LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
(1903.)
H
LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
BY
JOSEPH McCABE
M
AUTHOR OF "PBTBR ABKLARD," "TALLEYRAND," ETC.
WITH TWO PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAITS AND EIGHT
OTHER PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. I
[ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LTD.]
LONDON :
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1908
DA
We*
v.\
INTRODUCTION
THE invitation to write an Introduction to Mr.
McCabe's Life of George Jacob Holyoake I accept with
the greater readiness because I have been privileged
to see some of the proofs of the work, and I recognise
that in this biography the author confers upon us all
a notable service. He sets his hero in a true historical
environment, full of interest and enlightening. Here
we see how that wonderful character was formed and
developed which excited, in those of us who knew
Holyoake well, constant wonder and admiration.
My own knowledge of Holyoake goes farther back
than the date he has recorded in his diary as the time
when our acquaintance commenced, and which soon
ripened into a life-long friendship. It was in the early
fifties, when Holyoake was seeking to establish Secular-
ism by lectures, followed by open discussions, that
I first met him. I was then a youth of fifteen or six-
teen twenty years younger than Holyoake. Living
in Manchester, where the ardent political and social
movements of the mid-century had found their utmost
development, I was full of burning interest in public
questions. My early upbringing as a Unitarian had
given me freedom from prejudice against free and open
discussion of the questions upon which Holyoake came
to Manchester to lecture. But my education among the
Quakers had impressed me strongly with a spiritual view
INTRODUCTION
of things, religious and philosophical. I regularly attended
the lectures of Holyoake, Charles Bradlaugh(" Iconoclast"
as he was then announced), and other Secularist speakers.
I was attracted only by Holyoake. The others seemed
to me to strive for mastery in debate at any cost. Holy-
oake always appeared to seek first the victory of truth.
He held his own opinions strongly and tenaciously no
one more so ; but he always was anxious that there
should be fair consideration of all that could be said on
both sides of a question. He left upon his hearers an
impression of judicial impartiality. Such, at all events,
was that which he made upon me ; and the favourable
feeling comes back always as I think of our first meet-
ings. Mr. Holyoake would not of course remember,
but I naturally do so, that I timidly took my turn in the
open discussions which always followed the Secularist's
lectures. This gave me a second impression not less
favourable than the first. Holyoake treated all his
opponents in debate with such sweet courtesy and con-
sideration as are not easy to describe. The qualities
which Christians are proud to associate with the character
of a Christian gentleman were all embodied and illus-
trated in Holyoake's manner to those who discussed with
him. Some of his critics, I regret to add, displayed such
striking contrast of behaviour that it was quite common
to hear the remark in the audience that the lecturer
against Christianity seemed the truer Christian.
When I came afterwards to be closely associated with
Holyoake, in the Union and Emancipation movement,
the struggle for the political enfranchisement of the
masses, and, above all, in the great Co-operative move-
ment, I soon found that his devotion to truth was linked
to another high quality which I believe was the central
feature in his character. He was mentally brave to the
extent of absolute fearlessness. This was the more
INTRODUCTION vii
remarkable because the physical man looked sadly frail.
Slight of frame, refined of feature, weak of voice, Holy-
oake lacked all the physical advantages possessed by
such men as John Bright, Daniel O'Connell, Charles
Bradlaugh, Feargus O'Connor, and other leaders of men
I have known. Yet he would face hostile crowds and
speak out his message to them with unflinching serenity.
He would converse with bishops and distinguished
theologians with perfect respect and appreciation, but
also with perfect openness and candour in the expression
of his own views. It was this absolute fearlessness and
sincerity which eventually won for him the regard and
esteem of all thoughtful men of all schools in religion
and politics.
His career was one long conquest of self, in remark-
able ways. He was not an ascetic by nature. He had
strong social instincts. He longed for affectionate
regard, for consideration and friendship. Yet he took
up unpopular causes from first to last, and persisted in
their advocacy in spite of averted faces or angry looks
all around him. He loved comfort, ease, and innocent
recreations, and he fully appreciated the pleasures of the
table. But during three-fourths of his life he deliberately
sacrificed all chance of enjoyments of the kind. In the
pages which follow this Introduction, Mr. McCabe draws
a true and graphic picture of the sad existence which
Holyoake condemned himself to lead until long past
middle life. The marvel was to note how the struggles,
the pitiful pinches, the sad home losses, the desertions
of friends, the ingratitudes all seemed to temper and
sweeten the man. He never lost his sense of humour,
his keen enjoyment of wit, his happy appreciation of
men and things. His wife engaged a Salvation lass for
a domestic servant. The girl told Mr. Holyoake, with
a natural smack of self-appreciation, that she had " got
viii INTRODUCTION
religion." " Very good," he replied, " but do you sweep
clean under the mats ? "
In British movements we seem to reproduce naturally
our two-party system. It has been so in all the many
causes with which I was associated with Holyoake for
over forty years. It was noticeable in every case how
Holyoake naturally seemed to become the champion of
the section which was likely to suffer oppression or want
of just consideration. Probably this instinctive spirit
of knight-errantry was the key to a good deal in his
career. He who sets out to fight all along the line for
the weak will naturally encounter rough times. Holy-
oake did not escape. Even in the Co-operative movement
he found himself often on the unpopular side, but he
faced the music whether it played high or low, sweet or
menacing.
I have mentioned his physical frailty. He twice
practically lost his power of eyesight. He was often
hurt in the streets by drivers who did not recognise his
defect of vision. Yet his vitality was phenomenal.
It remained with him to an age far beyond the usual
years of men. To the last he was happy, cheerful, clear
in mind, industrious to a degree, precise in work and
method, scrupulously exact in fulfilling engagements
and discharging obligations. He seemed to have
acquired the entire control of himself, and so achieved
the highest victory man can win.
EDWD. OWEN GREENING.
January z, 1908.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAG.-:
I. EARLY YEARS I
II. GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS . . 1 8
III. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN . . 37
IV. TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT . . . . . 62
V. THE END OF OWENISM 88
VI. INTO A WIDER SPHERE 113
VII. FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM . . . . 133
VIII. THE LEADER AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT . .153
IX. EARLY CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM . 177
X. THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM . . . . 199
XI. RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI AND OTHER REFUGEES . 228
XII. THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS .... 257
XIII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) . 279
XIV. THE GARIBALDI LEGION 307
XV. SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND CO-OPERATIVE
PROGRESS 334
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT OF G. J. HOLYOAKE TAKEN
IN 1903 (Frontispiece}.
PORTRAIT OF MR. HOLYOAKE TAKEN IN 1847.
PORTRAIT OF MR. HOLYOAKE TAKEN IN 1876.
PORTRAIT OF MR. HOLYOAKE TAKEN IN 1882.
THE ROCHDALE PIONEERS.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE was born on April i3th,
1817, and died on January 22nd, 1906. Between those
two dates lies one of the most adventurous and profitable
stretches of social development that the world has ever
traversed, and its story is in many respects the story of
Holyoake. He became an "agitator," and his figure is
discovered at all times somewhere in the van of nearly
every progressist movement, to use his phrase, of his
stirring age.
He has himself described a few of the more patent
symptoms of social agitation that alarmed England in
the very year of his birth, but he does not seem to have
observed that he was brought into a world so fretful in
its misery that its rulers had withdrawn its most sacred
civic right. The Habeas Corpus Act had been sus-
pended a few weeks before his birth. For nearly a
generation the bond of patriotic feeling had held rich
and poor together in a common hatred of the French.
When that bond was undone, by the fall of Napoleon,
they fell wide apart. In the north, troops of famished
workers, their haggard faces lit by a desperate anger,
walked the streets and lanes with a laconic " Bread or
VOL. I. B
EARLY YEARS
Blood " on their rough banners. In the south, noble-
men and statesmen recalled over their wine the stories
that had been told them by fugitives from France in
1789. At a very early age Holyoake came to accept,
and he never abandoned, the Owenite principle that
"a man's character is made for him, not by him."
There was much to be said for it as a theory of his own
character of agitator.
Looking back from the heights of our comparative
peace and prosperity to-day, we can easily understand
the melancholy situation into which England had fallen
at that time. Hardly had men hauled down the gay
bunting, that had covered the land like a holiday-coat
after Waterloo, when the industrial rebound set in ; and
on the suffering ranks of the workers was thrown a
further army of disbanded soldiers and sailors and
makers of war-material. Men had time and cause
enough to think of England, and brood over the changes
that had for some time been undoing the old order of
industry. The enclosure of the commons more than
six million acres were enclosed during the reign of
George III and the concentration of agrarian capital
had unseated the cheerful yeoman, and turned him into
a sullen peasant. The home-industries, by which the
mother and daughter had so long eked out the scanty
wage of the father, were unable to compete with the
diabolical engines of the mills. Indeed, these same
engines were invading the country, and the use of agri-
cultural machinery was making strong arms idle and
strong hearts bitter. Wheat ran up (in 1816) from
52^. 6d. to I03J. In their bare, overcrowded cottages
they were dragging out a joyless existence on a thin diet
of the coarsest bread and turnips and potatoes.
When they set out in hope for the new manufacturing
centres, they found pale and infuriated groups of workers
EARLY YEARS
cursing the new conditions of industry. Philosophers
were talking with enthusiasm of their beneficent yoking
of the great wild forces of nature in the service of
humanity. It had brought strange fortune to most of
them. Employers had noticed that a child could, with
sufficiently vigilant supervision, control the tamed ener-
gies of the machine ; and children were plentiful. A
crude system of poor-relief had encouraged the multipli-
cation of infants, in wedlock and out of it. Poor-law
guardians had large numbers of orphans, or reputed
orphans, on their hands, and soon the tumbrils rolled
northward in all haste with their loads of timid, wide-
eyed children for the mills. Stunted, worn, ill-fed boys
and girls of eight years often enough of seven, and
sometimes six were handed over to the manager. By
working them fourteen hours a day (in most cases),
herding them like sheep, and feeding them like pigs
but less abundantly, as their fat was not marketable
ojie could make much money. The natives were com-
pelled to offer their own children. Their wage was one
penny a day, and they brought down the parent's wage
to a shilling. A family could live, and meet its patriotic
share in the new national debt of ^860,000,000, on less
than ten shillings a week. In cellars without windows
for windows were taxed and without drains, where
doctor must pick his way warily to the bed of the fever-
patient, two or three families could keep each other
warm of a winter's night
So England was lit up at night by burning ricks, and
gangs of black-faced men broke into the mills and
wrecked the machinery and scattered the cloth along the
lanes, and troops of dragoons coursed in every direction.
The town-jails were full of Luddites : the country-jails
with men who had tried to snare a rabbit for their starv-
ing families, A grim, lean, cadaverous-tinted people
EARLY YEARS
looked with wild glare on the stately mansions of the old
gentry and the flashing palaces of the new rich. Sons
of cotton-spinners and squires met on the moors in broad
daylight for exercise in cavalry manoeuvres and swinging
of sabres. It was rumoured that their place was taken
at night by ghostly bands with pikes and scythes.
Land-owners sat uneasily in the London clubs, and
looked out for the latest coaches from the north. From
Manchester came, a month before Holyoake's birth, the
thrilling story of the March of the Blanketeers. Three
hundred half-starved men had set out to march on
London, with blankets rolled up on their backs and
" long knives" long enough to cut their barley-bread
with hidden about their ragged persons: twenty of
them had pushed through the screen of cavalry as far as
Leek. l ' The March of the Marseillais, " nobles feverishly
whispered. From the Midlands came the news of "the
Derbyshire Insurrection " : which was happily stamped
out by eighteen dragoons. Other insurrections were
reported from other parts : generally by Government-
agents, who found them profitable.
The Government concluded that at least there was
ground enough for a revolution in the state of the
country. In March (1817) the Habeas Corpus Act was
suspended, and His Majesty's officers were empowered
to imprison any subject they thought fit, without a trial.
The village-orators of the Hampden clubs restrained
their sparkling flow. Even sturdy Cobbett fled to
America, and for a time one missed the sight of the
farm or factory-workers gathering in the barn or the
public-house by candle-light round some literate youth
who read out to them the sonorous appeals of the
Weekly Register, which they had pooled their farthings to
purchase. All cowered before "a tyranny not ex-
ceeded by any of the monarchs of the Holy Alliance."
EARLY YEARS 5
The dull-felt simmering and the occasional bubble alone
told the temper of the nation.
Into this seething world was Holyoake born, two
years after Waterloo and two years before Peterloo. He
has written so fully, and with such charm, about the
scene of his early years that there is little more to
be told, and certainly no pleasanter way of telling it. 1
His parents lived above the too common level of priva-
tion, but close enough to it indeed they soon sank
quite to it to make him feel very early the need of
agitators. His earliest recollections were of a quiet,
well-ordered, and happy home. It was the first house in
an almost rural little street (Inge St.) that is now in the
heart of the dark blot on the map that stands for modern
Birmingham. St. Martin's spire rose above the trees
close by, and the green fields of Warwickshire spread
almost to the door. In a few years he would hear the
place ring with the roar of heated crowds and the dread
clatter of cavalry, but as yet it had the drowsy stillness
of an old-time village. A few doors away lived a wart-
witch, a keen-eyed old lady, who peeped out between
green-silk curtains, thriving in the interregnum between
persecution and science. His maternal grandfather was
the parish-beadle, and wore a long blue coat with brass
buttons, during official hours and when he was reading
his Bible, and carried an imposing japanned staff.
George often proudly made the round of the graves with
him, and went with him to his garden up the Bristol
Road at five in the morning, and lit his pipe for him
with laborious flint and steel, and brimstone-match of
" satanic fumes." His paternal grandfather he never
1 The account will be found most conveniently in the earlier chapters
of his Sixty Years of an Agitators Lift, though I have generally drawn on
earlier documents. He was the second child and eldest son in a family
of thirteen.
EARLY YEARS
saw. Losses of business he had had a position of some
small value unsettled him and drove him to the north.
The boy saw little of his father in the early years.
Men often worked in those days from five in the
morning until nine at night, with no half-day on
Saturdays, and his father was a valued worker and
foreman in a large foundry. His children saw him on
Sundays, when he would don his drab breeches and
long boots with white tops. He was a grave, kindly,
thoughtful man : quite unlettered, but with intelligence,
a feeling of dignity, a strong silent will, and more than
ordinary skill at his work. He was never addressed by
his fellow- workers in the familiar terms they used to
each other, and he quietly neglected the customary
ritual of homage to the masters. He had "a pagan
mind," complying without a word in religious usages,
but apparently thinking that Providence was so very
exacting in the duties of this world that, if one attended
soberly and well to these, one could not be far astray.
The mother was more actively religious in feeling.
She was equally strong in character, and had a good
share of practical capacity. Before her marriage she
had one of the home-workshops that then abounded in
Birmingham, and she kept it for some years after George
Jacob's birth. With so many children to rear, she still
controlled the business of making horn-buttons in the
adjacent shed, until the larger methods of industry
destroyed it. She was one of the last in Birmingham to
surrender.
The joint industries and sober habits of his parents
brought comfort to the home in his childhood. The
year of his birth was a black one in the annals of
Birmingham. The cessation of the demand for war-
material had caused distress in the iron-trade, and at
the same time the quartern loaf went up to is. $\d., and
EARLY
potatoes to is. zd. per peck. Even the skilled artisan,
whose wage was two or three times that of the factory-
hand, had little luxury beyond his large family in those
days. However, the children could help in the button-
making, as George Jacob very quickly learned to do,
and they lived well. He retained to the end a boyish
recollection of stealing down one night to contemplate a
sucking-pig, flanked by toothsome auxiliaries, in pre-
paration for a festive supper. It was not until his
twelfth year that their circumstances were straitened.
But he was a delicate boy. His death was periodically
shifted a few years ahead by the elderly prophets of the
place : though few of their grand-children can have lived
to hear of it. It is clear that he was thoughtful beyond
his years and full of nervous energy.
Of his early education there is little to be said. Most
of the children of his class still educated themselves and
each other on the streets until their eighth or ninth year,
when they became workers. But the school-question
was taking shape. Sydney Smith said that " there was
no other Protestant country in the world where educa-
tion was so grossly and infamously neglected as in
England," and philosophers and statesmen were trying
to work out the problem, how far it was possible to
reduce the criminality and coarseness of the people by
schooling without giving them ideas " beyond their
station in life." The Quaker Lancaster had founded
the British and Foreign School Society in 1814 ; and
its menace to the Church, with its undenominational
teaching, was met by Dr. Bell's " National Society for
promoting the education of the poor in the principles of
the Established Church." Robert Owen and his fol-
lowers had initiated experiments in secular education.
Vast numbers of Sunday Schools gave instruction
though of that, Mr. Kay says, " it will be most charitable
EARLY YEARS
to say little " and many widows and other dames, who
could read a little, and sometimes even write, earned a
slender living by joining in the work.
The historian of Birmingham boasts of the schools of
his town. About 1820 it had one blue-coat school, one
National and one Lancastrian school representing what
the wags called " the fight of Bel and the Dragon " a
few dame-schools and many Sunday Schools, to a popu-
lation of 100,000 souls. Young Holyoake attended a
dame's school for a time, as he states in a fragment of
an early diary. The mistresses of these institutions were
often unable to write their names. They gathered their
dozen pupils in a ring about them in their cottages, and,
with the interruption of domestic duties or attending to
the shop, taught them to read the printed pages in the
dialect of the district. The strain was not great, and at
the age of seven or eight the boy began to earn his
living in the evenings after school, by soldering the
handles on lanterns. That he " often burned his
fingers " we can well believe ; but, when we remember
the miserable pay of unskilled workers at the time, it is
curious to hear that he came to earn $s. 6d. a week at the
work. For a time he controlled some new steam-
machinery for making buttons that his father had
bought. His neck-kerchief was caught in this one day,
and he was only saved from losing his head prematurely
by a neighbour rushing in at his cries. He must have
been in his eighth or ninth year at the time, as I find a
letter of Smith and Hawkes, the owners of the Eagle
Foundry, telling in 1849 that he has been in their
employment for thirteen years. In his ninth year he
began to accompany his father to the foundry at six in
the morning.
For a few years the quick, nervous boy had no other
education but the founding and forging of metal and the
EARLY YEARS
day-long clangour of the shop. He very soon showed
that he had his father's love of and skill in fine metal-
work. But we may trace first the more direct influences
in the formation of his mind and character. In his
eleventh year he began to attend the Carr's Lane
(Wesleyan) Sunday School. It seems to have been a
little more advanced than many, as it had a sand-class
a class in which half a dozen children were taught the
rudiments of writing by scrawls in a layer of fine sand.
To this select circle Holyoake did not attain, though he
attended the school for five years. He did no more than
the customary reading of the Bible and Watts's hymns.
The lessons were not made attractive. With one eye on
the sluggish fingers of the clock and another on the sun
struggling through the dull ground-glass windows he
used to envy the boys who had not the privilege of a
Sunday School.
His religious interest was quicker, and probably
helped him more than the slight secular training. His
mother attended at Carr's Lane, where the Rev. Angel 1
James whom he quite expected to have wings under
his black coat taught sturdy doctrines. The mother
sent a thrill round the supper table one Sunday night
by bringing home the assurance that there were children
in hell not a span long. The boy shuddered at such
doctrines, but his mother presently took him to a Baptist
chapel nearer home, where the Rev. Mr. Cheadle
expressed comforting doubts whether there was any hell
at all. The discrepancies stimulated him, and he became
an assiduous chapel-goer. Visiting ministers spoke of
him as an "angel-child." 1 In his twelfth year, however,
his piety was seriously chilled. It was a year of com-
mercial panic and great distress, and the means of the
1 Many of these details are from Miss S. D. Collet's sketch of his life,
of which we shall see more later.
io EARLY YEARS
family suffered heavily. The rector of St. Martin's sent
in his charge of fourpence for church-rate ; but coppers
were scarce, and were all needed to save a younger sister
from death. The next week the charge came again,
with a half-crown added for costs. Fearing that the bed
might be taken from under the child, as a neighbour had
experienced, the mother hurried to the office to pay.
She was kept waiting for five hours, and found her
child dead when she returned. George himself con-
tracted rheumatic fever at her grave, and was very ill for
six months.
The incident probably lay like a charge of powder in
the magazine of his memory, rather than had any ex-
plosive effect at the time, but we must remember that he
was precocious. In his twelfth year he made with his
own hands an elaborate model in steel of a fire-grate,
which shone proudly on his mothers shelf. However,
he continued his young pilgrimage among the chapels.
By his fifteenth year he had advanced so far as to set
foot in a Unitarian chapel ; though he remained near the
door, and kept an eye on the ceiling, so as to be able to
escape if the roof fell on their terrible doctrines. On
Sundays he prayed all day long at one place or other ; and
then there were mothers' meetings, at which the boy was
asked to " engage in prayer," and Friday-night meetings,
and endless others. The deacons of his original chapel
warned him that a rolling stone gathers no moss, which
was probably an encouragement to wander. In Inge
Street was a small Paedo-Baptist Chapel though
"what that meant not a single worshipper knew"
and he was appointed teacher in its Sunday School.
He had read Boston's Fourfold State and similar monu-
mental works from his mother's shelf. At another time,
when still a small boy, he used to go out to Harborne
with John Collins (later Chartist lecturer and prisoner)
EARLY YEARS II
to teach in a Congregationalist Sunday School. 1 With a
cold mutton-chop, thoughtfully provided by his mother,
in his pocket, he used to take the hand of his big friend
during the eight-mile walk through the snow. After his
lesson and Collins's sermon were over, they went to the
deacon's cottage to eat their dinner and contemplate "an
almost invisible fire in a spacious grate." As each
lesson, like each service, was opened by prayer, and
included prayer, and closed with prayer, there was much
to his credit. He said long afterwards that his mind
ached to think of it. He trusted that the Atonement
covered "the sin of prayer."
But the vague wandering of his mental tendrils soon
came to an end. One of his last religious experiences in
the old order of ideas was to listen to a new and fiery
preacher, whose pale thin face in its frame of long black
hair gave him a prophetic value. He preached the all-
sufficiency of faith. The youth tested it by going to
chapel without his coat in bad weather, and caught cold.
Then he startled the prophet by coming to his home and
demanding an explanation, which proved ambiguous.
He turned to profane instructors. While educational
theorists wrangled over methods, and the clergy fought
for their theological interests in the schools, and the
wealthy tried to determine what amount of schooling was
compatible with the submissiveness of the worker, a band
of reformers, headed by Dr. Birkbeck, founded the first
Mechanics' Institution, at London in 1823. Lord (then
Mr.) Brougham sent Dr. Coates to found one in Bir-
mingham in 1825, and Holyoake found his way to this
in his seventeenth year. It included a library, reading-
room, and museum of mechanical models and scientific
1 He elsewhere calls it Paedobaptist. But there are several small in-
accuracies in his autobiographical volumes, and I have been at pains to
trace the correct record. He also wrote verses in a religious magazine
about this time.
12 EARLY YEARS.
specimens. Lectures were delivered weekly, and classes
were held nightly in mathematics, elementary science,
drawing, Latin and French, and a few other subjects.
Junior pupils paid is. 6d. a quarter, and adults three
shillings.
In this admirable school Holyoake made rapid pro-
gress, under teachers who were as competent and anxious
to form character as to inform the mind. One of the
most 'energetic workers was William Pare, a follower of
Robert Owen and afterwards Governor of Queenwood.
His influence on Holyoake was indirect but decisive.
More direct and valuable was the tuition of two Uni-
tarians, Daniel Wright and Hawkes Smith ; though
Smith was also a defender of Owen's social theories.
Wright was a capable teacher, a vigorous political
worker, and a man of culture and character. Young
Holyoake used to walk home with him across the badly-
lit town at night, and won his regard. The Unitarians
were not admitted to be a religious body in Birmingham,
and they certainly had a secular tinge in comparison with
their neighbours. Their Sunday School offered lessons
in logic and mathematics, and they were well represented
on the staff of the Institution. But they never pressed
their critical views, and Holyoake passed almost un-
consciously through a Unitarian stage before he became
an Owenite. They were content to train the minds of
the young men under their charge in habits of precise
and fearless thinking, and they had a sufficient trust in
the nature of things to feel that this would lead them into
paths of truth.
Another movement of the time that helped to quicken
the minds of the workers was the " Society for Promoting
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge." It was set afoot
by Lord Russell, Mr. Brougham, William Allen, and a
few others, who do not seem to have noticed how much
EARLY YEARS 13
the name might be conceived to reflect on the "Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge," which they
copied. While even Cobbett looked with little favour
on the education of the workers, they were convinced
that a more intelligent people would tend to be less
vicious. Their Penny Magazine soon reached a circula-
tion of 200,000 copies a week, and they published also a
Penny Cyclopcedia, an Atlas , Journal of Education, Gallery
of Portraits, and other useful works at a low price. Their
publications were convenient for the pupils of the
Mechanics' Institutions, as the books used in the
National and British schools were childish and ludi-
crous. In the course of time, however, the Society fell
into disrepute with the workers. It would not fulfil its
promise of educating them in social as well as physical
science. Frederic the Great had said that he would not
have a throne based on the ignorance of his subjects.
The French Revolution had obliterated whatever traces
of that feeling remained in the minds of rulers. The
Emperor of Austria was bluntly declaring that he wanted
"good subjects," not learned ones. The Papacy ex-
tinguished for another thirty years every spark of interest
in the dangerous science of political economy. In
England a few, like Brougham and Russell, were
compromising. Mental and natural science they were
prepared to encourage, but they dare not promote
social studies. Yet they were teaching young men to
demand them.
Holyoake made rapid progress in grammar, logic,
mathematics, astronomy, and mechanics. His geometri-
cal exercise-book, which is preserved, is a model of
neatness, finish, and accuracy. Instruments were dear,
and he made himself an elaborate and ingenious pair of
compasses of sheet-iron. They were shown to Mr. Isaac
Pitman in 1836, when he distributed the prizes, and he
I4 EARLY YEARS
gave the youth a set of instruments, with the remark that
"it was a pity a master-mind should be so crippled."
He may have been amused when the slender youth of
nineteen replied that he hoped to show his gratitude " by
renewed exertions in the cause of science." How he
kept his promise, and proudly reported on the November
meteors to the Birmingham Philosophical Institution in
the following year, we shall see later. But we have said
enough of the formation of his mind up to his twentieth
year. He was happy in his tutors and, for the age, in
his opportunities. He was not wholly a self-made man.
The clearness, precision, conscientiousness, and almost
unfailing refinement of his later work have their germs
in his character, but they were skilfully tended in their
early growth.
In the meantime his education in the broader sense
was proceeding even more rapidly than his schooling.
Before he reaches his thirtieth year we shall find men
of distinction in the metropolis taking counsel with him.
No excellence of training would have brought the young
white-smith to that position in the space of twelve years
from his learning to write. There was something in the
atmosphere of his life that forced his spirit more actively.
Religious inquiry must have aided, though he never
appreciated this ; but it was chiefly the characters of
industrial and political life at the time that quickened
his observation.
The first feature of the life about him to fall with
irritating effect on his mind was the condition of the
workman. He had been working in the Eagle Foundry,
with his father, since his ninth year, and had become a
very promising mechanic. His little grate and his
compasses showed skill and originality. He also in-
vented a power-drill, the first that was known in the
large iron-works, Friends had his name entered in
EARLY YEARS
George Stephenson's note-book, and one is tempted to
think that an engineer of distinction was lost in him,
whatever was gained. The work was thoroughly pleas-
ant to him, but the conditions of work soon disgusted
him. His father was respected in the foundry, but the
treatment other men received gave him an impression of
tyranny and injustice. A shop-mate of good character
was transported for ten years because he attempted to
take away a file valued at a few coppers. Strong men
hit their knuckles with their hammers from nervousness
when the master was about. The more sober had to
conceal any money they saved, and to dress badly, lest
their wages should be reduced.
The Eagle Foundry, under Unitarian masters, was not
an especially bad works ; and the earlier law forbidding
combinations of workers had been repealed in 1824, and
a more moderate Act passed in 1825. Francis Place had
been devising in his famous room at Charing Cross for
ten years how to secure the right of combination, and
he had triumphed just before Holyoake became a boy-
whitesmith. Unfortunately the years that followed were
very lean ones in the calendar of trade and industry, and
the new Trades' Societies brought little improvement.
The strikes they initiated generally failed, and the dis-
tress became greater than ever. Iron was replacing
wood in a thousand ways, and the new demand for iron
rails (for trains) was of interest to Birmingham ; yet, with
the exception of 1823 and 1824, the fifteen years after the
Peace were years of short work and great distress.
The precocious boy would quickly learn that he had
entered a rebellious order. In the year that he became
a worker there were large and bloody riots, especially in
Lancashire. A thousand power-looms were broken up
in broad daylight at Bury, and the waves spread to the
eastern counties, to Scotland, and to Ireland. In the
16 EARLY YEARS
summer there was a terrible drought, and harrowing
stories were read in the papers of people standing all
night by the springs and fighting over the trickling
streams. The jails were overcrowded, and were stinking
hotbeds of fever. Men and youths were hanged in batches
for crimes of a quite secondary order of social injury.
Men sold their bodies to the surgeons, to get part of the
price (about sixteen guineas) down ; while body-snatching
and the " finding" of dead bodies became a skilled
industry. The ricks flamed nightly over the country.
By 1830 the unchanging misery and gray prospect
had engendered a feeling of revolution in the stronger
workers, and almost obliterated the trace of humanity
from the weaker. Trade Unionism had failed, men
said. The weavers of Lancashire and Cheshire were
earning from four to six shillings a week. Their
children of seven and eight worked by their side for
twelve hours a day. They had started in the early
morning with a breakfast of rough bread and tea
(generally an infusion of mint-leaves, often merely hot
water coloured with burnt crusts), and at night, after a
supper of potatoes, they flung their tired bodies undressed
on the straw. Their parents knew only one relief when
money was available drink and, Ludlow and Jones say,
" general unchastity." l They left the public-houses late
on Saturday night, and returned on Sunday morning.
4 ' When the hour for church approached, the church-
wardens, with long staves tipped with silver, sallied
1 Progress of the Working Classes, p. 17. Lloyd Jones was a Manchester
working-man at the time. He tells how he and his neighbours had their
pikes ready for the event of the Reform Bill not being passed in 1832.
The helplessness and degradation of the bulk of the workers are amus-
ingly shown in a story he tells. A Reform-Bill lecturer went out from
Manchester to lecture in one of the large villages. As he drew near he
saw streams of men pouring toward the village. At last he observed to
one of them that there was likely to be a good meeting. " Nay, mon,
it's nobbut a dog-feight," was the reply.
EARLY YEARS 17
forth, and seized all the drunken and unkempt men
they could lay their hands on ; and these being carefully
lodged, and a pew provided for them, were left to enjoy
the sermon, whilst their captors usually adjourned to
some tavern near at hand."
The peasantry were equally impoverished and debased.
The reports supplied to the Government by magistrates
related that the labourer's wage had fallen to 2\d. a day
in many places, whereas they could not keep felons
on less than six shillings a week. The better-placed
peasants earned about nine shillings a week (for the
work of the whole family), and bread was lod. a
quartern loaf. Artisans had much better pay, but work
was scarce.
In these circumstances of the nation agitation was the
moral duty of every thoughtful man, and young Holyoake
learned his first lessons in that form of activity. There
was a considerable body of men who had profited by the
new education, and these, in increasing numbers, now
joined in the demand for political reform. The suffrage
was the magic wand that would turn the blighted land
into an earthly paradise. They must root out corrup-
tion, and capture the field of politics. There were
plenty of able leaders. Large towns like Birmingham
and Manchester were not represented in Parliament,
and their merchants chafed as much as their workmen.
There had been a meeting of 60,000 people at Birming-
ham eleven years before to protest against its disability
and propose a violent remedy. In 1830 the agitation
for the Reform Bill surged through the land, and a
sharp lad of thirteen received a first and impressive
lesson in politics.
VOL. I,
CHAPTER II
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
ON October nth, 1830, all Birmingham was assist-
ing in spirit at a remarkable dinner that was taking
place in Mr. Beardsley's furniture-repository, not far
from Inge Street. The Birmingham Political Union
was applauding the second French Revolution, the
success of which they had just learned. The Union
had been formed in 1830, and, electoral reform being
the panacea of the hour in the workshops, its blue
rosette quickly fluttered on thousands of breasts. Att-
wood, the Royalist-Radical banker, took the chair.
Holyoake hints that Attwood's real interest in electoral
reform was due to a notion that a reformed House might
pass his novel financial scheme, but history shows that
there was more depth and sincerity in his feeling. He
was a sonorous orator and heroic political worker. It
was computed that during a single election he kissed
8,000 women and a proportionate army of children. He
now presided over the 3,700 diners, and when they were
well warmed with band and chorus and ale a pint of beer
each to dinner and a quart afterwards he courageously
toasted the revolution which had " burst asunder the
shackles that fifteen years of fraud, tyranny, and guilt
had forged for the nations of Europe." The oratorical
explosion rang through the county. Merchants, shop-
keepers, and workmen poured into the ranks of the
Union, until at length it numbered 200,000 members.
18
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 19
For the next eighteen months its bands, banners, and
blue ribbons enlivened every corner of Birmingham, and
Holyoake retained throughout life a vivid recollection
of the wonderful meetings that were held. No city-
state of ancient Greece ever throbbed with a more
intense political life. Bramber, with a population of
97 sodden souls, returned two members to Parliament :
Birmingham, with an alert population of 100,000, was
refused representation. Peasants flocked in from the
villages about, to listen to the endless oratory of the
beer-houses and fire the county with bucolic enthusi-
asm ; and other Unions sprang up over the country.
They adopted an ominous military form, and drilled
and marched and countermarched with flags flying.
But the military air was neatly explained. They were
going, Attwood said, to supply the new king with an
army twice as large and brave as that of Wellington,
with which he could crush the borough-mongers who
hampered his benevolent designs.
