Charles Bradlaugh (1833 - 1891): Founder

Based on an article for the NSS website by David Tribe, author of President Charles Bradlaugh, MP (London 1971), former president and honorary life member of National Secular Society and former editor of The Freethinker.

THROUGHOUT its history the National Secular Society has included a number of colourful and distinguished personalities; none more so than its founder, Charles Bradlaugh.

Bradlaugh founds the National Secular Society

Bradlaugh first came to prominence as a freethought lecturer to groups that had survived the disappearance of Chartism and, under the influence of George Jacob Holyoake, were being transformed from Owenite into secular societies. In 1858 Bradlaugh became president of the London Secular Society, succeeding G J Holyoake. Two years later he became co-editor of The National Reformer, which under his leadership became dedicated to atheism, republicanism and neo-Malthusianism (contraception).

In 1866 he conceived and founded the National Secular Society, and became its first president.

Throughout the 1880s he tirelessly travelled the country giving secularist lectures and participating in debates, not to mention assisting George William Foote, founding editor of The Freethinker, in his blasphemy defence (unfortunately without success).

In 1876 a Bristol bookseller of freethought and pornography was prosecuted and gaoled for selling an "obscene" contraceptive manual, Charles Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy. Its publisher was Charles Watts, Bradlaugh's subeditor, printer and publisher, and father of the chief founder of the Rationalist Press Association. Arrested himself, Watts pleaded guilty against the wishes of Besant and Bradlaugh, who dismissed him from all positions.

Besant and Bradlaugh then formed a Freethought Publishing Company and republished Fruits of Philosophy themselves. They were arrested, tried and sentenced to six months' gaol, but appealed and won on a legal technicality. This famous trial split the freethought movement but largely helped to reduce the size of Victorian families.

His radical politics soon led to a parliamentary career

At the same time as setting up the NSS, Bradlaugh was involved in radical polities. He fought for the right of atheists and religious fundamentalists to affirm in court cases which resulted in the Evidence Further Amendment Act 1869), which removed blatant injustices. He agitated for parliamentary reform, involving proportional representation, universal franchise and abolition of the House of Lords (but later compromised by supporting the introduction of life peers); the removal of restrictions on activities on Sundays; the disestablishment of the Churches (This was achieved for Ireland but not of course for England); land-law reform and Irish emancipation from English oppression. He did not advocate Irish independence though; he preferred a British federation, with separate parliaments for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

In 1880, after three unsuccessful earlier attempts, Bradlaugh was elected to Parliament for Northampton. When he asked to affirm instead of taking an oath before taking his seat, a parliamentary select committee declared that the right freethinkers had to affirm in law courts didn't extend to Parliament. He then asked to take the oath, but another select committee found his known atheism prevented this but he should be allowed to affirm under pain of statute (penalties for voting without taking the prescribed oath). The battle over his being sworn in began the day he took his seat and voted, and resulted in convoluted legal arguments continuing for six years. Eventually, in 1886 after the 1885 general election he was allowed by the Speaker to take the oath at the beginning of the session, before objections could be made. While all this had been going on, his seat was vacated but he was re-elected at three by-elections (1881, 1883 and 1884).

Throughout this cause celebre, Bradlaugh represented himself, and was arguably the most proficient lay litigant in England. It took great courage. He was even imprisoned in a cell in the famous Clock Tower under Big Ben - he was the last victim to be incarcerated there. Once he was literally thrown out of the Palace of Westminster.

Bradlaugh was a diligent Member of Parliament and soon became highly respected. His greatest success was the introduction and passage of the 1888 Oaths Act, allowing universal affirmation as an alternative to the oath. But he did much to establish and brief the Royal Commission on Market Eights and Tolls in support of small traders and consumers, and sat on the Royal Commission on Vaccination and select committees on anachronistic perpetual pensions for the aristocracy, employers' liability, destitute immigrants and friendly societies.

Internationally he was known as the "member for India" and it was believed that, without his premature death in 1891, he would have become Gladstone's Under-Secretary of State for India.

Bradlaugh the international politician proclaimed "The Future President of England" by the New York Times

As a friend and supporter of Continental republican freethinkers living in or visiting England, he was as celebrated (notorious) outside as inside Britain. In 1870, following the overthrow of Louis Napoleon, he supported Republican France during the Franco-Prussian War and in 1871, after the war, he was invited to sue for peace between the Paris Commune and the Versailles Government.

Stimulated by French and other European republican uprisings, and by the unpopularity of Queen Victoria as the non-performing "widow of Windsor", republicanism took off in Britain. In 1871 Bradlaugh wrote a bestselling Impeachment of the House of Brunswick and became president of the London Republican Club. Inspired by him, throughout the country a number of NSS branches spawned or transformed themselves into republican clubs and a National Republican League was formed in 1873. That year, during a US lecture tour, the New York Herald proclaimed him as "The Future President of England".

But intrigues involving religionists, independent adventurers and communist-anarchist infighting in the First International, together with Victoria's return to activity and popularity, led to republicanism's collapse in 1874.

Outside parliament his influence waned with the rise of socialism (not social democracy), which he opposed as vague in details but likely to lead to violent revolution, tyranny, censorship, lack of enterprise and economic stagnation (criticisms later vindicated by experience in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union). Instead he extolled, perhaps too optimistically, education, reform and cooperative retail, building, friendly and insurance societies.

Bradlaugh's private life

Born in 1833 to a solicitor's clerk and former nursemaid, he was brought up in the East End of London and the Church of England. Leaving school at eleven, he became an errand boy, clerk and cashier.

As a candidate for confirmation, seeking explanation for discrepancies in the Gospels and Thirty-Nine Articles, he fell out with his pastor and family, left home, came into contact with freethought propagandists and espoused atheism. After three years in the British army, stationed in Ireland, he became a solicitor's clerk and small businessman.

He married in 1855 but his wife was an alcoholic and they separated amicably in 1870. Annie Besant, the estranged wife of an Anglican clergyman, met Bradlaugh and joined the NSS. Soon she became his closest friend and collaborator. Had Bradlaugh and Besant both been free, they would have married.

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