http://www.bradlaugh.com/index.htmldan's bradlaugh researchendan@bradlaugh.comCopyright 2009 Dan Allosso2011-10-01T10:13:58-04:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:03:03 -0400dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-10-01T10:13:58-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/41fe43dfdc505dcb178c4df3d43e93e2-22.html#unique-entry-id-22http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/41fe43dfdc505dcb178c4df3d43e93e2-22.html#unique-entry-id-22I pray the opposing forces to continue their attacks, that by teaching me my weaknesses they may make me strong.

Here’s a nice Charles Bradlaugh passage that I just put up on my freethinkers blog, quoted in Four Hundred Years of Freethought, by Samuel P. Putnam, 1894. Putnam seems to be a very interesting character in his own right, and Bradlaugh was a giant. Stay tuned for more material from each of them…

I am an Infidel, a rough, self-taught Infidel. What honors shall I win if I grow grey in this career? Critics who would break a lance against me in my absence will tell you now that I am from the lower classes, without university education, and that I lack classical lore. Clergymen, who see God’s mercy reflected in an eternal hell, will tell you even that I am wanting in a conception of common humanity. Skilled penmen will demonstrate that I have not the merest rudiments of biblical knowledge. I thank these assailants for the past; when they pricked and stung me with their waspish piety, they did me good service, gave me the clue to my weaknesses, laid bare to me my ignorance, and drove me to acquire knowledge which might otherwise never have been mine. I pray the opposing forces to continue their attacks, that by teaching me my weaknesses they may make me strong….I have preached ‘equality,’ not by aiming to reduce men’s intellects to the level of my own, but rather by inciting each of my hearers to develop his mind to the fullest extent, obtaining thus the hope, not of an equality of ignorance, but of a more equal diffusion of knowledge.

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-09-28T15:54:55-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/54f98f6bddc9dc96567dcff41e5e5c7e-21.html#unique-entry-id-21http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/54f98f6bddc9dc96567dcff41e5e5c7e-21.html#unique-entry-id-21I'm not going to reproduce all my free thinkers blog posts here, but since CB lived with Eliza Sharples, I thought this might be of particular interest to bradlaugh.com readers:

First Discourse of the Lady of the Rotunda.

The task which I propose to perform, I am told, has no precedent in this country; so I have great need of craving your indulgent attention and most gentle criticism.

A woman stands before you who has been educated and practiced in all the severity of religious discipline, awakened to the principles of reason but as yesterday, seeking on these boards a moral and a sweet revenge, for the outrage that has been committed on the majesty of that reason, and on the dignity of that truth, inasmuch as the barbaric administration of alleged law, that never had the consent of the people; of law, that has been made for the purpose, by the administrators of the law, has arrested the voices and imprisoned the persons of the two brave and talented men, who first made this building the temple of reason and truth, and who first essayed to teach the people of this country the practical importance and incalculable value of free and public oral discussion.

This, sirs, is my purpose; I appear before you to plead the cause of those injured men; to endeavor to reason before you as they reasoned before you; to follow their example, even if the sequel be a following them to a prison.

I have left a home, in a distant country, where comfort and even affluence surrounded me—a happy home, and the bosom of an affectionate and a happy family. I have left such a home, under the excitement which religious persecution has roused, to make this first and singular appearance before you, for a purpose, I trust that is second to none.

So much, by way of an introduction, where no introduction has been otherwise made. I come at once to the preliminaries of my present discourse.

Would you have from me a profession of faith?—You shall have it.

Faith, in its relation to superstition, I have none. But of faith, in the relation of the word to whatever is lovely, whatever is good, and whatever is true, whatever is morally binding and honorable, I flatter myself that I am rich, and of large possessions. At least, sirs, I submit this my faith to your most severe critical judgments.

But then, we are told, that they who have no faith in relation to superstition, are scoffers and scorners.

…This shall not be the seat of the scorner while it is in my hands, but the theatre of reason, of truth, and of free discussion; of an encouragement to every well expressed desire for mutual instruction.

…I purpose to speak, in my continued discourses, if this shall find favor with you, of superstitions and of reason, of tyranny and of liberty, of morals and of politics.

Of politics!—politics from a woman! Some will exclaim, yes, I will set before my sex the example of asserting an equality for them with their present lords and masters, and strive to teach all, yes all, that the undue submission, which constitutes slavery is honorable to none; while the mutual submission, which leads to mutual good, is to all alike dignified and honorable.

