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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
CHARLES
BRADLAUGH
AN APPRECIATION
Notes of an Address given to the
Bradlaugh Fellowship by the
REV. STEWART D. HEADLAM
Warden of the Guild of St. Matthew
With an Introduction
George
[price
London
Standring, Finsbury Street, e.c.
one penny]
1907
�BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS BY THE
REV. STEWART D. HEADLAM, B.A.
‘The Meaning of the Mass’...
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‘ The Socialist’s Church ’ ...
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1 Priestcraft and Progress ’ ...
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‘The Place of the Bible’ ...
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‘ The Laws of Eternal Life ’...............................................
‘Christian Socialism’...
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‘ Secular Work of Jesus Christ ’ ...
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‘Municipal Puritanism’
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‘ Secular Schools ’
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London : Office of the Guild of St. Matthew,
376 Strand, W.C.
BiSHOPSGATE INSTITUTE
REFERENCE LIBRARY
oaife'.
-SEP.JflM—
Classification: ......N.5^—.—
i
2s.
is.
6d.
6d.
3d.
id.
id.
id.
id.
�INTRODUCTION.
HE pages that follow this prefatory note contain
some of the most interesting and valuable parts of
a lecture delivered to the Bradlaugh Fellowship by the
Rev. Stewart D. Headlam on 24th May, 1905. The
meeting took place in the hall of the Boro’ of Shore
ditch Liberal and Radical Club, New North Road—
within a stone’s throw of the ‘mean street’ in which
Charles Bradlaugh was born, and of the Shoreditch
Public Library, where a large marble bust of our lost
leader occupies a prominent place. Mrs. Hypatia Brad
laugh Bonner presided at the lecture ; and her son
Charles listened with eager attention to Mr. Headlam's
appreciation of his grandfather’s life and work.
What is the Bradlaugh Fellowship? And how came
it that a clergyman of the Church of England went as
a friend and brother to address such a gathering?
Charles Bradlaugh died on 30th January, 1891; and
already there are men, belonging to the class for which
he Jived and strove, who have never heard his name.
This, perhaps, is not matter for wonder : it was said of
old time, ‘ Quit the world and the world forgets you.’
But there are some amongst us, men and women who
worked with Charles Bradlaugh and knew the inestim
able value of his life-service to humanity, who deter
mined that so far as in us lay the memory of our great
leader should not be suffered to pass away. The
Bradlaugh Fellowship is but a small group of obscure
people, whose object is to unite those who served under
him, and to keep in public remembrance the work
that he did.
T
3
�This is the more necessary because, as Mr. Headlam
truly says, his energy was mainly ‘ terrible, destructive,
iconoclastic.’ The man who, with toil and pain, clears
the path and constructs the road, leaves no monument
to call the easy-stepping wayfarer’s attention to his
work: the level safe road is there, but the very name
of the maker is forgotten. The broken idol is thrown
into the lumber-room; the children play with the frag
ments, heedless of the fact that their forefathers were
persecuted even unto death if they refused to bow
before the trumpery thing.
If Charles Bradlaugh had chosen the primrose path
in life, if he had placed his eloquence, ability and over
whelming force of character at the service of smug con
formity, then his reward would certainly have been rich
and his place of the highest. But he was ever a man of
the people, the champion of the lowly and oppressed ;
he lived and died poor, worn out in a ceaseless struggle
for the advancement of the class to which he belonged.
Mr. Headlam’s connection with the Secularist move
ment is a story that dates back to the early seventies.
The letter to his intimate friend Sarson (page 8 it seq.}
bears witness by its earnestness and occasional inco
herence to the profound and abiding impression made
by Bradlaugh’s personality upon a young clergyman of
open mind and catholic sympathies. Those who read
that letter today may well find it impossible to realize
the moral atmosphere of the time when it was written.
It was the day of mean, pitiful persecution and narrow
ness, when no weapon of petty spite was too contemp
tible to be used against the atheist; when (to the pre*
sent writer’s knowledge) young men were turned from
their homes by pious parents on account of their freethinking views. ‘ Hatred, malice and all uncharitable
ness’ wrought its ignoble work for the greater glory of
God. Then and thenceforward ‘Stewart Headlam’ (as
we were wont affectionately to style him) became our
open and constant friend; while abating no jot of his
Christian creed, he was always our helpful comrade.