With the spring of 1831 began a year of agitation at
Birmingham that is almost without parallel. In March
eager crowds gather day and night at the stopping-
places of the London coaches. Lord Russell's Bill is
in the Commons. He is defeated, and appeals to the
country, and the spires of Birmingham ring out their
peals men snatch the keys from the hands of reluctant
clergymen and the rainbow-garment of flags flutters
gaily over the town. In September there is another
outburst. The Bill has passed the Commons. What
will the Lords do? There must be no vagueness about
the people's mandate. The Union issues an invitation,
and in a few days more than 100,000 men and women
surge through the streets of the town, and up to the
waste-ground on Newhall Hill, where there is a
vast natural amphitheatre for their gatherings. "I
20 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
have been told," Attwood roars over the arena, "that
with all my immense power I shall not be able to
control the oligarchs, but I answer, we will get
200,000 strings : we will place each of these strings
in the hands of a strong and brave man : and we will
twist those strings into a thousand ropes, and twist those
ropes into one immense cable, and by means of that
cable will put a hook into the nose of the leviathan,
and guide and govern him at pleasure."
Already the Bill is in the Lords, and, as the five days
wear on, men gather in crowds about the newspaper-
offices and coach stations. " My days were passed
within a few yards of the Union offices," Holyoake
says. On October 8th the rumour flies that the coaches
have brought no London papers, and the streets are full
of grim debaters. At last the news comes that the Lords
have rejected the Bill : the Bishops have turned the scale
against it. There is no rioting at Birmingham ; as there
is at Canterbury, where the mob spits on the archbishop,
or at Bristol, where they talk of converting the cathedral
into a cavalry barracks. But the sextons of the town
toll a funeral knell, and black flags fly at every spire
and pinnacle.
In April the Lords pass the Bill, and propose to
mutilate it in committee. That week thousands of
copies of a pamphlet giving instruction in the use
of fire-arms are sold in Birmingham, and iron-workers
employ their leisure in shaping rods that look like pikes.
The safety-valve must be opened again. All day long
on Sunday, May 6th, blue-ribboned regiments of workers
march along the roads to Birmingham from everywhere
within forty miles. There are no railways yet in the Mid-
lands. Dusty and tired, but with indomitable fire, they
sing their war-songs, and find rough quarters for the
night. At nine in the morning, like a great gray flood
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 21
they sweep into the town 150,000 of them, with 200
bands and 700 banners and swirl through the narrow
streets, and spread over the familiar waste-ground, until
every foot is hidden, and the line of houses round it
is black with tiny heads. "Will you not rather die
than be the slaves of the borough-mongers ? " Attwood
roars, and the echoing roar spreads over Birmingham.
"If we are to have Polignac," says another orator, "it
shall be with Polignac's fate." His fate is fresh in
everybody's memory in 1832. With mighty volume,
and 200 bands, the great crowd raises the favourite
hymn :
" Lo, we answer ! See, we come !
Quick at Freedoms holy call."
Mr. Salt appeals to them to vow their purpose "in the
face of Heaven and the God of justice and mercy." The
word passes round. All hats are doffed, and 150,000
voices tumultuously repeat the fervent phrases: "With
unbroken faith, through every peril and privation, we
here devote ourselves and our children to our country's
cause."
There is little work done in Birmingham that week.
Men line the routes of the mail-coaches on the Tuesday,
and passengers shout down to them that the Government
has been defeated. All work is abandoned, and pale,
eager crowds throng the streets. An express-rider
gallops in in the middle of the night. The King has
accepted the resignation of the Cabinet, and sent for
Wellington. Down in the mud, under heel, go the
medals of the Union: they have "God Save the
King" on them. Tory and Royal names of streets
are torn down. The "King's Head" over the public-
houses is swathed in crape : the " Queen's Head "
ominously disappears. The bells are muffled this time.
Five hundred of the most wealthy inhabitants, who
22 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
have hitherto held aloof, now walk in procession to
the Union rooms in Great Charles Street. " Newhall
Hill at three" is the shrewd order, and " Come like
brothers, arm in arm, wearing a noble aspect as men
going to an assured victory." Like brothers they come,
arm in arm, ten to fifteen abreast, to the familiar agora.
Then they melt again into little groups, and any child
in Birmingham can hear them telling of past days in
England when there was civil war and men beheaded
obstinate kings. They crowd round the barracks, where
the Scots Greys, the hope of Wellington, are booted and
saddled day and night, and supplied with ball-cartridge.
Many of the soldiers belong to the Union, and they have
dropped anonymous letters on the streets, saying that
they will lift no arm against peaceful demonstrators. So
they will be free to march on London. They will join
other Unions, and camp on Hampstead Heath, and show
the king what they mean.
On the Sunday morning (May i3th) thousands of them
go to the barracks, where they have always been admitted
in their holiday clothes. The gates are closed now, and
through the bars they see the troopers rough-sharpening
their swords a thing not done since Waterloo. The
march on London for that night is countermanded, or
replaced by a gathering of 200,000 on Newhall Hill.
But their leaders are in London, with Francis Place.
And on the Friday morning at six the town is awakened
by the deafening, exultant clang of all its bells. Well-
ington is defeated: Grey is recalled: the King has
yielded. Once more the streets are alive, and they
march out to meet heroic Attwood, and then on to the
Hill, where the banker-orator solemnly gives thanks to
God for his country's escape "from a most tremendous
revolution."
So our fathers won the suffrage ; so Holyoake learned
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 23
his first lesson in politics, and it sank deep. He was
now turned fifteen, and an exceptionally thoughtful and
impressionable lad. Such lessons, however, must have
been largely subconscious in effect in 1832. As his
mind developed, the vivid memories would find their
logical place. And we have seen that the next five
years were assiduously employed in training. He
happily resisted the fascination of the language-classes
at the Institution, and pursued studies of disciplinary
value. Economic study would have been even more
useful, but it was in almost as bad odour in England
as in the Papal States. He says that during twenty
years of his own recollection one needed as much
courage to mention "social science" as to quote
Darwin or Lyell. People seemed to have a remark-
ably definite conviction that a young man could not
study the social order of England at that time without
sinking into revolutionary sentiments. The Owenites
would presently introduce him to that dark science ;
meantime he was learning precision of method and
expression under good teachers.
It was from the industrial side that the next great
educative impulse came to him. The workers returned
to the bench in 1832 with unbounded trust in the Re-
formed Parliament, but as the months passed their note
of confidence died away. It is not the place here to
appraise the work or the failure of the new House. I
need only observe that it was soon greeted with dis-
content. The Westminster Review called it "a do-
nothing Parliament, wavering between impotence and
mischief." The workmen discovered that the "Worship-
ful Company of Ten-pound Householders " had no idea
of extending the suffrage to themselves. Trade Union-
ism was restored to honour as the social panacea. A
combination-fever spread through the industrial world,
24 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
and young men were impressed by a ritual of initiation
and thrilling pretence of secrecy that fitly represented
the new magical power. One was taken blindfold into
an inner room, giving mystic passwords, and then found
oneself facing a skeleton or a large crude painting of
death, while elderly brothers in surplices administered
dire oaths, and others stood by with tin-foil battle-axes
or real naked swords. Holyoake went through the
performance.
Birmingham had, in fact, once more become the centre
of the popular movement. The new Unionism had
fallen under the lead of Robert Owen, who seemed at
last to be within reach of his noble ambition. He had
persuaded the powerful Builders' Union to erect a grand
institution at Birmingham, and at the end of 1833 they
walked in gorgeous procession and laid its first stone.
The frail, ineloquent cotton-spinner had become the idol
of the workers. He had appealed in vain to masters and
rulers to realise his national ideal, and now, after the
failure of electoral reform, which he had slighted, he
spread it amongst the people as a vast scheme of self-
help. The Pioneer, a penny unstamped paper that the
Owenites published at Birmingham, was read in every
workshop. " At a very early period," it announced,
"we shall find the idle possessor compelled to ask you
to release him from his worthless holding." What the
grand plan was, and how Holyoake enlisted in its advo-
cacy, we shall see later ; but the Owenite-Unionist
scheme of 1833 was wrecked in a few months. Owen
bubbled on from plan to plan. In January, 1834, he
founded a "Grand Consolidated Trades Union," and in
a few weeks it had half a million members, but their oaths
and ceremonies undid them. Two of their delegates, who
fell into the hands of the police at Exeter, were found to
be in possession of cutlasses, masks, white robes, and
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 25
figures of death. A village- worker, who had ordered a
six-foot picture of death for initiating purposes, was, with
others, transported for seven years ; and the Unions
hastily dropped their theatrical properties, and fell into
weakness.
It was in this atmosphere of sullen rebellion and this
world of dramatic effort to evade or displace an oppres-
sive burden that the youth's mind opened. He was at
first repelled from extreme doctrines by their taint of
Owenite heresy, and he held the more patient attitude of
the church-goer. Before he was out of his teens this
repugnance was worn away. It was not so much intel-
lectual criticism that affected him as the apparent indiffer-
ence of the Churches of his time to the poverty, suffering,
and coarseness of the workers. The bitter experience of
the death of his sister had he afterwards stated during
his trial led him to consider what place the 1 clergy
occupied in relation to the national cry for social better-
ment. They seemed to be wholly silent. " Our pastors
and masters," he says somewhere, " held then the ex-
clusive patent for improving the people, and, though
they made poor use of it, they took good care that no-
body infringed it." The Bishops had turned the scale
against the Reform Bill, and they were equally opposed
to all schemes of national education. Nor were the Non-
conformist clergy more prominent or practical in their
sympathy. They remained within the narrow field of
ecclesiastical work, and gave little heed to the struggling
movements for education, the freedom of the press, better
conditions of labour, the reform of the jails and the penal
code, the saving of the children, and the removal of
municipal and political corruption. From Mr. Angell
James, Holyoake heard that " young men must be con-
tent in the station and with the lot which Providence had
assigned them." It was, therefore, natural that, as his
26 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
interest in human affairs deepened, his attachment to the
Churches insensibly diminished. They chose to move
in a sphere apart. But he retained his general religious
belief until his twenty-fourth year. There was grave
shaking of heads over his association with the Unitarians ;
but his tutors never sought to alter his creed, and he
thought that " three Gods were not too many to attend
to the affairs of this vast universe." It was reserved for
a second great wave of feeling to wash away the last
traces of his belief.
Thus his mind grew toward its maturity in a world of
large intellectual incitements. Everybody felt that the key
to the golden age was on the eve of being discovered, and
there were yearly announcements of the discovery. Strict
Owenites found it in the secular formation of character :
followers of Mr. Ashley put their hope in the passing of
the Factory Acts : Cobbett had faith in electoral reform :
Russell and Brougham in education : Trade Unionists
in combination. Others advocated reform of diet : one
reformer going about with pockets bulging with grey
peas, which were his panacea. One poor enthusiast
went about bravely in a white robe, telling people they
were already in heaven, and death and suffering were an
illusion. Co-operative Societies were known in many
places, and Labour Exchanges, and Halls of Science.
Richard Carlile had a too drastic remedy in his scheme
of " Somatopsychonoologia." A Co-operative Magazine
(London) pleaded that the trepidations of courtship were
the radical evil, and proposed to start the new world by
marrying a hundred handsome tailors by ballot to a
hundred handsome young ladies. Another Owenite
invented a " Satanic mitrailleuse," which was to make
an end of war and heal the world.
The first of all these philanthropic schemes to engage
Holyoake's attention, and lead him to a definite vein of
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 27
thought, was phrenology. Gall and Spurzheim had
visited England, and by this time there were thirty
societies in the country, with several journals. Arch-
bishop Whateley embraced it, so that the current charge
of materialism could be met. Spurzheim had initiated
George Combe to the mysteries, and in 1838 that apostle
visited Birmingham. He had married a wife on phreno-
logical principles, and the happy issue confirmed his
belief; though critics reminded each other that the lady
had ;8oo a year. Holyoake had read his work, The
Constitution of Man, and eagerly accepted the position of
assistant during his course of fourteen lectures. He
bared his head courageously to the expert for proof of
his suitability to hold up the casts to the audience during
demonstrations. The material recompense of his work
was slight. Combe gave him a cheap edition of his
Elements of Phrenology and a nose-less bust that would
not go into his box on leaving. When others hinted
that he ought to have a fraction of Combe's large
receipts, and wrote Combe to that effect, the phreno-
logist shook his admiration by replying that there was
no contract, and that the young man "had imperfectly
held up the casts." The imputation was felt to be
severe, and Holyoake for eight years afterwards carried
about with him a polite letter to Mr. Combe, whom he
at last met and forced to retract (but not pay) in Scotland
in I846. 1
1 The letter, dated August 1838, lies before me probably the most
widely travelled of all epistles. The young man complains that he was
engaged for only one hour each evening and occupied for three. " It
appears," he says, " you deem it unbecoming in me to form an Expecta-
tion, and presumptuous to make a Claim ; but were I to do the latter
Custom would sanction it and Gentlemanly feeling would give it
immediate attention." As to the imperfect holding of the casts,
"without any strong manifestation of. No. 10 I believe myself perfectly
capable of holding up a lump of Plaster to the gaze of any assembly
that ever met to hear your lecture." When he ran Combe to earth in
1846 that gentleman haughtily replied that he was " the only assistant
28 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
When Combe's friend and bust-maker, Bally, after-
wards treated him with worse meanness, Holyoake's
enthusiasm was damped, yet the experience was import-
ant. Combe was a liberal thinker ; not at all atheistic,
but without belief in the creeds, and a strong advocate of
the material basis of mind and character. His didactic
and apparently scientific manner impressed the young
man, and prepared him for the great Owenite dogma
that " man's character is made for him and not by
him." The train of thought suggested though much
attacked in the New Moral World was followed keenly
by Holyoake and his fellow-pupils, who had abandoned
their classes at the Mechanics' Institute to follow the
lectures. They got skulls of animals and puzzled over
marks of cerebrum and cerebellum. A Churchman,
Dr. Brindley, attacked phrenology, and the reply from
Holyoake's Unitarian tutor was so decisive that the
young man moved slowly nearer to Owenism, which
Mr. Hawkes Smith equally defended.
From his twentieth year (1837) we trace his growth
with some ease, as the innumerable letters and papers
he has left behind go back to that date. He is on the
Committee of the Mechanics' Institute, and evidently
known in Birmingham. In November he watches the
shower of meteors on behalf of the Philosophical Insti-
tution. After working all day in the foundry, he
remains on its roof all night, for three consecutive
nights, mapping the shooting-stars. The cold he
caught and the need to purchase medicine for himself
and colleague were quite on the lines of scientific
research, as one read in biographies, and a letter of
who ever hinted that he expected a pecuniary remuneration or who
would not have felt affronted at my offering- to pay them. They seem
to have met on equal ground about 1850, and Holyoake writes of Combe
with respect.
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 29
thanks from a Philosophical Institution was recompense
enough; though the philosophers awarded him a guinea
also for the same work in 1838 and 1839. It is clear,
too, that he was already well known amongst the
Owenites ; but his connection with this school is so
important a link between the old reform-ideas and his
later views that I reserve it for continuous treatment.
His health began to fail under the strain of study,
work, and investigation. Down to the summer of 1838
he worked as iron-workers did in those days. Since
1834 he had in addition devoted the whole evening to
study. After a hurried tea every night he retired to the
attic and bent over his books from seven until midnight,
often until two or three in the morning. After a time
he went so far as to spend a whole night studying by
candle-light once a week. He copied out two or three
mathematical works with all their diagrams and a lavish
embroidery of fancy penmanship, and evolved an elabo-
rate system of memory-training that proved remarkably
effective. On Sundays he added teaching-work, and
gave lessons in logic and grammar at the Unitarian
school. In later years, when he was asked the secret of
his longevity, he explained, quite seriously, that he had
always " avoided excess in food, in pleasure, in work,
and in expectation." The truth was that he nearly
killed himself in his youth. His health began to suffer
after the phrenological evenings, and an unpleasant
experience with the phrenologist's friend proved the
last straw. This M. Bally, an " evasive Swiss," in-
duced Holyoake to bring him customers, and promised
to make a plaster-cast of his own head in reward.
" At last the auspicious morning arrived when I was
to be immortalised in plaster. My hair was combed in
appropriate order. I had put on our best family face, for
my ancestors had pride of race. At last the factory-bell
30 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
rang nine. Between that and ten breakfast had to be
eaten, Bally to be visited, and the cast to be taken.
But breakfast that morning took little time. I soon left
the Old Wharf wall (above which the Foundry stood),
vaulted along Paradise Street (I still speak of Birming-
ham), and by a quarter past nine I was in Upper Temple
Street at M. Bally 's door. A ring of the bell brought
the maid down, who informed me that M. Bally had
gone to Manchester the day before." 1
It was not long before his nerves broke down, and, as
the doctor recommended a walking-tour, he decided to
go to Manchester on foot in search of the Swiss. He
started, with five pounds in his pocket, on September
3rd, 1838. He lodged in cottages, dispensed with break-
fast, expended twopence on a mid-day meal, and had
a basin of milk for supper. His experiences were
pleasant, as country-people welcomed the talk of "a
pale-faced young traveller of unforbidding aspect, and
his head full of town-ideas." Derbyshire showed him
hills and glens for the first time. At last he reached
Manchester, and at once sought the Social Institute in
Salford. He explains that his name would be known to
the Owenites through their journal, the New Moral
World, though I do not find his name in it until 1840.
That night he tossed in fever at a Socialist friend's
house, but it was only a matter of fatigue, and he
found M. Bally the next morning. The encounter was
characteristic. With the fine restraint and quaint moral
dignity that distinguished him throughout life on such
occasions he delivered a brief and quiet ethical address
on the door-step to the confused absconder, and politely
wished him good-morning. In his diary he relates that
he saw Robert Owen at Manchester.
The rest of his tour must be read in his own lively
1 Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, I, 67.
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 31
narrative. He went in a canal-boat to Liverpool, spent
1 'enchanted days" amongst the docks, and at last
boarded a small steamer for the Isle of Man. As he
awaited the sailing, he was hailed from the quay, and
found the Liverpool Social Missionary (Owenite) looking
for him. It is clear that he was somehow well known
amongst them. At Douglas he made a second venture
in journalism. He wrote a letter to Mona's Herald (not
the Manx Herald, as he states) on Mechanics' Institu-
tions, and received a roast chicken and a bottle of port
for payment. As the letter (dated September 24th,
1838) is very brief and meagre, the pay was princely, as
such things go ; but he seems to have impressed them
as a distinguished visitor in Mona. How he wandered
on foot through Wales, taking a boat from Douglas to
Bangor, and fell in with a group of Coventry tailors
doing the same grand tour, and cheerfully clubbed with
them, and at last reached Birmingham, after five
weeks' absence, with a few shillings left out of his five
pounds all this he has told in his own sparkling way,
and I may not repeat it. It is one of the most piquant
narratives of the Wander-Jahre of young philosophers. 1
He returned to the foundry for the winter, but his
health was not completely restored, and, though the
swing of the hammer ever remained a pleasure to him,
his mind had outgrown the narrow world of the work-
shop. For some time, indeed, he dreamed of emigration,
either to India or to Australia. In the following spring
he married the lady who was to share his hardships so
bravely and his honours so modestly in the ensuing
years. He had had an experience of courtship a few
years before that brings him nearer to us, perhaps, in
his youth than anything else he has recorded. A pretty
1 Sixty Years, Vol. I, chs. xiv and xv. I have made some corrections
on the authority of his early diary.
32 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
girl came into the foundry one day in his eighteenth
year, and he fell in love with her at sight for her " gipsy
beauty." He courted her for two years, but failed to
obtain a single solitary walk with her. Then he deter-
mined to seek philosophic solace in his books, and wrote
to tell her so. He was called to the door a few days
afterwards, and found the blushing "Zingara" standing
there. She dropped his opened letter nervously on the
door-step, and turned away. He walked in silence by
her side to her home, but their natures were veiled in
too tremulous a sensitiveness for them to see and act in
the natural way. He did not see her again until he was
summoned to her death-bed.
His second love-story began and proceeded on lines
on which a young book-worm could move more easily.
It engaged his scholastic interest. At the Unitarian
book-store kept by Mr. Belcher he found a young lady
in service whom he grew to regard as a likely " partner
in propagandist!!." She read Chambers' Journal, and
had ideas and self-possession. I find a letter in which
Mr. Belcher speaks of her with warm praise, after five
years' service in his establishment. A young lady who
wrote letters like this could come nearer to such a young
man than the poor " Zingara " :
"As to the famine, on account of which a fast is
ordered, I am disposed to think that by the time it
reaches her Majesty there will be other means resorted
to for its removal than praying, and more honest and
manly means might be resorted to on the present occasion.
I question whether the famine much affects the land-
owners. Why not allow the land to be cultivated for
the support of poor wretches who are suffering, instead
of idly praying? It does not say much for the humanity
of the Being the people are directed to call upon if the
sight of their misery does not elicit His attention without
a formal prayer."
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 33
This is the kind of language for which Holyoake
would go to jail in a couple of years. They were
married in the registry-office, a bold and ominous inno-
vation in their families. One of the Owenite leaders,
William Pare, had been appointed registrar ; for which
Birmingham was roundly denounced in the House of
Lords, and brought to repentance, by the Bishop of
Exeter. The marriage was a most happy one, and the
partnership in feeling, suffering, and action was com-
plete. "I can fancy,'* an Owenite friend wrote him
from Coventry, " that I see you seated beside your
intellectual companion working out a problem in mathe-
matics, or giving or receiving other general instruction.
Oh ! what a delightful contemplation. The imagination
may dwell upon it for hours, and the knowledge that
such cases are very rare should make the prize more
valuable." The spectacle was imaginary, but Holyoake
ever esteemed the " prize" he had chosen, in Owenite
fashion, with his " moral and intellectual faculties."
Mrs. Holyoake never entirely shared his agnosticism,
but she urged him to be honest and fearless. "Do
what you think right, and never mind me."
The marriage took place on March loth, 1839. Holy-
oake had warned the young lady that he contemplated a
career of some adventure and risk, and she very quickly
had cause to appreciate it. Early in July we find him
applying to the Birmingham Botanical Garden for the
position of lodge-keeper. His employers, Mr. Belcher,
the Unitarians, the Mechanics' Institute, and the Philo-
sophical Institution, warmly supported his candidature,
but it does not seem to have succeeded. However, he
left the iron-works, and for two years his position was
very precarious. In August or September he was
employed as guide at an exhibition of machinery that
was held at Birmingham. His father (so his sister
VOL. I. D
34 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
states) was one of the founders of the Exhibition, and
his little steel grate was amongst the exhibits. He there
made the acquaintance of Lieut. Lecount (R.N.), who
startled Birmingham clergymen with " naval oaths of
rotund quality and explosive as shells." Lecount was
the author of A Hunt after the Devil, and afterwards
contributed at times to Holyoake's paper. Before the
exhibition was over his tutor, Mr. Wright, died
suddenly, and Holyoake was appointed to succeed him
at the Mechanics' Institute. The pupils of the senior
classes themselves petitioned for the appointment. " In
our opinion," they write, " there is no individual so
well qualified as Mr. G. J. Holyoake to succeed our
revered and much-lamented tutor. ... Mr. Wright
was evidently attached to him, and always recommended
his conduct to our imitation. . . . We think that he is
the only person competent to fill the place."
The work was thus begun under happy auspices, but
Holyoake's views, now openly expressed to the Owenites
at their meetings, seem to have disturbed zealots. In
December (1839) n * s friend Hollick, now an Owenite
missionary at Sheffield, addresses him in his sprightly
way as " High and Mighty Secretary of the Mech.
Inst., Professor of Mathematics, Chirography, etc., etc.,
etc." A month later he writes: "I am exceedingly
sorry to hear of your leaving the Ex. Com. [Examin-
ation Committee of the Institute], both on account of
the treatment you have received and the loss they must
have experienced. You must, like all public characters,
make up your mind to immolation on the altar of that
Demon of Discord party-spirit." Holyoake had ex-
pressed disgust with the whole Institute, and even asked
Hollick to take him as an amanuensis ; for his lively
friend had written an imposing account of his activity
in the north, and his being currently described as
GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 35
" Anti-christ." There is no situation to be had in
Sheffield, Hollick replies, except in the police-force,
where everybody is busy " breaking houses open,
discovering pikes and infernal machines, capturing
Chartists, etc." But he urges Holyoake to apply for the
office of Social Missionary in the Owenite movement.
There was evidently serious friction at the Institute,
and Holyoake left it in January 1840. For three months
he gave lessons in a private school in the town. A letter
from the owner, Mr. Tolly, on April 4th thanks him
very warmly for his assistance, and the writer feels sure
he will never find a " better " assistant. Meantime, in
March, he had taken an engagement as book-keeper to
a Venetian-blind maker, Pemberton. The salary was
only eight shillings a week, but the work was light.
The younger brother of his employer was the gifted
actor and lecturer, Charles Reece Pemberton, who was
much attached to Holyoake. His health failed, and
Sergeant Talfourd, Mr. W. J. Fox, and other friends
assisted him, but he died in March. Holyoake was one
of the few friends he loved to have with him at the last,
and the first publication of Holyoake was a short memoir
of Pemberton. 1 He also attempted to raise funds for a
memorial to the actor ; but Mr. Fox and others were
unfavourable, thinking it unworthy that the many who
had done so little for Pemberton in life should put
marble over his grave. There were other bits of
employment. He wrote advertisements, at seven and
sixpence each, for a firm whom he persuaded "that to
tell the truth about their wares would be the greatest
novelty out." The occupation did not last long. He
gave literary assistance to uncultivated mechanics who
were engaged to write technical treatises. He also
1 A Sketch of the Life and a few of the Beauties of Pemberton. Leeds,
1842.
36 GROWTH IN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
advertised private lessons in mathematics at his own
home, but the experiment was darkened by "a drab
knave," his first pupil, who came to him for a number
of lessons, in attire that made bargaining as to terms
seem superfluous, and declined to pay in the end
because there was no formal contract.
But 1840 was a lean year for the young married
couple. In their little cottage on the edge of the town
(12, Sandpits) they just contrived to keep out of debt,
and had a useful schooling in economy. " Eleanor " had
the happy thought to grow a bed of mustard and cress
to give taste to the monotonous bread and butter.
Neighbours saw through the thin show of bravery, and
one would come along with her mug of porter and tact-
fully force the young mother their daughter Madeline
was born in May to take a neighbourly pull at it. The
life of an apostle could not very well be harder. Holy-
oake leaned to Hollick's suggestion, and made his
fateful entry into the ranks of the Owenites.
CHAPTER III
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
BIRMINGHAM had, we saw, become one of the chief
centres of Owenism in 1833, and some of the best teachers
at the Mechanics* Institution were staunch Owenites.
The boy must have been well aware of their activity, at
least from his sixteenth year. But they were " infidels,"
and, much as he varied his bold exploration among the
chapels, he avoided the Owenite meeting-house in Well
Lane. As the fence of his Baptist beliefs grew thinner,
he began to peep timidly at his much-maligned neigh-
bours, and to discern features less repellent than he had
been led to expect. At last an amusing accident took
him amongst them. He heard his mates telling that
Robert Hall was to speak on a certain date, and went
with eagerness to hear the great Nonconformist preacher.
To his horror he found that he had imperfectly caught
the name, and he was listening to the suave heresies of
Robert Owen.
They seemed less damnable than he had supposed,
and he began to resent the injustice of his comrades'
strictures on them and to associate more with Owenite
fellow-students like Hollick. To do them justice in
workshop-debates he attended their meetings, where he
learned their real doctrines. As, about the same time he
sold a pretty edition of the Bible that he had rumour
quickly changed the story into " burned his Bible"
fingers were pointed at him. His early diary puts his
37
38 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
first hearing of Robert Owen in June 1836, and notes
that in the following January he " spoke for the
Owenites." His intimate friend Hollick had just become
a young apostle of the movement, and in February he
writes to Holyoake from London, where he had gone
with Robert Owen. The young reformers of the world
were not puritanic in speech, one gathers :
" You ask if London is really 'the mart of genius.'
It may be of genius, but I'll be damned if I think it is
of geniuses. 'Does it swarm with sterling talent?'
It may, but, like sparks in a flint, it is latent, and
requires to be struck devilish hard to fetch it out. . . .
When I first came here, they told me it was a pity I had
come before a London audience. I might have done if
I had continued in the country. London audiences were
so very intellectual, etc. . . . This was the first Sunday
I was there, before I lectured. At the conclusion of my
lecture I received two rounds of applause, a thing they
had heard traditions about, as having been heard of in
remote times, but not belonging to their own age."
He hinted that Holyoake would shine even more
brightly in the metropolitan firmament, and urged him
to apply for the position of Social Missionary. It was
early as yet to seek that distinction, and Holyoake
continued to attend the services. He taught in the
Socialist Sunday School, and sometimes read the lessons
at the hall. I find a letter of Robert Owen's preserved
by him, dated April 1838, praising the " excellent
arrangements " made for his Birmingham lectures ;
though it is not clear that it was addressed to Holyoake.
We saw that he was known at that time to Owenites in
the north. A nervous and sensitive youth, with mind
early expanded to large ideas of reform by the distress he
saw about him and the constant agitation of his political
atmosphere, he could not fail to be arrested by the new
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 39
ideas of co-operation in industry and the effect of
surroundings on character, which were the two clear
notes of Owen's teaching.
Robert Owen, whom even Sir Leslie Stephen calls
"one of the most important figures in the social history
of his time," was then in the last phase of his develop-
ment. His ample plan of salvation was to distribute the
nations into model industrial communities a kind of
combination of garden-city, farm-colony, and Bohemian
club where the products of labour should be clubbed,
and the mind and character diligently cultivated. Rey-
baud describes his system as a mixture of the practices
of Abraham with the ideas of Baboeuf. His first task
was to prove by an experiment at New Lanark that his
educational ideal his partners in the business prevented
him from making it industrially co-operative could
achieve splendid results. The New Lanark community
became the social wonder of Europe between 1800 and
1830 ; though other communities, like Orbiston (which
he did not control), failed. But, while kings and states-
men admired, they declined to break up their kingdoms
into Owen's pretty co-operative cubes, and, the clergy
being alienated by Owen's outspoken heresy, the idealist
appealed to the people. Francis Place and other
practical reformers listened to him with infinite weari-
ness, but the mass of the workers heard him with
enthusiasm.
The right of combination, that Place had secured for
them, seemed to have proved futile, and at the precise
time when Holyoake began to think the thoughts of
men there had been some reversion of the feverish
workers to political action. The Birmingham Political
Union was revived in 1837, and Holyoake joined it ; he
wrongly speaks of it as a gun hung up on the wall to rust
in 1832, and never taken down. He also entered a secret
40 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
political society, of the character that has a fascination
for young men of all ages.
"The object of the society I found to be to cut off
Lord Palmerston's head. Things were bad amongst
workmen in those days, and I had no doubt somebody's
head ought to be cut off, and I hoped they had hit upon
the right one. The secretary was a Chartist leader
named Warden, who ended by cutting his own head off
instead, which showed confusion of ideas by which Lord
Palmerston profited." 1
This was in 1838, the year of the publication of the
People's Charter, and the society probably merged in
the new Chartist Union, as Holyoake was an early
Chartist. His relations to that body will call for ampler
treatment a little later, and in fact he never joined whole-
heartedly in their work ; but our narrative will not be
quite intelligible unless we insert a few words on it.
Chartism was born of the discontent of the workers
and the Radicals with the measures passed by the
Reformed Parliament. Radicals like Roebuck, Moles-
worth, Colonel Thompson, Crawford, Hume, Daniel
O'Connell, etc., joined with working-class leaders. A
committee was appointed, and they issued the famous
Charter with its six points manhood suffrage, annual
parliaments, the ballot, abolition of property-qualifi-
cations, payment of members, and equality of electoral
districts. How the red-hot oratory of the popular leaders
gave a revolutionary glow to this sober programme,
alienated the Radicals, and gave the Whigs some
ground for their savage repression of the movement,
we shall understand when Holyoake comes into contact
with men like Feargus O'Connor and Ernest Jones.
Suffice it to say here that trade was very bad and distress
* Sixty Years, II, 77.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 41
acute between 1837 and 1842, and Chartism set the
country aflame as easily as the sun fires a parched moor.
The great Reform-meetings were dwarfed by the huge
gatherings of from one to four hundred thousand men
that were held over the country, from London to Glas-
gow, in 1838 and 1839. Sleepy Bath, that would not
to-day furnish forty of its daughters to welcome the
most fascinating of heretics, then saw 4,000 of its
women assemble to greet Henry Vincent, the red
revolutionary. In the north great streams of men
poured out on the moors at night, their countless torches
grimly lighting up rough banners that bore skulls and
red caps of liberty, or such mottoes as " More pigs and
less parsons " ; in the large towns Radical orators like
Attwood stood side by side with the O'Connors of the
people. At Birmingham in August they met to the
number of 200,000. Attwood swore that 100,000 men
would march to release him if the Whigs dared to arrest
him ; and the herculean, handsome, fiery O'Connor
who had deserted O'Connell and Ireland, Gammage says,
on the maxim that it was " better to reign in hell than
serve in heaven " urged them in a voice of thunder
to " go flesh every sword to the hilt." Holyoake says
that, at all events, many of his mates had pikes and files
stuck in wooden handles.
The Government issued stern orders, and in a few
months hundreds of the leaders were in jail. At Bir-
mingham Holyoake watched eagerly, but took no part
in, the riots that ensued. His friend George White, a
reckless young Irishman, who was, Gammage says,
" quite at home in battering the head of a policeman,"
and who impudently forced the magistrate to supply him
with sherry and sandwiches during his defence, was im-
prisoned ; so were Collins, and Lovett, and Harney, and
others he knew. The authorities of Birmingham had
42 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
borrowed a force of the new police from London. The
workers, who saw in the establishment of the police a
new device of Whig despotism, scorned the "blue
bottles" and " raw lobsters," routed them when the
mayor brought them out, and were in turn chased and
cut down by the cavalry. They had turned off the gas,
and the maddened troopers chased them about Holyoake's
quarter by the light of burning houses. His wife and
he were nearly cut down, as they went out to inquire
about a friend. Opposite him in the little street off the
Bull Ring, the centre of the riot, he had for a neighbour
during the riot-week Harney himself a dark, moody
little man with the pen of a Marat.
Attwood and others presented a protest to the House
containing 1,280,000 signatures, threatened a general
strike for a month, and counselled a run on the banks
and abstinence from excisable articles ; but the Govern-
ment triumphed. Chartism was, for some years, "ex-
hausted by the disasters of 1839," and we may leave it
until its revival in 1848, when Holyoake becomes active
in it. In the intervening years he is merely on good
terms with its branches, wherever we find him. His
hope is centred in Owenite education, rather than in
political agitation, and to this we must return.