Superstition, I shall define to be the invention of the human imagination, where demonstration is not to be had, and where a system of alleged causes, falling back into a general first cause, is made of the fanciful idea of a personification of supposed principles…It would not be in vain, if man were superstitious enough to seek to make a paradise of the earth, instead of making his never-to-be-reached paradise of the conceits of his own brain. Help me sirs, in this mighty undertaking, and some of us may see that we have made the world the better for living in it.

The 15 June, 1832 Boston Investigator's excerpts from Eliza Sharples speech begin with Robert Dale Owen's description in column 2, and cover two columns. In the fifth column, there is a reprint from the Workingman’s Advocate, of an article covering RDO’s marriage to Mary Jane Robinson, including the text of their “protest” vows. Owen introduces Sharples (originally to readers of the New York Free Enquirer) with the following:

The Lady of the Rotunda.
New York, 11th May, 1832.

It needs not to repeat what every one admits, that this is an age prolific of interesting mental and moral phenomena; an age rich in prognostics of change and reform. The French Revolution, with the various novelties to which it has given birth (including the St. Simonian) is among the most marked of these. The growth of free opinion in this country is another; the boldness, sometimes verging on violence, of Richard Carlile and Robert Taylor is another; and the fact I am now about to detail is entitled to a place among the number.

A young unmarried English lady, said to be of a highly respectable and affluent family, and who conceals her name because her relations desire that it may not be published, has appeared in London, has hired “The Rotunda,” the same building where Taylor formerly lectured, delivers original lectures there twice every Sunday, and three times in the course of the week; and has commenced, on her own responsibility, a periodical entitled “The Isis.”

She delivered on the 29th January last her opening address, and repeated the same several times in the course of the ensuing week. Her lectured are thronged; how her periodical succeeds I have not heard.

…I am now about to leave this city for London, and hope, while there, to see this Lady of the Rotunda, if I can procure an introduction to her.—At all events, if her lectures are continued, I shall attend them; and “report progress,” as politicians say, to our readers.




]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-09-27T13:03:39-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/5213e6d5bd16580a934ac48b6cb8d30e-20.html#unique-entry-id-20http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/5213e6d5bd16580a934ac48b6cb8d30e-20.html#unique-entry-id-20I've just started a freethinkers blog, where I'm going to try to post (hopefully daily) excerpts from the writing of freethinkers. While they won't be all Charles Bradlaugh quotes, some of them doubtless will be, and others will be from people who influenced Bradlaugh, or who he influenced in his turn. If you have a favorite freethinker whose writing should appear here, please let me know!



]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-09-23T15:09:01-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/a1bfa9baf07456121040b742ea525f51-19.html#unique-entry-id-19http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/a1bfa9baf07456121040b742ea525f51-19.html#unique-entry-id-19In 1854, CB was Secretary of “The Second East London People’s Co-operative Benefit Building Society,” for which he earned 35 pounds annually for being available weeknights from 7:00 to 8:30 at the Hayfield Coffee House on Mile End Road. I’m not altogether sure he held the post for a full year, since he was 21 and preparing to get married.

The Society’s pamphlet announces that their “sole object…is to obtain a House for each of its Members at a trifling Weekly Payment beyond their ordinary rental for a limited period — say 12 Years. Every man who has paid for a period of Fifteen or Twenty Years the rent on the House he lives in, must regret that the amount has not been applied to the actual purchase of the dwelling, which would then be a free shelter to him for the remainder of his days.” The Society promised to divide its profits annually, to keep its expenses low, and to make “Advances upon a new and safe method, and the repayment of Advances perfectly within the means of every prudent workman.”
]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-09-22T11:00:16-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/be059d1167b9dd71a4764c66c97c19cf-18.html#unique-entry-id-18http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/be059d1167b9dd71a4764c66c97c19cf-18.html#unique-entry-id-18The Carliles are really an interesting family,

when you think about it. I’ll probably have more to say about them later -- in the meantime, here are a couple of portraits from the Bradlaugh papers. The first is Richard Carlile, the second is his daughter Hypatia.

