I am pleased to present a few short articles about the early life of Charles Bradlaugh, a remarkable radical thinker born in Hoxton in 1833. The son of a clerk, he founded the National Secular Society in 1866. He was elected as a Liberal MP for Northampton in 1860 but he refused to take a religious oath and was not allowed to sit in the House of Commons. It took six years to change the law and he was finally allowed to take his seat in 1886.
Bradlaugh was a freethinker, an atheist, a republican and promoter of birth control. The first articles in this blog are about Bradlaugh's early life in Hackney / Bethnal Green. I was inspired to write these articles by his Great-great-grandson, Robin Bradlaugh Bonner, who has been my close friend for over four decades. Robin, who lives in Stoke Newington not far from where Bradlaugh grew up, invited me to accompany him on local walks to discover where his predecessor lived.
During those walks, we used notes by Di Ridley prepared for the Charles Bradlaugh Society. I am indebted to her for those notes and the sources she used which provided the inspiration for this research.
I have referred to the biography of Bradlaugh titled Charles Bradlaugh: a record of his life and work, volume 1, by his daughter Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Bradlaugh’s daughter, and John Mackinnon Robertson. This is available as an e-book from The Project Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org.
I have used secondary sources online for information on the growth of London in the early nineteenth century and the role of radical and Freethinker movements.
Any errors are mine.
Derek Perry