13 Facts About Stanton Coit

Stanton George Coit was an American-born leader of the Ethical movement in England.

Stanton Coit was born in Columbus, Ohio, on 11 August 1857.

Stanton Coit studied at Amherst College where he "fell under the spell of Emerson", at Columbia University, and at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he studied under Georg von Gizycki and took the degree of Dr phil.

Stanton Coit settled in the United Kingdom, later taking British citizenship.

In 1898, Stanton Coit married Fanny Adela Wetzlar, daughter of a German industrialist Fritz von Gans, who predeceased him in 1932.

Stanton Coit translated all three volumes of Nicolai Hartmann's Ethik in 1926.

Stanton Coit retired as leader of the Ethical Movement in 1935 to be succeeded by Harold Blackham, who dismantled the "churchy" elements, paving the way for the later establishment of the British Humanist Association by Blackham and Julian Huxley.

Stanton Coit died on 15 February 1944 at his home in Birling Gap near Eastbourne.

In 1891, Stanton Coit resigned from the SPES, taking his followers with him.

Stanton Coit then founded and became president of the West London Ethical Society.

Stanton Coit began a journal, The Ethical World, and purchased a former Methodist Chapel with his wife's money, to establish the Queen's Road Ethical Church where he often preached.

Stanton Coit's view was that "Ethical Churches" should replace existing churches founded on the basis of religious belief, and that the Church of England could be turned into such a church.

Stanton Coit's efforts were all reversed by his successors, both at the Ethical Church and the national Ethical Union.