Yes, CB kept a portrait of Hypatia, and it survived his death 50 years after he was in love with her on Warner Street in East London. So yeah, maybe there’s more to that story than his daughter Hypatia wanted to tell…

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-07-01T12:11:29-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/7df8aa3aa9534cf4a4bb0f022b798601-17.html#unique-entry-id-17http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/7df8aa3aa9534cf4a4bb0f022b798601-17.html#unique-entry-id-17I was driving home from work the other day, listening to music instead of audiobooks for a change; randomly playing the “top-rated songs” from my iPod.  It’s surprising how songs you forgot you’d loved show up there from time to time.  I found myself driving along to the snare-drum beat of U2’s 1983 hit, “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” which got me thinking about the events behind the song and about popular protest. (I cross-posted this to the Historical Society blog, so Americans would see it too)

The U2 song refers to the 1972 shooting of unarmed protestors in Derry, Ireland.  But the name Bloody Sunday has also been used to describe the reaction to the first Selma March (1965), police violence against unemployed protestors in Vancouver BC (1938), a 1905 St. Petersburg massacre that helped spark the Russian Revolution, and two other days of violence in the Irish conflict (1920, 1921).  The original Bloody Sunday was a November 1887 demonstration in London that was routed by the Army and Metropolitan Police.

The issues that led to 1887’s Bloody Sunday included the 1885-86 Irish Coercion Acts, but the demonstration was really a culmination of tensions brought on by England’s “Long Depression” of the 1870s.  East Londoners had been demonstrating against unemployment and poverty in their section of London for several years.  The difference in November of 1887 was, they marched westward with their protests, to Trafalgar.

The 1887 East End protestors were not the first to march on London’s centers of power.  In 1848, Chartists had planned to march on Parliament, and had only been turned away when the Duke of Wellington placed cannons on the Westminster bridge over the Thames.  But less than a generation later, Britain’s Reform League led demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of protestors to Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park in 1866, and to the Agricultural Hall and Hyde Park again in 1867.  These protests had been declared illegal by government authorities.  So how did the reformers “get away with” these massive demonstrations?

The leaders of the Reform League demonstrations had learned from the 1848 intimidation of the Chartists.  Charles Bradlaugh was an East Londoner who had been beaten by police at age 15, during an East London sympathy demonstration on the day the Chartists surrendered to Wellington.  Bradlaugh was subsequently posted to County Cork with the British Army, where participating in the eviction of starving Irish peasants helped to radicalize him, and where he learned cavalry battle techniques and tactics.  Bradlaugh insisted on public protests, against the wishes of many of his fellow Reform League leaders, and personally led them with the military discipline he had learned in Ireland.

200,000 Londoners marched on Hyde Park in July 1866.  Home Secretary Spencer Walpole had outlawed the protest a few days earlier, and threatened military action.  Bradlaugh and his radical allies in the Reform League leadership declared the government’s position unconstitutional, and announced they would challenge Walpole’s illegal attempt to bar peaceful, free assembly.  Of course, in order to be legal, Bradlaugh realized the protest would have to be peaceful.  And, aside from the famous destruction of some railings around the “Marble Arch” gate, which marchers led by a carriage of Reform League executives were prevented from entering by a troop of 1,600 police and soldiers, the demonstrationt was disciplined and nonviolent.  Bradlaugh wasn’t at the railings, he was leading another column of protestors across Knightsbridge toward Hyde Park at the time.

To make a long story short, Spencer Walpole resigned in disgrace and the Reform League’s demonstrations established the right of Londoners to march, occupy public parks and squares, and demonstrate for their political rights.  In 1868, the Reform Act passed, extending voting rights to working-class people for the first time in British history.  And yet, twenty years later, Bloody Sunday.  What had changed?  

In 1887, Charles Bradlaugh was not at the head of the demonstration.  He was exhausted and ill, following a six-year battle to take the seat in Parliament he’d been elected to in 1880.  And he had doubts about the programs proposed by the Social Democratic Federation, which was sponsoring the protest.  Bradlaugh advised readers of his National Reformer to stay away, and warned SDF and Fabian Society leaders to be cautious and consider the security of their people.  Believing the precedent set by the Reform League had established their rights once and for all, Annie Besant, George Bernard Shaw, and the other leaders of the demonstration defied the government and marched.  The results were disastrous.

Men, women, and children marchers were beaten by London police.  Over two hundred people were hospitalized.  Three were killed.  Infantry and cavalry troops were on hand, with fixed bayonets; but luckily were not called into action.  Several of the march’s leaders were arrested and held behind bars for six weeks.  

