13 Facts About Barbara Smoker

Barbara Mary Smoker was a British humanist activist and freethought advocate.

Barbara Smoker was President of the National Secular Society, Chair of the British Voluntary Euthanasia Society and an Honorary Vice President of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association in the United Kingdom.

Barbara Smoker was born in Catford, London in 1923 into a Roman Catholic family.

Barbara Smoker served in the Women's Royal Naval Service from 1942 to 1945 in southeast Asia.

In 1950 Smoker joined the humanist movement when she became a member of the South Place Ethical Society, and the West London Ethical Society.

Barbara Smoker became a popular humanist celebrant at non-religious funerals, wedding ceremonies, gay and lesbian commitments, and baby-namings, as well as a trainer of celebrants for the British Humanist Association.

Barbara Smoker wrote the popular children's textbook Humanism, which saw widespread use in schools.

Barbara Smoker claimed to have financed the manufacture of the first Make Love, Not War badges that were popular in Britain during the 1960s.

Barbara Smoker became the South Place Ethical Society's last and only female Appointed Lecturer in 1986.

In 2005 Barbara Smoker received the Distinguished Humanist Service Award from Humanists International.

Barbara Smoker was awarded Honorary Member of Humanists UK at some stage in recognition of her activism.

Barbara Smoker lived in southeast London and in 2012 was elected the Honorary life president of the South East London Humanist Group in recognition that she was its last surviving founder member.

Barbara Smoker died in Lewisham Hospital on 7 April 2020, aged 96, from COVID-19.