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A. E. Heath (1887–1961)
Philosopher, wit, and President of the Rationalist Press Association from 1949 to 1954, who founded the philosophy department at Swansea.
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Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)
By Steve Ratcliff Steve has been researching humanists from LGBT history, focusing on digitised materials from the archives of LGBT […]
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Alice Woods (1849-1941)
In some way or another time for quiet concentrated thought must be found for our youth… Perhaps we are a […]
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Anna Wheeler (1785–1848)
To women I would say… continue not to leave the bitter inheritance of ignorance and slavery to your daughters; plead […]
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Antony Flew (1923-2010)
Antony Flew was a British philosopher and was, for much of his life, a renowned atheist and eloquent proponent of […]
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B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956)
You must abolish your oppression yourselves. Do not depend for its abolition upon God or superman. Your salvation lies in […]
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Balliol College, Oxford
Founded in 1263, Balliol College is one of the oldest colleges at the University of Oxford. Established by the English […]
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Barbara Wootton (1897-1988)
It is in fact a strength, not a weakness, of a secular morality that it must stand upon its own […]
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Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution
…for the Promotion and Advancement of Science, Literature and Art Trust deed of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute […]
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Beacon Hill School
Telegraph House stood on the West Sussex Downs, very near to the highest point called Beacon Hill… It stood out […]
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Belfast Ethical Society
This Society has for its object the promotion of right conduct on a purely natural and human basis and the […]
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Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love […]
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Bessie Mabbs (1873-1953)
Bessie Mabbs was a teacher, school principal, and active member of the Union of Ethical Societies (now Humanists UK), chairing […]
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Bill Barbour (1920-2009)
William Pirrie Barbour was a classicist, codebreaker, teacher, and activist. A rationalist and humanist, Barbour championed integrated education in his […]
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Bill Sefton (1915–2001)
To summarise why I have become a rationalist is a difficult task for one not educated in formal writing, but […]
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Bishopsgate Institute
Bishopsgate Institute was built ‘for the benefit of the public’ in 1894, intended to provide opportunities for education and recreation […]
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Blackfriars Rotunda
In the absence of a better—the palladium of what liberty we have… the birthplace of mind, and the focus of […]
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British Pregnancy Advisory Service
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) began as the Birmingham Pregnancy Advisory Service, created to provide access to safe, legal, […]
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C. E. M. Joad (1891–1953)
Ethics really ought to have something to do with life. Ethics ought to tell you how to be good or […]
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C.K. Ogden (1889-1957)
If he had ever worshipped at any shrine, it would have been one illumined with the flame of pure intellect. […]
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Cambridge Ethical Society
The Cambridge Ethical Society was established in 1888, inspired by the London Ethical Society (formed two years earlier). It aimed […]
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Cambridge Heretics
The gist of heresy is free personal choice in act, and specially in thought – the rejection of traditional faiths […]
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Church of Humanity
No creative thinker has so governed… my mind as the French genius who framed the maxim – “Love for principle, […]
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Claire Rayner (1931-2010)
The writer, TV and radio personality and social campaigner, Claire Rayner, best known for her agony aunt columns, spent most […]
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Clementina Anstruther-Thomson (1857-1921)
I for one don’t believe in looking regretfully back into the past or forward with illusive hopes into the future, […]
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Conway Hall
Conway Hall has effected a transformation. From the day of its opening the life of the Society has been full […]
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David Williams (1738-1816)
I was educated among the Saints; and I now live, thank God, among Sinners. David Williams, Essays on Public Worship […]
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Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011)
I settled my religious muddles by deciding that I had better be an atheist. Diana Wynne Jones in Something About […]
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Dora Russell (1894-1986)