It’s difficult to pinpoint all the factors that had changed, between 1866 and 1887.  There was a new government, with new people in key positions — although in both cases, the Tories were in power.  Chicago's Haymarket riot of 1886 was fresh in the minds of both the protestors and the government.  The radicals who had been united behind the Reform League had split into factions.  Socialists who seemed to be gaining ground in London political circles offered utopian ideals but had little connection with actual working people (the Labour Party was established in 1893, partly in response to these issues).  But it’s’ possible that the key difference was the 1887 leaders’ belief that their right to protest, established 20 years earlier, was inviolable.

The lesson of Bloody Sunday, it seems to me, is that we can’t take our rights for granted.  If we are not prepared to defend them, they can be taken from us.  Like Charles Bradlaugh and his fellow reformers, we have to be resolute, disciplined, and nonviolent — but prepared to defend ourselves.  It’s not insignificant that when Bradlaugh died four years after Bloody Sunday, one of the mourners at his simple secular funeral was twenty-one year old Mohandas Gandhi.  
]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-06-14T16:31:37-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/92f64e33c44967cd2a72c294c18c4a15-16.html#unique-entry-id-16http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/92f64e33c44967cd2a72c294c18c4a15-16.html#unique-entry-id-16The Boston Investigator, edited by Abner Kneeland, who was convicted in 1835 of blasphemy in Boston because he (like Bradlaugh 43 years later) had reprinted and advertised Charles Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy.








]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-05-23T15:23:54-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/9864fdf5130f27a97c546971b0863614-15.html#unique-entry-id-15http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/9864fdf5130f27a97c546971b0863614-15.html#unique-entry-id-15 I received a very interesting e-mail this weekend from Robert Forder, the great-grandson of Robert Forder, Secretary of the National Secular Society when Charles Bradlaugh was President, freethought publisher, and ultimately the owner of the Freethought Publishing Company at 28 Stonecutter St., London. Forder came from a humble background, but became a central figure in the British freethought and birth control movements. But unlike Charles Bradlaugh and some of his more notorious associates like Annie Besant and Edward Aveling, Forder is one of the many members of the movement who are neither well remembered nor honored for their decades of work.

Mr. Forder has written a brief account of his ancestor’s activities in the NSS and as a freethought publisher, which can be viewed by clicking here. He claims, “the importance of the Stonecutter Street address in disseminating contraceptive advice and knowledge has been grossly underestimated by the secondary sources published in recent years. In fact, the address was the main source of advice in those pioneering days when even the Malthusian League stopped short of publishing this type of material. As a very conservative estimate well over 500,000 Stonecutter Street birth control tracks were published and sold and the figure is probably nearer 1 million or more.” I completely agree. We need a much more thorough history of the contributions made by people like Robert Forder to both freethought and population control–and of how these two movements overlapped each other.

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-02-09T20:22:42-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/020c252d9b69001825ab0567e92086c2-14.html#unique-entry-id-14http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/020c252d9b69001825ab0567e92086c2-14.html#unique-entry-id-14In Dare to Stand Alone: The Story of Charles Bradlaugh, Athiest and Republican, Bryan Niblett has written what will go down as the definitive biography of Charles Bradlaugh as a public figure. A barrister himself, Niblett thoroughly understands and very clearly explains the legal and parliamentary battles Bradlaugh spent much of his life fighting. Since these legal battles occupied so much of Bradlaugh’s time and energy, at the expense of private life and family, it will come as no surprise that Niblett’s account shares its subject’s focus. That said, Niblett provides a detailed and sensitive depiction of Bradlaugh’s adult life; which will captivate readers new to the story, and satisfy old friends of Bradlaugh.



]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-01-23T18:32:46-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/2ca85219db2fccaebd2af24de75c68b7-13.html#unique-entry-id-13http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/2ca85219db2fccaebd2af24de75c68b7-13.html#unique-entry-id-13 The Boston Globe ran a story about Charles Bradlaugh's speech in Boston on October 18th 1873, which includes a transcript of his speech. Click on the headline to see the article. Bradlaugh was accompanied onto the stage by Wendell Phillips, Senator Charles Sumner, and William Lloyd Garrison. Phillips introduced Bradlaugh, saying “Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you the Samuel Adams of 1873.” (the Globe accidentally said “1783”)

