1. Charles Bradlaugh was an English political activist and atheist.
36 Facts About Charles Bradlaugh
1. 2.
Charles Bradlaugh founded the National Secular Society in 1866,15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851.
3.
In 1880, Bradlaugh was elected as the Liberal MP for Northampton.
4.
Charles Bradlaugh was finally allowed to take an oath in 1886.
5.
Charles Bradlaugh left school at the age of eleven and then worked as an office errand-boy and later as a clerk to a coal merchant.
6.
Charles Bradlaugh was thrown out of the family home and was taken in by Eliza Sharples Carlile, the widow of Richard Carlile, who had been imprisoned for printing Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason.
7.
Soon Charles Bradlaugh was introduced to George Holyoake, who organised Charles Bradlaugh's first public lecture as an atheist.
8.
Charles Bradlaugh returned to London in 1853 and took a post as a solicitor's clerk.
9.
Charles Bradlaugh gradually attained prominence in a number of liberal or radical political groups or societies, including the Reform League, Land Law Reformers, and Secularists.
10.
Charles Bradlaugh was President of the London Secular Society from 1858.
11.
Charles Bradlaugh was eventually acquitted on all charges, but fierce controversy continued both in the courts and in the press.
12.
Charles Bradlaugh was a member of a Masonic lodge in Bolton, although he was later to resign due to the nomination of the Prince of Wales as Grand Master.
13.
Charles Bradlaugh challenged Hugh Price Hughes, a leading Methodist minister, to a debate on the merits of Christianity.
14.
Charles Bradlaugh was an advocate of trade unionism, republicanism, universal suffrage, but opposed socialism.
15.
Charles Bradlaugh's anti-socialism was divisive and many secularists who became socialists left the secularist movement because of its identification with Bradlaugh's liberal individualism.
16.
Charles Bradlaugh was a supporter of Irish Home Rule and backed France during the Franco-Prussian War.
17.
Charles Bradlaugh's letter was regarded as a direct provocation by his opponents, and when he came to the table, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff rose to object to the administration of the Oath to Charles Bradlaugh.
18.
Speaker Brand allowed him to object, and Wolff argued that the Evidence Amendment Acts referred to by Charles Bradlaugh only allowed an affirmation to one who regarded the oath as meaningless, so the House should not allow Charles Bradlaugh to take it.
19.
Sir Hardinge Giffard moved an amendment that Charles Bradlaugh be not permitted to take either the Oath or make an affirmation.
20.
The majority comprised 210 Conservatives, 34 Liberals and 31 Irish Home Rulers; supporting Charles Bradlaugh were 218 Liberals, 10 Home Rulers and 2 Conservatives.
21.
Charles Bradlaugh was permitted to address the House from behind the Bar, and treated the occasion as his maiden speech.
22.
Charles Bradlaugh based his argument on law, contending that he was not legally disqualified, and asking "as one man against six hundred" for the same justice he would receive in the Courts.
23.
At that point Charles Bradlaugh was summoned back to the table to be told the outcome of the debate; having relayed it, the Speaker then ordered him to withdraw.
24.
Charles Bradlaugh "respectfully refused" to obey an order of the House which was "against the law".
25.
The Conservative leader Sir Stafford Northcote successfully moved a motion that Charles Bradlaugh be required to withdraw but Charles Bradlaugh "positively refused to obey".
26.
At this Sir Stafford Northcote moved that Charles Bradlaugh be taken into custody.
27.
The House agreed, on a division by 274 votes to 7 and Charles Bradlaugh was taken to the small prison cell located under Big Ben in the Clock Tower.
28.
Charles Bradlaugh later returned to the House, but because Members had to take the oath before being allowed to take their seats, he effectively forfeited his seat in Parliament once he cast a vote in early 1881.
29.
Charles Bradlaugh's seat fell vacant and a by-election was declared.
30.
Charles Bradlaugh was re-elected by Northampton four times in succession as the dispute continued.
31.
In 1886 Charles Bradlaugh was finally allowed to take the oath, and did so at the risk of prosecution under the Parliamentary Oaths Act.
32.
Charles Bradlaugh spoke in Parliament about the London matchgirls strike of 1888.
33.
On 5 June 1855, at St Philip's, Stepney, Charles Bradlaugh married Susannah Lamb Hooper, daughter of Abraham Hooper, a plasterer.
34.
In 1859 they had a son, Charles Bradlaugh, who died in July 1870, aged ten, some two months after his parents had separated.
35.
Charles Bradlaugh's funeral was attended by 3,000 mourners, including a 21-year-old Mohandas Gandhi.
36.
In November 2016 a portrait bust of Charles Bradlaugh was added to the Parliamentary Art Collection.