Robert Owen had been introduced to the Birmingham
Political Union in 1832, and he had lectured on his
system to an audience of 8,000 people in Beardsley's
Repository. 1 It reminds us at once of Leslie Stephen's
description of Owen as "one of those intolerable bores
who are the salt of the earth," and of Holyoake's state-
ment that when Owen called a meeting you could never
be sure when it would terminate, to find that the meeting
1 I have said that Pare and Hawkes Smith and others of influence
over Holyoake were Owenites. We find a Birmingham Co-operative
Herald as early as 1828.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 43
lasted from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. But Owen depre-
ciated political action, and politicians distrusted Utopias.
The Socialists as the Owenites were commonly called,
though they differed fundamentally from modern Social-
ists 1 remained a small but vigorous body. They
opened a Labour Exchange in Bull Street, where the
workers directly exchanged the products of their industry
without the mediation of money (or by the use of tickets
indicating the pure labour- value of the goods). Owen
himself slighted these crude Co-operative experiments
(which soon failed), and insisted on the adoption of his
comprehensive scheme of a new world. His organ, the
New Moral World, announced that "the reign of truth
had now commenced on earth, and would prevail for
evermore." Of this new world he was styled the "Pre-
liminary Father," or, at a later date, the " Social and
Right Reverend Father." In 1838, when Holyoake met
him, he was in his sixty-seventh year. Genial and amiable
to all, of tireless energy and tireless patience, with great
dignity of bearing, admirable voice, and graceful gesture,
he still exercised a remarkable sway over thoughtful
men, and had more than a hundred thousand avowed
followers. Holyoake would see him again in 1839,
when the Congress was held at Birmingham, and the
two previous associations he had founded were merged
in "The Universal Community Society of Rational
Religionists." The Central Board of the Society was
located at Birmingham, and the New Moral World issued
there.
It can not be questioned that Holyoake largely regarded
the post of Social Missionary as a means of livelihood and
of escape from his disagreeable position. At the same
1 They did not advocate State-action at this time, but voluntary asso-
ciation in communities ; nor could any one at that stage of municipal
development dream of " municipal trading."
44 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
time the pay was far smaller than he could have earned
as a mechanic, and his heart was wholly in the work.
The Manchester Congress in 1838 had appointed six
Social Missionaries (Lloyd Jones, Rigby, Green, Bu-
chanan father of the novelist, Campbell, and Hollick),
and stationed them at London, Birmingham, Leeds,
Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow. The whole king-
dom was majestically divided into six dioceses for them,
and an episcopal salary of 8o-ioo a year was guaran-
teed. When four more missionaries were appointed in
1839, the optimism of the Owenites was only equalled
by the terror of their opponents. A petition was
solemnly presented in Parliament, from the clergy,
traders, and magistrates of Birmingham, praying for
attention to the movement. The Bishop of Exeter took
up the " holy war " in the House of Lords, and vainly
endeavoured to make the peers' flesh creep by a tragic
account of their partition of the kingdom into Socialist
dioceses, and a stern denunciation of " the horrid blas-
phemies and immoralities " of the New Moral World. 1
It will appear presently how these strictures had an
unforeseen effect on the band of adventurous spirits into
which young Holyoake now sought admission. Early in
1840, when the trouble at the Mechanics' Institute be-
came serious, Hollick urged him to apply to the Central
Board. From some cause or other he long hesitated,
1 The blasphemies were not serious. The " immoralities " were prob-
ably found in Owen's "Lectures on the marriages of [= by] the priest-
hood," which; Mr. Podmore describes as "a high-pitched and indis-
criminate condemnation of the whole institution of marriage." He has,
perhaps, not taken sufficient account of Holyoake's assurance (History of
Co-operation^ I, 139, and elsewhere) that, Owen being careless as to
misinterpretation, the lectures were not published as he delivered them,
but " made up of abrupt notes made by a hearer." Elsewhere (Reasoner>
May 23, 1849) Holyoake declares of the lectures that " Mr. Owen has
repudiated them." As has happened to many marriage-reformers,
Owen's stress on the spiritual link threw the legal or ecclesiastical
contract into comparative shade.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 45
but at the Congress that was held at Leeds in May
Hollick submitted his name. All present spoke highly
of him, his friend wrote, though many regretted he
"had not a more powerful bellows." Holyoake says
somewhere that "others concluded that, in a party
widely credited with subversive and dangerous purposes,
an unaggressive voice like mine might confuse prejudice,
if it did not disarm it." It was probable that the next
vacancy would fall to him, and not improbable that
Mr. Mackintosh would soon retire from Birmingham,
and leave that honourable position to him. In June the
Birmingham group purchased a chapel (in Lawrence
Street) for holding their meetings, and there is a letter
expressing their great indebtedness to Holyoake for col-
lecting funds and attending to the legal business. He
also sent up to the central officers a suggestion that he
should write books for use in their schools, and was
vaguely encouraged. We shall find them amongst
his later publications.
In September he gave a series of lectures to the Wor-
cester Owenites, and they pressed him to come to them
as station-lecturer. " They have in Worcester," he wrote
to the London executive, "an apology for a Mechanics'
Institution. They want a real one. ; which I think I could
soon supply to them." The Birmingham Board reported
that " his morals were unimpeachable, while of his mental
acquirements much, very much, might be said, without
doing adequate justice to him." The Central Board ap-
proved his acceptance of the post, but regretted that they
were not in a position to grant him a salary. However,
the Worcester people had promised to raise a small
salary for him, and at the beginning of October he set
out for his mission, leaving his wife and child at Bir-
mingham. He had at last his share of the world to
conquer.
46 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
His letters at this important period of his career
suggest a shrewd, business-like, self-possessed, and
industrious young man, his adolescent zeal well salted
with discretion. The letters written to him, or about
him, especially from the Socialist branches, plainly show
that he had charm of character and an impressive address.
He was in his twenty-third year, much (though imper-
fectly) cultivated the Birmingham Board speaks of his
command of ."all philosophies, ancient and modern,"
and more judicial correspondents respect him refined
in bearing and speech, and, though weak in voice, well
trained in delivery, witty, and sententious. I knew
him only in his last eight years, when his ceaseless
humour, his refined and dignified bearing, his neatness
and felicity of phrase, and his obvious solidity of char-
acter, won all who met him, and inspired younger men.
It was something to learn, as the research for this bio-
graphy went back into dark days, that he had never been
otherwise : that at a time when his mind was immature,
and his life cast in the hardest circumstances, the best
traits of his character were never obscured. His grave,
well-cut features, framed in dark long hair, did much to
disarm those who came to hear him retail the "horrid
blasphemies " of the Rational Religion.
But the auditors were few, and his first theatre of public
action not likely unduly to elevate him. Their Hall of
Science (in Garden Street) was a small workshop hastily
turned into a temple of humanity, and their fragment of
" the new moral world " was a very tiny patch of Wor-
cester. They met twice on Sundays for service in it. A
few naturalist or humanist hymns (poems by Shelley,
Elliott, etc.), and a reading from some edifying work,
preceded the lecture. These hymns were often preten-
tious and pedantic, but Mr. Podmore's strictures on them
in his life of Owen are hardly justified. He says that
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 47
justice does not seem to have been included amongst the
virtues they sang, and that the omission "will help to
explain the indifference of the Socialists to all the great
democratic movements of the time." 1 Owen's whole
scheme was based on a demand for industrial justice ;
and although the " Father" himself depreciated the
Radical political reforms he called them " small ware"
in comparison with his own more vast and more radical
scheme most of his followers were not at all indifferent
to them. They fraternised with the Chartists everywhere,
and often worked in the Anti-Corn Law movement
Owen himself did not fail to point out the partial
reforms that were involved in his broad principles the
industrial principle of co-operation and the moral principle
of the effect of good or bad surroundings and of culture
on character. No reformer of the nineteenth century
had less limitation in the application of his principles,
though his methods were impracticable, and his system
had to die to disclose its fertility. Nearly a century ago
he advocated infant-schools of a kinder-garten type (the
first London infant-school was founded by his disciple,
Wilderspin, in 1820) and the legal suppression of child-
labour : an eight-hour day for the adult worker : co-
operation in production and distribution : the general
diffusion of the elements of science and art: the cor-
rective treatment of the criminal and the reform of jails :
the substitution of arbitration for warfare : greater free-
dom and a wider life for woman : the emendation
of the divorce-laws, the poor law, and the licensing
law : the suppression of the national lottery : the
1 Robert Owen, I, 475. The reader must recollect that it was an age
of poor hymns. Even the Unitarian hymn-book had such verses as :
" On Cherub and on Cherubim
Full royally he rode ;
And on the wings of mighty wind
Came flying all abroad."
48 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
collective ownership of the land : and the admission of
Jews, etc., to Parliament. All these ideas were urged
in his journal and by his missionaries, and from him
Holyoake inherited them. No doubt he was wrong in
fancying that reforms are brought about in a wholesale
fashion ; but experience has shown that, when men do
take them up with the single intensity of purpose that
is requisite for attaining them, the old limitations return,
and the sectional reformers are apt to be contemptuous
or hostile to each other. The breadth of Owenism had
advantages.
Most of Owen's missionaries were not men of a type
to impress England as their leader did. Their work was
a failure, and they were disbanded in four years. Holy-
oake himself had a large ideal of his mission, and brought
energy and character to it. The "Hall of Science*'
in some places their structures were known as "Social
Institutions " was understood to mean a centre for the
cultivation of social science, a thing then dreaded by the
wealthy and frowned upon by the religious. Holyoake
went further, and taught mathematics and physics ;
though his flock became cautious when he introduced
"laughing gas," and to his astonishment sent the sub-
ject, a heavy carpenter, in a series of somersaults along
the room and down the stairs into the street. The pay
was apostolic. Out of his sixteen shillings a week he
had to maintain himself at Worcester and his wife and
child at Birmingham, where the mustard and cress must
still have flourished. After a time he increased his
income by teaching mathematics at a girls' school in the
town, under the decent disguise of "Mr. Jacobs." He
then, in December, brought Eleanor and the child to
Worcester, and could spare himself the occasional 26-
miles walk to go and see them. He never had the faculty
of pressing for money, as some of his colleagues had.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 49
One of them had a trick of admitting an audience free,
and then locking the door and refusing to open it until
they had subscribed the price of a sheep or a cow for
the Queenwood community. Lectures at other centres
brought little profit. He gives an amusing account in
his Last Trial for Atheism of a lecturing adventure at
Cheltenham, where he had to squeeze the food out of his
host, and in the end pay the travelling expenses for
himself and his wife.
The apostolate was dreary and dispiriting, and he
soon appealed for a regular diocese. He was proposed
at Birmingham as a delegate to Congress, but Charles
Southwell was appointed. A friend sends him a dark
account of the manoeuvres of Southwell's friends, but
the letter is chiefly interesting because it shows that
Socialism is already dying at Birmingham. There were
only 34 members at the meeting (though 43 votes were
recorded !), and the society is deep in debt. The new
moral world was curiously like the old bad one, when
one got fairly inside it. However, both he and South-
well were appointed missionaries, and at the end of May
he left for Sheffield. The Worcester officers testified
that " his general demeanour as a private individual had
been most open, free, and unaffected, which with an
urbanity of manner and kindness of disposition has
gained him the respect and admiration of all with whom
he has had to do." I fancy the lively, if not flippant,
paragraphs he had sent weekly to the journal of the
movement had a good deal more weight with the
Sheffield people.
In May he set out with enthusiasm for his larger
sphere, little dreaming that in another year he would be
in a Midland jail. The Central Board had a big way of
doing things on paper that accorded with their theory.
It drew up a formidable charter of the new diocese
VOL. i. E
So THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
created for Holyoake. The territory he was to evan-
gelise comprised "the town of Sheffield and generally
that part of the county of York not included in the
Leeds district : the towns of Derby and Nottingham, and
generally the county of Nottingham and that part of the
county of Derby north of a line drawn immediately
south of the town of Derby, etc.'* In brief, it included
33 large towns and villages innumerable.
In point of fact the work at Sheffield proved more
inspiring. The hall was a substantial building in
Rockingham Street, there was a day-school in which he
had full scope for his ideas, and he attracted friends of
distinction. His pedagogical work showed genius for
teaching. He taught writing in such a way that
children would easily scrawl their own and their
mothers' names in a week, and in a few weeks could
write well. 1 His " Pestalozzian school," with fifty pupils,
won him regard. Sheffield seems to have known him
before many months. In the winter the pantomime of
the town was " Jack the Giant-killer," and the hero was
an open impersonation of the young missionary. The
actor, Mr. Young, was friendly to him. George Julian
Harney, the Chartist, came to Sheffield, and lived for
some time with him. Ebenezer Elliott, the democratic
poet, was attracted by a pamphlet that Holyoake wrote
on "The advantages and disadvantages of Trades'
Unions." A letter from the poet to him runs :
"DEAR BROTHER,
"Not having seen the paragraph you allude to,
I cannot answer your letter. But if ever I offend you,
pray come to my breakfast table, and let us settle it
1 The system may conveniently be read in Bygones, I, 33. He first
teaches the child to make a " straight stroke" and "a round O." The
other letters of the alphabet are then shown to be combinations of these.
He proceeded largely on the sensible principles lately popularised by
Mrs, Boole,
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 51
over a cup of coffee. I am not aware of having written
or said a word that ought to offend you or any of
you and I am myself a Socialist, if I understand
myself remaining
"Your brother,
"EBENEZER ELLIOTT."
Holyoake appropriated one of Elliott's poems for
the Rational Religion, but substituted the word "Co-
operation," in defiance of metre, in the second line of:
" Behold ! behold ! the second ark
The Land ! The Land ! "
Elliott laughingly suggested another cup of coffee, but
he was really not an admirer of Owenism. He urged
the workers "not to be deluded by your Owens,
Oastlers, etc." ; and on one occasion, when Holyoake
and others lunched with him, he gave them his
lines :
"What is a Communist? One who hath yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings ;
Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his penny, and pocket your shilling."
It was, of course, mere parody of Holyoake's teach-
ing "the best definition in our language of what
Communism is not" he says but Elliott was a forgiv-
able man, and his friendship a distinction. Other men
of familiar name entered his circle. There is a letter to
him from Mr. Samuel Smiles (then editing the Leeds
Times, to which Holyoake contributed) which shows
appreciation. He describes one of Holyoake's articles
as "cleverly and brilliantly written." Holyoake
suggests that Smiles borrowed the phrase "Self-
help " from himself.
Distinction was on its way, but money tarried. In
offering him thirty shillings a week, the president of the
52 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
society had pleaded that they were " deuced poor."
Their collections on Sundays came to about twelve
shillings, and they had fallen from three orations to one,
as the receipts for the other two did not pay for gas.
For this Holyoake had to teach for five hours a day,
lecture on Sundays, and visit his diocese. When the
work proved too much, he paid a curate (Paterson) out
of his own salary. Meagre additions were made to it by
a little journalism (the New Moral World, Sheffield Iris,
and Leeds Times), a little literary revision, and a little
private teaching. Money was so scarce that when the
Huddersfield society invited him to deliver their anni-
versary lectures, and could offer only ten shillings for
expenses, he walked there and back thirty miles each
way to save the money. The unpleasantness increased
when he knew that the raising of his salary was a
perpetual theme of discussion in his own society.
" Weary of my engagement," he notes in his diary in
the summer.
His relations with the central authorities of the
Rational Religion did not long remain, if they ever
were, cordial. Owen himself was not the kind of
leader to detect and encourage talent. He was full
of his vision, and he regarded the missionaries only as
indifferently helpful transmitters of it. The younger
man saw that the vision was too broad, and the move-
ment in need of specific aims. He sent up the manu-
script of a mathematical work (probably his Mathematics
no Mystery), and urged attention to education, which
was then much discussed. Owen, a born educationist,
looked at the manuscript and discouraged publication.
The general secretary begged Holyoake to work rather
at the presentment of their general principles than
at small educational measures. "The day has now
arrived," Galpin wrote to him, in July, "when, with
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 53
unity of action, our society may carry the world before
it." Holyoake knew well that the society was in a state
of decay, and his suggestions of definite reforms were
good. But Owen's eyes were blurred with his besetting
vision, and the decaying frame of his movement was
now torn by a storm that hastened its end, and swept
Holyoake into more adventurous fields.
The attack made on the Socialists in the House of
Lords had drawn hostile eyes on them. It was discovered
that they took money at the doors of their Halls of
Science, and that this practice was illegal under 39
George III, c. 79. Small-minded zealots at once urged
the authorities to move against them. They replied that
they were assembled for " religious worship," and that
they were a " congregation of Protestants called Rational
Religionists." The enemy at once claimed that mission-
aries who made this plea for their institutions should be
called upon to make a public profession, on oath, of the
Protestant faith, and many of them were summoned to
do so. The editor of the New Moral World, Mr.
Fleming, urged them to take the oath, and this seems to
have been the general feeling of the officials. Lloyd
Jones took the oath at once : Robert Buchanan hesi-
tated a few weeks, but at length " swore himself into the
position of the Rev. R. Buchanan." They were
supported by the officials, and the Central Board became
very anxious to restrain all its lecturers from referring to
religion.
This procedure on the part of a movement that stood
for truth and sincerity above all things was repugnant
to Holyoake, nor was his disgust lessened when he
heard the editor of the New Moral World say at Sheffield :
"If you offend people's prejudices, the capitalists will
never lend us money." Money was, in fact, urgently
needed for the communal experiment they had started in
54 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
Hampshire, but Holyoake and a few of the more ardent
and unaccommodating spirits rebelled. They at once
opened a crusade for the outspoken criticism of theology.
John Watts (of Manchester) wrote to the Central Board
that they seemed to be developing "the souls of stock-
jobbers." Jeffery (of Edinburgh) wrote to Holyoake :
"All the bright anticipations which we had associated
with the social body are doomed to disappointment if it
become nothing more than a Joint Stock connection of
men whose only principle in the movement is the principal
they may advance for the sake of profit." Holyoake,
with characteristic openness, wrote and circulated a
pamphlet charging the Central Board with sacrificing
principle to expediency the war-cry of the dissenters.
Within a week or two he received a circular letter from
the general secretary, which gave three months' notice
of dismissal to all the missionaries, unless they were
individually reappointed at the Congress in May. A
later letter assured him of the Board's sense of "the
value of free discussion and the course adopted by Mr.
Southwell, Mr. Hollick, and yourself," but the Congress
disbanded the missionaries from lack of funds, and after-
wards reappointed "the Rev. Lloyd Jones" and one or
two others. When Holyoake, a few weeks later, fell into
the hands of the police, Mr. Galpin wrote : " I have always
admired the bold and honest conduct of yourself and
party " ; but he wrote to a Cheltenham Socialist that the
proceedings "did not surprise the Board," and they
would not stir in the matter.
This was the beginning of organised anti-Christian
activity in England, and it is interesting to see how it
was directly due to a petty and unjust manoeuvre on the
part of some of the faithful. For our purpose the
interpretation of Holyoake's character and career it is a
cardinal point. He was still a Theist (as Owen always was)
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 55
at the end of 1841, and his interests were almost entirely
social. He had been content so far to let the Churches
go their different way, as well as they might. His mind
now swung round to a more critical consideration of the
Churches and their doctrines, and the events that rapidly
followed moved him from indifference to hostility.
His colleague at Bristol, Charles Southwell, began to
publish an atheistical journal, the Oracle of Reason, and
he had the support of William Chilton, a Bristol printer,
and Malthus Ryall, a London engraver. Southwell
had been a soldier and an actor, and his rhetoric was
resonant and melodramatic. Though he was the
youngest of thirty-three children (not thirty-six, as Holy-
oake says) by the same father, he was a man of fire and
energy. Bristol knew him as a vigorous and naughty
lecturer in some obscure " Hall of Science," but when
he began to issue a weekly penny paper, having a sale
(at first) of 6,000 copies, he could not be overlooked.
He wrote of the clergy : " They pour their poison of lies
into the ear of cradled infancy nay, they debauch reason
in the very womb, and only in the grave can their multi-
tudinous dupes find repose for their terrified and
exhausted sensibilities." The clergy and their " multi-
tudinous dupes " demurred to having this bellowed by
a strenuous actor from the shades of Bristol arches, or
circulated in the workshops, and they raised the cry of
blasphemy. Ryall egged him on. "Throw away the
foil, sabre, or single-stick," he wrote to Southwell, "and
come to bloody noses and black eyes." But after the
issue of No. 4 of the Oracle Southwell passed from the
editorial chair to the dock, and was sentenced to one
year's imprisonment and a fine of 100.
Holyoake had joined "the defiant syndicate of four,"
because the only alternative seemed to be the company
of hypocrites. He did not know the men, or he knew
56 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
only Southwell, and that slightly. Indeed, if their
language is at times trying, we may remember the
irritation caused them by their colleagues, the tactics
pursued by their religious opponents, and the coarse
character of much of the religious life about them. They
quote in the Oracle such passages as this from Dissenting
literature of the time: "O Lord! dung us with Jesus
Christ, that we may bring forth much fruit meet for
thee. . . . Souse us, O Lord, in the powdering tub of
thy grace, that we may become tripes fit for thy heavenly
table." On the other hand, men of their own way of
thinking were being treated daily in the courts much as
the Jews had been in the Middle Ages. There were
many cases in which men escaped charges of assault by
proving that their victims were atheists, and therefore
ought not to take the oath. One instance will illustrate
the incredible and exasperating situation that existed so
late as the forties. A respectable London bookseller
appeared before a Clerkenwell magistrate to prosecute a
man for stealing a book. " Stand down, sir, I will not
hear you," said Mr. Combe on learning that he was not
a theist. But as other witnesses were available the
thief was committed, and the magistrate bound over the
bookseller to prosecute. "I think" he began, asking
leave to withdraw the charge in the circumstances.
"Oh, we don't care what you think: we don't want
your thinkings here," said the clerk. " No, certainly
not," added the magistrate, " we don't want the thoughts
of such a man here." But we shall see enough of this
presently. Atheists were outlaws, and it is hardly
surprising that some of them used the language of
outlaws.
Holyoake had still a vague belief in God at the end of
1841, but the prosecution of Southwell at Bristol let loose
a flood of feeling in which the last lines of his creed
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 57
were obliterated. For some years afterwards he freely
described himself as an " atheist." He did not mean
very few atheists do mean (Holyoake says Chilton was
the only dogmatic one he ever met) that he could
disprove the existence of Deity. That is not the meaning
of the word. His view was, he wrote at the time, the
view of Pythagoras : " I know nothing of Gods." It is
the attitude he afterwards made popular under the name
of Secularism and Huxley called Agnosticism. He found
human problems so absorbing and pressing that he
desired to keep aloof from theological ones. This had
been so entirely his attitude up to 1842 that he had not
noticed the collapse of his belief. But he was now
naturally drawn for a time into an aggressive mood.
On January gth he announced a lecture on "The
spirit of Bonner in the disciples of Jesus : or the cruelty
and intolerance of Christianity." The police noticed the
flagrant placard, and sent a few officers to the meeting.
No action was taken, but it was hardly for lack of
material. His "curate," Paterson, read the lesson,
which was the very article in the Oracle, on " The Jew
Book," for which Southwell had been imprisoned ; and
in the warmth of his feeling Holyoake fully defended it
and its author. " Christianity had once more produced
the iron evidences of her divinity," he said, and he must
examine them. The lecture was published, and forms
the third of his pamphlets. It reads strongly, of course.
Respectable Socialism is described as "shivering for
two years with the wet blanket of orthodoxy about its
shoulders." The rigorous treatment of Southwell has
proved "the cradle of my doubts and grave of my
religion." The truth more probably is that it led him to
tear away a veil of which he had been half conscious, and
discover his real lack of faith. He had known Southwell
at Birmingham, but his pathetic and sincere references
58 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
to the " martyr" are undone by the papers before me.
Friends were subscribing a pound a week for the prisoner.
In the caterer's manuscript-list of " necessaries " supplied
I find about four shillings' worth of cigars a month,
much bear's grease, some silk handkerchiefs, and a
generous supply of bottled stout.
" Prepare yourself for a separation," Chilton wrote
to Holyoake. Mr. Fleming at once went to Sheffield
to stamp out the spreading fire. Holyoake was got
away,[on some pretext, to Bradford, and Lloyd Jones took
his place. He would not spare the young man who had
fastened on him the name of the " Rev. Swear-at-once "
(Buchanan was the " Rev. Swear-at-last "). Holyoake
found great dissension on his return (Movement No. 51),
and friendly members told him he would be wise to look
out for a fresh place. He accepted Chilton's invitation
to undertake the editing of the Oracle. Chilton depre-
cated " coarseness and vulgarity," and himself con-
tributed a long and remarkable series of articles on
"The Theory of Regular Gradation," which presented
the doctrine of evolution with learning and acuteness,
seventeen years before The Origin of Species was
published.
Holyoake began to edit the journal with its eighth
issue (February i2th). "The Great Lama never dies,"
were his introductory words ; but the Great Lama altered
his tone. In his first article, claiming continuity, there
is only one phrase that the most sensitive person could
object to. The article so clearly displays his character-
istic qualities of style in fair development that a passage
will be read with interest :
" Because the tortoise once beat the hare by its
perseverance, laggards in reasoning have fallen in love
with laziness ; and, with sagacity in perfect keeping
with the subject, can conceive of nothing so effective for
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 59
the establishment of truth as sleepy error. The bounding
fleetness of the hare was its virtue ; its reliability to relax
its efforts its vice ; but wiseacres have extolled and
imitated its failing and totally neglected its good quality.
. . . Error is ancient and full-grown ; truth infantine,
and by over-careful nursing a rather weakly child.
Unloose its swaddling clothes give it exercise, and fear
not but that its fair proportions will soon be developed
that it will soon grasp the club of Hercules and dash out
the brains of ignorance."
The mind is obviously immature, but the expression
is curiously developed. The epigrammatic force, the
apt and facile imagery, and the precision of phrase that
distinguish Holyoake's later works made an early
appearance. Another passage (February 26th) will show
that he was reading :
" In the days of Aristotle, when men were so full of
theory that practice was of little repute, hidden meanings
were useful, peradventure. To the schoolmen, who love
jargon because it seems learned, and write unintelligibly
of necessity, having no distinct and natural view of
things ; to such worthies mystery is like darkness to
lovers of evil deeds, a perpetual letter of recommendation.
But no one can deny that the spirit of modern times is
most anti-supernatural, so completely so as the very
genius of practicability could desire."
One can gather a large crop of fair epigrams from
these articles of his twenty-fourth year. " Forbearance,
like eating, is capital in moderation ; in excess it
leads to disease." " The age wants, not footmen for
falsehood, but warriors for truth." " It falls," he says
of a new and intellectual religion, " like the moonbeams,
not to warm but to freeze. Its rays are colder than the
shade." When the New Moral World speaks of the
" young atheists," he coolly retorts : " Many a common-
wealth has owed more to the warmth of youth than to
60 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN
the cold prudence of greybeards." Some phrases are
clearly due to the fact that so many friends whom he
knows to be sincere men Chartists, etc. are in jail
with felons. " Civilisation, instead of being a fertilising
stream, freshening and invigorating the verdure of mind,
lies like stagnant pools on the face of society, causing
sad malarias to attack the advocates of freedom." The
wonder is that he wrote so little that one cannot read with
ease to-day. It was left to Ryall to " come to bloody
noses " ; and Holyoake did not, as a fact, control the
copy editorially at all. He was always far away.
However, Chilton, the other chief writer, was refined
and scholarly, and the paper read well and suffered
proportionately in circulation.
Southwell himself was impressed with Holyoake's
effective method of hitting hard without violence.
Writing to him from Bristol Gaol, he requests Holyoake
to alter freely any expressions he disapproves of in the
articles the prisoner smuggles to him.
" There is," he says, " no man I ever met with whom I
would sooner live or sooner die. . . . You will say old
Southwell is running strangely, not aware perhaps that
I have been long considering how we may hereafter
enjoy, in generous freedom, each other's society. I am
not without hope that the authorities w r ill soon see the
folly of meddling with the press, but you will do well
to prepare for the worst. I would much rather, very
much rather, some one else of stiffer constitution and of
less value in other respects should pass the ordeal, but
though hell gape, mind ye, my determination is to swim
or drown with ye."
We know that there were no prison-rigours softening
the temper of Southwell. The truth is that Holyoake
won the respect, and often the enthusiasm, of nearly all
who came to know him in those days. If to his sterling
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ROBERT OWEN 61
character, clear judgment, and ready command of phrase
there had been added a sonorous voice and powerful
frame, the story of Owenism might have run differently.
For two or three months he edited the paper, nominally,
from his house at Sheffield (179, Broomhall Street). In
the spring he went down to Birmingham. He may have
had some idea of setting up at Bristol, as the situation
at Sheffield was unpleasant. From Birmingham he
started on foot for Bristol a ninety-miles journey as
he could not afford the coach-fare. It proved a much
more adventurous journey than he expected, for he "fell
among thieves by the way."
CHAPTER IV
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
HOLYOAKE left his wife and family at Birmingham on
May 22nd, 1842, and set out on foot for Worcester.
In those days even the open trucks of the third-class
passenger were a luxury beyond his purse. On May 24th
he moved on to Cheltenham, where he was to lecture.
I have recounted how he visited Cheltenham i-n the pre-
ceding year, and drew a sermon from the Rev. Francis
(afterwards Dean) Close. To that cleric's indignation, he
was now announced by sundry placards to give a lecture
on " Home Colonisation, as a means of superseding
Poor-laws and Emigration," on May 24th. The title
and the intention were innocent enough, but the echoes
of the Bishop of Exeter's fulmination were still rumbling
in sleepy places like Cheltenham, and the vicar made
preparations for his reception. He sent three men to
detect heresy in the lecture.
Socialism did not seriously menace the position of
the Church in Cheltenham. I have stated how Holyoake
had found the little group of Socialists there so poor
in 1841 that he had to " dispute every inch of hospitality
with his host." A group of about a hundred Chartists
and Socialists mostly men and youths, but with a sparse
sprinkling of adventurous ladies now gathered in the
Mechanics' Institution to hear the lecture. Mr. Close's
spies were disappointed, for Holyoake adhered strictly
to his subject, and made no reference to religion. But
Owenite lecturers always invited questions from the
62
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 63
audience, and one of the envoys, a local preacher of a
darkly zealous order, seized the opportunity. He asked
why there had been no mention of chapels in Holyoake's
description of the home-colonies he advocated. The
lecturer had, he said, "told them a good deal about
their duty to man : what about their duty to God ? "
The question was stupid and irrelevant, if not malicious,
and in ordinary circumstances might have been dis-
regarded. But the Owenite world was bubbling with
excitement over this very question of concealing one's
opinions about religion, and Holyoake was full of indig-
nation that one of his colleagues should be in jail for
expressing his views. Owen's original instruction to
the missionaries in such circumstances was: "Should
you be challenged to discuss the dogmas of the Chris-
tians, state that you have not time for such discussions,
which tend to increase the general insanity of the world
upon these mysterious and endless imaginations of the
human brain." But Owen had himself acted otherwise.
At the beginning of his public career (at the London
Tavern, in 1817) he had been challenged in much the
same way as Holyoake now was, and he gave a defiant
answer. The recent dishonour of their body through
the temporising policy of some of its leaders made it
impossible for Holyoake to hesitate. He knew, further,
that there was a local charge of cowardice. A Cheltenham
teacher, named Sperry, had published Socialistic senti-
ments, and had retracted under pressure of a threat of
dismissal ; though he was dismissed all the same. Few
will question that it was, in the circumstances, more
manly to meet the question. It was indiscreet ; but it
is well for the world that there have been indiscreet men
in it at times.
Holyoake's fatal reply has been quoted in so many
forms even Mr, Podmore gives it in the inaccurate
64 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
words of the hostile witnesses at the trial that I will
give it in full :
" As you, sir, have introduced religion into this
meeting, which I have carefully avoided in my lecture,
I will answer your question frankly and sincerely ; and
as you say we cannot have morality without religion, I
will answer that too. Home colonisation is an economic
scheme, and as we can ill bear the burden of a God
[ = a system of worship] here, he may lie rather heavy
on their hands there. Our national debt and our national
taxes hang like millstones round the neck of the poor
man's prosperity, saying nothing of the enormous
gatherings of capitalists in addition to all this ; and in
the face of our misery and want we are charged twenty
millions more for the worship of God. This is utili-
tarianism versus divinity, and I appeal to your heads
and your pockets if we are not too poor to have a God ?
If poor men cost the State so much, they would be put
like officers on half-pay. I think that while our distress
lasts it would be wise to do the same thing with the
Deity. Thus far goes the political economy of my
objection to build chapels in community. Again, I
never like to propose to others what I shrink from
myself. I am not religious my creed is to have no
creed. But what do I hear? That morality cannot
exist without religion ? Preposterous ! Religion in
my opinion has ever poisoned the fountain-springs of
morality. Connect them together ! Hark ye ! Morality
alone is lovely has a sweet, balmy, and healthful
reputation, and sheds honest influences over mankind.
Who that has felt its power would degrade it by con-
necting it with religion ? Read the mental degradation
and oppression of your race, and there you read the
history of religion : look at its bloody instruments of
torture and its fell subjection of honesty, when men
would shun the revolting homage it demands : and
there we read its character ! Why, its fierce and
inhuman myrmidons have immured, within these three
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
(1847)
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 65
months, Charles Southwell in Bristol jail ; and while
the friend of my bosom lies there I wish not to hear
the name of God, I shudder at the thought of religion,
I flee the Bible as a viper, and revolt at the touch of
a Christian for their tender mercies may fall next on
my head. This, sir, is no reason why the people in
communities may not introduce religion there, but it is
the reason why I do not introduce it into my lectures,
and I trust you will take it as my apology for not
recommending god-worship in home-colonies." 1
The words created no disturbance. They were ac-
companied with general laughter and followed by
general applause, and Holyoake cheerfully resumed his
pilgrimage to Bristol jail. In a day or two, however,
he received a copy of Mr. Close's paper, the Cheltenham
Chronicle^ in which he read the following paragraph :
" ATHEISM AND BLASPHEMY.
" On Tuesday evening last a person named Holyoake
from Manchester delivered a lecture on socialism (or, as
it has been more appropriately named, devilism) at the
Mechanics' Institution. ... He impiously remarked that
if there was [a God] he would have the deity served the
same as the Government treated subalterns by placing
him upon half-pay. With many similar blasphemous
and awful remarks, which we cannot sully our columns
by repeating, the poor misguided wretch continued to
address the audience. To their lasting shame be it
spoken that a considerable portion of the company
applauded the miscreant during the time he was giving
utterance to these profane opinions.