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-01-22T16:29:37-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/29d4874b0289c5b8ee3b323a443e6db0-12.html#unique-entry-id-12http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/29d4874b0289c5b8ee3b323a443e6db0-12.html#unique-entry-id-12Comments have been turned "on." That means, you can react to anything you see here, by clicking on the word "comments" at the end of a post. And you can see other people's comments the same way. I hope people will respond, with reactions to my stuff, your own ideas, suggestions, criticisms, etc. The comments are moderated, which means I can decline a comment if I think it's not appropriate. You'll be prompted for a name and an email address. Please use your real name, unless you have a really good reason for staying anonymous. In that case, choose a "handle" and use it consistently. And expect an email from me asking who you really are.
]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2011-01-20T22:52:43-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/76a10c3d25de743a8b4e1a4c7fcbe9ed-11.html#unique-entry-id-11http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/76a10c3d25de743a8b4e1a4c7fcbe9ed-11.html#unique-entry-id-11Birthplace of Charles Bradlaugh

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2010-08-19T08:49:25-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/80428899e383db27a222c453d0ab053b-9.html#unique-entry-id-9http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/80428899e383db27a222c453d0ab053b-9.html#unique-entry-id-9The trip to Brighton is off. Didn’t know you could be uninvited to an international conference. I guess anything is possible.

That means the trip to London to see the Bradlaugh archives will wait until I’ve finished my work in New England. Not a problem, as that work is pretty interesting, and is keeping me quite busy at the moment.

One element of that work will probably be a biography of Charles Knowlton, the Massachusetts country doctor who wrote the birth control book, The Fruits of Philosophy, that Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were prosecuted for reprinting in 1878. Knowlton was quite a character in his own right, so the bio is something I expect Bradlaugh enthusiasts will probably be interested in reading.

I’m also learning about hypertext authoring tools, like Tinderbox and Storyspace (which George Landow at Brown University apparently used to create the Victorian Web). I still see a lot of these stories in Bradlaugh’s (and now in Knowlton’s) life as ideal graphic novel material, though.
]]>dan@bradlaugh.comwelcome2010-02-24T00:03:00-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/e71751cb2af4445a149b82dce8ce3b4e-8.html#unique-entry-id-8http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/e71751cb2af4445a149b82dce8ce3b4e-8.html#unique-entry-id-8 Well, the news is my paper proposal was accepted for the first annual Rural History conference in Brighton, England this fall! This is huge. Like becoming a charter member of a really cool new club. Rural History on the ground floor.

And while I’m there, I’ll have a chance to get to London and see the Bishopsgate archives of the Bradlaugh Papers. And run around East London; see how long it takes to walk to the City from Warner Place. Maybe I’ll make a sidetrip to Northampton and have a pint with my facebook buddy Norman.

Lots to do, lots to plan. Bottom line, Rural History is on, and so is the Bradlaugh bio. The details of getting a PhD while I’m doing all this will just have to work themselves out... ]]>dan@bradlaugh.combackground2010-01-07T22:42:13-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/50aa2aedae03bf1ebcdc8e96d8ee440c-7.html#unique-entry-id-7http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/50aa2aedae03bf1ebcdc8e96d8ee440c-7.html#unique-entry-id-7I just can't resist these old maps...

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comprimary2010-01-04T16:19:07-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/91540df1ebe65acee2c880fb8f2032e9-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/91540df1ebe65acee2c880fb8f2032e9-6.html#unique-entry-id-6I've added a page (also in blog format) where I can post some of the primary documents I'm finding along the way. Click to go there.

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comfriends2010-01-02T18:48:26-05:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/6b2ee606f08c111e6361b81274848192-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/6b2ee606f08c111e6361b81274848192-5.html#unique-entry-id-5"Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife,
A home of peace by loyal friendships cheered,
And love them more than death or happy life,
They shall avail not; he must dree his weird"
("The City of Dreadful Night")


Can't help thinking he's thinking about his friend Charles...]]>dan@bradlaugh.compress2009-10-04T15:30:29-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/328b67050b9083d6db82f324b85fedcd-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/328b67050b9083d6db82f324b85fedcd-4.html#unique-entry-id-4a link to some of the things that were said there. I would have enjoyed seeing Alan Moore, too!

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comscience2009-03-18T14:21:46-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/fedb8256a22e2b7b8589b4f7e3a99f9b-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/fedb8256a22e2b7b8589b4f7e3a99f9b-3.html#unique-entry-id-3I’m thinking about a story that includes CB and some of the scientists of his day. Darwin is the obvious one who comes to mind, but I’m actually more interested in the people around Darwin (both before and after), who either elaborated ideas similar to Darwin’s, or alternatives.