4
�The incident at which he hints on page 14 is a case
in point. In 1879 two science classes (under the con
trol of the Science and Art Department, South Ken
sington) were organized in connection with the Hall of
Science« The director was the late Dr. E. B. Aveling;
the National Secular Society (of which Mr. Bradlaugh
was president) provided prizes for students who passed
the class examinations; and the proportion of‘passes’
was far above the average. At the outset a difficulty
was experienced in complying with the Department’s
regulations. To obtain the Government grants it was
essential that a Justice of the Peace or a clergyman
should be on the committee. Now at that time no
J. P. would look at us, even through a telescope ; and
it was not our way to seek favours from the clergy.
In this perplexity the Rev. Stewart Headlam was our
deus ex machina: he became chairman of the com
mittee, and devoted much time and energy to the
work. In 1883 there were eleven classes, 239 students
receiving instruction, and 82 per cent, of these passed
their examinations at South Kensington. In that year
the Bishop of London, at the instigation of Lord Geo.
Hamilton, put personal pressure upon Mr. Headlam to
induce him to sever his connection with the classes.
Mr. Headlam, however, was not amenable to episcopal
coaxing or threats, and retained his position as chair
man to the end.
This business of the science classes was but one of
numberless instances of Mr. Headlam’s kindliness and
helpfulness in days when odium and persecution were
the Secularist’s daily lot. Throughout the long and
bitter struggle on the ‘Oath Question’ he stood up
manfully for recognition of Charles Bradlaugh’s rights
as the elected of Northampton. Mr. Headlam was one
of the vice-presidents of the League for the Defence of
Constitutional Rights, and on many occasions publicly
protested by voice and pen against the injustice with
which Mr. Bradlaugh and his constituents were treated,
in the name of religion, by a bigoted and reactionary
majority in the House of Commons. Mr. Headlam was
5
�also, a member of the committee of the National Asso
ciation for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws, a body
formed to combat the persecuting spirit which revived
certain evil old laws in the vain hope of suppressing a
vivacious criticism of Christian doctrine. It was a note
worthy example of moral courage, twenty-five years
ago, for a clergyman of the Church of England to
identify himself with a public protest against the laws
under which three men—Messrs. Foote, Ramsey and
Kemp—were convicted and cruelly punished.
Little wonder, then, that we honoured and loved
Stewart Headlam ; and that when in 1905 he came to
speak to us of Charles Bradlaugh, and later to preside
at the annual dinner of our Fellowship, he was greeted
by us all as a dear friend and comrade.
George Standring.
6
�CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
T AM honoured by the request to say a few
-*■ words in appreciation of Charles Brad
laugh ; and I am glad to know that I speak in
the presence of his daughter and grandson.
The impression which he has left upon me
is of a man of tremendous strength—mainly
destructive, terrible, iconoclastic. He is one
of those men who
‘ have towered in the van
Of all the congregated world to fan
And winnow from the coming step of time
All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime
Left by men slugs and human serpentry.’
Or, if you want words from the sacred He
brew scriptures to describe him, we will say
of him: ‘The idols shall he utterly abolish.’
He was one of those men who help us to
understand a little the meaning of those
words which were spoken of the typical
representative man: ‘Whose fan is in his
hand, and he shall throughly purge his floor,
and gather his wheat into the garner, and
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’
And I make bold to say, without any fear
of it now being considered a paradox, that
7
�the Church, looking back, must acknow
ledge that it owes a deep debt of gratitude
to Charles Bradlaugh for this destructive
work of his.
My knowledge of him takes me back to
the Christmas of 1873, when I went to Beth
nal Green and so got into touch with many
of Mr. Bradlaugh’s followers, and looked
forward each Thursday to the National Re
former as the expression of the most ad
vanced Radicalism of the time.
It so happens that letters of mine which
I used to write to my friend George Sarson
have come back into my hands. I will read
you one which I wrote on the Sunday night
after hearing Mr. Bradlaugh at the Hall of
Science in the evening. It was not my first
visit to Old Street. I had been a few weeks
before, and heard Mrs. Law denounce the
smooth-faced priests who would put out the
lamp of Reason. Here is the letter, given
just as I dashed it off to an intimate friend:
Sunday night,
April 4, 1875.
