George Holyoake

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George Jacob Holyoake
Born (1817-04-13)13 April 1817
Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, UK
Died 27 January 1906(1906-01-27) (aged 88)
Brighton, Sussex, England, UK
Occupation Secularist; co-operator

George Jacob Holyoake (13 April 1817 – 22 January 1906), was a British secularist and co-operator. He coined the term "secularism" in 1851[1] and the term "jingoism" in 1878.[2]

Owenism

Born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, Holyoake was for a brief time a lecturer at the Birmingham Mechanics' Institute, later becoming an Owenite lecturer.

Holyoake joined Charles Southwell in dissenting from the official policy of Owenism that lecturers should take a religious oath, to enable them to take collections on Sundays. Southwell had founded the atheist Oracle of Reason, and was soon imprisoned because of its contents. Holyoake took over as editor, having moved to an atheist position as a result of his experiences.

Holyoake was influenced by the French philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, notable in the discipline of sociology and famous for the doctrine of positivism. Comte had himself attempted to establish a secular 'religion of humanity' to fulfil the cohesive function of traditional religion. Holyoake was an acquaintance of Harriet Martineau, the English translator of various works by Comte and perhaps the first female sociologist. She wrote to him excitedly upon reviewing Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Prosecution

In 1842, Holyoake became the last person convicted for blasphemy in a public lecture, held in April 1842 at the Cheltenham Mechanics' Institute, though this had no theological character and the incriminating words were merely a reply to a question addressed to him from the body of the meeting.

It took an intervention by his supporters to stop him being walked in chains from Cheltenham to Gloucester Gaol, and there was a formal memorial of complaint to the then Home Secretary, which was upheld. He was well supported by the Cheltenham Free Press at the time in his actions, but attacked in the Cheltenham Chronicle and Examiner. Those attending the lecture, which was the second in a series, moved and carried a motion 'that free discussion was equally beneficial in the departments of politics, morals and religion'.[3]

Secularism

Holyoake nevertheless underwent six months' imprisonment, and the editorship of the Oracle changed hands. After the Oracle closed at the end of 1843, Holyoake founded a more moderate paper, The Movement, which survived until 1845. Holyoake also established the Reasoner, where he developed the concept of secularism, and founded Secular Review in August 1876. He was the last person indicted for publishing an unstamped newspaper, but the prosecution was dropped upon the repeal of the tax.

In the 1850s Holyoake and Charles Southwell were giving lectures in East London. Harriet Law, then a Baptist, began debating with them, and in the process her beliefs changed.[4] She "saw the light of reason" in 1855 and became a strong supporter of Holyoake and a prominent secular speaker. After a split with Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, leaders of the National Secular Society (NSS), in 1877 Holyoake, John Watts and Harriet Law founded the British Secular Union, which remained active until 1884.[5] On 6 March 1881 Holyoake was one of the speakers at the opening of Leicester Secular Society's new Secular Hall in Humberstone Gate, Leicester. The other speakers were Harriet Law, Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.[6]

Holyoake retained his disbelief in God, but after the Oracle soon came to regard "atheism" as a negative word - hence his preference for "secularism". Holyoake adopted the word "agnostic" when that became available.[7]

Co-operative movement

His later years were chiefly devoted to the promotion of the co-operative movement among lower-class workers. He served as President of the first day of the 1887 Co-operative Congress.[8] He wrote the history of the Rochdale Pioneers (1857), The History of Co-operation in England (1875; revised ed., 1906) and The Co-operative Movement of To-day (1891). He also published (1892) his autobiography, under the title of Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, and in 1905 two volumes of reminiscences, Bygones worth Remembering.

He died at Brighton, Sussex, on 22 January 1906, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery in London.[9] The Co-operative Movement decided that a lasting monument should be built to him: a permanent home for the Co-operative Union in Manchester.[10] Holyoake House was opened in 1911, and also houses the National Co-operative Archive: a second collection is also held at Bishopsgate Library.[11]

Miscellaneous

Holyoake coined the term "jingoism" in a letter to the Daily News on 13 March 1878, referring to the patriotic song "By Jingo" by G. W. Hunt, popularised by the music hall singer G. H. MacDermott.[12]

He was the uncle of the independent MP and convicted fraudster Horatio Bottomley and contributed towards the cost of Bottomley's upkeep after he was orphaned in 1865.[13]

New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake was related to him.[citation needed]

Works

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Holyoake, G.J. (1896). Origin and Nature of Secularism, London: Watts & Co., p.50.
  2. ↑ Feldman, Noah (2005). Divided by God. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pg. 113
  3. ↑ Turner, C M, Thesis (PhD), 'Politics in Mechanics' Institutes 1820-1850', University of Leicester, 1980, and references therein
  4. ↑ Taylor, Barbara (1 January 1993). Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century. Harvard University Press. p. 283. ISBN 978-0-674-27023-7. Retrieved 26 August 2013. 
  5. ↑ Jellis, George (9 March 2011), Harriet Law (1831-1897), Leicester Secular Society 
  6. ↑ Gimson, Sydney A. (March 1932). "Random Recollections of the Leicester Secular Society". Retrieved 2013-08-27. 
  7. ↑ "Holyoake eventually came to adopt Huxley's label "agnostic"" (Berman 1990, p.213); "The later Holyoake felt that the new label "agnosticism" more exactly suited his atheological position." (Berman 1990, p.222)
  8. ↑ "Congress Presidents 1869-2002". February 2002. Retrieved 2008-05-10 
  9. ↑ "George Jacob Holyoake (1817 - 1906) - Find A Grave Memorial". Findagrave.com. Retrieved 2009-09-03. 
  10. ↑ Collection Description of the Holyoake archive, held at the National Co-operative Archive, Manchester, UK
  11. ↑ Collection Description of the Holyoake archive, held at the Bishopsgate Institute, London
  12. ↑ Martin Ceadel, Semi-detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 105.
  13. ↑ Matthew Parris, Kevin Maguire, "Great parliamentary scandals: five centuries of calumny, smear and innuendo", Robson, 2004, ISBN 1-86105-736-9, p.85

References

  • Berman, David (1990). A history of atheism in Britain: from Hobbes to Russell, London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04727-7.
  • McCabe, Joseph (1908). Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake (2 vols). London: Watts & Co. [Incorporates A contribution towards a bibliography of the writings of George Jacob Holyoake, by C.W.F. Goss, pp. 329–344.]
  • Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press 

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