to: People *Knowlton (surname), any of several people with the surname *Justice Knowlton (disambiguation) * Knowlton Ames (1868-1931), US athlete in football * Knowlton Nash (1927-2014), Canadian newsman * E. Knowlton Fogg (1837 ...

, and was one of the founding members of the

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 memb ...

, the rival to Bradlaugh's NSS. In 1877 she wrote ''Reply to Mr Bradlaugh'' outlining her opposition, which centred on the internal politics of the secular movement and her desire to disassociate secularism with "sexual immorality" of the

Owenite Owenism is the utopian socialist philosophy of 19th-century social reformer Robert Owen and his followers and successors, who are known as Owenites. Owenism aimed for radical reform of society and is considered a forerunner of the cooperative mo ...

movement. She nonetheless indicated that she supported the need for birth control and sex education.

References

1848 births 1924 deaths British secularists English feminists Place of death missing {{UK-activist-stub