[ u We have three persons in our employ who are
ready to verify on oath to the correctness of the above
statements. We therefore hope those in authority will
1 I take the account from the Oracle (June 4th), the earliest and most
authentic version. There was much discussion later as to whether he
said : " I do not believe there is such a thing as a God." There is no
such phrase in this contemporary report.
VOL. I. F
66 TklAL AND IMPRISONMENT
hot suffer the matter to rest here, but that some steps will
immediately be taken to prevent any further publicity to
such diabolical sentiments. ED. C. C."]
Whatever one might think of Holyoake's impulsive
and unpremeditated remarks, there is no difference of
opinion on the conduct of his opponents. Close at once
admits that the witnesses are in his own employment,
and "to prevent further publicity" transfers the " blas-
phemies " from the little audience of 100 to his own
audience of several thousands, and then to general
notice. But this is only the temperate beginning of
the drama. The next issue of the Cheltenham Chronicle
contained a further paragraph :
" HOLYOAKE, THE BLASPHEMOUS SOCIALIST
LECTURER.
" In reference to a paragraph which appeared in the
last Chronicle regarding this monster, the magistrates
read the article alluded to, and expressed their opinion
that it was a clear case of blasphemy. In order to
check the further progress of his pernicious doctrines,
the superintendent of police was ordered to make every
exertion to bring him to justice."
It must be remembered that a charge of blasphemy at
that time did not mean a charge of hurting the feelings
of one's neighbours and so possibly provoking disorder.
That civil gloss on an ecclesiastical law came later. The
offence was, in essence, purely theological, and Holyoake
held, as all hold to-day, that prosecution for such offences
was tyranny. The other Cheltenham paper (Free Press),
of lay ownership, censured the prosecution, and pointed
out that Holyoake was naturally embittered by the
imprisonment of his friend. " Oh ! when will Christians
cease to act as though they disbelieved the power of the
doctrines they profess ? " the editor wrote.
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 67
Holyoake did not hesitate. He took to the road at
once, and on the evening of June ist, a blazing day, he
walked boldly into Cheltenham. At his friend's house
he learned that the Chartists had announced a meeting
in the Mechanics' Institute for the following night.
They were not only friendly to him, but were them-
selves interested in the right of free speech, and they
put the room at his disposal. The news quickly cir-
culated that he would speak at nine o'clock on June 2nd,
and a good audience assembled. He entered secretly,
so that the police might not arrest him prematurely,
and began his lecture.
44 After I had spoken about an hour in vindication of
free speech in answer to public questions, the super-
intendent of police entered, armed with all the available
force. They formed a handsome addition to the audience,
and as they ranged themselves against the walls on either
side of the room their shining hats formed a picturesque
background to the meeting. This determined me to
speak an hour longer not having foreseen such an
opportunity of extending liberal views in official
quarters." 1
So his light pen dealt with the scene thirty years
afterwards, but it was grim enough at the time. The
courts of England were evil places for a heretic to
enter in those days, and the jails of England were
deadly. Some of his Chartist friends were done to
death, and others brought to the brink of insanity, in
them. His health was frail, his nature exceptionally
sensitive, his young wife and child wholly dependent
on him. But I will tell the pitiful and repellent story
in as brief and sober a narrative as is possible.
1 Sixty Years, I, 148. But I generally follow the contemporary journals
and his /MS( Trial for Atheism.
68 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
His speech that night had been temperate and persuas-
ive it may still be read and he ended, not with a note
of defiance, but with a courteous and gentle appeal to his
hearers. He then asked the superintendent to show him
the warrant for his apprehension. No warrant had been
issued ; in fact a magistrate said afterwards that on such
a charge "any person in the audience had a right to
take him without a warrant ! " However, Holyoake
went quietly with the police to the station, the whole
audience joining in the procession.
He was brought before the magistrates the next
morning. Two of them were clergymen, and they
did not think fit to quit the bench while a charge on
which they could hardly be impartial was heard. The
prosecuting solicitor, Mr. Bubb, will be acknowledged
by any who read the proceedings to have been "a
particularly gross, furious, squab-built, vulgar person."
He did not attempt to refine the charge. "Any person,"
he assured them, "who denies the existence or provi-
dence of God is guilty of blasphemy," and, without
troubling about the quality of Holyoake's remarks, he
treated him on that sole ground as a contemptible ruffian
except that he untruthfully represented Holyoake as
speaking before children. Nor were the magistrates
less partial. The witnesses one of whom was a prize-
fighter had no written notes of Holyoake's words, but
were allowed to swear "to the best of their belief." It
happened that one of Holyoake's friends, in offering
bail, said that "to the best of his belief" he was worth
,50. He was at once dismissed, and when Holyoake
pointed out the equality with the witnesses' testimony,
one of the clerical magistrates rebuked him for
"quibbling."
He was committed for trial, and handed over to the
police. When he returned to the station he was put
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 69
through an examination, not in physical condition but
in theology, by the police-surgeon, a Mr. Pinching.
And when the doctor's long arguments failed, he ob-
served that he was " sorry the days were gone by when
we could send you and Owen of Lanark to the stake
instead of to Gloucester Jail." He was shut in a filthy
room, with a too obviously verminous person, but was
presently told he must walk to Gloucester. If he could
have remained twenty-four hours at Cheltenham, where
he had friends, he might have arranged bail in less than
the fortnight it actually took. They fastened a pair of
irons a pair at first so ill-fitting that they tore his skin
on his wrists, and he was brought out between two
burly policemen, and made to walk through the town
in this damning guise. They intended to make him
walk the nine miles to Gloucester, but as they passed
the station railways were then beginning to spread
their iron net over the land friends were allowed to
pay his fare and that of his guardians to Gloucester.
But the irons were not removed, and the people of
Gloucester saw the same spectacle of a pale, refined,
delicate young man, guarded with every indication of the
last criminality, and were told it was "the blasphemer"
from Cheltenham. His pockets were searched, his note-
book and papers taken from him, and he was put in a
cell "with the fetor of death in every corner." A
grating at the top sent enough dim light on the filthy
bed to show the troops of lice, and, worn as he was, he
dare not lie down that night. He sat on the edge of the
bed all night, and reflected on religion.
After his disappearance his Socialist and Chartist
friends held an indignant meeting at Cheltenham, and
some of them resolved to defy the clergy. His host;
George Adams, sent for a parcel of atheistical literature,
though he was not an atheist, and put copies of the
70 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
Oracle in his window. The police sent an agent to buy
one, and at once secured a warrant for his arrest. His
wife, a handsome and spirited woman, defiantly con-
tinued the sale, until she too was arrested on going to
see her husband in prison. A policeman accompanied
her home to get her baby a child at the breast and
she brought it into the jail. They wanted to put her in
the common room with the drunken and debased women
there, but she obtained permission from the superintend-
ent to pass the night with her child in the police-kitchen.
She had left four other young children in her home ; and
when indignant neighbours took these into their houses,
her landlord came and locked the door and took the key
away. She was released until trial on a light bail, but
her husband remained in jail, and, as he suffered from
inflamed eyes, nearly lost his sight in the dank and
draughty cell.
Holyoake remained in jail for a fortnight. On his
first appearance in the common room, the experts in
criminality he found there refused to regard him as one
of themselves, and treated him with respect. They gave
him some of their mint-tea (the common luxury of the
poor at the time) to help him to swallow his coarse
bread, and he used what influence he could for their
improvement. The assizes would begin soon, and,
having no funds to employ counsel and little trust in
their conduct of such a case, he had to prepare his
defence. He meditated an elaborate argument, but the
chaplain refused to let him have sent in most of the
works he needed. At last his friends, who were active at
London and elsewhere, appealed to the Home Secretary.
Sir James Graham had already spoken in the House of
the " grave irregularities" committed in regard to him,
and he retained an open ear to petitions.
Bail was found, and he set out on foot for Birmingham
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 71
to see his wife and child. 1 He lectured for the Socialists
in Lawrence Street Chapel. But the metropolis was now
buzzing with his name. Journals of influence were
commenting severely on Cheltenham and its ways. In
the Weekly Dispatch, especially, W. M. Thompson and
Captain Williams (" Publicola") wrote scathing para-
graphs, and Mr. Roebuck elicited strong censure on
the magistrates from the Home Secretary in the House.
The general public were at least able to appreciate the
determination of the Cheltenham authorities to wring
an oath (in connection with his bail) out of a man they
were prosecuting for atheism. To London Holyoake
soon proceeded, walking most of the way. It seemed
an "enchanted city" after the provincial towns, and it
furnished him with useful friends and some funds. The
first night was spent in a summer-house in Ryall's
garden, working out the plan of defence. Collections
were made for him in the Owenite room, the Rotunda in
Blackfriars Road, and elsewhere. Captain Williams
attended his lecture at the Rotunda, and published a
lengthy abstract of his plea for free speech. Holyoake
was in poor condition and nervous, but he is described
in the Dispatch as having " uttered many striking truths
of an original character, which elicited considerable
applause." Mr. Ashurst, who became a warm friend,
and Sergeant (then Mr.) Parry assisted him with his
legal preparation. One day he went down to the House,
and was hailed by Mr. Roebuck, the distinguished
Radical politician, who was befriending him there.
Veterans in the cause of free speech were filled
1 He was not three weeks, as he says somewhere, but two, in jail,
and there are other slight slips in his record. I find him lecturing 1 in
Birmingham on June lyth, and writing from there on June 26th. Other
letters show that he is in London in the middle of July. He was back
for trial on August 2nd. However, he has underrated rather than
exaggerated the brutality of the proceedings.
72 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
with admiration. George Julian Harney wrote from
Sheffield :
' ' FRIEND OF THE HUMAN RACE,
" In forwarding the enclosed amount of sub-
scriptions received by me up to this date, allow me to
observe that you must not judge of the number of your
friends in Sheffield by the small amount of money sub-
scribed. Hundreds of your Chartist (to say nothing of
your Socialist) friends are too poor to give even a
penny, and fervent are their wishes for your triumph
over your persecutors. Another martyr has been
sacrificed at the shrine of tyranny. Samuel Holberry,
convicted at the York Spring Assizes of 1840 of sedition,
and sentenced to four years' imprisonment, expired in
his dungeon (York Castle) yesterday morning, at a
quarter past four. As if in mockery of his dying
agonies an order of release came from the Home Office
a day or two before his death, with the conditions
annexed that he should find bail himself in ,200 and
two sureties of 100 each to be of good behaviour I
His poor wife (whom you have seen at my house) was
refused permission to see him only two or three weeks
since. She is distracted. Shall there be no retribution
for this foul and bloody murder? When, oh when, will
the human race rise in its might and trample in the
dust the monarchic, aristocratic, priestly, and profit-
hunting villains who oppress, plunder, and murder
them?
"That the fates may preserve you from the torture
under which poor gallant noble-hearted Holberry has
sunk into his grave is the heart-felt hope of,
"My dear Holyoake,
" Fraternally thine,
"GEORGE JULIAN C. HARNEY.
"Sheffield, June 24th, 1842."
There was no melodrama in Harney's hatred of Whig
and Tory, but there is more significance perhaps in the
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 73
attitude toward Holyoake of Richard Carlile, who
had spent ten years in jail for uttering unpopular
opinions. They met by accident on Blackfriars Bridge,
and Carlile invited him to attend his lecture that night
at the Hall of Science (City Road). Carlile hated
atheism, and taught " Sacred Socialism" (Socialism
allied with a liberal Christianity). Holyoake, after the
lecture, opposed his plea for a symbolic interpretation of
biblical statements. He contended that "the moral test
of the Scriptures was sufficient, and the only one that
had popular education in it, and needed neither ridicule,
nor bitterness, nor scorn to enforce it." Carlile was
still ardent as a youth in the cause of free discussion,
but he had quarrelled with his old comrades, and had
grown sensitive and somewhat morose in his isolation.
He was invited by Ryall to address a meeting on
behalf of Holyoake, and consented, on condition that
he be " not called upon to play the second fiddle to any
man who has not the same experience and standing on
the question." He was a very difficult colleague to
them all with his mixture of red republicanism and
Sermon on the Mount (" but I am not such a Christian,"
he naively wrote to Ryall, "as to be passively spitten
upon and smote in the cheek "). He joined in the fray,
and the sequel is instructive for our purpose. Before
his death (a few months afterwards) he quarrelled
violently with most of them, but Holyoake fired his
enthusiasm. In his last letter, after some controversy
with even Holyoake, he wrote: "I court his further
acquaintance, and he may ever command my respectful
attention." Of Southwell he said: "I feel a dignified
gratification that I have never sought his company any-
where but in his imprisonment."
From the admiration of London Holyoake returned to
spend a few days at Birmingham before his trial.
74 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
" It was a bright summer afternoon when I set out
alone from the house of my eldest sister, in which my
family resided, in Aston, Birmingham, to proceed to
Gloucester Assizes. It was not in my power to leave
any provision for those I left behind, owing to the
unforeseen and unsought apprehension which had be-
fallen me. My little daughter, Madeline, ran from her
mother's knee to the door, when she found I had gone,
and called after me down the street. Her sweet clear
voice arrested me. I looked back and saw her dark eyes
gleaming. I never met her glance again, nor heard her
voice any more."
Back he went to the heavy atmosphere of Gloucester.
His friends had insisted that he should not be tried
again by the Cheltenham magistrates, as they intended
and as the normal course involved, and the Home
Secretary put a measure through that transferred all
trials for opinion to the assizes, where there would be
an independent judge. The Gloucester Assizes opened
on August 2nd, and Holyoake and Mr. and Mrs. Adams
were there from the start. There was no intention
of proceeding against the wife, but she was put to
needless suffering by not being informed of this, and
kept about the court for ten days. Holyoake procured
counsel for Adams, through his friends ; but when the
barrister concluded by an expression of his client's
"contrition," Holyoake called to Adams: "Don't
permit him to do that unless you are really contrite."
His sense of honour it was no mere defiance must
have seemed Quixotic even to some of his friends.
Adams protested that he was not contrite, and he got
one month's imprisonment.
As Holyoake had intimated that he would defend
himself, Mr. Justice Erskine decided to take his case last ;
and when it came to Saturday, and there was some
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 75
presentiment of a long speech, the trial was set down
for the Monday morning.
On that morning the Shire Hall was crowded with
an excited audience. Country -gentry, ladies, and
clergymen mingled with sober groups of Chartist and
Socialist workers, and sipped their wine and nibbled
their cakes as the long hours passed. It was not
intended by the prosecution that the case should last
long. The jury "seven farmers, one grocer, one
poulterer, one miller, one maltster, and one nondescript
shopkeeper," as Captain Williams wrote were not
improved in temper by the protracted neglect of their
business, and Holyoake had no care whatever to con-
ciliate them by small considerations. When his name
was called, a pale, long-haired, suspicious-looking
young man entered the dock, 1 and peremptorily ordered
the jailer to hand him up a large corded box. The court
looked on in amazement and despair, as he occupied
twenty minutes in silently arranging his mass of books
and papers ! Then a sonorous indictment set forth that
George Jacob Holyoake, "labourer" a deliberate and
malicious untruth did "maliciously, unlawfully, and
wickedly compose, speak, utter, pronounce, and publish
with a loud voice" "which I never had," he says certain
terrible things "to the high displeasure of Almighty
God, to the great scandal and reproach of the Christian
religion," and so on. Worse and more really censurable
blasphemies were more common in the streets of England
at that time than they are now, but Holyoake's flash of
impulsive humour was dressed in a legal San Benito.
1 Holyoake's distrust of barristers did not please those of the pro-
fession who were present. One of them gave an unflattering sketch of
him as "a wretched-looking creature, scarcely emerging from boy-
hood, whose wiry and dishevelled hair, ' lip unconscious of the razor's
edge,' and dingy looks, gave him the appearance of a low German
student."
76 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
There is no need to dwell on the evidence, but Mr.
Alexander's opening of the case for the prosecution
almost deserves to be preserved in full. In all serious-
ness it is a perfect parallel of the immortal speech of
Sergeant Buzfuz. One extract from it will suffice :
4 'The defendant, on the 24th of May last, issued
placards for a lecture to be delivered in Cheltenham.
In these placards he announced, not the diabolical, the
dreadful topics which he descanted upon, not anything
which would lead the reader to imagine or expect what
really took place, but he gave out his subject as a lecture
upon Home Colonisation, Emigration, and Poor Laws.
Mark this, gentlemen of the jury ! Had he given in his
announcements any hint of what was to take place, his
end might have been defeated, and no audience attracted
to listen to the blasphemous expressions you have heard
set out in the indictment. But he did obtain an audience,
a numerous audience, and then declared that. . . . and
though it pains me to repeat the horrible blasphemy
that he would place the Deity upon half-pay. ... It
may be urged to you that these things were said in
answer to a question, that the innuendoes must be made
out. Innuendoes ! I should think it an insult to the
understandings of twelve jurymen of twelve intelligent
men to call witnesses to prove innuendoes. But I
shall place the case before you, and leave it in your
hands."
It reads like a caricature of legal manners. In view of
the facts we have given it was a concentrated mass of
untruth.
Mr. Alexander's case was contemptuously brief, and
he sat down with an instant expectation of justice ; but
the clock struck hour after hour, and Holyoake's voice
grew stronger, and his argument gave promise of infinity.
When he had spoken for six hours he began at a
quarter to twelve the judge sent the governor of the
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 77
jail to ask him, courteously and patiently, how much
longer he would be. He thought " three hours more
would suffice," and, after a brief adjournment, he resumed
his speech, and continued it until ten minutes to nine !
Captain Mason, the governor of the jail, afterwards
pleasantly observed that he deserved six months for the
speech. The jury must have thought it not without
ability for a " labourer," but as it rather proved every
man's right to utter blasphemy whenever he felt disposed
than answered the actual indictment, they found him
guilty. They may have recollected that a Gloucester
jury had been regarded with suspicion some time before
for acquitting a Mormon preacher who was charged with
blasphemy for saying that " Euclid was as true as the
Bible." Mr. Justice Erskine had suggested a way of
escape. He said that if Holyoake would convince the
jury that he merely meant that the incomes of the clergy
ought to be reduced (which was clearly the positive idea
of his words), he would recommend a verdict of not
guilty. But Holyoake detested the very shadow of
compromise. He pleaded for free speech, and the judge
had no alternative. He said that Holyoake had spoken
from impulse, had not connived at the putting of the
question to him, and could hardly have avoided answer-
ing it ; but he had spoken with "improper levity," and
he must be " imprisoned in the Common Jail for six
calendar months."
Erskine's conduct was strongly censured in some of
the London papers, and Mr. Parry described it as
marked by "ridiculous onesidedness." Holyoake, on
the other hand, spoke of him even at the time with re-
spect, and described his bearing as "most dignified and
urbane." He afterwards dedicated his Short and Easy
Method with the Saints to Erskine, and said he had had,
"on the whole, a fair trial and a patient hearing." He
7 8 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
might have used stronger language with perfect justice.
Erskine was a religious man, and sincerely believed
atheism to be a source of crime. He could not possibly
be free from bias. But, though his attitude and judg-
ment were unduly severe, his courtesy and patience were
remarkable during the long speech, which he could justly
have curtailed.
There is no need to summarise or analyse the speech.
There were excellent points made, and able passages,
but it was weakened by its length and its lack of sym-
metry. He dealt at length with the proceedings at
Cheltenham and in the House, the newspaper comments
on the case, the philosophy of theism, the tenets of
Socialism, the law of blasphemy, his own career, and
anything he could connect with the charge. His long
quotations from Socrates, Rousseau, Godwin, T. More,
Lord Russell, Chalmers, Burke, Blackstone, Mosheim,
Bulwer, Channing, Guizot, etc. would have of them-
selves taken hours to read. Erskine must have felt that
he would hear again of so original and spirited a young
man. Richard Carlile, who was in court, spoke of his
defence with rapture. There were passages that subdued
the court, and made ladies weep. But the undoubted
ability shown in the speech was too much distended. A
pithy, graceful, two-hour speech, such as he could well
write, would have been better. But he had been pomp-
ously told by the magistrates that he would not be
heard at all : he had a tradition of long self-defences
before him one Chartist a few years before (Benbow of
Chester) had spoken for ten hours and a half: and he
had a rare audience and still rarer liberty. He felt that,
as we all feel now, there was an iniquitous law in the
land, and he willingly suffered as a protest against it.
He benefited a far wider range of critics than the op-
ponents of theology ; and we who wander freely down
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 79
the broad avenues to-day may think with gratitude of
the resonant axe and stout heart of the pioneer.
The story of his adventures in prison is familiar, and
I need do little more than add a few details from forgotten
sources. He experienced at once that imprisonment was
to mean something more than detention. He had had
no food for thirteen hours, though ladies in court had
offered him some of their tartlets ; and the inexorable
regulations forbade the giving of food out of hours. A
cup of water and a small apple from a kindly warder's
pocket made his supper, and he tossed feverishly all
night on his hard bed. Then began the grim routine
of daily life. Until his health gave way, and the doctor
was compelled to interfere, his diet consisted of gruel,
coarse bread, and potatoes. The rice that was substi-
tuted for potatoes twice a week had "a blue cast, a saline
taste, and a slimy look." After two months he was
allowed a bit of salt beef twice a week, but " I could not
often taste it, seldom chew it, and never digest it I
should say it was rather leather mode than d la mode"
Later his friends, who were busy with their slender
subscription-lists (chiefly for his family) and indignation-
meetings, often sent him human food. The cells were
dirty and damp, and exercise had to be taken in a tiny
yard that made him giddy. He often thought of Hoi-
berry's death from these causes in his northern jail, and
of another Chartist prisoner who had succumbed since
in a Midland jail. It was fortunate for him that the
Home Secretary was known to have acted to his
advantage.
But, apart from the great danger to his delicate health,
the moral privations were worse than the physical.
Visitors were rarely admitted, and they could only stand
with him for a few minutes, and generally speak through
repellent bars which he could allow no lady to face. In
8o TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
the earlier months he was cheered by the letters that
came. Carlile, who was also his first visitor, wrote
enthusiastically :
" MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
" I had not made a proper estimate of your worth
to society until I heard your defence yesterday. It was
certainly the most splendid of the kind ever delivered
in this country. More power, as physical power, in
delivery might be found ; but more moral power, more
sweetness, more beauty, more persuasion, could not be
found. I could scarcely restrain myself from jumping
into the dock to embrace you on several occasions. I
envy not the man his earthy, clod-like, vicious religion
that, after that defence, should condemn you. It is not
my Christianity, nor that of the Bible, nor that of the
Natural and the Spiritual worlds, that could so con-
demn you ; but the same Pharisaical righteousness that
crucified the Saviour, gave the poison-cup to Socrates,
and that has destroyed, banished, or persecuted the wise
and good of all nations.
"I shall not be idle: will fill the Oracle of Reason
weekly, if that help be needed. The moral world
shall lose nothing in progress through your imprison-
ment. I will either join you, or shame the authorities
of your imprisonment. At a moment of leisure I shall
write to the judge and to Peel. I know nothing of the
character of Sir James Graham, to write with effect
to him.
"I advocate all your principles, but my dearly pur-
chased experience has put them beyond the reach of
indictment. It is not that I fear imprisonment, but that
I have grown wiser and stronger. I have as much
resolution now to suffer for the battle of free discussion
as in 1817 when I began. I have a second letter to-day
pressing me to come to Bristol. I propose being there
on the 2Qth, but I have a great taste for three nights in
the theatre of Gloucester. On Sunday I visit Stroud to
preach on Radborough Common.
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 81
" Let your imprisonment be like a rod in pickle for
your enemies. This was my sustaining resolution
through nine years. I feel as if I had been well pickled,
and will lay it on those who now need tickling with it.
Take care of your health. Six months' imprisonment
would have been felt by me as a joke. I have taken as
much voluntarily rather than yield or ask for liberation.
Adieu and strengthen. Respects to Adams. Have just
sent Mrs. Adams a large bundle of books.
" RICHARD CARLILE."
The good feeling with Carlile was somewhat disturbed
when he heard that the veteran was describing him
as " a Christian." This was at the meeting on Rad-
borough Common, which gathered together 3,000 people
in a rural district : a sufficient answer to those who
pretended that they initiated prosecutions solely to
prevent the spread of obnoxious opinions. Carlile's
words were published, and the Oracle took umbrage.
Holyoake did not feel that the epithet was flattering
after his recent experience of Christians, and he disliked
Carlile's use of religious terms. He wrote him a
pleasant letter with a view to mitigate the effect of the
controversy in the Oracle. It began :
" MY DEAR SIR,
" My residence on the banks of the Severn has
one convenience. I enjoy such a happy propinquity to
dock bells, basin bells, cathedral bells, and jail bells,
that should I re-bel it might easily chime in with the
others. But my residence has this disadvantage. It
makes me resemble Homer in that unenviable particular
in which ' nothing but rumour reached him.' '
Firmly and courteously he intimated that he could not
share Carlile's " Sacred Socialism." In a long reply
Carlile regretted that he had become " infected with
Southwell's cavalier method of adopting the most
repugnant of titles," and maintained that Socialism
VOL. i. G
82 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
was dying of inanition and Chartism ending in folly.
They parted with mutual respect, as I stated earlier.
Carlile died soon afterwards, but his wife and daughter
communicated with Holyoake long afterwards in terms
of affection.
Many other expressions of regard came to cheer the
prisoner. Mr. Parry wrote a long letter, from which I
quote a little :
"MY DEAR SIR,
" I take shame to myself for not having before
expressed to you by letter that sympathy which I trust
you will believe I have always had with your disin-
terested struggle against an unjust and arbitrary law.
It was only, however, a day or two since, in calling at
your friend's, Mr. Ryall, that I learned there was a
possibility of communicating with you at Gloucester
Jail, and I now avail myself of that possibility at the
earliest moment open to me. . . . Judge Erskine has
been roughly handled in the Weekly Dispatch for his
ridiculous onesidedness. But from judges we must
never expect either enlarged or generous opinions.
Their minds are too cramped by education and too
fettered by precedent to understand, much less to
enunciate, the genuine principles of mental freedom.
Indeed the whole of English society is impregnated in
respect of theological belief with the most slavish preju-
dices. You know, alas, too well how atheism fares :
but deism, Unitarianism, or almost any other ism
than that which swallows the whole mess of supersti-
tion at one blind gulp is hunted out of society just
as we hunt noxious vermin out of our houses. ... I
admire the bravery of men like yourself determined
to protest against this growing social disease which,
unless timelily resisted, threatens to absorb all inde-
pendence of thought and action. ..."
A friend sent him this extract of a sermon preached
by Mr, W. J. Fox at South Place Chapel :
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 83
" While on the seashore, with the waves of the ocean
boasting as it were in their freedom, I received a letter
from a poor fellow in Gloucester Jail, asking me what
I thought of the Christianity that had put him there for
the expression of his honest conviction. He is a young
man who is not able to perceive and acknowledge the
existence of a superintending Providence. He was
giving an exposition of a system which, though vision-
ary, is beautiful, and leads the mind to an elevated state
of enjoyment. When a question was put to him on the
subject of his religious opinions, he did not shrink from
a declaration of those opinions, unconnected as they
were with the subject, on which he had been discours-
ing. . . . The person to whom I refer is Holyoake, the
friend and able disciple of Charles Reece Pemberton."
Cheerful letters came from his humbler friends. One
letter reached the jail with the postal address :
" George Jacob Holyoake, Esq., who is engaged in a
six months' study of the love, joy, peace, and long-suffer-
ing of Christianity and of the beauties and mysteries of
our holy religion, in one of her Majesty's seminaries for
the spread of learning and piety, that is to say, the Jail,
Gloucester."
His Irish friend, George White, sent him merry greet-
ings from the neighbouring jail at Warwick. "How
are you getting on in your country seat? I think we
had better act like the aristocracy in future, that is, give
up our old surnames and adopt the title of our respective
country seats." Southwell wrote: " You seem to have
gained golden opinions of all sorts of people. Good
judges say that you made the very best appeal for liberty
that has yet been heard within those halls called Courts
of Justice. There's honour for you."
But all this alleviation of his sufferings was denied
him during the latter part of his time, when he needed
84 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
it most. He was not allowed to see any friends, or to
write to them, even to his wife. All his letters were
confiscated. When he complained of these privations,
some of the visiting magistrates took occasion to de-
nounce him before the other prisoners as "the worst
felon in the jail and the most atrocious" to quote a
letter written at the time. He thought he foresaw
serious conflict with the authorities, which might have
dangerous and degrading consequences. He held a
brave view of life, and felt that duty to his wife and
child forbade him to take his life, except under intoler-
able hardship. But he marked a circle with a stone
round one leg of his iron bed, so that, in case of need,
he would be able to tilt up the bed, lay his head on the
circle, and then pull it down so as to drive the leg
through his brain.
One of the visiting magistrates was the brother of Sir
Astley Cooper, and a humane man. He would tell
Holyoake in a gruff way that he was "a fool for being
an atheist," and then add that " he could not be one he
did not look or speak like one." His son was chaplain
of the jail, and Holyoake suggests that his conversion
was "a family speculation." The chaplain insisted that
Holyoake^ should attend chapel, but a prisoner for atheism
could plead that that was rather an incongruous demand.
They did not care to carry him into chapel, as he pro-
tested they must, and he escaped most of the usual
services amongst a herd of felons. One day the chap-
lain invited him to the chapel out of hours, and gave
him an oration to himself. He asked what Holyoake
had to say, but his quaint patient insisted that "the
place was too cold for reasoning," and that he would
only discuss with him on equal terms. They adjourned
to a warm cell, and had some argument. When the
chaplain offered him a cheap Bible, Holyoake objected
T1UAL AND IMPRISONMENT
that " it was not respectful to God to present His Word
in that curmudgeon form " ; he " would accept a better-
looking copy, with marginal references down the centre,
such as might assist him in trying to reconcile what
appeared to him its many contradictions."
Another clergyman who sought to convert him was
an aged and usually quiet Wesleyan minister amongst
the visiting magistrates. One day he quoted the psalm-
ist's opinion of the atheist to Holyoake in presence of
his fellow-magistrates and the prisoners: " David says
you are a fool." Holyoake, instead of entering into
a long explanation that he did not say there was no God,
and that very few men least of all, fools ever did,
merely replied that he " no more admired rudeness in
the mouth of David than he did in the mouth of a
magistrate." Another clerical magistrate, with more
penetration, lent him Paley's Natural Theology and
Leslie's Short and Easy Method with the Deists. Holy-
oake wrote pamphlets in reply to both which we will
see presently "to show that they had received careful
attention." When commissioners were sent to examine
the jail and were interrogating Holyoake, he said
amongst other things that "county magistrates did
not seem very bright, and had no clear idea of their
duties."
When they wished to enforce the prison dress Holy-
oake declared that they would have to come and dress
him every morning, and he escaped the indignity. He
was also successful in obtaining permission to sit up
until nine o'clock. But the Home Secretary, who sent
down the order, had not directed that he was to have
a light until nine o'clock, and the local authorities ruled
that he should not. The device with which he partly
met their tyranny was singularly ingenious. He stuck
pins in two rows down the sides of the cover of a book,
86 TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT
and ran threads across. When a piece of paper was
thrust up under the threads, it was practically ruled,
with tangible lines, for writing purposes. He hid the
contrivance, and wrote letters and articles for the Oracle
in the dark. The evenings were long and cold, for
the winter soon came on, but he must have written
his pamphlets in the day-time. In the common-room
of the jail he opened a school for the prisoners, who
were almost all illiterate, and tried to impress them.
One wonders if any of these Gloucester gentlemen of
1842 came to see the humour, at least, of a prisoner,
who had been put away and was being treated with
barbarity as socially dangerous, using his time to dis-
charge those social duties that the country so criminally
neglected.
The darkest and most dangerous hour of all was in
October. The governor one day called him into the
yard, and handed him a letter from his wife. Their
little girl, Madeline, a child of "much beauty and
promise," had died. If he had known at the time the
whole circumstances of her illness, his name might
have been added to the list of sensitive men, Chartists
and Atheists, who succumbed, or nearly lost their
reason, in the jails of England in the nineteenth cen-
tury. She had contracted a fever while her little frame
was enfeebled through poverty. Friends were sub-
scribing to send a little weekly to Mrs. Holyoake, but
they were mainly poor workers, and it was "the hungry
forties." The money came irregularly, and wife and
child knew hunger.
It was represented to Holyoake that he might obtain
his freedom by sending up a petition and promising to
abandon the advocacy of Socialism. He refused to do
so. As the time for his release drew near, it was again
suggested to him that, if he would promise to refrain
TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 87
from propagandism, they would find a scholastic position
for him and his wife. Again he gave an utter refusal.
" My wife," he said later, " would have resented it if I
had done it on her account. So when I was free I took
the warpath again." He was released on February 6th,
1843, and after a round of grateful visits in Gloucester
and Cheltenham rejoined his poor wife at Birmingham.
Thirty-six years afterwards, while a Co-operative
Congress was being held at Gloucester, a number of
the delegates came before the jail in the course of their
sight-seeing. " Take off your hats, lads ! That's where
Holyoake was imprisoned," one of them cried, and their
heads were bared in memory of his suffering.
CHAPTER V
THE END OF OWENISM
HOLYOAKE'S resolve to return to " the warpath of
opinion " needs no explanation. The policy of repression
has rarely silenced any but the less earnest and there-
fore less dangerous. You must burn your heretic, or
else leave him entirely alone. Tolerable martyrdoms
are always good advertisements. The only effect in
Holyoake's case was to make him feel more acutely that
there was tyranny in the land. When George Combe
made a careful study of his young assistant's cranium,
he seems to have overlooked the bump of " combative-
ness." He knew Holyoake as a quiet, refined youth,
modestly exhibiting his ingenious compasses and his
ornate copy of Euclid, and he discovered in him "a
strong organ of form," " causality considerable," " indi-
viduality," and other obvious qualities. Although
Holyoake confesses to a boyish ambition for pugilistic
fame one of his sisters had a pugilist beau few could
at that time have discerned a restless agitator and fighter
on public questions in the bookish youth. But he came
to find himself in a world where one could not hold a
single great ideal without fighting, and he learned to
fight ; and the prison-cure for his impetuosity had the
not unusual effect of trebling it. In fact, it w r as somehow
a world in which all the men he most respected dis-
appeared at intervals into a jail.