Victorian Sensation needs another, closer look (as does the Vestiges). And there are some interesting leads in a series of lectures on Anthropology given by CB in 1881 at the Hall of Science. These are interesting for several reasons. First, they show CB in the role of scientific lecturer. Significant, because he isn’t just debating churchmen or attacking the Bible (this is the picture his rivals wanted to paint of him; and even the sympathetic reader might fall into this belief, given the huge volume of writing and speaking CB did on anti-religious topics).

The lectures show CB disseminating the latest ideas of British and French scientists to the general public. The Hall of Science attracted crowds of working people, so the nature of these talks is altogether different from lectures by the scientists themselves to academic audiences. As a result, it’s interesting to look at the type of information that was making its way into the general public’s understanding of contemporary science (both from the pulpit of the Hall of Science, and in the form of penny reprints of CB’s talks).

CB begins the first of his three talks with a quote from Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature: “The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place man occupies in nature and of his relation to the universe of things.” Thomas H. Huxley had himself been lecturing to working men at Jermyn Street since 1855. The lines CB quotes are the beginning of Huxley’s section “On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals,” which he had given as a series of lectures at Jermyn Street in 1860. Huxley wrote to his friend Dyster, “I am sick of the dilettante middle-class, and mean to try what I can do with these hard-headed fellows who live among facts.”

CB goes on to quote Dr. Paul Broca, Dr. James Hunt, and W.H. Fowler on the scope of anthropology. The science seems to have contained an element of archaeology and physiology, as well as an unfortunate focus on race based on contemporary ideas from craniology and language theory. He cites as his main sources Dr. Paul Topinard’s text, Huxley’s book, Geiger’s “History of the Development of the Human Race,” and Letourneau’s Biology.

CB is clearly interested in establishing in his listeners’ minds that the anthropological point of view is at odds with Christianity. Discussing the controversy over single or multiple origins, he notes that “polygenists” like Louis Agassiz, Gliddon and Nott, “having in view the very few thousand years then claimed by the Churches for man’s existence on earth, contended that the ordinarily accepted time was insufficient for the development of known diversities of type…But two features have now to be considered which were then excluded: one, the admittedly huge period of time man has inhabited the earth; the other, the light resulting from the untiring labors of Darwin in the path opened out by Lamarck and somewhat hesitatingly trodden by Wallace.”

In addition to being the field that “more than any other science finds itself in conflict with religious and political institutions,” anthropology in CB’s mind is the best place to look for moral answers. “To know what man should do,” he says, “it is first necessary to know what man is, and what it is he can do.” This is a key to CB’s interest in lecturing to his working-class audiences on the subject. The other key is anthropology’s potential as a source of insight for the biological improvement of humanity. He quotes Topinard saying “it is undeniable that man by a certain method of high breeding and well-managed crossing is capable of being changed in successive generations in his physical as well as in his moral character. According to the modes adopted he will go on either degenerating or improving.” While these words in Topinard’s “Introduction” form the closing point in an argument regarding the utility of anthropology, CB would have seen their congruence with his belief in individual self-determination. Perfectibility in CB’s mind was all about individuals making the right choices. As such, it was quite distinct from the top-down, large-group focus a eugenicist might use to interpret Topinard’s words. Biological improvement and moral choice was also a refutation of the type of historical inevitability proposed by Marx and his followers. And it was a positive application of the principles that led CB to support population control doctrines. Anthropology provided a way out of both the accusation that “atheism is only a rejection,” and the claim that Neo-Malthusian ideas were “against life.”
]]>dan@bradlaugh.compics2009-03-18T09:52:34-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/5e67d837e76a61dc46d38fa7a71dc114-2.html#unique-entry-id-2http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/5e67d837e76a61dc46d38fa7a71dc114-2.html#unique-entry-id-2A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays, Charles Bradlaugh (New York: A. K. Butts & Co., 1874). This is a US edition of Bradlaugh’s 1861 book, which I haven’t seen. But assuming the engraving is in the English edition, Bradlaugh would have been about 28 when this image was made.

]]>dan@bradlaugh.comtimeline2009-03-17T19:25:29-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/00eb58ef8eb0f87dc2c3a1f63fc3dfae-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/00eb58ef8eb0f87dc2c3a1f63fc3dfae-1.html#unique-entry-id-1Bradlaugh Chronology:

Prehistory

1807: James Bradlaugh, a younger son of a blacksmith in Brandeston, Suffolk [thanks, Clive!], arrives in London with his family. He settles and opens a gunsmith shop at 4 Parson’s Ct., Bride Lane, off Fleet Street. (David Tribe, President Charles Bradlaugh, MP, London: Elek, 1971, p. 13)

1811: Charles Bradlaugh (Sr.) born in London. Father James Bradlaugh dies of Tuberculosis less than six months later.