I see this kind of love – the empathy that should be common to all living creatures – rather than […]
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East London Ethical Society
Not Religion as a Duty, but Duty as a Religion. Felix Adler(A motto of the East London Ethical Society) The […]
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Edward Blishen (1920–1996)
At this nervous moment… when we have uncertainties about almost everything, it’s particularly necessary that we pool our determination, so […]
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Edward Clodd (1840–1930)
He was one of the few of whom it can be said that he had a gift for friendship… There […]
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Edward Max Nicholson (1904-2003)
Conservation… draws us towards not only a scientific but a philosophical and historical approach to the problems of the earth […]
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Edwin Ray Lankester (1847–1929)
Edwin Ray Lankester was a zoologist and protégé of T. H. Huxley, as well as a longtime member and Honorary […]
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Elizabeth Duncan Swann (1855-1914)
Elizabeth Swann was an active and devoted champion of liberal and progressive causes alongside her husband, Liberal MP Charles Swann. […]
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Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy (1833-1918)
… purely human and natural ethics, and not theology, was the source of this pioneer woman’s enthusiasm for justice, even […]
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Enid Lakeman (1903–1995)
Should STV ever be introduced in Westminster elections—as it has been in the Republic of Ireland, for Northern Ireland Assembly […]
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Ephraim Chambers (1680-1740)
… a man who thinks himself bound to all offices of Humanity. Ephraim Chambers, self-composed epitaph Ephraim Chambers was an […]
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Ethel Leach (1850-1936)
Ethel Leach was a Liberal councillor, social reformer, justice of the peace, and the first female mayor of Great Yarmouth. […]
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Fabian Society
If any delegate present thinks that the Fabian Society was wise from the hour of its birth, let him forthwith […]
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Felix Adler (1851-1933)
In order to find meaning to one’s life, one must find a meaning in the life of the [human] race. […]
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First Conference of Humanists in Ireland
This conference is resolved to strive for the achievement of peace, justice and tolerance in Ireland, and holds that outmoded […]
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First International Moral Education Congress
To have thus assuaged the temper of controversy, to have softened much deep-seated prejudice and to have disposed some of […]
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Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (1878–1916)
A distinctively Edwardian rationalist radical, he himself agreed that he was a crank – ‘a small instrument that makes revolutions’. […]
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Frederick James Gould (1855-1938)
F.J. Gould was an influential educationist, writer, and humanist, whose tireless work towards secularising education helped to lay the groundwork […]
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From the archives: ‘Humanism and the Open Society’
Much needs changing in the world of today, and humanists will be found in large numbers in the ranks of […]
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From the archives: Humanism in Scotland (1983)
In 1983 Nigel Bruce, chairman of the Scottish Humanist Council, explained to readers of the BHA’s Humanist News why Scotland needed a humanist body of its own. His article, reproduced here, is the clearest statement of the case made six years before the Humanist Society of Scotland was founded.
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From the archives: Of Free Enquiry (1829)
Oh! that we could learn… that what is ruinous to some is injurious to all; and that whenever we establish […]
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From the archives: The Great Human Detective Story
Humanism is a philosophy of life based on a concern for humanity rather than a belief in god. Humanists believe […]
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From the archives: The Rationalist Press Association (1900)
From the Agnostic Annual, 1900, edited by Charles A. Watts (founder of the Rationalist Press Association). THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, […]
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From the archives: Wider Horizons
I suggest that the assembly we really want is an act of celebration, rather than worship. There is value in […]
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Gilbert Murray (1866-1957)
But in the more civilised communities, as in ancient Greece, there has always been a minority who, through some speculative […]
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Girton College, Cambridge
Girton College at the University of Cambridge has educated and employed a host of remarkable humanists and freethinkers, many of […]
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Gora (1902-1975)
Godlessness is negative. It merely denies the existence of god. Atheism is positive. It asserts the condition that results from […]
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Graham Wallas (1858–1932)
Political psychologist, Fabian, teacher, President of the Ethical Union, and first President of the Rationalist Press Association.