During the next few years he remained an Owenite,
88
THE END OF OWEN ISM 89
but he naturally associated with those Owenites who
felt that the times demanded an aggressive campaign
against theology. The only question that occurs to one
is whether his good taste or good temper suffered from
the terrible experiences he had endured. It is pleasant
to find that he returned to the fray with all his old
humour and restraint. His address to the readers of the
Oracle (Feb. i8th, 1843) after his release opens :
" MY FRIENDS, It is now six months since, cut and
hacked, I fell, not merely in the language of the parable,
but literally, among thieves. Of my new acquaintances,
the saints, I am afraid I must say, as W. Hutton said of
an untoward sweetheart, ' there was little love between
us at first, and heaven has pleased to decrease it on a
further acquaintance.' 1 Christians profess to draw men
to Jesus with cords of love, but were it not for their
judicious foresight in telling us that they are ' cords of
love,' I guess that few would find it out."
The article was a temperate plea for freedom of speech.
As he soon took to the lecturing field, he wrote few
articles in the Oracle, which lingered lustily for another
year ; and it is only when prosecutions multiply among
his friends that his writing loses its philosophic temper.
One might withhold admiration if it were otherwise.
One of the first scenes of his renewed lecturing activity
was Cheltenham ! A large audience gathered, and he
defiantly repeated to them the words that had brought
trouble on him, on the plausible ground that he "had
been called upon to pay a certain price for free speech,
and that, as he had paid the price, he had purchased the
right." There was little danger now in exercising it.
The Cheltenham magistrates had been so severely
censured in the House, and so widely ridiculed in the
country, that the fight was over in that part of the land.
1 The words arc originally in The Merry Wives of Windsor.
90 THE END OF OWENISM
One of the Cheltenham papers (the Free Press) had openly
defended him from the first, and his speech at Gloucester
had made a good impression. The foreman of the jury
told Carlile that they themselves were impressed by it,
but they were clearly directed to say guilty. 1 He gave
other lectures at Worcester, Coventry, Leicester, and
Northampton, and made his headquarters amongst the
Socialists at Worcester.
A faded handbill that lies before me invites people to
" come and hear the Liberated Blasphemer " in the Social
Institution at Leicester. The titles are, " Christianity as
displayed in the recent prosecution for blasphemy," and
similar inevitable themes. These lectures were now his
chief source of income, but with admission fixed at " one
penny " we cannot assume that his experiences proved
profitable. Even at this period, however, his lectures
were often purely constructive, and we shall find him
return more fully to social interests presently.
One offer of employment that came to him at this time
is interesting in many respects. Readers of his History
of Co-operation will remember how, in 1847, Ryall and
he made a visit to a communal settlement at Ham
Common. The settlers were imbued with the ideas of
the mystic Pierrepont Graves as well as Robert Owen,
and lived austerely. They walked out to Alcott House
by night and
" found it by observing a tall patriarch's feet projecting
through the window. It was a device of the Concordium
to ensure ventilation and early rising. By a bastinado
of the soles of the prophet with pebbles we obtained
admission in the early morning."
They had raw cabbage for breakfast, and, when his wife
asked for salt, she was begged to keep it hidden under
1 I find this interesting statement in an unpublished letter of Carlile's.
THE END OF OWENISM 91
her plate so as not to deprave the taste of the weaker
brethren. It was from this Spartan home that an offer
of teaching employment came to him in 1843. It ran :
" Probably you have heard of a very small community
now associating together at Alcott House, Ham Com-
mon, Surrey, under the name of Concordium : a sort of
industrial college, at this present time, having a printer
and printing press, tailors, shoemakers, bakers, gardeners,
and other labourers : both sexes associating kindly
together as one family, and though not manifesting any
great doings as yet, are to be highly commended for
their sincere and resolute opposition (in practical habits)
to the principles, practices, and manners of the Old
Immoral World reprobating war, slavery, and intem-
perance, and gluttony, and bigotry, not only in profession
by wordy declamation, but by discontinuing and dis-
couraging all habits that tend and lead to the above
horrors. The Concordists at Alcott House wish to form
a school there, and are desirous to meet with a competent
educator, previous to agreeing to receive any more
children into the establishment, there being four now
there. The diet is exclusively limited to bread-stuffs
and farinaceous food and fruits, fresh and dried, of every
sort that can be obtained, and all kinds of vegetables,
and water is the only drink supplied. Neither milk,
butter, cheese, eggs, nor any species of flesh meat, nor
animal food : neither tea, coffee, nor any of those arti-
ficial stimulants do the Concordists partake of, or supply
to others. There are married couples, and parents and
children now in the Concordium. The working members
receive no wages, but are supplied with lodging, food,
clothing, washing, baths, firing, candles, and whatever
is needful, for their giving their services to the Con-
cordium. About eight hours daily is the usual average
for them to work : eight for sleep : and eight for bathing,
recreation, meals, and improvement."
Holyoake had by this time mastered the coyness of the
cigar, had vainly tried to rise to the level of vegetarianism,
THE END OF OWENlSM
and was fond of tea and other " horrors" of the Old
Immoral World. He did not go to Ham Common.
Indeed, his taste of metropolitan life had been so
pleasant that he could no longer settle in the provinces.
"Londoners," he afterwards wrote, u are the lapidaries
of the nation : they polish the diamond found in the
provinces." On May yth he severed his connection with
the Worcester Society, and went up to London. On the
day of his arrival he noted in his diary : " Penniless. If
I starve in a garret I follow illustrious precedents."
Immediately after his arrival "Branch 53" of the
movement invited him to become its secretary, at a
salary of ten shillings per week. They met at the
Rotunda in Blackfriars Road, and Holyoake lectured
there occasionally, but more frequently in the provinces.
He also gave classes "for the study of literary com-
position, logic, and oral investigation " at Bailey's Coffee
House, Soho, under the auspices of the "London
Theological Association " a group of free-thinkers.
For these he charged a fee of sixpence a week, or
five shillings a quarter. But fresh imprisonments
constantly occurring, he was compelled to found an
"Anti-Persecution Union," and devote most of his time
in 1843 to combative work.
Paterson, his Sheffield curate, had briskly succeeded
him in the dangerous chair of the Oracle, and was
following the "bloody noses" method with vigour.
Like Southwell, he had had military adventures, and
was acquainted with strong language. As he edited the
paper from London, he had the fiery Ryall at his elbow.
They took a shop in Holywell Street, and, their articles
not attracting sufficient notice, they began to enliven
the windows with large cartoons illustrating incidents
described in the Old Testament. The London public
now came in crowds. It was stated in the press that
THE END OF OWEN ISM 93
20,000 people a day visited the place. The Standard^
apparently with a view to dissuade people from going,
gave prominent notices of " the abomination," " the den
of infamy," etc. There seemed to be more ground here
for prosecution than in the casual remark of a studious
youth, and the police intervened ; though it was unfortu-
nate that their chief witness to the harrowing nature of
the placards, a sergeant, was convicted not long
afterwards of taking bribes. All this, of course, was
before Holyoake came, and had not his support.
However, a more effective crusade was at that moment
opened by the police at Edinburgh, and Paterson and
Southwell and other adventurous spirits buckled on their
swords and hastened there.
The Anti-Persecution Union had at first little success.
The Owenites were not only divided in opinion, but were
giving every shilling to save their community in Hamp-
shire, of which we shall see more presently. It was,
moreover, a very calamitous period for the workers of
the country, and few of the middle-class people would
enter a Hall of Science. The impotence of the heretics
was bringing really barbarous treatment on them, and
the wonder is that so few men of intelligence and char-
acter intervened. At London, about this time, a young
atheistic speaker was arrested, and, on the police stating
that he had also " talked about brothels," the shuddering
magistrate punished him severely. What he had really
said was that the Dean and Chapter of Westminster ought
to be ashamed to draw rent from such places, as they
then did ; but the boy's father and friends were refused
admission to court, and there was the customary caricature
of justice and more fuel for the literary fires of the atheists.
A case then arose that provided a more respectable
base for the operations of the Union. Stories were
reaching England of the persecution of Protestants by
94 THE END OF OWENISM
the Catholic authorities at Madeira. A native Protestant
woman was condemned to be hanged there in 1844 for
denying the divinity of the consecrated wafer. She was
Portuguese, and England could do nothing but express
its amazement. But in 1843 an English Protestant, Dr.
Kalley, had been put in jail by the authorities, and a
pretty situation resulted. Holyoake at once wrote to the
prisoner, and offered him assistance from the Union's
funds. " Your alleged offence," he wrote, " is against
the mother of God. Mother or father, it makes no differ-
ence to the Anti-Persecution Union." It made a vast
difference to other people. Kalley himself had the good
sense to decline their aid politely, and entered on a long
correspondence with a view to convert Holyoake. But
the full irony of the situation was seen in Scotland. In
September a meeting was called at Edinburgh, with the
Lord Provost in the chair, to express indignation at the
persecution of Dr. Kalley at Madeira. Paterson and
Southwell went there to join in the indignation, and the
Lord Provost and his friends, meeting to protest against
the repression of heresy in Funchal, promptly handed
them over to the police as blasphemers. Paterson was
sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment, and matters
became somewhat entangled. The atheists published
letters from Paterson in Perth jail, which sent " love to
Dr. Kalley and all friends " ; while the good folk at
Edinburgh, who had put him in jail, were urging the
Government to take up Dr. Kalley's case, and were at
the same time carrying on a fierce war with the local
group of free-thinkers because they demanded freedom of
speech. Aged men like Finlay and sensitive young
women like Miss Roalfe (who had gone from London,
and reopened the book-store of an imprisoned Scotch-
man) were lodged in their jails for selling criticisms of
the Bible, which the officers were expressly sent to
THE END OF OWENISM 95
purchase. The humour of the matter was complete, and
the rhetoric of the atheists exultant, when, in the end, the
Government did take up Dr. Kalley's case and demand
his release and ; 1,200 compensation !
This state of things readily accounts for the warmth
of the language that Holyoake occasionally used at that
time. Some idea of the effect on the more sensitive
of the heretics may be gathered from a letter of Carlile's
widow to Holyoake, in which she exclaims : " Although
my exertions in the cause of human redemption have
been productive only to myself of poverty and all its
concomitant evils, yet were no other to be found in the
world, I would still struggle single-handed with the
enemy and overcome it, or die in the attempt, and
my last words should be Free Discussion." Miss
Sharpies she was not legally married to Carlile, as he
had an insufferable wife living had herself been a
lecturer in early years, and, though her strength was too
worn with long endurance for her to do anything, her
spirit fired others. Little groups of free-thinkers gathered
in various parts of London ; and into one of these, a few
years later, a gifted and fiery youth was to be drawn who
would carry the direct war on theology all over England
once more, under the name of Charles Bradlaugh.
Many of the titles of Holyoake's lectures show that
he was not wholly absorbed in critical work, and he
continued his educational efforts. It is plain, indeed,
that his concern for free discussion was a broad social
interest, though the circumstances gave it a narrower
look. In August (1844) he published the pamphlet he
had written in jail, Paley Refuted in his own Words, which
eventually ran to a sixth edition (in 1866), at a price of
sixpence. 1 It is rather pretentious, but fairly acute and
1 It was published by Hetherington, and is incorrectly marked in the
Catalogue at the British Museum as first published in 1847.
96 THE END OF OWENISM
informed. He shows acquaintance with all the literature
of the time bearing on the subject, which his colleagues
rarely do. His chief objection is that Paley " suddenly
abandoned, at the very moment when its assistance
seemed to promise curious revelations, the analogy which
had been the guide to his feet." In other words Paley
proved an architect to exist, and then scouted all analogy
in tracing the features of this architect. With some
cleverness he reasons that intelligence is always displayed
in proportion to organisation ; and so, if analogy is to
be our guide, the Supreme Architect should have vast
organisation, whereas Paley denied that he had any.
He also stresses those darker features of the universe
that Paley conveniently ignored. It is interesting to
see that, even at this earliest date, his last note is not
criticism, but an appeal for positive moral and social
culture instead of dogmatic speculation. His Unitarian
biographer, Miss Collet, says that, though somewhat
crude, it "manifests decided intellectual power in
conception and arrangement."
In December (1843) he engaged in a new enterprise
that occupied much of his time. The Oracle had
suspended its utterances some weeks before for lack of
funds, but it was practically the same journal that
appeared on December i6th, under the editorship of
Holyoake and Ryall, and with the name of the Movement.
Its motto was Bentham's phrase: " Maximise morals,
minimise religion." Holyoake endeavoured all through
to keep their positive and educational aim in rank with
the negative one. When the authorities threatened
heavy action, he could sincerely reply : " We have not
written from bravado, but from simplicity, and we have
known no policy but that of not knowing expediency."
The paper professed atheism, but made it clear that theirs
was the attitude afterwards known as "Agnosticism," and
THE END OF OWEN ISM 97
sometimes called by Holyoake " Limitationism." The
police took no action against it : nothing that Holyoake
ever wrote was actionable for its form or content. He
set up from the start the strict standard of " decency"
which he so well maintained throughout life. But his
writing in the Movement is not of good quality, as a rule.
It has few flashes of his distinctive power of phrase.
His colleague Ryall continued, with some moderation,
the " fisticuffs style," as Southwell called it, but the
journal never attained either popularity or notoriety, and
it only lived fifteen months.
Early in 1844 he published his Practical Grammar .^
It took appalling liberties with the staid science of the
grammarian. The Athenceum thought it " readable," and
the Spectator felt it to be " written in the conjoint style of
Punch and an ultra- Radical setting the world to rights."
Its temper was sturdily practical. In dealing with the
parts of speech be omits " thou " altogether, and explains :
" The curious I refer to the first grammar they meet with,
where, it being a subject of little or no practical
importance, they will find it displayed in all its roots
and branches." Hazlitt is his favourite model, and his
" examples," which are often funny stories or jokes,
depart terribly from the professional path. His rules
for composition are of Spartan rigour. The little work
was certainly useful in training young men to speak and
write clearly and precisely, and became popular. A little
later he followed it up with a shilling Handbook of
Graduated Grammatical Exercises. The idea of the work
is probably one of those he had proposed to elaborate
for the Owenite authorities. It shows very well the char-
acter of the classes on " grammar" that he used to give
to young men.
1 It was published by Watson, at is. 6d. I find a third edition
announced in February 1845.
VOL. I. H
98 THE END OF OWENISM
During 1844 Holyoake had less trouble with his
opponents than with his friends. He had written a strong
eulogy of Paterson's character and courage in the first
number of the Movement^ and Southwell and the other
Scotch workers took umbrage. A few stormy letters
from Southwell swept into Holywell Street, but Holyoake
wisely declined to be drawn into a quarrel. It was the
beginning of the long series of intestine wars of which
he was to be a spectator, or more. From the days of
the Pauline and Petrine schools no propagandist move-
ment has been free from these unpleasantnesses. He
continued to send money to all the victims of the " Scotch
war," and he succeeded in inducing Mr. Joseph Hume,
the prominent Radical, to appeal to the Home Secretary
on their behalf. Hume protested at first that Paterson
had been put away as u a nuisance," but he afterwards
(March 27th) wrote more satisfactorily :
" I have read and return the sentence on Mr. Paterson,
and I shall see Sir James Graham on the subject of the
petition and act accordingly. It has long been my
opinion that every man should be allowed to publish
and to sell what he pleases without that there is no liberty
of the Press, and without the power of communicating
opinion we cannot say that we live in a country that
enjoys freedom of opinion."
Mr. Arthur Trevelyan (brother of Sir Walter) also
wrote strongly in support of their work, and became
attached to Holyoake. " I will thank you," he wrote in
May, "to propose me as a member of your Atheistical
Society." He was a thorough Owenite, and wrote an
article in the Movement on "The insanity of mankind,"
and an address to the Home Secretary, in which he
described all the ministers as "moral lunatics."
The work was useful, and won many friends, but it
had no remuneration, and the home remained at an
THE END OF OWEN ISM 99
apostolic level. When " Branch 53 " fell into decay, and
his secretarial salary ceased, he must have lived on little
more than a pound a week. He tried to secure the
Rotunda for a " Philosophical Institution," with Mrs.
Emma Martin as lecturer, but it was refused, and he made
a tour in the provinces, using the Manchester Hall of
Science as his headquarters. " During my stay in Man-
chester," he says, " I occupied a room in which a former
inmate hung himself. It was hinted by a pious friend that
I, having no religious restraints, would probably follow
the same example. But I quieted all apprehension on
this score by the assurance that, in my profession, I did
not like to be tied to any particular line of practice." He
went with the intention of propagating social philosophy,
but was asked everywhere to lecture on religion. " In-
quisitive parties made their appearance at the Hall of
Science to satisfy themselves that I do not wear horns,
nor carry eyes in my elbows." At Rochdale, Stock-
port, and especially Oldham, he had crowded audiences.
At the last place " three policemen graced the assembly
by order of the magistrates, and there is hope that before
this time the whole bench have been benefited by my
labours." The lecture at Rochdale has historic signifi-
cance, as we shall see later.
In the summer he made an effort to bring to London
Mme. D'Arusmont, the able and spirited Scotchwoman
who is still well known to woman-workers by her
maiden name of Frances Wright. It was she who had
started, with great power and brilliance, the woman-
movement in America, to which Lucretia Mott and
others lent their aid. She was on a visit to Scotland in
1844, and Holyoake begged her to join them in London
He was from the first like all Owenites an advocate
of woman's cause, and had just made an effort to establish
Mrs. Martin in London. But Mme. D'Arusmont
ioo THE END OF OWENISM
declined the invitation with every indication of respect
and sympathy.
"I thank you from my heart," she wrote, "for your
welcome to my native island and your invitation to visit
the friends of liberty in London. I need not say that all
my sympathies are with you, or that my services are
sworn for life to the cause of Truth and Justice. But
seeing the narrow limits prescribed to individual
strength and existence, and the immensity of the field
open to individual exertion, the soldiers of the great
army of the universal ' Movement ' have to divide the
work, and to select each his post of attack and defence.
Having selected mine in early youth, I feel pledged by
honour and commanded by prudence not to exchange it
for any other until the strongholds of Error and Misrule
shall be there carried, and a first example of Wisdom
and Justice in the administration of human affairs shall
be there opened by a people master, in principle, of the
soil, and sovereign to will and to execute the emancipation
and salvation of the human race."
A more important episode occurred in the autumn of
1844. From the earliest issues of the Movement Holy-
oake had indulged in polite criticism of the Owenites.
"Socialism will be criticised in the Movement. The
present policy of Socialists I think not sound the inter-
pretation of Socialism not correct the measures neither
so vigorous nor practical as they might be ; but they
may be right. I arrogate no infallibility : I only venture
to explain differences. I question not the Central
Board's integrity assume no dishonesty ; I only impugn
their judgment, and desire, if indeed I am able, to
improve, not condemn." Soon he came to apply to it a
verse well known to readers of the time :
" Day after day, day after day,
It sticks nor breath, nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."
THE END OF OWEN1SM 101
The quarrel was at first conducted in proper Owenite
spirit. In June Mr. Galpin wrote him a pleasant letter,
wishing " to exchange a few ideas with you relative to
human progression, for although we are apparently in
two different spheres of operation, yet I think I could
have spoken to you that which would have strengthened
rather than weakened you." The conservative officials
always treated Holyoake quite differently from the
other radicals. In August, when Owen was about to
depart for America (with heavy heart), Holyoake and
Ryall sent an address assuring him that they were of his
party, and that there is " no difference in the affection
we bear you." They urged their readers to go to the
public breakfast in Owen's honour. But Holyoake
soon afterwards touched a sorer point in the Owenite
body than the question of religion, and there was much
resentment.
As Owen's grand plan was the salvation of the world
by home-colonies (or model communities), it was impera-
tive to exhibit at least one of these successfully in
England. Land was bought for this purpose in Hamp-
shire in 1840, comprising two farms of 500 acres. " We
see it announced," one of the dailies wrote, " that the
Socialists are about to establish an Epicurean stye on a
large scale in Hampshire. We trust that popular indig-
nation will protect that fair corner of this Christian isle
from so hideous a pollution." The chief building was
begun in 1842, and Owen's followers watched its pro-
gress with immense enthusiasm. No expense was spared.
Even the kitchen and basement-rooms had a deep
mahogany wainscot, and hundreds of pounds were spent
on walks and promenades. Artists sent pictures for the
dining hall, and students of science gave specimens for
the school. No mere " 1844 A.D." was cut into the stone,
but the large deep letters "C.M. 1844 " announced to
102 THE END OF OWENISM
the natives the real Commencement of the Millennium.
Unhappily the inaugurators of the millennium high-
minded men and women they were, often making great
sacrifices had too much individuality for communal life
and too little agricultural skill for colonisation. Press-
ing appeals for funds, rapid changes of governorship,
and the return of disappointed colonists, gradually
apprised the Owenite world that the great plan was mis-
carrying. From 1840 until 1845 it was the main theme
of their Congresses and thei crushing burden of their
officials.
To this enterprise Holyoake turned his critical atten-
tion, without malice, in 1844. Correspondents had urged
him to do so, and it was known that the New Moral
World was suppressing letters. On October i4th he left
London to visit the community at Queenwood, and he
afterwards published his reflections in a series of articles
in the Movement. They are reprinted to a great extent
in Sixty Years (ch. xxxvii), and I must omit the pleasant
observations about his journey. The railway officials
sent him to Farnborough, where he learned he was forty
or fifty miles from his destination. The delay was not
without interest. Louis Philippe, Guizot, and others,
were just expected there from Windsor. He mingled
with the crowd of police, "deeming that the best place
for not being seen by them," and was so close to the
French king heartily detested by all radicals that he
" could have shot him half a dozen times." The portrait
of the king sketched in the Movement is not flattering.
" His cheeks hung like collapsed pudding bags. His
frontispiece struck me as resembling Jupiter's with the
brains out. His head baffled all my phrenology it
is something between facetiae and mathematics half
comical and half conical." Prince Albert "looked as
though he were very well fed, and never thought where
THE END OF OWENISM 103
it came from"; while of the Queen he says: " Her
pretty Saxon face, beaming both with maternal affection
and thought, quite prepossessed me in her favour." At
three o'clock he resumed his journey, and ended with a
nine-miles walk from Winchester to Stockbridge.
He had to pass the night at a village on the way, and
he improved the time by sharpening his social philosophy
on observation of rustic life. The average wage of
agricultural labourers in the south and west at that time
was seven or eight shillings a week, with a few extras.
In little one-storey cottages of two rooms large families
huddled together with little notion of decency and none
of cleanliness. Their food was mainly a coarse bread
(is. the loaf) and potatoes. Tea was five to eight shil-
lings a pound, and was eked out or replaced entirely by
mint or burnt crusts. Beef and mutton they never
tasted, though some kept a pig and had pork on Sun-
days. Snails were not disdained in those days. The
one point of brightness in their lives was the ale-house,
with its rich odours and clean sanded floor ; and the
horizon of each one's prospect was bounded by the work-
house wall. Holyoake had just come from the north,
where he had been taken through factories at Oldham,
and seen men, women, and children working in a bak-
ing and foul atmosphere for twelve or fourteen hours a
day. Decidedly it was not a world to take quietly and
respectably.
These half-developed rustics looked with bovine wonder
on the colony of "Zozialites" that had been planted
amongst them. In that stately three-storied structure,
with stained glass windows to its dining hall, a princely
kitchen, a ball-room, and all the rest, they were told to
see the model of what every English worker's home
would be like under an equitable system of industry ;
though their clergy disturbed them with suggestions of
io 4 THE END OF OWEN ISM
sulphur in its magic. Thirty thousand pounds had
been spent on it. Mr. Pare had advanced ^5,000, Mr.
Galpin ^"8,000, Mr. Bate his whole fortune of ; 14,000 ;
and thousands of workers had invested all their savings
in it. By this time, 1844, the shadow lay full upon it.
Bravely the communists struggled and economised.
Tea and sugar had already disappeared, but they still
sang their cheerful music after the thin communal meal.
Holyoake saw at a glance one reason of the terrible
failure. The land was flinty and poor better suited for
"a colony of gunsmiths." In fact, one was impelled to
the conclusion that " it was chosen with an eye to insolv-
ency, under the impression that the chalk-pits in the
neighbourhood would be convenient for ' white-wash-
ing." It was miles away from markets, and so only
possible as an agricultural colony ; and for its success as
such " nature had done little, and the directors less."
Owen and his colleagues had built it in "a panic of
pride"; it was " squanderisation, not colonisation."
The most hidden material of it was of the costliest char-
acter. The ball-room and class-rooms (it was to a great
extent a school) had " richly finished ceilings." "A
long vine-wall was erected that probably cost a guinea a
yard." In a word, he openly charged the directors with
foolish extravagance, bad book-keeping, unwise choice
of locality in fact, unwisdom in everything. His note
was not bitter, and, although the situation seemed hope-
less, he concluded with a powerful appeal to Socialists.
He was still working with the Owenites. In the issue
of the Movement in which he concludes his articles (No-
vember 1 3th, 1844) he is announced to lecture at the
Social Institution, 5 Charlotte Street, Blackfriars Road,
and Southwell is to lecture at the Hall of Science, City
Road. Some of the Owenites strongly supported his
open criticism, but others, and especially the officials,
THE END OF OWEN ISM 105
held him largely responsible for the catastrophe that
soon came. The London papers announced the failure
of Queenwood in 1845. The trustees " hired such stray
ruffians as were to be had," and put the governor and
his family on the lanes. They let the building, and it
became a successful school (in which Tyndall gave
lessons). 1
So foundered the stately ship that bore the last hopes
of Owenism. Holyoake wrote afterwards that the estab-
lishment would have attracted sufficient capital if the
clergy had not so grossly misrepresented it ; and that
then, under proper management, it would have paid, and
made at least a useful college of reform. We may repeat
that the seed of Owenism was to die before it could
germinate. From its apparent disintegration have come
some of the greatest modern movements. For the
moment I need only point out that the Rochdale Store,
the direct starting-point of the Co-operative Movement,
was opened in the very year (1844) in which Holyoake
made his pilgrimage to the bankrupt community, and
Owen left England sadly for America.
The rest of the story of Owenism is soon told.
" Branch A i," the London centre of the Rational
Society, read the articles with a not unnatural resent-
ment, to which the New Moral World gladly gave ex-
pression. The articles were reprinted in pamphlet form,
and the movement (and Movement} simmered with con-
troversy. 2 Mr. Lloyd Jones was his chief opponent, and
1 Holyoake always felt that the trustees were defrauding the share-
holders, and in 1861 he supported William Pare in an action against
them. They actually pleaded quoting- Owen's lectures on marriage
that the Rational Society was founded for immoral purposes, and so they
could not be sued ! But they were forced to sell out and divide the
proceeds amongst the shareholders.
2 The pamphlet was published by Hetherington in January 1845, at
twopence. Another twopenny pamphlet issued in 1845 by Holyoake
was " A lecture on the value of biography in the formation of character,"
io6 THE END OF OWEN1SM
when Holyoake made public that lecturer's attempts to
destroy his position at Sheffield, feeling ran high. Mr.
Arthur Trevelyan, Mr. Josiah Gimson (founder of the
Leicester engineering firm), and some of the most import-
ant members, supported Holyoake, and the Manchester
and Leicester branches expressed indignation at the treat-
ment accorded him. In the midst of the quarrel, in July,
a special Congress decided to wind up the affairs of
Harmony Hall, with the effect I have noticed. The
branches of the Rational Society rapidly dwindled.
Their solid structures remained, and long sheltered the
shrinking groups, but not even in the revolutionary
atmosphere of 1848 could they restore life to the fallen
cause. 1
The Movement did not long survive the Queenwood
articles. For a few months longer its lively pages enable
us to trace his work. He is co-operating with the
Chartists, and on good terms with Bronterre O'Brien,
the most cultivated of them. He still speaks at Social
Institutions, 2 and gives classes (especially at the North
published by Watson. This was a lecture on C. R. Pemberton, embody-
ing the early material he had gathered on his actor-friend. A larger
work was issued by him shortly after, entitled Rationalism : a Treatise for
the Times. This was a sixpenny exposition of his views.
1 Mr. Podmore observes that a direct offshoot of Owenism still
flourishes in the north. This is the Rational Association Friendly
Society, which has headquarters in Manchester and about 900 branches
in the provinces.
2 At the beginning of 1845 their lecturing centres in the metropolis
were :
National Hall, Holborn.
Hall of Science, City Road.
Finsbury Institution, Goswell Road.
Social Institution, 5 Charlotte Street, Blackfriars Road.
Investigation Hall, 29 Circus Street, Marylebone.
Social Institution, John Street (" Branch A i").
Social Institution, Whitechapel.
The last-named failed in 1844 or 1845. There was also a centre at
Roan Street, Greenwich. For a few months after the failure of the
Movement he edited a tiny Monthly Circular of the Anti-Persecution Union.
THE END OF OWEN1SM 107
London Schools, off the New Road). His subjects are
generally connected with religion, but touch every aspect
of social reform. Fresh editions of his works are needed,
but his writing in the Movement itself is negligible. In
the issue of January ist, 1845, he has the grandiose pro-
spectus of a new undertaking. Believers have had their
Pantheon ; why should not unbelievers add an "Atheon"
to the monuments of the metropolis ? It will be a centre
of " fraternal intelligence" for all countries (the first
suggestion of an international bureau of progressive
agitation), a labour-bureau for radicals, a seminary for
atheist lecturers, and an editorial home for the Movement
and the Anti-Persecution Union. It will have a museum
of gods and idols and " blasphemy relics," and an
atheistical library and reading-room. A balance-sheet
of the accounts of the Atheon "will be presented an-
nually in the Movement" Alas, for the grand plans !
The Atheon appears no more, save for six timid lines in
very small type ; and in three months we have the last
issue (No. 68) of the Movement and the " Farewell
address of Mr. Holyoake."
It died of the usual malady, defective circulation. It
had issued a fair balance-sheet in January, and Holyoake
had then spent a month with the Leicester Socialists,
whose president, Mr. Josiah Gimson, was attached to
him. But the work and anxiety proved too much for
him, and he fell seriously ill on his return to London.
For several weeks his life was in danger. Miss Collet
adds interesting details to his modest statement. He
was, it seems, too poor to obtain proper medical treat-
ment, and would not appeal to his friends. Fortunately,
some of them she mentions W. J. Birch, a wealthy
supporter and a writer on Shakespeare discovered and
assisted him. He was nursed back to life to find that
the paper was in debt, and he at once suspended
io8 THE END OF QWEN1SM
publication. He met all its liabilities, even paying
Ryall's salary out of his slender funds, and again faced
the world without money or secure employment.
A little lecturing and a little journalism kept the home
in precarious integrity at London for a few months.
Another little work was added to his growing list of
publications. A Short and Easy Method with the Saints
is the second of his prison-productions. It is, on the
whole, a plain and temperate censure of persecution, and
is politely dedicated to Erskine. Knowing that " the
worst quality of injustice is that it is contagious, and
always infects its victim with its own madness," he is on
his guard against the infection. Erskine had rebuked
him for " improper levity," and he defends treatment by
ridicule in some cases. " Like the rays of heat, which
fly off polished surfaces, but penetrate dark grounds, so
ridicule reflects from the burnished surface of truth, but
scorches the black front of error." This sententiousness,
with his humour and wide knowledge and dignity of per-
sonal bearing, won appreciation for his lectures, but it
was an evil age for agitators of his school. The failure
of Owenism threw masses of the workers back into a
state of apathy. The prosperity of the country from
1842 to 1844 dulled the edge of the rhetoric of discontent,
and the return of distress in 1845 had not yet restored its
sharpness. Moreover, a rival agitation the fight for
Free Trade was taking away attention from the older
ones. A new panacea was having its turn, and it at-
tracted most of the fresh discontent amongst the people.
On the other hand, the left wing of the Owenite move-
ment was split up and discredited by sordid quarrels.
Paterson and Southwell accused each other of the gross-
est conduct, and Holyoake was assailed with letters about
his " martyrs " that made him shudder. Ryall died in
extreme penury, and their quarrels were vented over his
THE END OF OWEN ISM 109
grave. There is no reason for thinking that the grosser
charges were founded, but there was a plain lack of
moral backbone in the group, and Holyoake became
more determined than ever to discourage criticism of
theology apart from positive moral and social culture.
In the late summer he was invited to take the post of
lecturer to the Glasgow Owenites. With his wife and
two infants Eveline and Manfred he went to Liverpool,
and took ship from there to Greenock. The society,
which met on Sundays in a little chapel off Candleriggs,
was small, and the fee proportionate. Unhappily, they
had promised him more than they could easily provide,
and he again had the unpleasant experience of finding
himself a burden. Many of them found him too tame,
and demanded lectures in the Southwell vein. He
wearily offered his resignation. It seems, however, that
the better part of them appreciated his work, and for six
months continued to employ him. His ways impressed
people. He found the place as dirty as Candleriggs
generally, when he got there, and out of his own poor
salary he paid a woman to clean the stairs and the
causeway. The woman put it to neighbours that he
had " clean principles," however dark his theories were.
While he was at Glasgow he made his most fortunate
venture in literature. He learned that the Manchester
Unity of Oddfellows wanted five lectures written, on
Charity, Truth, Knowledge, Science, and Progression,
and offered prizes of ten pounds for each lecture. It
had been customary in the lodges to put candidates
for the various degrees through a pseudo-mystic and
ridiculous catechism, and they intended to substitute
the reading of sensible and elevating lectures. Being
an Oddfellow, Holyoake was interested in the reform,
and the money would be welcome. He sent in the
whole five lectures, written in attractive style. " Capital
I io THE END OF OWENISM
letters I printed, so that the beginning of sentences
should be well marked. I left a broad margin, in which
I wrote in red ink the subject of each paragraph. All
the pages of each lecture were put into a separate
coloured cover, bearing a cube in isometrical perspec-
tive, merely because it was ornamental, and mitigated
the dullness of a blank cover." The arbitrators chose
his lectures amongst those of the 79 competitors, and
were not a little dismayed when they learned that they
had chosen the work of the notorious atheist. Miss
Collet says they were too honourable to withdraw. At
all events Holyoake had the satisfaction of receiving his
first literary fee of so, 1 though he had left Scotland
before the award was made.