In addition to Tribe (above), the best source for the general story of Bradlaugh’s life is his daughter’s book: Charles Bradlaugh, A Record of His Life and Work by His Daughter Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895.

1-18-1818: Francis Place writes to George Ensor about neo-Malthusianism, the idea that people should deliberately limit the size of their families to a number of children they can reasonably support. This doctrine was to become a taboo subject in Victorian England, The arguments against artificial birth control were first, that it was against the “law of God,” and second, that it would encourage vice. Although James Mill had adopted Malthusian ideas first, Place was becoming the leader. The idea of simply encouraging later marriages made no sense, he argued. His early marriage (at 19, to a 16 year old girl) had, in his opinion, saved his life. But neither was “moral restraint” the answer. He and his wife had 15 children (five died), and he wrote to Ensor that between himself, Ensor, James Mill (who had 9), and Wakefield, they had “no less I believe than 36 children—rare fellows to teach moral restraint.” (James A. Field, “The Early Propagandist Movement in English Population Theory,” The Bulletin of the American Economic Association, Vol. 1, No. 2, Princeton: American Economic Association, 1911. p. 221)

8-16-1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. Richard Carlile escapes unharmed, returns to London, and publishes the details of the event in defiance of the authorities.

1-4-1822 Richard Carlile writes his new year issue of The Republican In the Dorchester Gaol, where he is imprisoned for publishing Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason in an inexpensive edition that poor people could afford to buy and read. The issue contains summaries of the trial of his wife, Jane Carlile, imprisoned for carrying on his business and publishing the report of his trial, and his sister, Mary Ann Carlile, who was also imprisoned for continuing to keep the shop open.

1823: Francis Place begins Neo-Malthusian movement. One of his earliest recruits is his student John Stuart Mill. “The talented son of a talented father, a public character universally known and esteemed, throughout civilized Europe, but whose name I withold because its publication might injure the man without benefiting the cause—bought up many hundred copies of Carlile’s pamphlet [Every Woman’s Book or possibly “What Is Love?”], and, aided by a young friend, distributed them gratuitously in the most crowded part of London. Their doing so attracted the attention of the police, and they were brought before a magistrate. He inquired of them their names, which they gave to his surprise; asked them what could induce them to circulate such a pamphlet, and upon their replying, calmly, but firmly, ‘that they had been actuated solely by a desire to assist and instruct those who stood most in need of assistance and instruction,’ they were quietly dismissed by the perplexed magistrate, who would not approve, and yet knew not how to condemn their proceedings; and who feared the effect, to moral as to religious orthodoxy, of publicly associating names of such high standing with principles so heterodox.” (Robert Dale Owen, son of social reformer Robert Owen, Indiana Congressman, and author of Moral Physiology, 1830, quoted in John Cunningham Wood, John Stuart Mill: Critical Assessments, London: Routledge, 1991, p. 41-2) Note that by this time, they’re talking about “every woman,” not every married woman. Mill and his friend were throwing the pamphlets into the cellars of well-to-do houses where the servants lived, in 1823 or 1824. This event, although it didn’t end in official sanctions against Mill, seems to have scared him straight. He never again went so far out on a limb, and for the rest of his life he very rarely made public statements about his private opinions. Mill even withheld the publishing of his autobiography until after his death in 1873.

1-2-1829: Richard Carlile begins his New Year edition of his new paper, The Lion, with an open letter to the Duke of Wellington on “The Vice of Oath-Taking.” He says “the keeping of a man out of an office by a testing oath, and swearing a man into an office, are acts alike unwise, unnecessary, and vicious.” (4) He continues, when “a man is kept from an office by his dislike of an oath: and here the first principle indicated is, that very honesty and energy which is so very desirable in a public officer.”

8-12-1831: “France—Republic or Monarchy—A Public Discussion …in the theater of the Rotunda, near Blackfriars Bridge…Measures will be taken to convey the sense of the majority to the French nation.” (Complained against in the conservative Quarterly Review, p. 299) Carlile was recently out of prison at this time. When he was re-imprisoned, later in 1831, his wife Eliza Sharples Carlile took over operating the Rotunda and lecturing against the establishment and its church. (as mentioned in The Comet) William Cobbett also lectured at the Rotunda, and also found inspiration in the French Revolution.