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Gustav Spiller (1864-1940)
The Conscience has eclipsed the Scriptures; Science has destroyed the belief in Divine Interposition; Democracy and Civism have shown men […]
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Hampstead Ethical Institute
The object of this Society is: To increase the knowledge, the love, and the practice of the right. Its bond […]
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Harriet Taylor Mill (1807-1858)
That an institution or a practice is customary is no presumption of its goodness. Harriet Taylor Mill Harriet Taylor Mill […]
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Harry Snell (1865-1944)
Harry Snell was a socialist politician and campaigner, a devoted advocate of the Ethical Movement and a key figure in […]
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Harry Stopes-Roe (1924-2014)
Harry Stopes-Roe was one of the most tireless and dedicated humanist campaigners of the 20th century. Son of the influential […]
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Hermann Bondi (1919-2005)
It is in service to others, it is as members of the community, that our existence lies. Hermann Bondi, Humanism […]
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Hilda Caroline Miall-Smith (1860-1943)
Hilda Caroline Miall-Smith was a teacher and activist, a graduate of University College London, and a member of the London […]
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Humanist Broadcasting Council
The Humanist Broadcasting Council was established in 1959, in consultation with the BBC, to advocate for the inclusion of humanist […]
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Humanists UK Campaigns
While much of the Humanist Heritage website looks back to the earlier years of the organised humanist movement, recent decades […]
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Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner (1858-1935)
When we are asked to believe that nothing but a supernatural ideal can inspire and sustain a life-time of complete […]
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Ipswich Heretics
We must grow out of the crude and unreal ideas of immortality and content ourselves with the only kind of […]
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Jack McDowell (1923-2006)
Belfast-born Jack McDowell was an activist, educator, politician, and atheist, whose humanism was evident in a lifetime of work for […]
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Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974)
The notion that a man shall judge for himself what he is told, sifting the evidence and weighing the conclusions, […]
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James Berry (1924-2017)
The difference and variety of our human family more and more seems to me to be a wise provision that […]
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James Hemming (1909-2007)
The time has arrived for us humans to stop leaning on ideas for a creator god; we should get down […]
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James Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937)
The moral value of a belief in eternal life is a doubtful matter. But this is certain, that where rest […]
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Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928)
About the moral problem there is nothing mysterious; it is simply the old, old question of how best to live […]
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Jennie Lee (1904-1988)
Jennie Lee (also known as Baroness Lee of Asheridge) was a Scottish politician and journalist, known for her upfront orating […]
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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
It is impossible that Theology can throw any light upon either morality or jurisprudence. Jeremy Bentham Philosopher and jurist Jeremy […]
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John Boyd (1912-2002)
We can’t help the universe, but at least we can do something to help ourselves. Can’t we? John Boyd, Across […]
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John Gilmour (1906–1986)
In the first place, then, why do we botanise?… The enjoyment of the beauty and fascination of flowers in their natural […]
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John Henry Muirhead (1855–1940)
Throughout his life, Professor of Philosophy, John Muirhead, sought to put his ethical principles into practice. Indeed, whilst philosophers are […]
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John Hewitt (1907-1987)
I fear their creed as we have always fearedthe lifted hand against unfettered thought. John Hewitt, ‘The Glens’ in Collected […]
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John Stewart Bell (1928-1990)
In the beginning natural philosophers tried to understand the world around them. Trying to do that they hit upon the […]
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John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; […]
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John Tyndall (1820-1893)
All religious theories, schemes and systems, which embrace notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach into the domain of science, […]
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John Tyndall’s Belfast Address (1874)
It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may […]
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Joseph Reeves (1888–1969)
Humanism is on the march. In a world of conflict and frightening menaces we are an integral part of the […]
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Julia Huxley (1862-1908)
Julia Huxley was a feminist and freethinker, who profoundly influenced a generation of girls who attended the school she founded […]
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Julian Huxley (1887-1975)
What the sciences discover about the natural world and about the origins, nature and destiny of man is the truth […]
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Kader Asmal (1934–2011)
Can there be a more important human condition than dignity? Without it, we are bitter, downtrodden, unheard, humiliated, embarrassed and […]
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Karl Popper (1902-1994)
… the responsibility for our ethical decisions is entirely ours and cannot be shifted to anybody else; neither to God, […]
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L. Susan Stebbing (1885-1943)
It lies within our power, if we so desire it, to make the familiar world we inhabit more worthy of […]
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Leighton Hall Neighbourhood Guild
Order is our Basis; Improvement our Aim; and Friendship our Principle. Annual Report of the Neighbourhood Guild, 1895 Leighton Hall […]
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LGBT Humanists
