A Century of Reason: Part 2

The second part of Nicolas Walter‘s history of the Rationalist Press Association, published on the centenary of the RPA in 1999.

Read Part 1.

The Rationalist Press Association had done well during the Second World War, when the demand for serious reading matter was higher than ever before or since, but like other such organisations it found prosperity impossible and survival difficult in the post-war world.

At first there were signs of renewed confidence. In August 1945, as the war was coming to an end, the first Annual Conference was organised. In October 1945 the RPA and South Place resumed the weekly Conway Discussion Circle. In November 1945 the Thinker’s Digest was launched as a quarterly digest of current articles of rationalist interest. In October 1946 the Free Mind was launched as an “Organ of Student Rationalism”. At the end of 1946 a public relations officer was appointed to organise the growing non-publishing activities of the RPA. The steady increase in popular support continued until soon after the death of Charles A. Watts, in May 1946. At the end of 1947, it achieved a total of just over 5,000 members and other subscribers.

When the RPA celebrated its jubilee, in 1949, it had already lost 500 of them, but it could still claim that during the previous fifty years it had sold well over 8 million copies of hundreds of books (including more than 4 million Cheap Reprints and more than 3 million Thinker’s Library), not counting thousands of copies of hundreds of issues of its various periodicals. During that year it published another score of books, including The Story of the RPA, as well as the Rationalist Annual, the monthly Literary Guide, the Thinker’s Digest and the Free Mind, and also held its fourth Annual Conference, sponsored two academic lectureships, organised two outings, encouraged Rationalist organisations in several parts of the country and several other countries, including new student societies, organised courses of lectures and discussion meetings, and held a special Jubilee Dinner and Reunion attended by 200 people.

But during the following half-century the trend tended to be downhill all the way, as more and more ordinary publishers produced the most popular Freethought literature, which left the old specialist publishers behind. The membership declined almost continuously for nearly a decade, falling below 3,000 in 1956; at the same time the deficits in operating costs, which had been negligible during the war, became increasingly alarming, rising over £22,000 in 1952. The Free Mind ended in 1949, and the Thinker’s Digest in 1950. The old publishing company, C. A. Watts & Co., was taken over by the RPA in 1952, but its losses continued to mount. Even the Thinker’s Library proved unprofitable in more competitive conditions, and quietly ceased in 1952 (number 138, a reprint of the first edition of On the Origin of Species, was printed but not published. A more general series, the Thinker’s Forum, which began in 1940, never achieved anything like the same success; and the last venture of Fred Watts, a series of Thrift Books which began in 1951, was a failure. 

Fred Watts, who had had the awkward task of first working for and then succeeding his father, suffered from ill health for several years, and died in 1953. He was succeeded by Hector Hawton, a professional writer and speaker rather than a businessman, who had the awkward task of taking over from two generations of the Watts family. He tried hard to pursue more efficient and effective policies, bringing the organisation up to date as a broader publishing organisation, but he still had difficulty in a rapidly changing environment. The staff were reduced by more than half (the departure in 1954 of Marion Watts, Fred Watts’s younger child, marked the end of the family connection lasting a century). In 1955 the premises in Johnson’s Court, which had been the headquarters of freethought publishing since 1864, were sold for a considerable profit, and for twelve years the RPA rented premises in Drury Lane. Arrangements were made with other publishers to publish its books and periodicals, and in 1960 the Watts company was sold for its tax losses to Isaac Pitman & Son (who launched a New Thinker’s Library, which failed to achieve any more success than the RPA in recalling past success). But there had to be a much more radical shift in attitude and activity if the RPA were not to fade slowly away. An optimistic face was presented to the public in the periodicals and to the membership in the Annual Reports, but the discussions of the Board of Directors and of the various committees repeatedly reverted to the chronic drain in members and funds. Something more was needed to save the organisation, and indeed the movement.

The most important post-war development in the general freethought movement, which profoundly affected the RPA, was the convergence of national and local organisations in the country and indeed around the world under the rubric of Humanism. Harold Blackham, the main figure in the Ethical movement who played a leading part in the formation of the Humanist movement, had succeeded Nellie Freeman as secretary of the Ethical Union in 1943. He was able to rely on the support of the RPA, despite some hesitations, and was himself a director from 1954. Hector Hawton, who had taken the lead in forming the Humanist Council in 1950 while he was secretary of the South Place Ethical Society, was equally strongly committed to Humanism when he was the main figure in the RPA from 1953 to 1972. The two men worked together in the formation of the International Humanist & Ethical Union in 1952. Joseph Reeves, MP, a veteran of the Co-operative and Labour movement, was at the same time a vice-president of the Ethical Union and chairman of the RPA from 1953 to 1964, and he campaigned strongly for convergence if not union among the organisations.

