Review by Tony Brewer
What is a Humanist and which Humanists had a major influence in British politics? These were the questions that were addressed in our September meeting by Maddy Goodall, the Humanist Heritage Coordinator for Humanists UK. At one level the first question is easy to answer – a Humanist is someone who has self-identified by becoming a member of a Humanist organisation such as Humanists UK or a Humanist group or branch like SELHuG. But what about when there were no such formal organisations, before 1896 with the founding of the Union of Ethical Societies, which was the precursor of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and then Humanists UK. Maddy explained that there are several beliefs and values that are common to Humanists today and can be recognised in those we call Humanists from the nineteenth century and earlier. She picked out examples of Humanists who had made a difference in the field of politics and reform, grouped under several broad headings.
A concern for human rights and making life better through political action:
- Gustav Spiller (1864-1940) helped organise the inaugural International Moral Education Congress in 1908 as well as the first Universal Races Congress in 1911;
- Julian Huxley (1887-1975) was the first direct general of UNESCO and a president of BHA;
- Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960) a Welsh Labour Party MP and a passionate but often controversial public speaker, was appointed Minister for Health and Public Housing in the government of Clement Atlee after WW2. He oversaw the building of over 1 million new homes and, most famously, was architect of the National Health Service;
- Jennie Lee (1904-1988) the wife of Nye Bevan, was elected as an MP in 1929 and was the first Minister for the Arts, in which role she established the Open University.
People motivated by humanist values:
- Hermann Bondi (1919-2005) was a theoretical physicist and cosmologist and the longest-serving president of the BHA. He was also Director General of the European Space Research Organisation and subsequently chief scientific advisor to the Ministry of Defence;
- Zona Vallance (1860-1904) was a Humanist and feminist and one of the founders of the Union of Ethical Societies;
- Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) was the first Labour Party prime minister of Great Britain;
- Richard Carlile (1790-1843) was a radical publisher, a campaigner for universal suffrage and an outspoken advocate for press freedom. In 1819 he was a member of the platform party at Peterloo in Manchester and a witness of the ensuing massacre;
- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a writer, philosopher and feminist who developed and applied the principles of utilitarianism in a quest for a practical moral philosophy. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, his compassionate rationalism was deeply humanist;
- Helen Taylor (1831-1907) was the step daughter of JS Mill and she worked with him to promote women’s rights;
- Robert Owen (1771-1858) was a socialist, philanthropist, and reformer. In 1799 he married Caroline Ann Dale and acquired her father’s cotton spinning mill in New Lanark and it was here that he put his values into action. His principal idea was that character is shaped by environment so, to improve the former one must first act on the latter. This became the driving principle of subsequent reformist movements and led ultimately to the formation of the cooperative movement;
- Henry Hetherington (1792-1849) was a writer, printer, publisher and bookseller who championed freedom of the press. He believed in social reform motivated not by religious belief but by a humanist sense of duty to one’s fellow man;
Humanist causes:
- Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) was a freethinker, secularist and founder of the National Secular Society. He was elected as an MP but because he refused to take the religious oath of office he was refused entry to Parliament and was unable to take his seat until the right of affirmation was introduced in 1888;
- Annie Besant (1847-1933) was a socialist, activist and champion of human freedom. She became a leading figure in the secularist movement and campaigned particularly for women’s rights and birth control;
- Dora Russell (1894-1986) was a feminist, pacifist and educationalist. Unlike most girls at that time, she received a full education including taking a first class degree in modern languages at Cambridge University. It was there that she was exposed to religious and philosophical issues and became a member of the Heretic Society. She became a leading proponent of women’s reproductive rights and children’s education, founding Beacon Hill School in 1927. She married philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1921;
- Other important figures involved with humanist campaigns included Barbara Smoker on nuclear disarmament, Leo Abse on homosexual rights, Mary Seaton-Tiedeman and Peter Jackson on divorce law reform, and Irishman Owen Sheehy-Skeffinton on education.
Maddy ended her talk by reminding us that fuller biographies of all these humanist reformers, and of many others, can be found on the Humanist Heritage website.
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