Another incident of his life in Glasgow shows his
constant effort to broaden the aim of his Owenite friends.
I have already said that by this time another great
panacea for all their ills was firing the imaginations of
the distressed workers. Side by side with Owenism,
Unionism, and Chartism, a movement was spreading
vigorously through the land that promised to eclipse
all their successes. From the passing of the Reform
Bill in 1832 Manchester had raised the banner of Free
Trade. As the power of the manufacturing class gained
on that of the land-owners, they won numerous ad-
herents, and with the fresh depression in trade the
workers were disposed to listen to them. The Anti-
Corn Law League was founded in 1839, and it was
conducted with such business capacity, and supported
1 A gentleman who had offered the Oddfellows 50 for the copyright
of one of the lectures withdrew when he learned the name of the author.
Six years later, when the Friendly Societies' Bill was before the House
of Lords, the Bishop of Oxford urged that the Manchester Oddfellows
should be debarred from enjoying its provisions (though they had already
been swindled out of ^4,000) because of their " atheistical " lectures.
He had not read them, and he withdrew his opposition when pressed to
do so.
THE END OF OWENISM in
by such wealthy contributors and rousing orators, that
it soon drew ahead of all competitors for public atten-
tion. The Times assailed it, in the interest of landlords,
as "a gregarious collection of cant and cotton-men,"
and most of the Chartists and Owenites opposed it as
a capitalistic and middle-class movement. But with
workers and speakers like Grote, J. Hume, Molesworth,
Roebuck, Eb. Elliott, W. H. Ashurst, Francis Place,
Gen. Thompson, Paulton, Thomasson, Bright, Cobden,
W. J. Fox, Villiers, Acland, Milner Gibson, Wilson,
and Moore, it moved triumphantly through the land.
At one meeting (in 1845) it collected ^60,000 for its
funds ; in one year (1843) it distributed nine million
tracts and leaflets. Peel attempted to meet it at first
with a sliding-scale of duties on corn "a thoroughly
English device," says Holyoake, " worthy of a people
who never precipitate themselves even into the truth ;
had Moses been an English premier, instead of making
the commandments absolute he would have proclaimed
a sliding-scale of violation." In 1846, seven years from
its foundation, the League triumphed over its formidable
opponents, and induced Peel to abolish the Corn Laws.
Of its brilliant career I must give no more than this
summary, as it enters little into our story. Holyoake
was a member of the League. Chartist leaders, failing
to get support for the Charter from the powerful League,
advised their followers to ignore or to attack it.
Holyoake followed his own judicious view, and sup-
ported it ; but he was not sufficiently known before
1846 to play any part in its work. At Glasgow in
December he offered to speak at an important League
meeting, but orators abounded, and he was not called
upon. He would find that in Scotland an Owenite
must be an Owenite and nothing more ; and when the
Owenites failed him, his condition was grave. A
112 THE END OF OWENISM
* .
correspondence with Miss S. D. Collet at the time
begins with the lady writing to him, as an influential
man, to favour the publication of some of her humanist
hymn-tunes ; it closes for the time (Miss Collet was
a warm admirer of his) with ten shillings' worth of
stamps and an ingenious note :
" DEAR SIR,
" Community of property is a favourite doctrine
of Socialists. If you will believe in it practically to-day
by calling the enclosed your own you will greatly oblige
" Your sincere friends,
"S. D. COLLET
" and BESSIE BURGESS."
He put aside pride, and genially answered that his
wavering faith in the Communistic principle had been
greatly strengthened, and had " received the stamp of
permanency." Miss Collet also exerted herself to secure
for him the management of a school that had been
opened in connection with the National Hall, Holborn.
This institution had been founded by Lovett (a Christian
Chartist), Watson, Hetherington, and others, as a lecture-
centre on social and political matters. Mr. W. Ellis
endowed a school for it, and Francis Place, Watson,
Mr. Collet, and others, recommended Holyoake for the
mastership. Lovett, however, the prisoner for political
heresy, was so prejudiced against the prisoner for
religious heresy that he abused his position (as secre-
tary) to thwart the application, and Holyoake lost a
very desirable position. As a strong vote of censure
upon Lovett was afterwards moved by Sergeant Parry
and Mr. Collet, we may expect henceforth to find him
in opposition to Holyoake. But before the matter was
settled he had returned (in March or April) to London.
CHAPTER VI
INTO A WIDER SPHERE
HOLYOAKE returned to the metropolis in a mood of
despondency and perplexity. It was a city of ruins.
Little groups of Chartists and Socialists still met sadly
at one or two of the old centres, but the causes they
pleaded had almost passed out of the public mind. The
New Moral World had sunk into the spacious grave of
prophets of the millennium ; the last " Social Congress"
was over ; and the Social Missionaries had disappeared,
not in an odour of sanctity. " On Sunday morning," a
correspondent had written to Glasgow, "we had the
last dying speech and confession of Lloyd Jones. He
does not intend to do or say any more with the Socialists.
He told us that Socialism was a receptacle for all moral
and intellectual delinquents empty-headed young men
bordering on idiotcy, babblers and quibblers, long-
haired, bearded, and vegetarians, etc." Chartism retained
more strength, but it was torn by even more passionate
quarrels and incriminations. Bronterre O'Brien, the
quiet and judicious scholar of the movement, had been
driven out by the bluster of Feargus O'Connor, who was
now supported by the stentorian voice and iridescent ora-
tory of Ernest Jones ; while Cooper led another group
at Leicester, Lovett and Collins a fourth ("Knowledge
Chartism"), Vincent a fifth ("Teetotal Chartism"),
O'Neill a sixth ("Christian Chartism"), and so on.
Into this chaos of struggling remnants Holyoake's
VOL. i. 113 i
Ii4 INTO A WIDER
London friends now invited him to come as peacemaker
and reconstructer.
On the Chartist side Holyoake would soon discover
his powerlessness. His feeble voice and polite rebel-
liousness were like a feather in the gusts of physical-
force oratory that then prevailed. We shall find that as
soon as he becomes prominent in the movement he only
hastens its dissolution. He turned more hopefully to
the survivors of the Rational Religion. Its finer and
sounder ideals should be rescued from the contempt into
which an alliance with ineffectual enterprises had drawn
them, and the high-minded men and women, who had
sunk into a bitter silence at the failure of their schemes
and the conduct of some of their leaders, should be
restored to a confidence in humanity and progress.
As he cast about for some means of forming a centre
for recrystallisation, he received a visit from the Grand
Master of the Oddfellows, and was almost stunned to
find himself in possession of ten crisp five-pound notes.
He had never seen so much money before. At once, in
the true knight-errant spirit of the time, he decided to
start a weekly paper, with Watson as publisher, and on
June 3rd appeared the first issue of the Reasoner and
Herald of Progress. He had contributed for some time
to the Herald of Progress, which was the organ of the
surviving Owenites from October 1845 to May 1846,
and its flickering life was prolonged by including it for
a few months in the new journal. The new title was
suggested by Linton. "It is not the arrogance of
logical acuteness which is our assumed characteristic,"
Holyoake wrote, "but the determination of reasoning
our way to the conclusions we proclaim and testing
speculative as well as practical subjects by the tangible
standard of utility." Its aim would be broader than
that of its predecessors. " Infidelity has been too long
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 115
a mere negation," he wrote in the seventh number ; and
in time he said: "We are not Infidels, if that term
implies the rejection of Christian truth since all we
reject is Christian error." Thus from the first moment
when he had entire control of a journal he defined critical
work as secondary or incidental to constructive. The
clergy would "chain the spirit of progress to musty
records," and so he must fight them in the interest of
progress. They are busy with a cry of " No Popery "
it was the great year of Anglican conversions to Rome
and he would substitute the cry of "No Poverty."
His journal would be Communistic in social matters
from the start he explains this to mean "the substitu-
tion of Co-operation for Competition " Utilitarian in
morality, and Republican in politics. In "tone and
etiquette " he will be careful not to offend the most fas-
tidious, but it is a shot at the " respectable" Owenites
he will be sure that he does tread on people's corns
before he apologises.
So, with a capital of fifty pounds and an appeal for
support, he set out to conquer the old immoral world.
The Reasoner continued for fifteen years, and it affords a
valuable chronicle of the times, from the radical point
of view, and an ample diary of Holyoake's activity.
There is proof on all sides that its general dignity of
treatment and sincerity of purpose won respect. A
writer in the newly-founded Daily News gave an account
of popular journalism on November 2nd, 1847. The
Chartist, George Hooper, writing to Holyoake, said that
the writer (Robertson, he thought) had "too profound a
contempt for the people to understand its literature."
However, he selected the Reasoner as a journal of high
aims, "written with considerable ability and conducted
with no small amount of tact." Its conductors were,
he said, "by no means commonplace men: there is
n6 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
evidently a great deal of ability and power of special
pleading in them." This was the expression of a hostile
observer, and we can understand that more radical
students of social questions were drawn to the paper.
After a few months, when Holyoake made what he
thought was a large appeal to his readers for 1,000
shillings, he was astonished to receive double the sum.
He had won a numerous and honourable company of
admirers. Men like T. Cooper (author of the Purgatory
of Suicides) wrote familiarly to him " from mere admira-
tion of you and resolve to cling to you as a brother "
and men like Ashurst, Francis Place and Collet were
drawn to him. Harriet Martineau " constantly and
eagerly read his writings," she said. The New Quarterly
Review spoke of him as a " highly important actor in the
democratic drama."
The significance of the early years of the Reasoner is
more than personal. In the able articles he contributed
to it we trace not only the broadening of his own mind,
but an important tendency of the time. The earlier
struggles of the century were mainly class-struggles.
The Reform-Bill agitation had united middle-class and
working-class reformers for a moment, and then sent
them wider asunder, in a Chartist revulsion, when the
franchise remained limited ; and the Corn Law agitation
had only reunited them to a limited extent. The
chronic divergence had lent a bitterness of invective to
the popular campaigns that tended to maintain the class-
war. Holyoake, with his greater trust in argument than
rhetoric, his willingness to see principle in an oppo-
nent, and his sensitiveness to vulgarity and melodrama,
was one of the few who thought a union, or at least
a nodding acquaintance, of reformers possible. He
fastened on the first principle that they all sought the
betterment of the race, and would do well to compare
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 117
and discuss their panaceas amicably. To make this
possible in the three movements he was chiefly engaged
in he sought to divest theological criticism of violence
and give prominence to its moral principle in his
own words, " to place infidelity on a philosophical
and moral basis, and draw a strong line of demarca-
tion between liberty of conscience and the licentious-
ness of vice." He was converting it into what he
would presently call " Secularism." Similarly, he
sought to teach Chartists that persuasion was superior
to pikes (especially when there was a disciplined army
on the other side), and the sober education of the people
better than inflaming them with scarlet rhetoric. The
Owenites he would persuade that the economic future
lay with Co-operation in the community rather than
Co-operation in communities ; that the new moral world
could not be created in patches ; and that modification
of the old immoral world by education and right political
action was not impossible. This ideal is perfectly plain
in the first volumes of the Reasoner ; and this is the
actual line that reform took in the second half of the
century.
Moderate men in the three movements Chartists,
especially, were already divided into moderates and
extremists (or moral-force and physical-force Chartists)
joined with him, but the more fiery at once raised that
cry of "trimming" which a conciliatory policy always
provokes. Feargus O'Connor's organ, the Northern Star,
replied to his polite criticisms that " mealy-mouthedness "
was worse than " rudeness." Southwell, who had set
up on a small stage at the Paragon Coffee-House in
Blackfriars Road, alternately blessed and denounced him.
Christians put his conciliatory air down to " the low
cunning of the infidel." He genially inserted all their
attacks upon himself in his paper, and made philosophic
ii8 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
replies. He had the rare virtue of a real faith in the power
of truth. Let the people be properly educated, and it
must prevail. And with evening classes, educational
books, and lectures, he did all he could to increase
their enlightenment.
This is the general tenor of his work for a few years,
and we may now look at it more in detail, and see how
he bore himself in it. The first volume of his Reasoner
reflects the desperate condition of the movements he is
interested in. The third number of it has to record the
forcible ejection of the manager of Queenwood, Mr.
Buxton, by the trustees. The scant and sober details
that Holyoake publishes are a small part of the cor-
respondence that Buxton showered on him at the time :
telling how he was violently put out of the building and
the estate, how he pitched a tent in the neighbouring
fields, and stole in at unguarded windows, and was
chased by Mr. Finch's " ruffians " when he tried to take
potatoes from the rotting heaps, and so on. Rival
executives were set up, and anathematised each other
quite orthodoxly ; and the chief of these, the London
Board to which Holyoake belonged, could only boast
187 followers in the whole country. Some of the Halls
of Science had been sold, and few of them had more
than twenty members. The " A i " branch counted
only 32 members, though it was now the only centre in
the metropolis (besides Southwell's lively coffee-house),
and it lowered its Owenite sign and put up " Literary
and Scientific Institution." The merriment of the general
public was increased when one of the leaders, Galpin,
turned " white Quaker," and sent an urgent letter to his
late colleagues to warn them that the second coming of
Christ was at hand, and they would do well to hurry
into his " Universal Church." The despondency of the
body was so great that when Owen visited the country
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 119
in November (1846) the Sheffield branch passed a vote
of censure on him because he would not try to restore
them. Holyoake gave classes in grammar and logic at
the Mechanics' Institute in Gould Square, and lectured
frequently at the John Street Institution. In the course
of a year he had the satisfaction of seeing five other
centres spring up in various parts of the metropolis.
He was not dismayed therefore when he lost his fifty
pounds, and made no editorial profit, on the first volume
of the Reasoner. He had made an impression, and won
friends, and so he raised funds to continue it. An
amusing document shows that he more than kept the
esteem of his less heterodox friends at London :
" Memorial of the undersigned S. D. Collet, Sarah
Lewin, and Elizabeth Burgess to G. J. Holyoake, dis-
coverer of dismal doubts in doctrine and propagator of
profound precepts in practice.
" Whereas it hath ever been deemed a meet and
wholesome thing that the taught should testify their
approbation or disapprobation towards the teacher, pre-
senting him in the former case with a piece of plate, and
in the latter with a cup of hemlock :
" And whereas the undersigned have, at various times,
received instruction of a useful nature from the said
G. J. Holyoake, for which they deem it right and fitting
to express their gratitude :
" And having learned with regret that the said G. J.
Holyoake is accustomed to pen his erudite and doubtless
world-convincing compositions from a writing-desk
whose antiquated and ruin-like condition must excite
in the spectator's mind mournful reflections on the
degenerate state of things, besides affording no pro-
tection against the predatory incursions of minikin
marauders :
" The undersigned therefore hereby request the said
G. J. Holyoake's acceptance of the accompanying
writing-desk, with the wish that he may never pen from
120 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
it a single sentence that he is not prepared to vindicate
to all mankind. "
The persistent admiration of cultured ladies like Miss
Collet, so far removed from him in religious thought,
says much for his character. A few months later she
sent him word that she had spoken about him to
Emerson, then visiting London, who told her " in a
genial tone " that he had heard of him. A few years
later (1850) she wrote a series of articles on him (after-
wards published as a work, G. J. Holyoake and Modern
Atheism) in the Unitarian Free Inquirer. She pleaded
that, though many theists had respect and affection for
" pure-hearted atheists," they "see atheism only as a
negation of theism, and dream not of all the inspirations
and associations with which logically or not it is
connected in the minds of its most earnest votaries " ;
and " amongst the English exponents of atheism none
occupy so high a place as Holyoake," who "bears a
high character for integrity and usefulness, both public
and private, in matters unconnected with atheism."
Holyoake was from 1844 to 1846 at least a member of
the South Place Chapel which the Collets attended.
During 1847 he published a supplementary volume to
his grammatical work, entitled A Handbook of Grammar,
of a similar character to the Practical Grammar.^ To
these he added his Mathematics no Mystery, or the Beauties
and Uses of Euclid. This was built out of the note-books
he had laboriously made at Birmingham. 2
But the year 1847 was chiefly filled with the struggle
1 The Handbook was first issued in five twopenny parts. These
educational works ran into several editions, and were much used at
evening classes.
2 It has essays on the history and utility of mathematics, and the first
book of Euclid, with notes. LloycFs Weekly said, in reviewing the second
edition (October 3ist, 1847) : " Mr. Holyoake is an indefatigable labourer
in the cause of intellectual progress, and he brings to his work a well-
stored mind, a clear head, and much ingenuity of purpose,"
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 121
to maintain the Reasoner, which made steady progress.
He also contributed to the People's Press, a liberal
monthly that was published from the Isle of Man (to
evade the stamp-law), and made excursions in provincial
lecturing. A couple of weeks at and about Northampton
in January show the adventurous nature of this work.
The landlord of the hotel at which a room had been
engaged refused to let it for so forbidding a purpose as
theirs, and Holyoake had to wander in search of another.
The Quaker-proprietor of the Temperance Hall listened
to him quietly and answered : "I will tell thee, friend,
that I am favourably impressed by thee, and I think
thee a sincere man but I cannot let thee my Hall."
They found a room at last, but when the landlord it
was in another hotel heard of their difficulties he
increased his rent fourfold. A renowned champion of
the faith in the district, a teacher named Satchwell, came
with a troop of supporters, and Holyoake, who was told
that the man would not improbably use his fists when
he became warm, brought him on the platform, but
prudently kept the table between them. As Holyoake
listened amiably to his lurid denunciation of atheists,
the man pronounced him " worse than a devil," because
devils " fear and tremble," while the atheist retained an
ultra-diabolical " suavity." He begged the audience to
look on Holyoake's smile as a piece of " low cunning,"
but they do not seem to have been convinced ; and when
their champion deserted his wife and eloped with one
of their teachers in the following year, Northampton
began to grow radical. 1 His lectures covered many
1 The Reasoner quotes the Northampton Mercury of January zgth, 1848,
for the elopement. The crude tactics of their opponents were every-
where helping the spread of atheism. A leaflet was at the time cir-
culating in Scotland that gave an account of Mrs. Emma Martin's
deathbed-recantation. It was ornamented with a coffin, and signed by
several ministers. Mrs. Martin was then (and for years afterwards)
lecturing at London in terms as heterodox as ever.
122 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
social questions besides religion, and were sometimes
delivered to Oddfellows or to Mechanics' Institutes.
The Great Western Railway Company gave him a free
first-class pass in April to lecture at their Swindon
Institute, and the local papers were complimentary.
In 1847 Mme. d'Arusmont (Frances Wright) was again
in England, and was persuaded to give a series of
lectures on English history at South Place Chapel.
After the fourth lecture the series was discontinued. The
attendance was very poor, and Mme. d'Arusmont, who
was extremely unwell, could not make the necessary
effort with so little encouragement. Holyoake sent
Watson to secure the manuscript of the lectures for his
paper, and no little disturbance resulted. The first
lecture was published, and a good deal of special adver-
tising undertaken, when Madame suddenly claimed the
return of the copy, and declared that it had been
obtained from her under false pretences. She was a
Deist ; her object, in her own words, was " to bring men
out of disputation into study, and out of theology and
anti-theology (one and the same things) into religion."
She accused Watson of representing the Reasoner as the
organ of South Place Chapel, and denying that it stood
for any special opinions. Holyoake was extremely
annoyed at the loss and the odium incurred. While
Southwell and his friends dropped hints about the
Reasoner 's lapse into Deism and " literary snobbishness,"
and feared that Holyoake's " amiable disposition to
charm everybody " might put him in the light of a
" trimmer," the more orthodox enjoyed the snub to his
paper. The charge of deception is groundless. In a
letter to Holyoake before the delivery of the lectures
(May 6th, 1847) Mme. d'Arusmont says :
" Receive my warmest thanks for your note, and for
the Reasoner which accompanied it. Had society more
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 123
reasonersof his temper, it would lead a much quieter life,
and have an infinite chance for acquiring some of that
good sense and right feeling which it lacks."
There had been no special issue of the paper prepared
for her perusal ; and it seemed a legitimate distinction to
secure copy from a liberal writer who could order the
sending of copies to friends like Joseph Hume, T.
Carlyle, and Guizot.
The truth was that Mme. d'Arusmont had been
persuaded that the company she had entered was not
respectable. Ironside, the Sheffield Owenite who had
brought Holyoake to that town in 1841, had since modi-
fied his views, and seems to have been one of the
culprits. Holyoake wrote him a politely indignant
letter, of which two drafts lie before me, with the lan-
guage gradually moderated to a strict ethical standard.
4 ' Those," he says, " who advised her to take away
her lectures did rightly if thereby more public good
could be accomplished but did they act justly to me
when they proposed no compensation for losses which I
incurred by their instigation ? Greatly have I mistaken
your character if you are more in love than I am with
philanthropy which plumes itself upon a public virtue too
exalted to estimate the sacrifice it makes of others."
However, he obtained no further satisfaction.
By the autumn of 1847 he was able to survey a more
satisfactory world of reform. Southwell had gone ;
Holyoake wrote an admirable letter to be read at his
farewell-meeting, and Southwell came in time to con-
demn himself the " fisticuffs" method. On the other
hand twelve London halls were engaged by his friends
every Sunday, his classes at Gould Square were still
running, and the support of the Reasvnerwas improving.
He appealed for a thousand shillings, and got two
thousand, as I have said. With part of this sum his
124 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
brother Austin was established as printer of the paper.
He had worked under Chilton, and he now took over the
printing-business of his brother-in-law, Hornblower, at
Clerkenwell. This was the beginning of the long and
cordial association of the two brothers. 1
The opening of Gower Street College about this time,
another of the increasing efforts to free culture from
clerical control, led Holyoake to take a singular and hon-
ourable resolution. The many marks of esteem he now
received daily did not blind him to the defects of his
cultivation, and he decided to attend some courses at the
University. Mr. W. H. Ashurst solicitor to the Post
Office, made familiar to many readers by Holyoake as
"a remarkable counsellor of propagandists" Mr. W.
J. Fox (of South Place Chapel), Mr. A. Trevelyan, and
other friends, advanced money for the fees. Mr. Ashurst
had helped Holyoake in preparing his Gloucester
speech, and remained a generous and warm friend until
his death. In religious matters he held quite different
views from Holyoake whom he called " a light shining
in darkness " but he shared the moral principle of
Owenism, and helped all agitators of character and
sincerity. In 1847 he lent Holyoake ^"50 for the pay-
ment of his fees at Gower Street, and was gratified and
surprised, "as though his experience had not lain much
in that way," to have it all repaid within a few years.
1 Austin had considerable ability, as had other members of the family.
William Holyoake, the third brother, became an artist of distinction.
One of his pictures hangs in the House of Lords, and he was for many
years Curator of the Royal Academy School. The eldest brother,
Horatio, kept a book-shop in Melbourne, and Walter became a photo-
grapher at London. The eldest daughter, Caroline, was extremely able
and spirited. She took great interest in public questions and strongly
supported her brother. Another sister, the youngest, and the only sur-
viving member of the family, Selina McCue, still lives, in America, and I
am indebted to her for some information. A correspondent who knew
several of the brothers relates that they all had great charm of manner,
and Miss Collet describes Caroline as beautiful.
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 125
As Holyoake's continuous diaries begin at this point
we are able to catch a more satisfactory glimpse of his
movements, though the notes in the two score diaries
before me are rarely more than bald references to events.
On the first page, for instance, we read :
"Oct. i. [1847]. Presented Mr. Ashurst's introduction
to Mr. Case.
,, 2. Dr. Black, Gilbert Vale, Cooper, Fleming,
and I met at Watson's. Took Vale to
Ashurst. Conferred with Shaen.
,, 3. Lectured at Utilitarian Hall.
,, 4. Accompanied Mr. Vale of New York to Mr.
Case. Looked into Dr. Allen's " Greek
Exercises."
,, 5. W. Williams and Miss P. called. Becoming
blind.
,, 6. At Gould Sq. Sent for Mr. Bird.
,, 7. Progress in Logic interrupted."
There is something pathetic about the mingling of
"Greek Exercises" with the matters of world-wide
interest that are suggested by the names of his visitors.
Most men who have by their thirtieth year attained a
position of public esteem and utility are content to forget
that they never plodded through the mazes of TVTTTO). It
must have required enormous tenacity of purpose and a
rigid sense of duty to settle down to such studies when
the world was as we shall soon see ringing with
revolution, and one had a score of platforms and several
authoritative organs open, and a burning sense of a
message to deliver. Yet through the next year or two
of dramatic agitation Holyoake ground away at Greek
and Latin and the higher study of logic. His health
further hampered his studies. By October nth he is
" blind with cold and inflammation," and in a few weeks
is down with influenza. The inflammation of the eyes
126 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
troubled him all that winter, and he was not the only
invalid. " Malthus ill : two surgeons" is entered in the
middle of his attack of influenza ; and " Robespierre
Holyoake born " comes shortly afterwards.
Of weak constitution and constantly ailing, faced with
the dilemma of an increasing family and a small and
stationary income, finding that energy which the study
of the classical tongues demands from a busy man of
his age, he was nevertheless commanding the attention
of thoughtful men and women. He was urging women
like Miss Martineau, Miss Collet, Miss Parkes (Mme.
Belloc), Mrs. Hawkes (Ashurst's daughter, afterwards
Mme. Venturi), and others, to start a woman-movement,
and in an article in the Free Press he drew up a pro-
gramme for them ; he even suggested the title of a paper
( Womaris Journal) that was adopted ten years afterwards.
He was engaged in a discussion of the temperance ques-
tion with Mr. Passmore Edwards, who championed total
abstinence against Holyoake's defence of temperance in
the more literal sense. He was corresponding on educa-
tional schemes with Mr. W. Ellis, and on land-schemes
with Mr. Thomas Allsop (who subscribed to his journal
at the rate of a shilling a number). 1 But at the beginning
1 In a long letter to him Mr. W. Ellis, a high authority on schools at
the time, writes (May ist, 1848) : " It will be highly gratifying to me to
learn that a gentleman of your ability and acuteness can turn my unpre-
tending works to good account." Mr. Allsop, a warm friend of
Coleridge, observes, after reading one of his works (April 23rd, 1848) :
" I have been much gratified with the talent and temper of the work,
and pleased but not surprised by the elevated views you take on all
questions." Mr. Passmore Edwards writes to me: "I knew but little
about G. J. Holyoake about the time you mention 1847 and only
occasionally came in contact with him in after years, but always had
cause to respect and admire him. He was, when I first knew him, and
for years after, misrepresented, abused, and shunned, but by manly and
useful conduct he gradually won general esteem." The debate between
Holyoake and Mr. Edwards was on the subject of Cruikshank's
"bottle" picture. Holyoake held it to be exaggeration, and all
exaggeration to be mischievous.
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 127
of 1848 all this activity was suddenly lit with the glow of
volcanic fires, and Greek exercises must have suffered
grievously.
At the John Street Institution he had joined Lovett
and others in forming a society of " Fraternal Demo-
crats" or " Friends of All Nations." From obscure
corners of the metropolis came picturesque figures-
Poles, Germans, Italians, etc. who poured out glowing
rhetoric in broken English on the state of things abroad.
He began to realise that England was part of the map
of Europe, and that the dream of revolution as a short-
cut to the golden age was not quite ended. Cooper had
to write and ask him to spare his readers any further
account of his " Democratic Firebrands." One day (in
September 1847) he was astonished to receive a letter
from "the seven chiefs of the community at Ghent,"
telling him that some article of his "a fait sensation
ici." Mr. Allsop, an authority in such matters, wrote
him: u The time to which I adverted as near when I
last saw you is now somewhat nearer, not only as a
matter of self-evident fact, but as a matter of clear indi-
cation. We are on the eve of a mighty social
convulsion." Cooper wrote him that Sir Harry and
Lady Verney and T. Carlyle had invited him to tea and
discussion. The letter has interest in regard to Carlyle :
" MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
"The baronet was very earnest in his ques-
tioning last night ; and Thomas Carlyle boldly denounced
abuses and laissez-faire, according to his wont. He
declared his conviction roundly that the enactment of
the Charter is at hand though he does not believe it
will result in immediate benefit to the people. Profit-
able employment for the people is what we want, he
says, and says justly. We entered largely into that all-
important subject, and Sir Harry Verney eagerly and
i 2 g INTO A WIDER SPHR
pointedly inquired what working men propose in that
direction for themselves. I gave him some brief and
imperfect account of M inter Morgan's plans, of Fourier-
ism and communism, and, at his desire, have promised
to send him a list of books unfolding what those plans
and systems are."
He begs Holyoake to compile the list of books for him.
It would have been strange if the author of the French
Revolution had failed to notice the indications of approach-
ing disturbance. The workers of England were once
more in a mood of great bitterness. Three successive
times had their orators persuaded them that the carrying
of a certain great reform would banish the misery from
their homes : three times had they flung themselves
against the conservative powers : three times had they,
with fiery energy and blood-shed and much imprison-
ment, wrested the said reform from their rulers : and in
the year 1848 they seemed to be no better off than ever.
The Reform Bill, the Trade-Union law, and Free Trade
were secured, but in town and country the squalor and
ignorance and suffering were as great as ever. One
half the population were still illiterate, and the average
income of their scanty teachers (cripples, old women,
vagabonds, etc.) was 22 a year. Their homes and
surroundings were filthy beyond description. Paris and
London had, half a century ago, sanitary systems far
inferior to that provided in Babylon 4,000 years before.
The stench and filth of the London courts were inde-
scribable. "Lodging-houses" were found to consist of
parlours, eighteen feet by ten, with beds of straw, rags,
and shavings along each side, and every window stuffed :
in such a room, swarming with vermin and serving
(Kay says) for every domestic and personal purpose,
one found as many as twenty-seven male and female
adults, thirty-one children, and several dogs. In 1847
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 129
the cholera fastened on them with a deadly grip. In the
country they still lived on turnips and coarse bread and
crust-tea. The factory-workers were equally disappointed
in their hopes. One whose memory goes back to those
days tells me how, as a girl of nine, she would be roused
at five, given a breakfast of bread and treacle and mint-
tea, walk miles to her mill, work for twelve hours at the
looms the children were hidden when inspectors chanced
to come along drag her limbs home to a supper of
bread and dripping (rarely potatoes and bacon), and
sleep with the fifteen other members of the family in
their dark and dank cellar-home until it was time to
begin again. It is a typical story.
In spite of the repellent quarrels of its leaders, Chartism
continued to thrive in such a soil. It is a mistake to
describe it as shattered by the prosecutions of 1838. It
reached its height in 1843, when it sent up to the House
a petition signed by 3,300,000 people. It was then
receiving subscriptions to the amount of ^200 a week.
But after 1843 internal dissension weakened it more and
more. In 1847, though that was a year of commercial
panic and terrible distress, its own convulsions threat-
ened to destroy it. Then England was lit up once more
by the glare of revolution in Europe, and Chartism drew
up its forces for the last time.
As we have not only to consider Holyoake's attitude
at this time in the Chartist body, but shall find our
story for some years disturbed by the echoes of the revo-
lutions of 1848, a very brief sketch of the outbreak may
be useful. Since the Council of Vienna in 1815, when
the work of the great revolution was undone by the
restored monarchies, Europe had been living over a
smouldering mine. From Naples to Stockholm, from
Poland to Ireland, the revolutionary feeling still glowed
in subterraneous clubs, and occasionally flamed out in
VOL. i, K
130 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
the press or the open street. The French Revolution of
1830 brought momentary relief in France, and the Reform
Bill of 1832 in England ; but it was only momentary.
Louis Philippe adopted the current kingly traditions ;
and the "water-gruel Whigs" were no less assailed by
democrats in England. Austria and the Papacy lay
heavy on the spirit of Italy, and the Carbonari and
" Young Italy" spread the fiery cross through the land.
The Liberals of Austria and Hungary and Prussia, and
the Poles and Finns, turned and writhed under the
oppression of the Holy Alliance. Norwegians chafed
under the rule of Sweden ; Swedes resented their
imported foreign dynasty ; and Belgians plotted against
their German prince, and dreamed of the republic the
Powers had robbed them of. Spain stirred under the
Bourbon despotism. Ireland vented its chronic misery,
now augmented by the great famine and formidable
emigrations.
It wanted but a spark to set the smouldering mass
aflame, and the spark was given at the beginning of
1848. Once more a French Revolution gave the
broadest expression to the movement, but it was really
Italy that led in the revolt. Austrians, Bourbons, and
Popes had for thirty years savagely repressed every
effort of the Italian patriots, and filled the jails of Italy.
The Carbonari, an offshoot of Neapolitan Freemasonry,
had spread a network of secret rebels over the land, and
then Mazzini, from his exile in Marseilles, where he met
a certain Captain Garibaldi, organised the younger
Italians, and sent his eloquent appeals out from his
secret presses. The election of Pius IX relieved the
pressure in central Italy for a time, but his liberalism
was short-lived. In January 1848 there were revo-
lutionary stirrings in Sicily, Naples, Tuscany, Venice,
Lombardy, and Piedmont. Mazzini was at London ;
INTO A WIDER SPHERE 131
and his wide circle of liberal friends, and the wider
fringe of radical sympathisers, were still discussing the
spurts of rebellion in Italy, when the news came that
Paris had once more swept a king from the throne.
Louis Blanc had published a formidable indictment
of the July monarchy in his History of Ten Years.
Liberal politicians came at length to denounce its
political corruption and despotism with vigour, and the
people of Paris, who know little of the subtle distinc-
tion between theory and practice, for a third time
deposed their king, and put radicals like Louis Blanc
and Ledru-Rollin in their provisional government.
Further east the Hungarians, whose Diet was busy with
demands of financial and social reform, sprang up at
the news from France, and Kossuth made the " baptismal
speech of the revolution " on March 3rd. It was trans-
lated into German, and on the i3th all Europe was
amazed to hear that the people of Vienna had risen,
forced Metternich, the leading statesman of the reaction
for thirty years, to fly, and won concessions from the
emperor. Hungary got its constitution, and Bohemia
also secured reforms. The King of Prussia was forced
to yield after the fall of Metternich. And, far out on the
wings of Europe, Poland and Ireland stirred into pathetic
rebellion.
This is a bald summary of the messages that poured
cataractically into London in the first quarter of 1848.