The great change was eventually achieved by the formation of the British Humanist Association, which was the result of the collective efforts of the RPA and the EU at the end of a long and complex process. After working together in the Humanist Council for five years, they formed a Joint Development Committee in 1955. In April 1954 the Literary Guide was re-launched in a more popular form, with a more specialist supplement called the Rationalist Review, and in September 1956 it was renamed The Humanist. For a time the two organisations considered a full merger, but this proved too drastic, and instead, when the Joint Development Committee organised the International Humanist Congress in London in 1957, they jointly sponsored a Humanist Association. The Humanist Council continued to exist, and the Humanist Association was found unworkable, and the next proposal was for a federal union of the main organisations. In 1959 both bodies were replaced by a new Humanist Council. Meanwhile in 1956 the RPA left the World Union of Freethinkers, to which it had belonged since its foundation, and in 1960 it joined the International Humanist & Ethical Union.

The Ethical Union considered changing its name to the British Humanist Association on its own, but in 1961 the two organisations began another attempt to sponsor a joint organisation. One problem was that, while the EU was a registered charity, because of its origins as a technically religious organisation, the RPA was not, because of its different origins as a straight publishing organisation; this would make it difficult if not impossible for them to work in or for the same organisation, but the problem was solved when the RPA successfully became an educational charity in 1962.

This time the two organisations proceeded more carefully. In 1962 they formed a Joint Standing Committee and then a provisional committee of a proposed British Humanist Association. In 1963 the two organisations finally sponsored the British Humanist Association for a trial period of five years, sharing responsibilities and costs. The National Secular Society and the South Place Ethical Society decided not to take part in the new structure, and the Humanist Council soon lapsed.

For a time all went well with the BHA. It achieved considerable publicity in the media and considerable support from sympathetic celebrities, and it appealed to many ordinary people who were interested in humanism but were not attracted by the old organisations. The EU and RPA continued to exist as independent entities — the former specialised in campaigning and group development, and the latter in publishing — and both benefited from the resulting increase in income and membership. The membership of the RPA increased steadily for a decade, rising over 5,000 in 1964; in 1965 the joint total of members and subscribers reached its peak, at 6,600. But there were serious personal and ideological differences between and within the two parent bodies, disagreements about policy and activity, and mutual attempts to dominate the new organisation. One problem was that representatives of the new humanism attempted to take over the RPA, leading to changes in the constitution during the 1960s.

In 1966 it almost came as a relief when the Charity Commission decided to remove from the Register of Charities first the EU and then the BHA, which forced the RPA to withdraw from the latter. In 1967 the Ethical Union finally changed its name to the British Humanist Association, amended its articles, and absorbed the short-lived joint venture. Ironically, the Department of Education made a similar decision to remove the RPA from the Register of Charities in 1971; when attempts to regain charity status were abandoned in 1973, however, the RPA didn’t try to return to the previous arrangement. By that time the BHA had established its new identity and the RPA felt more comfortable on its own, and from then on the two organisations worked side by side as allied but separate organisations. The RPA had suspended its annual conferences to support those of the BHA in 1963, but resumed its own from 1969. In 1967 the RPA acquired its own premises in Islington High Street, and tried to combine bookselling with its publishing activities. The BHA eventually regained charity status in 1983, following the success of the South Place Ethical Society in the Court of Chancery in 1980.

The RPA had profited not only by the formation of the BHA but by the general rise of humanism, and also by the wider spread of liberal and even libertarian ideas and practices in society; but its old problems of falling membership and growing deficits hadn’t been solved. Another attempt was made to transform the still rather traditional specialist propagandist organisation into a more generally progressive publishing and campaigning body. When Hector Hawton retired, in 1971, he was succeeded as editor (though not as manager) by Christopher Macy, a much younger man who had worked as publicity manager and now took the task of modernising the RPA. This was an ambitious, perhaps too ambitious, enterprise; for a time it went well, but it soon ran into trouble.

In 1968 the Rationalist Annual had been replaced by Question, an annual with a more general approach but actually more limited appeal. In May 1972 The Humanist was re-launched as the New Humanist and offered for wider sale to the public; for a couple of years sales were much higher, but so were costs, and financial losses forced an almost complete withdrawal to subscription sales within three years, At the same time the Pemberton Publishing Company produced books with a wider public appeal, but the benefit was taken by the publishers who actually sold them rather than by the RPA, and again financial losses forced an almost complete withdrawal from book production in 1977. The RPA had ventured some way into politics during the reforms of the 1950s and 1960s, actually taking a lead in the beginnings of the nuclear disarmament movement in 1954, and during the 1970s it took a stronger line on such issues as accessible contraception, legal abortion, voluntary euthanasia, moral education, even Northern Ireland; but while such campaigning brought publicity this was not accompanied by tangible support, and the old problems remained.

When Christopher Macy left in 1974, he was succeeded by Nicolas Walter, a professional journalist who adopted the old Whig policy of peace, retrenchment and reform. He tried to forget the old divisions between organisations, to reduce expenditure to the minimum, and to narrow the focus of the organisation to explicit rationalism and humanism. He turned from independent publishing and campaigning to purchasing small numbers of suitable books from other publishers and seeking publicity in establishment media, especially such relatively inexpensive but effective areas as letters to the press and phone-in programmes on radio. The New Humanist became a bi-monthly in 1976 and a quarterly in 1981; Question ceased in 1980. The annual conferences were dropped in 1978. In 1985 Jim Herrick took over the editorship of the New Humanist, and succeeded in raising its profile again; meanwhile Nicolas Walter produced eight issues of a revived Rationalist Review between 1988 and 1996. Both of them were also active in several other organisations and were committed to bringing all the freethought organisations together, both mentally and physically.