Formed in the wake of the Gay News blasphemy trial, GALHA (now LGBT Humanists) came into being in 1979 as […]
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London Ethical Society
The London Ethical Society was the UK’s first, founded in 1886 to pursue ‘a rational conception of human good’: establishing […]
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Louisa Thomson-Price (1864-1926)
We hold that only by making happiness for those around us, and by endeavoring, individually, to make the world a […]
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Lydia Becker (1827–1890)
Genius is no respecter of sex, and mental ability is scattered in supreme disregard of conventional arrangements. Lydia Becker quoted […]
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M.N. Roy (1887-1954)
The realisation of the possibility of a secular rational morality opens up a new perspective before the modern world… It […]
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Mackenzie Hall
Mackenzie Hall is a community space in the village of Brockweir, Gloucestershire, given by Millicent Mackenzie in memory of her […]
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Madeleine Simms (1930–2011)
Humanists have principles too, but they are principles which do not refer to the existence of the supernatural. This is […]
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Manchester University Ethical Society
Object: to provide an ‘open forum’ for the fearless consideration of modern problems relating to ethics, sociology, education, political theory, […]
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Margaret Knight (1903-1983)
With these basic [humanist] beliefs there go commonly two corollaries. First, that virtue is a matter of promoting human well-being, […]
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Marjorie Abbatt (1899–1991)
They weren’t just trying to sell something to parents, they were helping them to understand how to play with and […]
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Mary Ann McCracken (1770-1866)
Is it not the duty of every person to promote the happiness of others as much as lies in their […]
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Mary Gilliland Husband (1854-1929)
The attainment of the greatest possible amount of social happiness I take to be the noblest of human aims; the […]
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Mary Sheepshanks (1872-1960)
Mary Sheepshanks was a humanist who saw her feminist, pacifist, and cosmopolitan beliefs as being natural expressions of her humanist […]
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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
And how can woman be expected to co-operate unless she knows why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthens […]
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Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high! Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see? More […]
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Mechanics’ Institutes
Why are these minds left without the means of obtaining that knowledge which they so ardently desire and why are […]
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Meghnad Desai (1940–2025)
It is a very strange idea that moral and various spiritual educations can be learned only by getting people together […]
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Millicent Mackenzie (1863-1942)
Millicent Mackenzie was a pioneering educationist and suffragist, who – alongside her husband, John Stuart Mackenzie – gave significant support […]
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Mora Burnet (1907–1985)
Mora Burnet was a founder of, and driving force within, the Humanist Housing Association, formed in 1955 to provide affordable homes […]
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Moral Instruction League
Its aim will be to secularise education and make moral training the chief aim of the school life. A great […]
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National Education League
…no child should be made ashamed or uncomfortable on account of his father’s opinions, or lack of opinions, on subjects […]
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Nellie Freeman (1863-1943)
Nellie Freeman was an indefatigable organiser within the Ethical Union (today’s Humanists UK) for decades of her life. Beginning in […]
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Northern Ireland
A brief history of humanism and secularism in Northern Ireland Organised humanism began in Northern Ireland in the 19th century, […]
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Owen Sheehy-Skeffington (1909-1970)
I am a humanist, a rationalist. My mother said to me, some weeks before she died, that she would die ‘an unrepentant […]
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Owenism
Socialism emerged, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, as a humanist ideal of universal emancipation – the ideal […]
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Pamela O’Malley (1929–2006)
At that time, she appeared to me the way Gonne appears in Yeats’s poem, ‘No Second Troy’, where he describes […]
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Peter Annet (1693-1769)
I have been the more bold in exposing my opinion because I believe it to be the dictates of truth […]
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Peter Chalmers Mitchell (1864–1945)
We have lost Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell, the maker of the modern Zoo, great humanist as well as great scientist. […]
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Philip Sargant Florence (1890–1982)
Though hearing and discussing many philosophies and keeping open minds, many, if not most of us had a slightly utilitarian […]
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Positivism
Positivism is a philosophical system based on the writings of French thinker Auguste Comte, which flourished from the 1830s onwards. […]
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Presidents of Humanists UK
Humanists UK began as the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896, becoming the Ethical Union in 1920, the British Humanist […]
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Prior’s Field School
Prior’s Field School was founded in 1902 by Julia Arnold Huxley. Born in 1862, Julia grew up in an intellectual […]
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Rationalism
Rationalism is not a dogma but a method. It does not tell us what to believe but how to find […]
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Rationalist Press Association
The Rationalist Press Association (later known as simply the Rationalist Association) had its origins in the London print works of […]
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Red Lion Square
As well as being home to Conway Hall and its humanist library, Red Lion Square contains statues of two prominent […]