1832: The church, alarmed at the popularity of speakers like the Carliles and the interest shown by the working people, began publishing defenses of “Inspiration, the Canon, and Revealed Truth.” In their view, “By modern infidelity... we are simply to understand those new forms, and that new energy which skepticism has put on, in modern times, and more particularly since the era of the French revolution; by which it has mightily diffused itself among all ranks of society, and has produced a class of writers capable of making their appeal to each separate branch of the community.” (John Morison, D.D., A Portraiture of Modern Scepticism or A Caveat Against Infidelity, London: Frederick Westley and A. H. Davis, 1832. pp. 7-8)

1831-2: Charles Bradlaugh (Sr.), who had been apprenticed to a law stationer since the age of ten or eleven, is “loaned” to one of the stationer’s clients, Lepard & Company, solicitors at 6 Cloak Lane. They like the young man’s work, and buy his indenture from the stationer. Charles Sr. becomes a clerk, and later a confidential clerk and office manager for Lepard & Co. He works for them for the rest of his life, eventually earning two guineas (42 shillings) a week. Bradlaugh marries Elizabeth Trimby, a domestic servant. They move to 31 Bacchus Walk, Hoxton, where their first son, Charles, is born September 26 1833.

1833: William Ewart Gladstone enters the House of Commons at age 23. Gladstone is a younger son of a father who turned a modest inheritance into huge wealth by investing in West Indian sugar and slavery. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, “hothouses for the governing classes,” William Gladstone had planned to become an Anglican priest, until he became impassioned by the 1832 reform movement. He shouted himself hoarse at rallies, OPPOSING the increase in the franchise. In the election following the 1832 Act, the Duke of Newcastle (whose son, Lord Lincoln, was a school chum of Gladstone’s) offered Gladstone his “pocket” borough or Newark. Gladstone entered the Commons convinced he was going into politics to save England from the unwashed masses. In his first session he opposed reform to working conditions, the poor law, local government, and the Church of England. “His maiden speech was a defense of West Indian plantation owners, of which his father was one, against government attempts to abolish slavery.” (Richard Aldous, The Lion & the Unicorn: Gladstone V. Disraeli, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2007. Pp. 12-14)


]]>dan@bradlaugh.comfreethinker2009-03-17T19:14:04-04:00http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/0e099b92f366d6b52b807c56571972e2-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.bradlaugh.com/index_files/0e099b92f366d6b52b807c56571972e2-0.html#unique-entry-id-0Charles Bradlaugh (age 27)

Inscription: “To my friend WE Adams” (From Memoirs of a Social Atom, W. E. Adams 1903, volume 2, facing page 407)

This was a summary/pitch for Freethinker, which I envisioned as a young-adult biography:

Charles Bradlaugh’s parents threw him out of their house when he was sixteen for admitting his doubts about their religion. Bradlaugh survived on the streets of East London, and met radicals fighting for reform. He watched poor families starve as an occupying soldier in Ireland, and returned home to London determined to change the world.

Victorian London is America. Bradlaugh was the most notorious radical in the world’s first modern city. Readers of Freethinker get a glimpse of Victorian society from an unusual angle. Freethinker provides a view from below, but from Bradlaugh’s intelligent, energetic, constructive point of view. This distinguishes it from other stories that tap into the fascinating energy of the London streets but focus on crime, vice, and moral decay (Alan Moore’s graphic novel series From Hell, dealing with the Whitechapel murders, is a good, edgy example).

There is no recent biography of Charles Bradlaugh. The most current work on him is nearly four decades old, and the best biography went out of print a century ago. Bradlaugh is a compelling subject not only because he was an iconoclast, but because he was a reformer rather than a revolutionary. Bradlaugh’s story illustrates the complexity of fighting for change from within. This is a valuable addition to school and library shelves filled with stories about revolutionaries, who destroy and replace the systems they oppose.

Freethinker provides a new historical perspective, the point of view of an engaged partisan rather than a neutral historian. Bradlaugh’s eventful life and Freethinker’s narrative nonfiction approach enable his biography to read like an adventure novel. The reader participates in Bradlaugh’s reaction to his world, and gains a sense of what it would feel like to fight for change.]]>