It will fall in our sphere to consider later the swift failure
of all these movements, when we shall find the fugitives
from nearly every State in intercourse with Holyoake at
London. For the moment we have only to imagine the
effect of the news on the little group of " Democratic
Firebrands" at the John Street Institution. It must be
borne in mind that these continental agitations were often
conducted by moderate liberals, who detested the more
132 INTO A WIDER SPHERE
advanced agitators almost as much as they hated the
despots ; but the general lesson of the outbreak seemed
to be clear. Cooper had grumbled that " the tone of the
foreigners " did not suit him, and when he remonstrated
" Moll got up and said : ' Vot you mean ? If you Chart-
ists had bought arms instead of talking so mush you
vould have been someting like democrats ! " It would
be their turn now. George Julian Harney was already
an active member of the group, and was firing it with
Dantonesque oratory. Feargus O'Connor came to the
metropolis in February, and attracted vast crowds.
Ernest Jones was inflaming the provinces once more.
There are sober historians (as in Traill's Social England)
who declare that England was " on the verge of revolu-
tion." What came of it all, and what part Holyoake
played in it, is the next point of importance that we have
to consider.
CHAPTER VII
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
HOLYOAKE himself has severely criticised the Christian-
Socialist writers who have exaggerated the Chartist
demonstrations of 1848. He ridicules the statements of
Canon Kingsley and Dean Stubbs that there was any
serious danger of a rising in London that year. He is
undoubtedly right in holding that the Government of
the country did not run the least risk in 1848. It had at
its command forces overwhelmingly superior to any that
could have been set in motion against it ; so superior, in
fact, that a revolution was out of the question, and a
rising would have been mere folly. The Chartists
probably numbered a million at least of the workers, but
there had been none of the secret arming and drilling of
1831 and 1839. The 20,000 of them that are supposed
to have been a menace to London were quite unarmed,
and were surrounded by an army of at least a hundred
thousand soldiers and constables.
The Chartist proceedings of 1848 are only notable
historically as the last considerable appearance of that
body on the political stage of England, though they have
a more direct interest for us. Holyoake had always
resisted the physical-force majority, and connected him-
self rather with the more sober and cultivated leaders.
As early as October 1844 we find Bronterre O'Brien
writing to him :
134 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
" MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
"I have had the pleasure to receive your kind
note, and was much gratified by your friendly wishes,
which I am sure are quite sincere, and which with equal
sincerity I cordially reciprocate. Be assured that if I
can do anything, through my paper or otherwise, to
gratify you, it shall be done. ..."
O'Brien, a tall, stooping, quiet man, with dignified
bearing, was immeasurably superior to his colleagues in
ability and knowledge. He and Hetherington, another
intelligent and thoughtful politician, though less scholarly,
retained their attachment to Holyoake, and appreciated
his more sober counsels. But the news of successful
revolutions abroad stirred the more violent orators into
fresh life. John Frost was still in jail for the futile
" rebellion" he had initiated at Monmouth in 1839.
But Harney, O'Connor, and Ernest Jones came to
London, and held a series of demonstrations.
By the middle of March, when the news of the French
Revolution had reached all parts of the kingdom, the
authorities began to make those ostentatious preparations
that have so impressed historians. On the i3th there
was a meeting of 20,000 people on Kennington Common,
and the tricolour flag waved boldly over the hustings.
Some 4,000 constables were drawn up in readiness, and
the gun-sellers in the city were ordered to keep their
weapons unscrewed (in case of raids) and their stock of
powder out of the way. On the following day the
Chartists crowded into the John Street Institution, which
they had obtained as their headquarters. Lloyd Jones
and Lovett had returned from Paris, where they had
been sent as delegates, and they now gave a glowing
account of the supremacy of the workers and the opening
of the famous national workshops at Paris. Enthusiasm
rose to a white heat when, in the next few weeks, the
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 135
news of the successive revolutions in other parts of the
Continent reached England. There were meetings
almost daily, and long, defiant processions marched out,
often in pouring rain, to Blackheath or Kennington,
or some other open space. At their headquarters they
set up a National Convention, recalling the First French
Revolution, and declared it to be in permanent session
until the Charter was granted.
The citizens of London and the Government were
undoubtedly alarmed. There was hardly a country in
Europe that spring which did not witness a successful
rising, and England, with its vast Chartist organisation
already formed and able to summon a quarter of a
million workers to its red flag in so many parts of the
kingdom, seemed a more likely field for their success.
Hence, when it was announced that the Chartists were
gathering five million signatures to a last petition, and
were going to send this to the House on April loth with
the support of a gigantic procession, the crisis was felt
to be near. Rumour and the press magnified the matter
in their way. It soon became generally believed that
500,000 armed Chartists were to march from Kennington
Common to Westminster, and give Parliament its last
chance to make peaceful concessions. As, despite
Carlyle's optimism, there was no serious hope of the
Charter being granted, there seemed to be a grave out-
look. Nevertheless, Holyoake is not unjust in his
strictures on Wellington and the Government for the
formidable preparations that they made, and that have
so much misled historians. The most popular Chartist
leaders were now urging their followers to abstain from
violence, and the London Chartists were destitute even of
the crude arms of the provincial iron-workers. The age of
pikes was over. Every improvement in the rifle and the
gun and in military training made the storming of bastilles
136 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
more wildly impracticable. Bronterre O'Brien spoke to
large meetings in his sensible way. Holyoake addressed
an overflowing audience at John Street on the evening of
the gth (Sunday night), and warned them to beware of
violence even under grave police provocation. Men like
Hetherington assured him that they would die under the
truncheons of the police rather than strike a single blow.
Even Feargus O'Connor and Ernest Jones now deprecated
violence ; though their followers, who had so long been
fired with their reckless appeals, looked on them with
some coldness and suspicion. The Convention actually
sent a delegation to assure Earl Grey that their intention
was purely pacific.
Yet London trembled with expectation when, on the
Monday morning, little bands of Chartists set out, with
red banners and tricolours, for the common at Kenning-
ton. The most daring of them cannot have gone far
before they dropped all idea of physical force for that day.
The guns of the Tower were manned and loaded. The
employees of the Post Office were supplied with 2,000
rifles. The Bank bristled with artillery, and the sand-
bag parapets on its roof barely concealed the lines of
infantry. The bridges and approaches to Westminster
were commanded by an army of 10,000 horse, foot, and
artillery, whose red coats and flashing steel peeped out
discreetly from every point of vantage. The 6,000 horse
and foot police of the metropolis lined the streets with
truncheons and cutlasses, and behind them was an army
of 170,000 special constables. 1 The slightest show of
1 Holyoake says "a million special constables," and Gammage 70,000.
It was a day of dreams. Molesworth gives the more credible figures.
Holyoake seems to be as far below the mark when he says that only
4,000 Chartists marched. Other writers put the number at from 15,000
to 150,000. On the whole, it seems probable that there were about
20,000 Chartists, 10,000 regular troops, and nearly 200,000 constables.
Probably 200,000 spectators, more or less in sympathy, lined the route ;
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 137
violence might have led to fearful carnage. Holyoake
and forty others constituted themselves reporters for the
day, and spread over the route, note-book in hand. The
police, not suspecting that they were spies on themselves,
took kindly to them, and Holyoake got a good position
at Blackfriars Bridge. He saw "a coarse, plethoric
alderman " going from man to man, whispering that
they must " strike hard to-day." Presently he would
see the members of the Convention march across with
their great petition on a gaily decorated dray drawn by
four horses.
People waited on the idle streets all vehicles had
been withdrawn, lest they should help to form barricades
for the issue, and at last all fear was swept away in
laughter. The tiny army of Chartists had been nervously
and timidly harangued on the Common by O'Connor,
and had then sent off their petition in three cabs to the
House. There it was met with a device more cruel than
artillery. It was at once handed over to a staff of clerks,
and they soon announced that, instead of 5,700,000 sig-
natures, it contained only 1,975,496 ; and that, as many of
these were fictitious (they included the Queen, the Duke
of Wellington, and so on), it was wholly discredited.
London disbanded its armed protectors, and laughed the
unmasked conspirators off its streets. Chartism of the
old type was irretrievably ruined in the metropolis.
Holyoake did not greatly regret the fiasco. He wrote
curtly in his paper that " the Chartist Convention had
poked up the Government to growl and stretch them-
selves, as the showman pokes up his lions." The failure
had merely discredited the din of physical-force oratory
which had so long drowned all the more sober voices.
and all London was on the move at a safe distance. Louis Napoleon
was amongst the special constables.
138 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
The points of the Charter, it must be remembered, were
really moderate political reforms, and could and should be
entirely dissociated from revolutionary language. That
night some hundred of the moderates met at the Farring-
don Hall, and founded the People's Charter Union.
Holyoake was elected on the Council.
During the Eastertide that followed vast Chartist
meetings were held in the provinces, but the flood had
turned and soon began to subside rapidly. Fresh
divisions weakened its strength. Feargus O'Connor,
who had alienated all the more moderate workers, was
now abandoning violence, and drawing nearer to the
radicals. Holyoake and his friends sought no help
from him, for his power was failing, and in a few years
the famous demagogue sincere and courageous, but
ill-balanced and utterly injudicious would pass into the
living grave of an asylum. He was now taken up with
a huge land-scheme, or plan of founding a Chartist city
(Oconnorville), of which Holyoake foresaw the failure.
His late colleagues refused to accept his new guidance,
and clung to the old themes as long as revolution
triumphed abroad ; though that inspiration was destined
to fail them before the end of the year. They set up a
" National Assembly," and John Street continued to
resound with their explosive oratory and Jacobin quarrels.
But, as the more violent elements weakened, Holyoake's
moderate counsels gained a surer hearing, and the more
sagacious Chartists rallied to him. I find him dining
with Lloyd Jones in March (1848), and often afterwards.
Jones had settled as a tailor in Oxford Street, and a few
lines from one of his letters to Holyoake will show his
feeling at the time :
"DEAR SIR,
" Your vest shall have the pocket put in. It is
not only silk velvet, but the very best, having cost me
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 139
above one guinea per yard. I only give it to special
favourites. ..."
Hetherington, Linton, Collet, O'Brien, and other
moderates were wholly with him. A letter from Mr.
W. M. Reynolds (of Reynolds' Miscellany) runs :
" MY DEAR MR. HOLYOAKE,
" I return you many thanks for inserting my
circular letter in your excellent periodical, of which I am
a reader ; and I rejoice to see that your views coincide
with mine relative to the necessity of an union among
the friends of political progress and social reformation.
" Accept the cordial assurances of friendship which I
take this opportunity of proffering to a worker in the
good cause, and believe me to remain, etc."
On April i8th W. J. Linton, one of the most culti-
vated of the London Chartists, sent for him and proposed
that they should jointly edit a new Chartist paper.
His reply shows an unusual degree of gratification :
" Never since the death of Ryall has any proposal
of personal association given me so much pleasure as the
one you have made. The presence of that which we can
venerate in him whom we esteem makes up the charm
of intercourse. I find this in you. No possible literary
communism could have been proposed to me which I
should value so highly. In him in whom Poetry and
Art join with a passion for the liberty and elevation of
the common people I find my ideal of that patriotism
which is the hope of the great future that lies before us."
But the association proved a very brief one, and Linton
afterwards became far from friendly. The first issue of
the Cause of the People a title borrowed from the Cause
du Peuple that George Sand was then editing at Paris
appeared on May 2Oth. It attracted attention by its
soundness and sobriety, and Bronterre O'Brien came to
140 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
ask Holyoake for a place on it. George Hooper wrote
most of the paper, under Holyoake's direction. Un-
fortunately, Linton's affairs seem to have been involved
at the time, and the paper only lasted nine weeks. The
Reasoner was, of course, maintained all the time, and
Holyoake also wrote in a sixpenny weekly (the Peoples
Press) that was published by Shirrefs in the Isle of Man,
and had a brilliant list of contributors.
The legal work of the Cause was managed by Mr.
Ashurst, whose letters show a warm personal regard for
Holyoake. In one letter the aged solicitor asks Holyoake
to " take him through the first book of Euclid," and the
Sunday evenings are often spent at Ashurst's house at
Muswell Hill. One of his daughters became Mme.
Venturi, and another Mrs. James (afterwards Lady)
Stansfeld ; his house was for years one of the gayest
radical centres in the metropolis. The American visitor,
Mr. Vale, whom Holyoake took there, brought him a
surprise in the form of a letter from his lively friend
Hollick, who had now a medical practice in New York.
Holyoake's reply shows a touch of character :
" If your letter is not written in banter of American
manners and sentiment, I must suppose that you have
snuffed up, like the war-horse, the air of American
hyperbole for such a ' tarnal ' rant was never
manufactured by an Englishman before. You say you
have * been in the south buying niggers,' and that * it
was not a good spec.' I am glad of it. I am too much
your friend to contemplate with satisfaction prosperity
cemented by the blood of the negro. But you joke with
me. You cannot so have changed. I will not believe
that you have sunk into a mere dollar-hunter, till the
tones of your own voice assure me of it."
Dr. Hollick afterwards returned to grace, and had
pleasant days with him in New York in 1879 and 1882.
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 141
From his associates no less than from the tone of his
political articles, which we will consider presently, the
Chartist workers regarded him with suspicion. He
realised this during a provincial tour that he made in
June and July, and that gives us some idea of his activity
and position. Molesworth speaks of Manchester about
this time as " the centre of a district which was regarded
as one that was emerging from barbarism," and even to
a Birmingham worker it had sinister features. The
entrance into it by rail made him recall Dante's descent
into the nether regions. Its climate was, and is, a
European joke. Holyoake left behind in the rooms he
had occupied at a Salford hotel a certain " memorandum
for travellers." It bade the stranger " prepare to escape
by night" if he wanted to depart in fine weather. His
lectures were not very well attended, but he had proof
that he was becoming known. One night he missed his
way, and asked a policeman. " A very clever fellow is
that Holyoake," the man added, when he mentioned the
hall he sought. In the neighbouring towns his success
was complete. Oldham cheered him with two northern
specifics a brass band and a rousing tea-party.
Liverpool, Ashton (where he spoke in Rayner Stephens's
chapel), Rochdale, and Staleybridge found him en-
thusiastic audiences.
At Staleybridge he was drawn for the first time into
one of those gladiatorial combats of wit that delighted
and thrilled Victorian audiences in the provinces a
public debate. Dr. West challenged him to discuss a
religious question, under the novel condition that the
debate should continue " until one of us yielded himself
as conquered or the meeting terminated the discussion."
Either alternative pointed to infinity, and Holyoake asked
amended terms. They debated for two nights, from half-
past six to eleven, before 1,000 people. A renewal
142 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
of the debate was demanded, and a few weeks later he
met Dr. West at Rochdale. The Manchester Guardian
gravely declared that it understood the two were
confederates, travelling together to play " some sort of
drama" (Holyoake taking the part of " Deist") and
sharing the ill-gotten proceeds. Whatever conclusion
one may draw from the fact, Dr. West failed to appear
on the third night, and sent the excuse that his son had
been robbed of his watch at Liverpool !
From Lancashire he passed to Yorkshire, and found the
dialect even more formidable. Speaking of the propos-
ing of a vote of thanks to him at one place, he says :
" I never heard such an intonation in public before. I
thought one of Catlin's Ojibbeway Indians had escaped,
and was asking me the way home." He lectured at
Stoke on his return to London, and then at Cheltenham,
Bristol, Worcester, and Birmingham on his way to the
north once more to meet Dr. West. One day his notes
were stolen in the train. Another day he was dragged
into discussion by a minister in the train, and learned
afterwards, from an article by the clergyman, that he
was " most amiable and very intellectual," and that, as
" deep sighs occasionally escaped him," his conversion
was not beyond hope. But his chief adventures were
with the Chartists, whom he tried to draw into discussion
everywhere. Their organ, the Northern Star, was content
to call him "the mildest-mannered man in the ranks of
public disputants " a heavy censure in their grim world
and the Chartist workers of the north distrusted his
politeness and temperateness. They were heard in places
to speculate whether he was not a Whig in disguise, or
even " paid by the Government." He somewhere bought
a pike a relic of the earlier troubles tipped it prudently
with cork, and brought it back to London in his carpet-
bag as " a sample of Chartist arguments. " He wondered
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 143
what would happen if the police took it into their heads
to examine his luggage. The implement was one of the
famous Colonel Macerone's spears, and greatly interested
Holyoake's visitors in more peaceful days.
He delivered thirty or forty lectures in the provinces
that summer, and one notices by the titles how his
general social interest is displacing the theological, or
reducing it to a co-ordinate position. The Reasoner still
claimed a large amount of his time ; and he continued to
give classes to young men and prepare educational works
of an original character. It was in the midst of these
labours that he set himself the task of learning the ele-
ments of the classic tongues and acquiring French. The
spectacle of Cato studying Greek in his old age is hardly
more heroic than that of Holyoake doing Latin exercises
in 1848 and 1849. He was only in his thirty-second year,
but his position was remarkable. He had already become,
not only one of the leading theological disputants in the
country, but a political and social teacher of influence.
He was being treated as an important colleague by men
like Francis Place, 1 Robert Owen, Thomas Allsop,
Francis Newman, Ashurst, Sir Joshua Walmsley, Collet,
George Henry Lewes, Thornton Hunt, Louis Blanc, and
other men of distinction. He daily entered circles in
which the gravest problems of politics and humanity
were handled by masters. He had travelled very far
since he first set foot in the metropolis, an unknown
youth, six years previously.
Yet his political development had been a direct and
steady growth. One would not, indeed, think less of
him if he had disavowed crude and hasty conclusions to
1 " This dispute," Place wrote to him, referring to one of his " Ion "
letters, " now consists of three of us, you and I and Chambers, all three
of us being, in vulgar parlance, philanthropists." The letter is given in
full in Sixty Ysars, I, 217, and Bygones, I, 100.
144 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
embrace larger views. Consistency, Emerson has said,
is a virtue of cowards. In truth, however, he had from
the first instinctively grasped the sober principles of the
systems in which he began his activity and avoided their
excesses. We saw this in regard to Owenism, and now
find it in respect of his Chartism. To a modern mind,
with a vague knowledge of political history, it seems to
be a swift and long stride from Chartism to Liberalism.
Yet the transition was an easy one. Chartism, it must
be remembered, was a demand for six definite political
reforms, three of which have been won, and the other
three are now demanded by many Liberals. The ques-
tion whether they were to be obtained by terrorism or by
peaceful agitation lay outside the Charter. Holyoake
from the start maintained that they could and should be
secured by constitutional work ; and the points them-
selves (except that it became less important in time to
have annual Parliaments) he never abandoned. On
these points the workers and the middle class could easily
agree, and his conciliatory nature, as well as his political
judgment, sought union of forces wherever it was
possible. He thus never ceased to be a Chartist in
substance, nor did he desert his own class, on the politi-
cal issues of that time, in advocating an alliance with the
middle class. It was the middle class, we must remem-
ber, that had won the reforms all over the Continent.
However, his early colleagues would not admit that it
was their violence that had caused the Whigs to use
violence, and they distrusted every man who associated
with them.
It is chiefly in a series of letters over the signature of
" Ion " that Holyoake developed his principles and drew
ahead of his old associates. Robert Buchanan and
Lloyd Jones started a paper called the Spirit of the Age,
and when it threatened to collapse, in the usual way,
f
Ix 5
II
F&OM CtiARTISM TO LIBERALISM 14$
Mr. Ashurst bought it. It began in July (1848), and
advocated the points of the Charter (with triennial
instead of annual Parliaments) and a number of specific
social remedies. Thoroughly Owenite in spirit and
phrase, it gave education and industrial co-operation as
its leading principles. Owen himself wrote much in it.
It eschewed all violence, and urged u the gradual intro-
duction into our social arrangements of new principles,
in accordance with nature and truth." One is strongly
tempted to see Holyoake's phrasing and views in its
earliest leaders, which were admirable, but he does not
speak of working on it until November. 1 Mr. Ashurst
then bought the paper, and gave editorial control to
Holyoake. Foreseeing that the editorial change as well
as differences of opinion would give trouble, Holyoake
advised Ashurst to pay Jones and Buchanan three
months' salary, and dismiss them. They were paid, but
retained, and soon disclosed their hostility. Holyoake
laid down as a principle " fairness towards the middle
1 Francis Place thought otherwise of the paper, as the following
interesting letter, written to Holyoake before he began to edit the
paper, shows :
" MY DEAR SIR,
" I send you a number of the ' Spirit of the Age ' a misnomer,
it should be the ' Folly of the Age.' I send it because it has reference to
you. I take advantage of this to say that I hope you have not adopted
the cant of the party here and at Paris in the use of the words, ' the
right to Labour.' The words are absolute nonsense but that might
pass if they were not injurious. As the words have no meaning in
themselves, they serve to mystify the men whom they who use them
pretend to serve. I know that some of these have crazed themselves,
and, like all crazy people, believe they are profoundly wise when they
are egregiously silly. I know too that many among them are sad
rogues.
" I hate all mystery, and more than any other the mystery which
misleads the working people to their injury, as the words I am com-
menting upon do. No one can regret more than I do the humbug of
the various 'isms which have been and are the greatest impediment to
the increase of knowledge among the working people and made them
to a great extent unteachable in matters absolutely necessary to the
bettering of their condition as well physically as morally.
" Yours truly,
"FRANCIS PLACE."
VOL. I. L
146 FROM CHARTISM TO
and the industrious class" : they preferred a class- war,
in the modern phrase. In his last contribution to the
Spirit Jones wrote unpleasantly, and Buchanan and he
went off to found a rival journal. The division of the
small available reading public not only revived the old
differences between Holyoake and Lloyd Jones, but was
fatal to the paper. Holyoake made a scrupulous return
to Mr. Ashurst every week, and at the beginning of
March he was obliged to urge the discontinuance of his
journal. He had secured brilliant contributors (includ-
ing Mazzini and two members of the French Provisional
Government), and was furnishing a paper of solid value,
but he could not honestly anticipate sufficient support for
it, and with his usual straightforwardness he warned the
proprietor. Ashurst did not regard the financial loss,
but he, too, had the refined moral sense of a true
follower of Owen he declined to continue the paper on
lines that were distasteful to its founders. Lloyd Jones,
who soon joined the Christian Socialists, repaid Holyoake
with much hostility.
Holyoake began in the paper a series of political letters
which he signed " Ion." It was the name of a play by
Sergeant Talfourd which he admired. Linton urged
him to call his paper the Matter of the Age, and sign
himself " Iron," in allusion to the practical nature of the
journal ; though in time, when Linton thought he was
losing his inflexibility of principle, he wrote that the r
was well omitted from the name. The letters were a
spirited and readable advocacy of the political principles
I have already described. They began with a professed
defence of " The symbols of the continental revolutions "
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. His first note was
defiant. The cry of the " respectable " press for " order "
as opposed to liberty he takes to mean " that selfish
opulence should disport itself with applause, and intelli-
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 147
gent mechanics learn to starve with politeness." The
workers feel that " Law keeps a stern outlook on labour,
while it vouchsafes capital a gracious and courteous
license." The second article begins to qualify. Equali-
sation means to him raising the level of the lower, not
pulling down the higher, and must take account of
inherent inequalities. The great thing is " to substitute
the greatness of man for the littleness of the great." On
fraternity he is eloquent and safe, but his divergence
from the extremists is made plain in later letters.
Writing on " The School-days of Nations," he chides the
impatience of reformers. " In the husbandry of reforma-
tion, as well as of nature, the ground needs preparation.
The reformer forgets this. His expectations are without
consideration, measure, or sobriety." Ion's aim is "to
arrest the impulsiveness of the public judgment and to
suggest sounder rules of political criticism." He has
three letters in appreciation of Cobden, whom the
Chartists had fiercely opposed. At last, in a letter on
" Impediments to Progress," he makes a direct attack.
Reformers need more vigilant attention. " Delighted
by the completeness of what they promise, men forget to
inquire what they accomplish." The Chartists are un-
reasonable in their "war on the middle class." The
middle class made free America, and the middle class
alone in England can check the higher class for them.
"The Radical," he goes on, "forgets that society has
a past the Conservative that it has a future. The
Radical ventures upon the unknown without the compass
of experience or the chart of history. The Conservative
denies freedom and growth to the present: he fetters
aspiration and chains improvement. We want the
wisdom which will dare, but dare securely." 1
1 By the " Radical " he clearly means the extreme reformer, and is
not using the word in its normal political sense. He was working with
148 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
Here, in 1849, is the Liberalism of Holyoake's last
years fully developed. One cannot be surprised that the
letters were fiercely attacked. Lloyd Jones made a fiery
reply and abandoned him. Miss Collet, on the other
hand, expressed the feeling of many when she wrote him
that she found the letters " bracing as quinine." In
her biographical sketch she says that the letters were
bitterly attacked, and adds : " This is not the first time,
and will not be the last, that the severe self-restraint of
a passionate soul has been mistaken for coldness, and a
life of unceasing renunciation set down as traitorously
politic." She fully approved of Holyoake's final con-
duct : " You have acted like yourself about the Spirit.
Lloyd Jones is indeed 'an unfavourable circumstance,'
as the Socialists say and a stupid spoilsport besides."
She urged him to transfer the Ion letters to the Reasoner,
and for a time he tried the experiment, until he found a
more suitable medium in the Leader.
Though it involves a glance at a few years ahead, we
may at once bring to a close Holyoake's connection with
Chartism. He remained a member of the Union, and
even a member of its executive, until it died in 1852, and
his efforts to reform it hastened its end. His aim was to
make its methods constitutional and its language polite,
and to prove the possibility of political co-operation with
the middle class. To such a body as the Chartists, with
its long record of imprisonments and its ears attuned to
violence, the remedy was impossible. With the middle
class they would have no compromise. The historian of
the Radicals, and his own position was Radical. A politician who de-
manded the six points of the Charter let me, for convenience, repeat
them : manhood suffrage, annual (later, triennial) parliaments, the
ballot, no property-qualification, payment of members, and equal elect-
oral districts and fundamental social reforms could not be described
otherwise. But I speak of his " Liberalism," partly to indicate that his
political development was already complete, and partly because of his
persistent wish for union instead of divisions.
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 149
the movement, Dr. Gammage, admits that Holyoake's
position was never obscure, and underwent no change
whatever. He merely complains as does G. J. Harney,
who, however, retained respect and friendship for Holy-
oake to the end that Holyoake ought to have left the
movement. But, since Holyoake clung to the six points
of the Charter as sincerely as any, that is an unreason-
able plaint. It was more than honest to remain and seek
to turn Chartist energy into more effective channels for
reaching its own object. He brought men like Thornton
Hunt and Le Blond into the body, and worked steadily,
and with growing success, for an alliance with Radicalism.
He is first personally distinguished at Chartist meet-
ings in February 1849. In that year the Radicals, under
the lead of Joseph Hume, were more than willing to
amalgamate with the moderate Chartists. When O'Con-
nor moved the points of the Charter in the House he
had the strong support of Hume and W. J. Fox and
other radicals, with whom he now worked. The whole
year was marked by attempts to bring about an alliance
between the middle-class reformers and the right wing
of the Chartists, and Holyoake assisted in every attempt.
We find him in the short-lived National Reform League
that Bronterre O'Brien and Lloyd Jones founded to pro-
vide a common ground. He joined also the League of
Social Progress (with L. Jones, Hetherington, Buchanan,
etc.) that met for the same purpose at Anderton's Hotel.
All this work was necessary and valuable for the redis-
tribution of political forces. A paragraph that Holyoake
wrote nearly sixty years later so accurately expresses
his attitude at the time that I cannot do better than
quote it:
" The enfranchisement of the working class, for which
Place worked so unceasingly, could not come in the
ordinary course of things English until the middle class
ISO FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
had succeeded in their contest with their feudal masters.
By the possession of the vote in 1832, the middle class
became a rival power to the aristocracy ; and that power
would be greatly augmented if the middle class should
favour the extension of the franchise to the working class,
as many of them were naturally inclined to do. The
Tory policy was then to sow animosity between the
middle and the working classes, which might prevent
them acting together. . . . The Irish in England, who
thought their chances lay in English difficulty, willingly
preached distrust of the middle class, and their eloquent
tongues -gave them ascendency among the Chartists,
many of whom honestly believed that spite was a mode
of progress, and, under the impression that passion was
patriotism, they took money to express it." 1
He gives ample proof that E. Jones, T. Cooper, and
other Chartist leaders, accepted Tory money to maintain
the war with the Whig middle class. Against this war
he now used his whole influence. A painful incident
of the year shows a notable increase of this influence.
Hetherington, one of the bravest and most effective
workers in the Chartist and Owenist ranks, died in
August (1849). During his last illness (cholerine) he
had Holyoake to tend him he despised medical treat-
ment and made plain to all his great attachment to the
young man. All the advanced workers in London
gathered at his grave-side, and thousands of spectators,
many of them in tears, lined the route. Holyoake was
the chief speaker at the grave.
So through 1849 and 1850 he made his way in the
decaying movement. In January 1851 he was elected to
the executive, securing sixth place out of twenty-one
candidates. The one at the head of the list polled 1,805
1 Bygones, I, 109. He admits, looking back, that the middle class
"have not shown themselves as solicitous for the political claims of
labour as they ought."
FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM 151
votes, F. O'Connor 1,314, and Holyoake 1,021. Through-
out the year we find him prominent in attempts to main-
tain dignity of procedure and co-operation with other
reformers. In January 1852 he was re-elected to the
executive by 336 votes (the first securing only 900).
The movement was drawing to a close under stress of
this last schism. A few months later Ernest Jones
drew off the extremists to Manchester, and formed a new
executive. They thus defeated the aim of Holyoake and
Hunt : and they ended the great movement that had
filled the political stage for ten years. From that time
Chartism was the mere shadow of a name. And as, on
the Continent, the work of 1848 was being undone in
every country, the workers of England wearily dropped
the idea of revolution.
Thus for the second time Holyoake was, on the face
of the matter, an important agency in the dissolution of
a great organisation that he had joined. His criticisms
hastened the death of Owenism, and his insistence pre-
cipitated the fall of Chartism. But the injury was only
apparent. Both the great democratic movements of the
earlier half of the nineteenth century were foredoomed to
failure. One had been cast in, and the other assumed, a
form that precluded success. In his half-conscious ac-
celeration of their dying he was acting in the spirit of
progress. The vital principles of Owenism industrial
co-operation, education of mind and character, and im-
provement of the conditions of life had to be entrusted
to separate organisations, which should work with all
the intensity of specialisation. Owenism had not lived in
vain, nor was its death without profit. Chartism, on the
other hand, had lost its original features. The People's
Charter had been drawn up by a combination of working
men and radical politicians. It seemed to Holyoake all
through that the combination should be maintained ;
152 FROM CHARTISM TO LIBERALISM
Gammage admits that he never concealed his view.
But the Feargus O'Connors first instilled into the Union
a profound distrust of the middle class, and then proved
their own incapacity to run it separately, and it had to
die. For the next few decades Radicalism would be the
common political ground of action, until a Labour party
should arise to reassert the old claim. No one foresaw
Socialism in 1850. Holyoake saw the half-century close
with no misgiving about social and political progress.
And we pass on with him from the heroic to the practical
age.
CHAPTER VIII
THE 'LEADER' AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
THE years that followed were filled by Holyoake with
an intense and very varied activity. His Radical
associations brought him political and journalistic
occupation, and introduced him to a wider and more
distinguished social circle. His sympathy with strug-
gling labour drew his notice at once to the Co-operative
ventures that were then inaugurating the great move-
ment of his later life. The triumph of reaction over the
Continent was driving the more brilliant and uncom-
promising democrats to this country, and enlarging
his circle with such figures as Kossuth, Pulzsky, Louis
Blanc, and Mazzini. And lest the reader be tempted
for a moment to think that the interest and distinction
of his new associates had too much to do with his
emergence from an unpopular body he still clung to
his anti-theological work, and organised it afresh in
face of the bitterest prejudice that then existed in
England. All this work fills the next five years with
a most interesting and complex activity, and we must
ignore chronological order to some extent, and deal
separately with his new energies.
It is convenient to take first his action in English
politics and the journalistic world, especially as this
affords a good opportunity for that more personal con-
sideration of him of which we have seen too little.
We can piece together a fairly complete picture of him
J53
154 THE ' LEADER^ AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
in 1849, between his editorship of the Spirit of the Age
and his work on the Leader, and it is a rare one. He
removed in May from Chelsea (4 Oriel Place) to
Tavistock Square, so as to be near both Fleet Street
and Gower Street, and from a little flat in Woburn
Buildings he turned alternately to his masters at the
college and his thousands of admiring pupils in the
press and the lecture-hall. He walks home with Louis
Blanc at two o'clock one morning, after a night spent
in profound discussion of French politics ; a day or
two afterwards he buys a tyro's copy of " Latin
Exercises," and soon notes in his diary, marking the
accents like a school-boy, " spes animum implet." He
is turned out of his flat by the landlord for his shady
reputation though the man politely alleges the noise
made by the children and on the same day sits to the
painter Merritt for his portrait. On one day in May he
visits Francis Place, attends a meeting on the Italian
question and a lecture by F. D. Maurice, and has Miss
Collet to tea ; and the next day he sits on the benches
at Gower Street in the " senior Latin class." On the
27th he delivers a great lecture one that made a deep
impression at John Street, on " Why there has been
no revolution in England " ; and on the 3Oth he is " up
at five studying Latin," and in the evening " begins to
study Blackstone." In August he spends two days
whitewashing, for the cholera is about, eschews cigars,
and "tries careful experiments in vegetable diet," and
has to sell his wife's watch and his own clothes to save his
brother from the bailiffs ; and meantime he is meeting
General Avezzana, dining with George Henry Lewes,
discussing American journalism at R. W. Russell's, and
burying Hetherington amidst an immense gathering. A
quaint mixture of very little problems and very big ones :
a drastic condemnation of " self-help " in education !
THE 'LEADER' AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 155
His home-life ran its happy course under the quiet
and tactful rule of Mrs. Holyoake. Three little mouths
were now added to his obligations, and he notes in his
diary, with some sadness: "The necessities of home
compel me to abandon all work that is not remunerative.
At last I am a slave, with my own consent, which only
death extorts." It was one of the few good resolutions
he had to register periodically and trample on habitually.
Friends were good to the little ones. "Mrs. Captain
Grenfell gives the children 13^." he enters one day.
Mrs. Grenfell, "a handsome, dashing Irishwoman of
the type of Lady Morgan," was a frequent visitor. She
had inherited much of Julian Hibbert's money, and
seems to have carried out a wish of his in giving an
occasional cheque to impecunious reformers. Two of
the children had attained the age of speech, and the
diaries reflect the brightness they gave to the home.
