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Adam Duff O’Toole (d. 1328)
Adam Duff O’Toole (Adam Dubh Ó Tuathail) was a reputed heretic, who was burned at the stake for his denials […]
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Annie Besant (1847-1933)
Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to […]
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Anthony Collins (1676-1729)
Is being rewarded for maintaining certain articles as matters of faith, and being punished, or suffering for opposing them, proper […]
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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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Brigid Brophy (1929-1995)
We are (of all the synonyms I most prefer to ‘humanist’) freethinkers. We are deprived of nothing. We have lost […]
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Bristol Gaol
Atheist Charles Southwell was imprisoned in Bristol Gaol for blasphemous libel in 1842. Southwell had written an article in his […]
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Chapman Cohen (1868-1954)
Chapman Cohen was a tireless champion of freethought, and a prolific writer and lecturer for the secularist cause. President of […]
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Charles Albert Watts (1858–1946)
Charles Albert Watts was a lifelong promoter of rationalism, and the founder in 1885 of Watts’s Literary Guide, still published […]
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Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891)
Charles Bradlaugh was a leading freethinker, secularist, and founder of the National Secular Society. His efforts to take his seat […]
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Charles Bradlaugh’s Struggle to Enter Parliament
The House of Commons refused to allow his affirmation, so Bradlaugh applied to take the oath but was again refused. […]
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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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Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)
“Yet, upon the whole, the History of the Decline and Fall seems to have struck root, both at home and […]
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Edward Truelove (1809-1899)
The radical publisher Edward Truelove found himself in court more than once defending freedom of belief and expression. He believed, […]
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Ernestine Rose (1810-1892)
Emancipation from every kind of bondage is my principle. I go for the recognition of human rights, without distinction of […]
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From the archives: Why Women Should be Secularists
We hold that only by making happiness for those around us, and by endeavoring, individually, to make the world a […]
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From the archives: Separate Development?
‘Separate Development? Out of the closet, into the ghetto’ was a talk given by writer and activist Maureen Duffy on […]
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George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906)
Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible […]
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George Orwell (1903–1950)
You can always appeal to common decency, which the vast majority of people believe in without the need to tie […]
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George William Foote (1850-1915)
Doubt is the beginning of wisdom. It means caution, independence, honesty and veracity. G. W. Foote George William Foote was […]
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Harriet Law (1831-1897)
Harriet Law was a secularist and speaker, who also promoted women’s rights and socialist ideals. During the 1870s, Law’s house […]
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Henry Hetherington (1792-1849)
I have ever considered that the only religion useful to man consists exclusively of the practice of morality, and in […]
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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 International
Humanists International was formed in 1952 as the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU): a federation of the American Ethical […]
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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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John Boyd Orr (1880–1971)
The big problem of today is how shall we adjust these tremendous new forces so that they can be harnessed […]
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John Galsworthy (1867–1933)
…the only efficient, the only decent prayer, is Action. John Galsworthy, ‘Philosophy of Life’ in Glimpses and Reflections (1937) Best […]
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John Toland (1670-1722)
Virtue alone is enough to live happily and brings its own reward. John Toland, Pantheisticon (1720) John Toland was an […]
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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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Josiah Gimson (1818-1883)
Josiah Gimson was the most prosperous of the 19th century secularists in Leicester, and the main force behind the building […]
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Leicester Secular Hall
I might fill columns with tales of the debaters, co-operators, socialists, individualists, critics, artists, scientists, clergy and cranks, who, as […]
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Margaret Chappellsmith (1806-1883)
Margaret Chappellsmith was a devotee of the socialist and secularist ideas of Robert Owen, becoming one of the Owenite movement’s […]
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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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Matilda Roalfe (1813-1880)
I will never voluntarily obey any law which is an outrage on human reason. Matilda Roalfe Matilda Roalfe was an […]
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Mona Caird (1854–1932)
Belief in the power of man to choose his direction of change: this is the creed of the future, and […]
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Mother Clap (died c.1726)
As for Mother Clap, she was present all the Time, except when she went out to fetch Liquors… The Company […]
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National Secular Society
The National Secular Society is a campaigning organisation, founded in 1866 to champion the principles of secularism and the separation […]
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Nicolas Walter (1934-2000)
Humanism involves not just the deletion of God from moral thought, but the development of humanity on a rational and […]
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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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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a major poet of the Romantic period, and remains one of England’s best loved and most […]
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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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Plaque for George Jacob Holyoake
On Woburn Walk is a plaque to George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906), a writer, lecturer, and promoter of the Cooperative movement, […]
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Rationalist Press Association
The Rationalist Press Association (now the Rationalist Association) had its origins in the London print works of Charles Albert Watts, […]
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Richard Carlile (1790-1843)
I have no view but public good; certainly no desire to injure any one, but a passionate desire to do […]
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Robert Wedderburn (1762-1835/6)
There is no one who will deny the value and importance of truth, but how is it to be ascertained, […]
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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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Storm Jameson (1891-1986)
I hold that a writer should not in any circumstances or for any cause surrender his duty to criticise and […]
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Susannah Wright (1792 – ?)
I have no desire… to bring the religion or the laws of this country into contempt, although I am a […]
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The 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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The Secular Chronicle
The object of Secularism is the promotion of human happiness in this world… [The Secularist] believes the surest way of […]
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Thomas Aikenhead (1676-1697)
It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth and to […]
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Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy and […]
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Wales
Wales has long been a nation of nonconformists, with a history of challenging the power and influence of the established […]
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William Johnson Fox (1786-1864)
William Johnson Fox was an orator, writer, politician, and first minister of South Place Chapel (now Conway Hall) from 1824 […]
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William of Ockham (c.1287-1347)
William of Ockham was the fourteenth century’s most influential philosopher: a key thinker of the Middle Ages and an early […]