My dear Sarson,
I have had another evening at the Hall
of Science. Bradlaugh lectured on Slavery
in America: which, with the exception of
one bitter sentence against Christians, must
have done all his hearers real good. How
ever, all the great abolitionists whom he
8
�spoke of were Christians: though undoubt
edly they were opposed by the Christian
Societies in America. After the lecture a
member of the ‘ Bible Institute’—an old
hand here—tried to prove that the law of
Moses did not encourage slavery, and of
course failed. Bradlaugh called him a liar,
and I was rather in a funk when I called
out ‘ Mr. Chairman ’ and went up to speak:
there were calls of ‘Name!’, and though
Bradlaugh said, quite courteously, ‘ Never
mind the name,’ I gave them my name and
office, and fired away for my ten minutes:
thanked him cordially for his grand speech:
told them that the Bible religion which
Bradlaugh had said favoured slavery might
be made to favour anything: which brought
much applause, which increased when I said
that I did not believe in any infallible Book,
but in Christ; then said the applause en
couraged me to believe that true religion
would live again, and that it encouraged me
as much as the shout of ‘Bogey!’ at the
Shoreditch Town Hall when a man spoke
of a girl going to Hell for ever for going to
a museum on Sunday. I ended by saying
that in the National Reformer, which I often
read (terrific excitement!), a Mr. Maccall
had said that religion was a necessity for
man, and that it was an awfully important
thing that they all should support the best
religion they could find, support the true
9
�Christians against the false. Bradlaugh re
plied: thinking I was Hansard, and thanking
me for all I had done for East London, won
dered what the Bishop would say to me, and
how he was to treat me while I belonged
to a Church which published thousands of
tracts teaching the infallibility of the Bible,
and how he could find out what my Christ
ianity was; if I did not believe in the Old
Testament, which part of the New did I
believe in; did I believe in faith or works
(Paul, I suppose, or James). I replied that
I was not Hansard, but was glad they re
cognised his work, and that now they knew
there were at least two good Christians;
that they might send what 1 said to the
Bishop, and that I challenged them to do
so, and was certain that, though he might
not like it personally, he would not turn
me out of my curacy, which, I said, he
could do any day if he thought fit; I said
that if I am left safe it will be a proof that
my teaching, which you approve, is good
Church teaching. I then said that as a
Christian I did not believe in either Old
Testament or New, but in Christ, of whom
there was sufficient ordinary evidence that
he lived and died a self-sacrificing deliverer;
that I was a Christian because I obeyed
Christ’s spirit speaking into my heart, and
that Mr. Bradlaugh was a Christian too. I
then gave them very briefly the doctrine of
io
�the Logos; and, seeing Colenso’s book ad
vertised in their hall, spoke of his real work
as a Christian Bishop, and compared his
work for Langalibale with the anti-slavery
work; that they should judge of Christianity
by its best men, not by frothy dissenting
ministers, or Moody and Sankey (great ap
plause), and that I could not be responsible
for tracts put under people’s doors.
Bradlaugh said that he did not know what
to say; was very courteous; said I was very
liberal, but if he were a barrister and the
Bishop would give him a brief, he would
convict me of heresy; hoped I would not
spoil my splendid humanitarianism by join
ing it to a dead and rotting creed; knew
that I was a good ’un by the ring of my
voice (as far as I could make out); hoped I
would get married (he may have meant the
spiritual children); and asked me, if I liked,
he would think none the worse if I didn’t, as
he didn’t want to challenge me (as was his
wont with others):—but if I liked to prove
in the National Reformer that Christ was a
deliverer and a self-sacrificing one—he be
lieved there were no documents within 150
years of his reported death:—more praise—
we shake hands and part.
Altogether a most exciting evening: at
any rate the hall was full of people who
now know that a parson does not worship
the Bible, or believe that men will be kept
ii
�¿n punishment for ever, or objects to Mu
seums being open on Sunday: this of itself
must help to break down barriers or con
struct bridges ‘pontifically.’ (I also said
that the Bible was probably the best book,
but must be treated just like any other book.
And he spoke strongly and feelingly of the
treatment he had received from the parson
here at St. Peter’s (of the way he and others
had been libelled, which is too true)—Packer
by name—when he was a ‘doubter.’
