Charles Bradlaugh
From Philosopedia
Charles Bradlaugh (26 September 1833 - 30 January 1891)
An English Member of Parliament and a freethinker, along with William Gladstone one of the best orators of his day, Bradlaugh was the first president of the National Secular Society (1866), working with Annie Besant.
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Youth
As a boy, according to Foote, Bradlaugh was “an eager and exemplary Sunday School scholar” of St. Peter’s Church, Bethnal Green, and studied the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Gospels as a preparation for confirmation. Finding discrepancies he wrote to the incumbent, the Rev. J.G. Packer, for his “aid and explanation.” The net result of these inquiries was that the youth was obliged to leave his father’s home, and “from that day until his death his life was one long struggle against the bitterest animosity which religious bigotry could inspire.”
Bradlaugh soon afterwards attended the “infidel” meetings in Bonner’s Fields, and later came into contact with the militant Freethinkers of the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, Richard Carlile, the brothers Holyoake and others. From this time until 1868, when he became a candidate for Parliament, he carried on a vigorous Freethought propaganda under the name of “Iconoclast.” During this period, and for some time afterwards, he was also actively working for Republicanism. In his short Autobiography (1873) he refers to his lectures on “The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick.” “I have sought,” he says, “and not entirely without success,” to organize “the Republican movement on a thoroughly legal basis.”
National Reformer
A towering figure of English freethought and a pronounced atheist, Bradlaugh In 1860 established the National Reformer, an uncompromisingly atheistic journal, which at first had to contend against a host of difficulties, including a Government prosecution to compel him to find securities against the publication of matter of a blasphemous or seditious nature. His successful defence resulted in the repeal of the Security Laws. Bradlaugh’s knowledge of the law was wide, but apart from this he showed remarkable penetration in perceiving the legal points involved in the charges brought against him. In 1876, when he and Mrs. Besant were prosecuted for publishing a Malthusian work, his accurate knowledge of the law again stood him in good stead. They were convicted, but the conviction was quashed on appeal. In 1866 Bradlaugh founded the National Secular Society and remained its President until 1890. The Society is still flourishing and keeps a strong current of popular Freethought in movement all over England.
Parliament
Bradlaugh had major difficulties becoming a member of Parliament. In April 1880 he was elected at the general election, tried to affirm rather than swear the religious oath on the Bible, was refused, then announced he would take the oath instead. This was also refused. In May and June of 1880, he refused to withdraw and was imprisoned overnight in the Coock-Tower. In July 1880 he affirmed and took his seat, but this was declared illegal and the seat was declared vacant in March 1881. He then was re-elected in April 1881, tried to take the oath three times, and was forcibly prevented from entering Parliament to do so in August 1881. In February 1882, he tried to take the oath twice, administered the oath to himself, was forced to resign, was re-elected in March 1882. He then tried to take the oath in May and July 1883, administering the oath to himself in February 1884, at which time his seat was declared vacant. Re-elected in February 1884 and again in November 1885, he was finally allowed to take the oath and take his seat in January 1886. In 1888 he introduced an Affirmation Bill but, ironically, died before being able to take advantage of the legislation.
National Secular Society
His creating the National Secular Society remains one of his major freethought contributions. Of atheism, Bradlaugh wrote,
- The Atheist does not say ‘There is no God,’ but he says ‘I know not what you mean by God’; the word ‘God’ is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me.
Author
One of his provocative books was Humanity’s Gain from Unbelief (1849), which included,
- I maintain that thoughtful Atheism affords greater possibility for human happiness than any system yet based on, or possible to be founded on, Theism, and that the lives of true Atheists must be more virtuous - because more human - than those of the believers in Deity, . . .
- Atheism, properly understood, is no mere disbelief; is in no wise a cold, barren negative; it is, on the contrary, a hearty, fruitful affirmation of all truth, and involves the positive assertion of action of highest humanity.
Editor and Agitator
As noted by David Berman, Bradlaugh unlike some of his predecessors, was willing to “take the war into the ‘enemies’ camp” and was quite thorough in his atheism.” From 1854 to 1859, he edited London Investigator and in 1860 he became an editor of National Reformer.
Two years before his death, Bradlaugh introduced a bill to repeal the Blasphemy Laws in England. Just before his death, the House of Commons passed a resolution expunging from its Journals the many bitter entries of former years. However, Bradlaugh was in a coma at the time and never learned of the belated gesture. Meanwhile, his attempt to abolish the Common Law offence of blasphemy failed and “still disfigures our democracy,” editor Peter Brearer of The Freethinker has written.
Although G. J. Holyoake was no admirer, he said of Bradlaugh that “He was the greatest agitator, within the limits of the law, who appeared in my time among the working people.” Although he attracted fierce loyalties and strong aversions, none denied his power, effectiveness, and what George Bernard Shaw described as his “passion and conviction.” Josiah Wedgwood remembered a friend telling how Bradlaugh “described to us how the shadow of the Cross lay like a black curse across all history, and as he spoke of the horrors of Christianity great tears rolled down his face.”
Although a considerable part of Bradlaugh’s life was devoted to political work, it is probably as the “image-breaker,” the protagonist of Freethought, that he will be longest remembered, according to Foote. In the mid-1850s, he was, in his words, “honored by the British Banner” with a leading article vigorously assailing him for his lectures against Christianity. This “assailing” never ceased during his life, and was by no means confined to his views and opinions. He wrote numerous pamphlets. The “Plea for Atheism” appeared in 1877. In the debate with the Rev. W.M. Westerby on “Has or is Man a Soul?” (1879), and elsewhere, he showed his complete rejection of belief in a future life.
Last Years
Bradlaugh died on 30 January 1891. His daughter, Mrs. H. Bradlaugh Bonner, took minute precautions to procure “signed testimony from those who had been attending him,” that during his last illness he had never uttered a word directly or indirectly bearing upon religion. The last words she heard him speak during the night of his death “were reminiscent of his voyage to India.” Despite this testimony, Foote wrote, “The traditional Christian falsehoods on this subject are still circulated and the writer of this notice is constantly encountering them. As recently as 1932, Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner found it necessary to refute the absurd story about her father’s holding a watch and challenging God to kill him in sixty seconds. Such mendacities no longer yield the amusement of novelty to Freethinkers; rather, they are considered a tribute to Bradlaugh’s greatness.
In 1994, more than a century after his death, Bradlaugh was again in the news. A Church of England clergyman had urged that a statue of Jesus should replace that of “the atheist MP” which stands in Abington Square, Northampton, the town which first elected him to Parliament in 1880. The suggestion was considered “crass and offensive,” in the words of Barbara Smoker, and the town newspaper editorialized, tongue-in-cheek, that, yes, the statue might better be replaced by the Bishop of Durham. The newspaper then reported Smoker’s statement that
- No one can deny that Charles Bradlaugh—an outstanding Radical Liberal of the 19th century—really existed . . . whereas Jesus is probably no more historic than Aladdin or Peter Pan.
Bradlaugh's funeral drew 3,000 mourners, including Mohandas Gandhi, who appreciated his sympathetic support for Indian self-government. The burial was in Brookwood Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom.
In 1995, the town of Northampton officially named its park “Bradlaugh Fields,” a place with hedgerows and ponds, and natural grassland areas.
(See Radicals, Secularists, and Republicans by Edward Royle for a detailed description of Bradlaugh.)
{BDF; CE; EU, Edward Royle; FO; The Freethinker, January 1998; FUK; HAB; HNS2; JM; JMR; JMRH; PUT; RAT; RE; RSR; TRI; TYD; VI; WSS}
