Susannah Wright (1792 – ?)

Susannah Wright was an ardent defender of free press and free discussion, who accepted ridicule and imprisonment in the name of upholding these fundamental rights. An involved radical and eloquent speaker in her own defence, Wright was initially imprisoned for her role in selling works from Richard Carlile’s bookshop, and was described by him as ‘by far the most interesting woman in the country.’ Wright’s story is one of the radical and freethinking woman, fostered by a circle of like minded friends and colleagues, who became a noted champion for their shared causes: causes shared by humanists today.

Susannah Wright was born Susannah Godber in the last decade of the 18th century in Nottingham, where she was a lace worker. Influenced by the reformers of her hometown, Susannah’s own spirit of rebellion was ignited long before her move to London, though it was there that she would gain the notoriety she eventually achieved. Susannah married William Wright in 1815, who shared her interest in radical politics, and the two were regular attendees at the gatherings of fellow radicals and other ‘Atheistical friends’.

Following the arrests and imprisonments of Richard Carlile, his wife Jane, and sister Mary-Ann in the early 1820s for selling materials deemed blasphemous and seditious, Susannah responded to requests for help in keeping the Carliles’ radical bookshop open. In 1821, after an agent for The Society for the Suppression of Vice was sold a prison-penned tract by Richard Carlile, Wright herself was charged with blasphemy, appearing for the first of three court appearances in December of that year. Having been released on bail, Wright’s next trial was scheduled for July 1822, enabling time for the preparation of her own vigorous and impassioned defence.

Susannah Wright was charged with ‘unlawfully’ and ‘wickedly’ selling ‘a certain scandalous, impious, blasphemous, and profane Libel, of and concerning the Christian Religion’. To this, she responded:

Wright’s defence lasted almost four hours, and included a warning to judge, jurors, and onlookers that ‘If you, Gentleman, to day, say, that I have published what is blasphemous and profane, you will be despised for it to-morrow.’ Nevertheless, she was pronounced guilty and sentenced (at a further hearing four months later) to ten weeks’ imprisonment in Newgate prison.

Significantly, Wright’s defence highlighted the classism she perceived in this wave of prosecutions for blasphemous libel, arguing:

Susannah Wright later returned to Nottingham and established her own freethought bookshop. Her date of death is unknown.

The example of Susannah Wright challenges the commonly held notion that 19th century radicalism was the sole domain of men. In the case of her prosecution, and in the words of her defence, we can see that the causes of free press, free discussion, and the right to religious scepticism were concerns shared by men and women alike, as they continue to be among humanists today.