I want you to tell me what you think about
my writing to the Reformer’ and whether it
,
would be well to write to the Bishop and say
that a lot of men in his diocese accused him
of believing in the infallibility of the Bible,
and therefore supporting slavery, and ask
ing leave to publish his answer in the Re
former.
. Next Sunday Bradlaugh lectures on Chris
tian Culture and is sure to say some nasty
things about Christians, and we deserve it;
how much nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven
are these men in the Hall of Science than
the followers of Moody and Sankey !
Ever yours,
Stewart D. Headlam.
This letter may perhaps serve as an in
teresting note of the kind of work done at
the Hall of Science. ‘Is the Bible True?’
12
�‘The New Life of Abraham,’ and all the rest
of that part of Mr. Bradlaugh’s work was
necessary in view of the crude Bible-wor
ship which was prevalent. Now of course
we recognise that to ask ‘ Is the Bible true?
would be as absurd as to ask ‘Is English
Literature true?’
But though mainly a destroyer, Mr. Brad
laugh was not only destructive. The form
ula of the National Secular Society, that this
world demands, and will repay, our utmost
care and attention, suggested construction
on what always seemed to me to be the dis
tinctly Christian lines of the Secular work
of Christ, involving a salutary attack upon
the otherworldliness of pietism. It was this
which inspired all the political work—the
unbending Radicalism—of Mr. Bradlaugh;
and which led, at a time when many of the
best men were hemmed in by the Malthusian
dilemma, to the Malthusian League, to the
Knowlton pamphlet, and to prosecutions for
teaching which was the natural outcome of
the current philosophy of the time. We
have now learned differently; but we must
remember that it was Bradlaugh’s zealous
fight against poverty which led him into
those regions: he, too, burned with indign
ation when he saw that the people were not
properly fed, clothed and housed; and set
about, to the best of his power, regardless
of hatred and insult, to find a remedy.
13
�But so bitter was the feeling against him
that the simple fact of my consenting to be
president of the science classes held at the
Hall of Science was made a matter of a
question in Parliament, and was one of the
many causes of the Bishop of London’s at
tacks upon me; but I was glad to find out,
only the other day, that it led to the young
men who attended those classes nicknaming
the Guild of St. Matthew as the 1 Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Atheists.’
On July 24th, 1880, I sent the following
telegram to Mr. Bradlaugh, addressed to
The Prison: The House of Commons’:—
‘Accept my warmest sympathy. I wish you
good luck in the name of Jesus Christ the
Emancipator, whom so many of your oppon
ents blaspheme.’ This sums up a lecture on
A Christian’s View of the Bradlaugh Case,’
which I gave throughout the country, and
which ended with the words that, accord
ing to Christ’s teaching, however much Mr.
Bradlaugh might say that he did not know
God, as he had taken infinite pains to bring
about the time when the people of England
should be properly clothed, fed and housed,
God knew him and claimed him as His.
Those of us who are Socialists, especially
those of us who have learnt from Henry
George, believe that there are other means
rather than those advocated by Mr. Brad
laugh, which will bring about the results he
14
�desired; but none of us, especially those of
us who are Socialists, can afford to ignore,
still less to detract from, his overmastering
personality. To listen to him, to be in his pre
sence, was a moral tonic. William Rogers
('hang theology, damn science, let’s begin!’
Rogers) said to me once, after some recep
tion : ‘1 found your friend Bradlaugh deadly
dull!’ Doubtless he was self-centred, and
doubtless he was a 'terrible man’; but what
a fight he fought, and what an example he
has left us!
If, as most of us believe, we know better
now how to tackle the evils against which
he fought; if, as some of us believe, there is
a divine inspiration urging us to the battle,
let us at any rate see that we are as strenu
ous and as devoted as an ‘individualistic
atheist.’
We have much to be grateful to Charles
Bradlaugh for on account of his destructive
work; but it is his towering personality that
we chiefly honour.
Stewart D. Headlam.
15
�»
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Charles Bradlaugh : an appreciation
Creator
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Headlam, Stewart D. (Stewart Duckworth)
Standring, George
Bradlaugh Fellowship
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Notes of an address given to the Bradlaugh Fellowship on 24 May 1905. Stamp on title page and elsewhere: Bishopsgate Institute Reference Library. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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George Standring
Date
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1907
Identifier
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N304
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Secularism
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Text
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English
Charles Bradlaugh
NSS