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Richard Congreve (1818-1899)
Richard Congreve was a devoted follower of Auguste Comte, whose positivist philosophies and ‘Religion of Humanity’ inspired Congreve to open […]
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Robert Owen (1771-1858)
Robert Owen was a utopian socialist, philanthropist, and reformer, whose own religious scepticism fostered his desire for a secular society, […]
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Robert Owen Museum
Robert Owen, the son of a Newtown saddler and ironmonger, became one of the most successful mill owners of the […]
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Rochdale Pioneers Museum
Rochdale Pioneers Museum occupies the building at 31 Toad Lane where, in 1844, 28 working class people came together to […]
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Ronald Fletcher (1921–1992)
Humanism is… a tradition of thought and feeling combined with social action which stems from classical times and which has […]
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Ruskin School Home (1900-1926)
The Ruskin School Home was founded by socialist writer and teacher [Harry] Bellerby Lowerison (1863–1935) in Norfolk in 1900, following […]
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Ruth Homan (1850-1938)
Ruth Homan was an educationist, women’s welfare campaigner, and one of the founding members of the West London Ethical Society […]
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Sheffield Ethical Society
Morality apart from theology Motto of the Sheffield Ethical Society, from a poster of 1905 The founding meeting of the […]
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Social Morality Council
Without this mutual trust and dependability amongst people who differ radically, there cannot be political and religious freedom. H.J. Blackham […]
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Sophie Bryant (1850-1922)
Sophie Bryant was an Anglo-Irish mathematician, feminist, suffragist, teacher, and promoter of moral education. She played a key role in […]
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South London Ethical Society
Without denying or affirming a life after death, or reality beyond experience… we can (without injury to our moral life) […]
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South Place Ethical Society
Under its successive names, adopted or given… is traceable a constant endeavour to study carefully, and keep abreast of, the […]
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Stanton Coit (1857-1944)
Stanton Coit was a pioneer of the Ethical movement in England and the founder of the West London Ethical Society, […]
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Teresa Billington-Greig (1876-1964)
I am a feminist, a rebel, and a suffragist – a believer, therefore, in sex-equality and militant action. I desire […]
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The Athenæum
The Athenæum is a London club founded in 1824, around the pursuit of science and literature. Its reputation as ‘the […]
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The British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections include objects of humanist heritage […]
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The Ethical Movement
Not by the Creed but by the Deed. Motto of the Society for Ethical Culture of New York, founded in […]
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The Open University
The Open University was founded in 1969 with the ambition of providing access to higher education for people who had […]
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The Union of Ethical Societies
The Union of Ethical Societies (now Humanists UK) was formed in 1896, joining together existing ethical societies for fellowship and […]
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Theodore Besterman (1904–1976)
Theodore Besterman… was one of the most remarkable of the long line of remarkable people who have given their support […]
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Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882)
Thomas Hill Green was a philosopher, educator, and a Liberal, whose idealist philosophy (with its practical implications) was a significant […]
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Towards an Open Society
I think that believing in the brotherhood of man is not just a matter of signing these letters, it is […]
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UNESCO
Its main concern is with peace and security and with human welfare, in so far as they can be subserved […]
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Universities Tests Act
The Universities Tests Act, which ended religious discrimination in admissions and employment at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham […]
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University College London
University College London was founded in 1826 as the University of London; the city’s first university, and a consciously secular […]
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Vere Foster (1819-1900)
…the smallest experience is sufficient to convince that it is more pleasing, to be at peace than at enmity with […]
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W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
If living does not give value, wisdom and meaning to life, then there is no sense in living at all. […]
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West London Ethical Society
The good life… rests for its justification on no external authority, and on no system of supernatural rewards or punishments, […]
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William Beveridge (1879-1963)
The one thing in which I am interested wholly and completely is the getting to know something about human society […]
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William Godwin (1756–1836)
We are members of a community. We are indissolubly connected with the society of our fellowmen. We have duties. William […]
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William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879)
Our interest, it seems to me, lies with so much of the past as may serve to guide our actions […]
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William Thompson (1775-1833)
All moral and political wisdom should tend mainly to this, the just distribution of the physical means of happiness. William […]
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Young People’s Group of the Ethical Union
To provide Young People with opportunities for the discussion of religious, political, educational, professional, moral, personal, and social problems… To […]
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Zona Vallance (1860-1904)
Conscious morality cannot exist in any being except so far as it can look behind, before, and around; and can […]