A Humanist Liaison Committee was formed in 1976 and revived in 1985, and the RPA, which occupied a middle ground between the more militant Secularists and the more moderate Humanists, took an active part in encouraging cooperation across the movement. For several years there were attempts to bring the organisations together into shared premises. Eventually, when the BHA rented offices belonging to South Place next to Conway Hall in 1990, the RPA rented an office from the BHA; and when the NSS bought a property next to Conway Hall in 1994, the RPA joined the other national organisations in the new Bradlaugh House. In 1994 the Humanist Liaison Committee was replaced by a Humanist Forum. In 1999 the RPA finally sold its premises in Islington.

The challenge of such new media as radio and television, audio and video recordings, had never really been met, but during the 1990s the RPA made a considerable effort to take a more direct part in producing rather than just contributing to radio and television programmes. In 1994 the Pemberton Publishing Company was turned into a radio and television production company, trading under the name Human Horizons, under Christopher Templeton; but the experiment came to an end in 1998. 

Throughout these difficult times, the RPA still secured an impressive list of prominent supporters as Honorary Associates — Peter Atkins, Gerald Barry, Theodore Besterman, Colin Blakemore, Hermann Bondi, James Bridie, Jacob Bronowski, Brigid Brophy, Alan Brownjohn, Ritchie Calder, G. D. H. Cole, Noam Chomsky, Bernard Crick, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, E. J. Dingwall, Cyrus Eaton, Paul Edwards, William Empson, Moses Finley, Antony Flew, Michael Foot, E. M. Forster, Raymond Firth, David Garnett, Ernest Gellner, Morris Ginsberg, Tony Harrison, Christopher Hill, Richard Hoggart, Ted Honderich, Fred Hoyle, Ludovic Kennedy, Margaret Knight, Corliss Lamont, Edmund Leach, Richard Leakey, John Maddox, Miles Malleson, Kingsley Martin, John Maynard Smith, Naomi Mitchison, Jacques Monod, Brian Moore, A. S. Neill, Kathleen Nott, Patrick Nowell-Smith, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Karl Popper, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, I. A. Richards, Conrad Russell, B. F. Skinner, C. H. Waddington, Arnold Wesker, Ted Willis, Lewis Wolpert, Leonard Woolf, Michael Young, J. Z. Young.

At the same time, there was an impressive succession of Presidents. C. M. Beadnell died soon after Watts, in 1947, and was succeeded as President in 1948 by C. D. Darlington, who resigned over a policy disagreement about student rationalism in 1949, A. E. Heath was succeeded in 1955 by Bertrand Russell, who remained President for the rest his life, despite occasional controversy over his political activities, and strongly supported the move towards humanism. He was succeeded in 1970 by Barbara Wootton, who resigned over a policy disagreement about legal abortion in 1973. Ritchie Calder succeeded in 1973, and Hermann Bondi in 1981.

Back in 1921 a Rationalist Benevolent Fund had been started to give assistance to “distressed Rationalists”, and it was registered as a charity in 1966. Over the decades the need for such an organisation declined, and in 1994 the RBF was taken over by a new Rationalist Trust with wider charitable objects.

Despite the best efforts of the staff and the Board, and the loyalty of a dwindling band of supporters and contributors, the membership remained disappointingly low and the operating deficit disappointingly high, and the RPA was saved from disaster not only by income from its properties and investments, but especially by a series of substantial legacies. As a result it was at the same time symbolically weighed down by the past, in the form of publications which could not be sold, and symbolically buoyed up by the past, in the form of gifts from former members and supporters.

The picture may be sketched in crude statistics. The membership of the RPA declined fairly steadily from the late 1960s onwards, falling below 4,000 in 1971, below 3,000 in 1974, and below 2,000 in 1977. It stabilised during the late 1980s at a little over 1,000, rallied for a time during the mid-1990s, but fell below 1,000 in 1996. So the RPA ends its first hundred years at a level of popular support no higher than after its first seven years; on the other hand its financial resources are far higher than ever before — even taking inflation into account. A more significant comparison is that it now publishes a couple of books and four issues of a periodical every year, compared with at least a score of books and a dozen or so periodicals; and it holds virtually no public meetings or social gatherings. An analogous pattern may of course be observed in the wider Freethought movement, if one contrasts the position of current Humanist organisations with the activities of the Secular and Ethical societies a century ago.

So the great present question, after its first century, is how the RPA — along with the other Freethought organisations — will use the resources accumulated in the past to face the situation of the future. Is there still a place for a separate organisation devoted to the production of freethinking material in the 21st century? Only time will tell.

_{Nicolas Walter, ‘A Century of Reason: 2’ in New Humanist, Vol. 114, No. 4, December 1999, pp. 4–6}