Some one sent her love to Manfred, and the little
utilitarian remarked: " Oh I that's no good to me";
and when they bought a new lamp, that proved re-
fractory, he opined that it "will go when it gets used
to us." Holyoake began at this period to grow his
beard. "Poor dada ! We have made his whiskers
grow at last," was the comment of little Evie (now Mrs.
Praill). The parents agreed to leave it to their mature
years to learn anything about religion, and then form
their own judgments. But religious phrases soon
dropped on their ears, and one day they were found
playing at paying visits, like grown-ups. Manfred was
introducing himself to Eveline as "Mr. God." "He
understood it was a friend of mine," Holyoake says.
The task of training them on rational lines worked well,
but had its inconveniences. " Does you let yourself do
what you likes?" Manfred asked gravely, when some
restriction was laid on him.
I 5 6 THE 'LEADER 1 AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
It was in the spring of 1849 that he began to attend
Gower Street. Some of his friends seem to have re-
garded his departure with very scant favour, as W. J.
Linton (who had not yet quarrelled with him) makes
clear :
" Now may I say a word on your communication of
the other day? And do not take it unkindly or un-
graciously of me. For what are you studying Latin
and (I presume) Greek, or attending college? For the
social position of a degree? Be sure that LL.D. will
in no way serve you. ' Dr. Holyoake ' will still be
Holyoake the Atheist. The world never forgives :
never will allow you any degree of forgiveness. You
have but a choice between two things. Either reCant,
and the greater sin will, of course, make the greater
saint's fortune ; or work in the teeth of the world. No
LL.D. or M.A. can serve you"
Holyoake had, it is clear, expressed some hope of
obtaining a degree, but the pressure of political and
journalistic work soon crushed his classical studies and
they pass into obscurity. His more cultivated and
professional friends seem to have felt merely that the
methodical culture he would get at Gower Street would
be beneficial in a general way. The last entries I find
referring to his studies are in November 1849, when he
is attending the courses of Francis Newman and Pro-
fessor De Morgan. After that year he makes long
provincial tours.
A letter he received about that time from the editor
of the Weekly News and Financial Economist (the suc-
cessor to Jerrold's) is interesting as an indication of the
current estimate of his culture :
" MY DEAR SIR,
" Perhaps I am intruding too much on our slight
acquaintance to make the following proposition to you :
THE ' LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 157
it is simply this. Would it be worth your while to give
us notices (I could not expect elaborate reviews) of our
mental scientific books? I know the subjects are
especially yours, and I should be glad of such an
opinion."
Mr. Charles Mackay, the song-writer, has an interesting
letter to him at the same period :
" DEAR SIR,
"I quite agree with your criticism upon the
song ' There's a good time coming, boys ' except
where you allege that / am not aware of the vulgarity
of expression alluded to. On the contrary I feel it, and
deplore the bad taste of the public, which permits [it] in
spite of my judgment in neglecting better things and
lavishing its favours upon that which is worthless. It is
humiliating to think that when a man writes up, the
public will not follow him ; but that when he writes
down, he receives applause. I do not say this is always
the case, but in my own case I can truly state that the
most inferior of my compositions the song alluded to
has been made the most popular, and, what is more,
that the musician has made it more vulgar than the
author. ... I wish you would read my new work,
* Egeria.' I think you will find a higher tone in it,
to restore me to your good opinion. I wish men like
you to know what I am doing in reality, and to be
judged by something better than my failures."
Many who recollect the wide popularity of the
song for decades will read the author's opinion with
surprise ; but Mr. Mackay followed serious reform-
movements in London with great conscientiousness,
and his song was the opening chorus of many a radical
meeting. John Stuart Mill sent Holyoake a copy of his
Political Economy, and a cheque for 10 for his Italian
fund, as soon as he started it. Ashurst continued his
genial hospitality. He notes one night returning late
158 THE ' LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
in a cab with Mrs. Stansfeld and Mrs. Hawkes, who
enlivened the night-journey with songs. Mr. (after-
wards Sir) J. Stansfeld was another constant and very
pleasant host of his : he was later Chairman of the
Board of Trade. F. Place he visited constantly ; and
George Lewes invited him to dinner, and formed a
close friendship, when he reviewed Lewes's Robespierre.
W. J. Birch, the Shakespearean scholar, visited him
frequently, and offered a large tract of land in America
for a fresh communal experiment if Holyoake would
take control of it. 1 T. Allsop, an intimate friend of
Coleridge and Lamb, and a strenuous political worker
in the fifties, had great regard for him. A letter of his
begins :
" MY DEAR SIR,
44 Some months ago you made me a promise to
spend a long Sunday with me. Now Christians may,
relying on the Atonement, break promises with safety,
but as you have no such refuge, it behoves you to fulfil
your promise. Seriously I hope, now the year has put
on its park attire, that you may yourself participate in
the benefit you will confer if you will inhale the country
air with me at my farm on Sunday next."
Francis Newman, whom he met as a professor at
Gower Street, entered into a correspondence with him of
which a huge bundle lies before me ; a few of the letters
may be quoted in a later chapter. On one occasion he
entertained Robert Owen, and the company he brought
to meet him included W. J. Birch and some students
from Gower Street, two of whom were Percy Greg
and Michael (afterwards Sir Michael) Foster. At the
London Mechanics' Institute he met his old acquaintance
George Combe, and had the satisfaction of discussing
1 Holyoake never published this fact, but it is entered in his diary
(Febr. 1850) after a breakfast with Mr. Birch.
THE 'LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 159
education with him and W. Ellis on terms of equality.
Nor were his older associates deserted. He saw L.
Jones and Buchanan constantly until the quarrel, and
had many talks with Harney, O'Connor, Cooper,
Hooper, O'Brien, Truelove, and the old workers he
was now outpacing.
His health suffered constantly under the strain, but
he eagerly undertook all useful work that occurred to
him, whether or no there was remuneration. He
gathered funds for placing a monument on R. Carlile's
grave, and spent many days canvassing for Baron
Rothschild's election in July. In the summer there
was a fearful visitation of cholera, and, as he fell ill
(about the time of Hetherington's death), he made a
will, which he has nowhere published :
" If this epidemic takes me suddenly I shall be obliged
to apologise to my readers and friends for my abrupt
and unceremonious departure. Yet, when I think
of it, I am so busy that I really have not time to die.
My duties and my studies so occupy me that I shall be
obliged to treat the cholera with rudeness, as I shall be
too much engaged to pay it any attentions. If, however,
the cholera should be wilful and not disconcerted by my
incivilities, it is necessary that I make a will.
" I bequeath all my property to Eleanor Williams, my
wife, for her maintenance and the children's. In case of
her demise before mine I leave it to the children equally,
and I pray my valued friend, W. H. Ashurst, Esq.,
who above all others has been my friend, or Mr.
Stansfeld, to obtain my policy discharge my obligations
and entrust the remainder to some one on behalf of
my children.
" GEO. JACOB HOLYOAKE.
"Aug. 15, 1849."
At the time he wrote this his health was poor, and
cholera was close at hand in ghastly form. It was
160 THE l LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
carrying off 700 people a day in London, and Covent
Garden was not at that time a salubrious district.
Until the middle of September it had 500 victims a
day in the metropolis.
Interesting as were Holyoake's work and associates at
this time, events occurred in 1849 that greatly increased
his activity and influence. The chief cause of this was
the recovery of the reactionary powers on the Continent
and the general flight of the revolutionaries of 1848 to
England. Holyoake's relation to them and work for their
countries demand a separate chapter, but the triumph
of reaction was not without effect on English political
life. It was felt that a new organ of progressive feeling
should be created, and Ashurst once more concerted a
plan with Holyoake, and the issue of it was the publica-
tion of the first number of the Peoples Review. Ashurst
deplored Holyoake's agnostic views in his genial way,
but he so much respected his honesty in maintaining his
heterodox work in his new surroundings that (the diary
relates) he offered to bank ^100 in security for the new
volume of the Reasoner, and he sometimes wrote in it over
the pseudonym of " Edward Search." However, they
needed a separate social and political organ, and he set
Holyoake again to construct it.
The People's Review was a novel departure, even for
an age that seemed to have exhausted the possibilities
of journalism. Speaking somewhere of the monthly
apparitions of new journals, and their frantic vicissitudes
of form, colour, size, price, etc., he says: " Like flags
carried in battle, they were made out of such material as
happened to be available in the exigencies of forced
marches, and were often shot into tatters by the enemy."
The new venture was a small monthly of octavo size,
and was sold at a shilling. It was edited by " Friends
of Order and Progress," a daring combination that
was thought impossible at the time. The "friends of
THE l LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 161
order" the conventional press denounced it as another
41 whole hog" periodical; and the " friends of progress,"
the Chartists, contemptuously pronounced it "milk and
water." Their opposed verdicts would assure Holyoake
that he had succeeded in his aim at the golden mean,
but unfortunately his philosophic temper was still too
rare. The review was born in February (1850) and
died in April of the same year, leaving the customary
liabilities. Ashurst lost ^70 on the three issues.
In the meantime the idea had been taken up by a
journalist of great energy and distinction, who had far
better opportunities than Holyoake for carrying it out
with success. Thornton Hunt, son of Leigh Hunt, has
been so generously delineated by Holyoake (Sixty Years,
ch. xlii) that I need say little of his person and character.
A man of great nervous energy, generosity, zeal for
social advance, and the broadest and most tolerant
interests, he early contracted a warm friendship for
Holyoake, to whom he was introduced by Lewes. They
worked together on the Chartist executive, and in later
years Holyoake often drove with him when he called on
Palmerston and other high officials. He was on the
Spectator in 1849, when the need for a more radical
organ became apparent. With his close friend George
H. Lewes, the Rev. E. R. Larken (a liberal Church-
man), Holyoake, and a group of other advanced political
students who met at the Whittington Club, he drew up
the plans for the new journal. The first number of the
Leader did not appear until March 3Oth, 1850, and a letter
of Hunt's to Holyoake, dated Nov. 22nd, 1849, will give
some idea at once of the careful preparation made for it
and the confidence he placed in Holyoake's assistance :
" MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
" I received your letter on my return home last
night with the greatest pleasure on every account the
VOL. i. M
1 62 THE 'LEADER' AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
assurance of your friendship, the interest which you
exhibit in our endeavour, and the possible adhesion
of so useful a man as Mr. Ashurst. ... I propose next
Sunday to adopt the following plan. On the table as
you found it in my study will be also a joint of cold
meat, and all who like to make their dinner of that may
keep with us till we have done work and are ready for
tea : this will save the form of dinner for so large a
party, which would probably exceed our scanty means
of attendance, crockery, and other table munitions. I
hope for a good attendance and well-considered counsel.
" I shall count upon you as one of the tea-drinkers :
am I not right? I write in great haste the greater
because my assistant is ill, which has delayed my
answer a few hours.
" Your most sincere and glad friend,
" THORNTON HUNT."
One would like to be able to tell more of that remark-
able gathering at Hammersmith, but the documents
fail. In December Hunt writes again :
" MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
4 'As a formula we could perhaps have some-
thing like the following :
"We are aware that in the case of men who have
considered freely and naturally on most subjects of
politics, sociology, or religion, [they] entertain opinions
considerably in advance of those which they avow, or
are permitted to avow. The tyranny which keeps down
the expression of opinion in our time, though less
dangerous than it has been in times past, is more domes-
ticated, more searching and constraining. The real
opinions that exist, therefore, do not come out, bear no
fruits, and do not even know their own strength. To
fortify them, to enable them to bear their fruits, we
propose to bring them together without exposing them
to the action of that social tyranny. We therefore
invite all who are in such a position, or who desire the
development of opinion, to unite with us in that work
THE ^LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 163
through a confidential combination. Some have already
done so. Our organisation is very simple ; and hitherto
the friends who have united have given their co-operation
in the frankest and heartiest spirit.
" Very hastily written, this may still serve as the sketch
which others may fit to their own language.
" Ever yours most truly,
" THORNTON HUNT."
Hunt's formula was accepted. They issued privately
a circular in which the principle of the new journal was
laid down as " the right of every opinion to its own free
utterance," and a staff was carefully formed'. Thornton
Hunt was editor. Lewes and W. Savage Landor wrote
the literary section, which was a brilliant feature ; though
Lewes also wrote in the other (unsigned) columns.
Herbert Spencer contributed articles on social and
scientific matters. Holyoake, who often met him in
their gatherings at the Whittington Club (at the "Old
Crown and Anchor'* in the Strand), says he had "a
half-rustic look" and "gave the impression of being
a young country gentleman of the sporting farmer
type." He Was, for all his ruddy and robust look, a
malade imaginaire, and the chief proprietor of the paper,
Mr. E. Pigott, begged Holyoake to cure him, which
he seems to have done by a regime of bluff. Another
writer was the Rev. E. R. Larken, who was broad
enough to tolerate its anti-clerical note. W. E. Forster,
George Eliot, T. Ballantyne (afterwards editor of the
St. James's Gazette), W. J. Linton, and George Hooper
(the hero of the "byway tragedy" in ch. xii of Sixty
Years) y were also contributors. Charles Kingsley wrote
a letter in it, but when his friends took alarm he said
that their inclusion of his name in the list of writers
was "an impudent attempt to involve him in opinions
which he utterly disclaimed." This was on account of
1 64 THE ' LEADER" AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
the inclusion of Holyoake's name, which cost the paper
;i,ooo to his knowledge, Holyoake says ; but we defer
that episode for the present.
The first issue of the Leader appeared on March 3Oth,
1850. Its policy and aim were clear from the start. The
first sentence in the first issue ran: "If any political
party would make way just now out of the stagnant
slough of indifference, it must do so by carrying with
it the great body of the People." In the vein of the
Westminster Review it described the Whigs (then in
office) as a " do-nothing party," but it went on to say
that the Radicals themselves were " not doing enough,"
and were "minister-infatuated." It had no specific
principles or "planks," in the later phrase, but inform-
ally it had several consistent aims, such as manhood
suffrage, secular and national education, liberalism in
religion and reform of the Church, and free trade. It
was the programme of the moderate Chartists and
bolder Radicals. The Tories lay quite outside its pur-
view, and the clergy soon came to denounce it as an
"insidious promulgator of infidel doctrines"; though
Holyoake, the only "infidel" on it, reserved his ag-
nostic views entirely for the Reasoner. Its quality was
excellent, and its columns were packed with information,
especially international information, of social value.
Lord Goderich (Marquis of Ripon) introduced to them
a Parisian correspondent who proved extremely useful. 1
Its correspondence columns were remarkably solid ;
Francis Newman wrote incessantly, and Froude, R.
Owen, Harriet Martineau, S. Smiles, E. V. Neale, and
other well-known names occurred.
Holyoake was not only an important member of the
1 The correspondent was Mr. Robert Staunton Ellis. Lord Goderich
said : " He is, from his sympathy with the principles of [your] excellent
journal, very desirous of doing so, and I have this day written to him to
write to you immediately himself."
THE 'LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 165
staff, as we shall see, but had a pleasant relation to
the others of a practical kind. It was he who engaged
the rooms (in Crane Court, off Wellington Street) and
negotiated all the legal arrangements. Throughout
February he was busy superintending fixtures and
other preparations, and when the work began he took
over the "commissariat" of the office. George Eliot,
who then lived close at hand in the Strand with Dr.
Chapman, and often joined them at their camp-meal,
called him the " Providence of the office," and Lewes
named him the doyen of the staff. With both he soon
formed very cordial relations. Hunt found his genial,
practical help of immense service, for he was himself
extremely careless in small matters. His notes run :
" MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
" Will you cause my inkstand to be provided
with semipermanently blue ink : useful in markings and
corrections? Will you cause the casters to be taken off
my table and chair? I do not want it for the purpose of
lowering the same (though I have no objection to that
result) but to prevent their sliding. Faint and weary I
vainly pursue the evasive table, the chase lengthening
as I go.
" For these blessings Pigott refers me to you, O sacred
Parent of the Misletoe.
" Yours ever,
"T. H."
Holyoake was manager of the paper. At the pre-
liminary meeting Ashurst, who took shares in it, said
(without warning Holyoake) that he understood Holy-
oake was to be manager and he " wished to say that he
had held a similar appointment under him, and had
saved him a thousand pounds by his advice when it
was to his interest that he (Mr. Ashurst) should go on
expending the money ; and that Mr. Holyoake was the
1 66 THE l LEADER 1 AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
only person connected with the ink-pot, with whom he
had relations, who had repaid him when he had taken
a pecuniary interest in his affairs." Holyoake was too
confused to thank him, and Hunt and Lewes came to
his relief. They evidently made him manager, for he
notes in his diary in the summer: " conjugating
s'abonner, to subscribe." To his Latin, Greek, logic,
history, editing, subediting, lecturing, etc., he had lately
added the study of French, under the tuition of a refugee
colonel. The management was the least pleasant part
of the work, for the journal never paid. Holyoake
drew up scrupulous accounts every week. After a
few years of loss he warned Mr. Pigott, with whom
he was breakfasting, that there was no prospect of it
paying, and proposed that all their salaries (including
his own) should be reduced by one half. It was done,
and he says that his colleagues bore him no ill feeling ;
but we shall find one of them turning bitterly against
him.
Holyoake was, at the same time, an important member
of the editorial staff. Hunt's letters show how much
he was consulted as to policy and contributors, and,
though most of the writing is anonymous, his own work
is often signed " Ion." The Leader proclaimed itself
"Socialistic," and under pressure of correspondents
defined this to mean "the substitution of co-operation
for competition." It had no "system" of Socialism,
but stood for the general "doctrine." "Equality of
capacities" was a chimagra, but "equality of intel-
ligence " was a possible and a very desirable reform ;
it would give the people "the power to develop a
system." The broad principle soon narrowed down to
a keen interest in the Co-operative experiments that
were being made all over the country, and the work
was entrusted to Holyoake. We shall see in the next
THE ^LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 167
chapter what he did for Co-operation in those early days.
But his work was not confined to these columns. In
the first issue he has a letter on "the taxes on know-
ledge " (an Owenite phrase of earlier date for the
press-stamp), and he continued that topic in the Leader
and the Reasoner, as we shall see. He wrote also on
education, prison reform, and other particular subjects.
His general political attitude was the same as that ot
Hunt, with whom he was in cordial agreement. Briefly,
they sought a union of all men of progressive temper so
as to force the pace of the Whig Government in social
reform. A private letter of Hunt's shows very clearly
the almost religious character of his zeal for progress.
Detained in the country in search of the health that
he was ever pursuing, he wrote his feeling apropos
of some move of Holyoake's :
"The sight of so many of my fellow men, met under
one of the most sacred impulses, labouring against
obstructions to the welfare and advance of their kind,
must have forced me to utter the feeling of surprise
and regret which oppresses me at looking upon those
obstructions, upon the political and social mistakes
which create them, and upon the unconscious sufferance
of the people which prevents that people from striking
them off. If the children of the People had faith in
themselves and in each other, they might establish the
means of coming to a common understanding and a
common accord on their condition and its improvement.
To every man upon the surface of this planet, by the
law of Nature, so far as I can interpret it, are given
the elements from which his labour may extract subsist-
ence for himself, his mate, and their progeny ; also the
faculties to enjoy the bounties poured out before him. I
can see that artificial bungling laws repeal that law of
Nature, and convert multitudes of the human children
of God into what a presumptuous science a science of
1 68 THE 'LEA DER' AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
those mistakes [political economy] calls a ' surplus popu-
lation ' : that numbers toil not to live : and that to many
of us a day ending in ease and happiness, like our
Monday [Sunday?], is a rarity, not, as it should be, the
natural condition daily rest and recreation after work.
But the more I watch the operation of social machinery,
the more conscious I become that the depressed condition
of the people is a purely artificial state, and that it is
one which demands only a common understanding and
common accord among themselves for an effective, and
not a very remote, self-rescue."
Associated as he now was with many men of this type,
Holyoake was confirmed more and more in his opinion
of the falseness of the Chartist cry of " war on the middle
class." It is well to remember, to the honour of Owen,
that it was he who chiefly inspired professional men
with this sentiment of justice. Leigh Hunt, as well as
Thornton, Ashurst, Allsop, Trevelyan, Birch, and many
others were impregnated with the spirit of Owen's
social teaching, and looked on him as a master in social
principles. Knowing so well their temper, Holyoake
returned to his criticisms of the Chartists. In February
(1851) he began in the Leader a series of Ion " Letters to
Chartists." Hunt and he were then, it will be remem-
bered, on the executive of the party. The Northern Star,
the standard of the extremists, made an exaggerated
complaint of "the avalanche of Billingsgate," and he
reminded the editor that his own office had been a busy
manufactory of that kind of speech for twelve years, and
that " when such coals were shot down at Newcastle they
might, if they pleased, complain of error in the delivery,
but they had no right to be indignant at the quality of
the load." His friends appreciated his discomfiture of
the extreme school. " Ion is graphic," Mr. W. J. Fox
wrote to him ; and "you have rendered good service
THE ' LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 169
to me, and, what is the real importance to truth."
Sir Joshua Walmsley, as president of the National
Parliamentary and Reform Association, wrote: "I
thank you heartily for the service you have rendered
to the cause" ; and in a letter to Hunt refers to u our
conversation on Saturday as to enlisting the able pen
and sound judgment of our friend Mr. Holyoake in the
preparations for the coming conference as one of our
Council " an idea which was carried out. 1
We have seen the further development on the Chartist
side, and need not pursue the political question in detail.
One incident that occurred in 1853 will suffice for our
purpose. In the spring of 1853 Holyoake severely cen-
sured Lloyd Garrison for admitting into the Liberator an
article on the supporters of slavery that ran into great
violence of language. He was rebuking such language
in England, and regretted to find it sanctioned by such
a man as Garrison in a cause that he fully supported
the abolition of slavery. In the summer a bitter and
venomous attack upon himself, in the form of a reply to his
criticism, was published in the English Republican (Vol. II,
p. 257), and he heard with sorrow that it was reproduced
by Lloyd Garrison in the Liberator (in July). The
article was written by his colleague, W. J. Linton, and
does not seem to have reached his notice until late in
1853. It was one of those transparently exaggerated
attacks that thoughtful people would dismiss at once ;
but so many whom Holyoake wished to influence were
not thoughtful. He at once published it himself, as a
supplement to the Reasoner (Nov. Qth, 1853), and made
a temperate reply. The reply brought another bitter
attack from Linton, who eventually issued his letters as
1 There is an interesting entry in the diary for February ayth, 1852.
" Breakfasted with Sir Joshua and Lady Walmsley. Offered engage-
ment on the Daily News" His republican candid friend, Linton, put it
that he had become " touter in ordinary to the Walmsley incapables,"
i;o THE ' LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
a pamphlet and Holyoake coolly put the pamphlet in
his shop window in Fleet Street, and gave all London an
opportunity of reading it. He gave the same publicity
to all attacks on himself.
Linton's vigorous effort as advocatus diaboli gives us a
good estimate of Holyoake's real position at the time,
and one point in his arraignment has political interest.
Most of the points are frivolous. That Holyoake had
deliberately provoked the imprisonment at Cheltenham
in order to pose as a martyr we know to be untrue.
That he had " shuffled out of atheism when his respect-
able patrons preferred a less obnoxious title " (Secularism)
we have also seen, or shall see, to be an untruth ; in fact
Linton's own diatribe goes on to complain that Holyoake
is still debasing England with his " atheistical folly." 1
The gibe at his " affectation of politeness in the advocacy
of truth" and at "the delicacy of this smooth-ironed
Professor shocked by the rude earnestness of the American
Abolitionists " is merely splenetic. More serious, at first,
seems the statement that Holyoake needed a " personal
inducement" before he would help to raise funds for
Italy. The implication of the phrase is obvious. Yet
Linton protested, when it was challenged, that he merely
meant that Holyoake had to be asked personally by
Mazzini before he would take action! All this is the
mere vapouring of jealousy. Holyoake says it arose
from the fact that he himself raised much more money
for Italy than Linton did, but the jealous feeling probably
extended to his whole success and his rapid advance
beyond older men like Linton.
1 Two years before Linton had written a letter to the Reasoner^ which
begins : "I am one of those who, thanks to your teaching 1 , have thrown
off the last trammels of superstition, and ceased to believe in a God.
Up to this time a belief in God and what I understood as his law served
me as some poor sort of ife-guidance. I have done with all that
nonsense now." The letter was anonymous, and Holyoake did not
betray him. But the original letter lies before me.
THE 'LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 171
The only point on which explanation seems desirable
is the statement that Holyoake had " plotted for the
liberticide Palmerston and the assassin Graham." Holy-
oake replied that one person had put to him in 1852 the
idea of creating a movement to secure the premiership
for Palmerston, and that he had replied that it might be
good to replace Lord Derby by Palmerston, if they could
then be sure of quickly ousting Palmerston himself.
Linton triumphantly and treacherously answered that
Joseph Cowen (junior) had told him of the plot, and
said that Holyoake, Hunt, and others were in it, and the
Leader would support it. The betrayal of confidence
was fatal to Linton, and did little harm to Holyoake ;
but I have before me the letters of Hunt to Holyoake
that were shown to Cowen, and they vindicate themselves.
On June 2ist, 1852, Hunt writes:
44 MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
"I had your scrap this morning. I hope you
take care of yourself, and that you will be fit for the work
before you.
4 4 1 proceed at once to subject No. Ill, and the one which
most presses in point of time : and shall delay post until
to-morrow, and most probably even longer namely,
until I know that you have this.
44 The 4 situation' I view in this wise. Everything in
the way of movement has become impossible the most we
can do is to continue marking time, so as to continue the
work when we find the obstructions removed. The great
thing is to move out of this. The man most probable as
uniting eligibility to office and active getting out of this
appears to be Palmerston. Numbers are wishing that
4 Palmerston were in office.' He seems to be awaiting
an initiative. A number of men acting together, though
not ostensibly, could consolidate and stimulate that feel-
ing. Once begun, they could communicate with him,
and enlarge their own movement. I propose that some
172 THE ' LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
score of men, of various circles, meet, and agree to
what ..." [end of the letter missing].
Shortly afterwards he writes again :
44 MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
" Of adhesions to the idea on which I wrote to
you I may now mention Toulmin Smith, Lord Dudley
Stuart, J. Stansfeld (in a primd facie conversation),
besides others. I attend a private meeting to-night at
Prince's. You are at Newcastle : speak to Cowen. You
see the importance of taking the initiative : that is effected
if we proceed. I shall write again on Monday to
Newcastle, if you don't alter the address.
44 In speaking to any let it be few, TRUSTY, and
CONFIDENTIAL.
44 The idea is An effective minister, able to vindicate
national interests at home and abroad, as a means of
getting out of this deadlock. Special questions placed in
abeyance not by special sets of men, but by the general
body. I propose to have no organisation, but only an
understanding. I shall probably have more names on
Monday to report. If practicable for [George] Dawson,
we ought to meet him soon.
44 Yours ever affectionately,
44 TH. H."
The letters evince a perfectly honourable intention,
whatever one may think of the estimate of Palmerston ;
and where Toulmin Smith and Stansfeld approved, Holy-
oake could very well co-operate to whatever extent he
did. The Derby ministry was thrown out in December,
and a coalition-cabinet, under Lord Aberdeen, succeeded
it. It is precisely at this juncture (October 1852) that
W. J. Fox strongly praises his 44 Ion" letters; and
Fox had hitherto been a very temperate admirer.
Holyoake's friends deeply resented the attack. Ash-
urst replied in the Liberator, to whose readers he was
well known, and wrote to Holyoake ;
THE 'LEADER^ AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 173
" I see by your ire for the Liberator that I have already
spoken the true word of you. I cannot write in tune, for
I have no scribe, and I am obliged to be as mute as a
fish. You might Linton-ise me without fear yet, though
you are an atheist, and have no apprehension of eternal
roasting, I have no fear of injustice from you."
More gratifying still was the intervention of Harriet
Martineau. She wrote a letter to the Liberator which
must have had great weight among the Abolitionists.
Holyoake has published it (Bygones, I, 184-6), but it
must be reproduced here.
44 DEAR SIR,
44 1 see with much surprise and more concern an
attack in your paper upon the character of Mr. G. J.
Holyoake, signed by Mr. W. J. Linton. I could have
wished, with others of your readers, that you had waited
for some evidence, or other testimony, before committing
your most respected paper to an attack on such a man
from such a quarter. Of Mr. Linton it is not necessary
for me to say anything, because what I say of Mr.
Holyoake will sufficiently show what I think of his
testimony.
44 1 wish I could give you an idea of the absurdity that
it appears to us in this country to charge Mr. Holyoake
with sneaking, with desiring to conceal his opinions, and
get rid of the word 4 Atheism.* His whole life, since he
grew x up, has been one of public advocacy of the
principles he holds, of weekly publication of them under
his own signature, and of constant lecturing in public
places. One would think that a man who has been tried
and imprisoned for Atheism, and has ever since con-
tinued to publish the opinions which brought him into
that position, might be secure, if any man might, from
the charge of sneaking. The adoption of the term
Secularism is justified by its including a large number of
persons who are not Atheists, and uniting them for action
which has Secularism for its object, and not Atheism.
174 THE 'LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
On this ground, and because by the adoption of a new
term a vast amount of impediment from prejudice is got
rid of, the use of the name Secularism is advantageous ;
but it in no way interferes with Mr. Holyoake's profes-
sion of his own unaltered views on the subject of a First
Cause. As I am writing this letter, I may just say for
myself that I constantly and eagerly read Mr. Holyoake's
writings, though many of them are on subjects or occu-
pied with stages of subjects that would not otherwise
detain me, because I find myself always morally the
better for the influence of the noble spirit of the man, for
the calm courage, the composed temper, the genuine
liberality, and unintermitting justice with which he treats
all manner of persons, incidents, and topics. I certainly
consider the conspicuous example of Mr. Holyoake's
kind of heroism to be one of our popular educational
advantages at this time.
" You have printed Mr. Linton's account of Mr. Holy-
oake. I request you to print mine. I send it simply as
an act of justice. My own acquaintance with Mr. Holy-
oake is on the ground of his public usefulness, based on
his private virtues ; and I can have no other reason for
vindicating him than a desire that a cruel wrong should
be as far as possible undone. And I do it myself because
I am known to your readers as an Abolitionist of
sufficiently long standing not to be likely to be deceived
in regard to the conduct and character of any one who
speaks on the subject.
" I am, yours very respectfully,
"HARRIET MARTINEAU.
"London, November i, I853." 1
Lloyd Garrison did not hesitate to insert the letter, and
it made the foundation of Holyoake's friendship with
distinguished Americans like Wendell Phillips. Thus
the first attack on Holyoake by jealous colleagues ended
in remarkable honours. Miss Martineau had begged him
to visit her some time before. She found some of the
1 The date, 1855, given in Bygones is erroneous. It should be 1853.
THE 'LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 175
writers on the Leader unsound on the American question,
and wanted him to use his influence. He was in the
north in July (1853), and went over from Newcastle to
Ambleside, where she lived. "Glad to have you at
last," she said (the diary reports) when he arrived. On
the following day, Sunday the 24th, she drove him to
Wordsworth's house, and then, at his request, to Brant-
wood, where W. J. Linton lived (and Ruskin lived
later). Curiously enough, I find a note scribbled by
Holyoake on the back of a letter that he wrote to a
Newcastle correspondent on the 25th. It runs :
44 1 and Miss Martineau drove over to Linton's on
Sunday. He [his italic] was very friendly we had a
pleasant visit."
That month Linton's article appeared in the Liberator.
But another distinction had come to Holyoake shortly
before, and I may close this chapter with a brief account
of it. In the early spring he became conscious of
whispers about a presentation, and finally he was invited
to attend a dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern (off Lin-
coins Inn Fields) on May 26th. There are only three
lines about it in the diary, but the Leader affords a fuller
account. There were 200 diners, with Thornton Hunt in
the chair, and many of his oldest colleagues at table,
while Harriet Martineau, R. Owen, Chilton, and G.
Dawson wrote to regret their inability to attend. The
Leader states that the purpose was to present a testimonial
to Mr. Holyoake "and to his mode of advocating the
right of all men to utter their opinions in fearless confi-
dence." It was a singular triumph for him. Hunt and
most of the others dissented entirely from his agnostic
views, and at the same time made no mention of his
political or journalistic services. It was a pure testi-
monial to character.
i;6 THE 'LEADER* AND THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
When dinner was over the tables were removed, and
the room filled with a friendly crowd. Hunt said that
the object was "to recognise Mr. Holyoake's services in
the free and fearless utterance of opinions. Mr. Holy-
oake had done a double service in that respect : he had
proved that free discussion had become safe, and he had
shown that even religious controversy could be conducted
with courtesy and mutual forbearance. He had, in fact,
contributed to rescue religion itself from the discreditable
protection of the tyrant and the policeman." T. and R.
Cooper and Le Blond also spoke, and then the publisher
Watson presented him with a purse containing ^250, a
portrait, and an engraving. The latter was a private
gift, and one reads with some stir of humour that it
represented " Exiles on the way to Siberia." Holyoake,
who was " very earnest and subdued," read his reply,
and his speech "evidently told home to every heart in
that immense meeting."
CHAPTER IX
EARLY CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
DURING the last few months of Holyoake's life, when
a friend and he were one day looking back over the
stirring memories of long and useful careers, and com-
paring the great ideals they had served in the cause of
human advance, the friend asked him which of the
movements he had wrought in stood highest in his
esteem. He answered at once: "The Co-operative
Movement. " It was assuredly the one amongst his
early ideals that sixty years of national experience had
the most patently approved. It was a work that he had
espoused when it lay under the frown of the press and
people of this country ; when to advocate it meant to
take sides with a few hundred working men against the
overwhelming majority in culture and Church ; when
only one or two social students in England suspected
that it differed from the social bubbles that rounded and
burst every decade on the agitated surface of national
life. He had the distinction to be one of those few,
and the pride to live until it was pronounced by a
great statesman "a State within a State," and its vast
frame could command the respectful attention of the
economists.
" I knew Co-operation when it was born. I stood by
its cradle. In every journal, newspaper, and review
with which I was connected I defended it in its infancy,
when no one thought it would live. For years I
was its sole friend and representative in the press. I
VOL, I. 177 N
i?8 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
have lived to see it grow to robust and self-supporting
manhood." 1
How true these words were, and what place Holyoake
should hold in the memory of modern Co-operators, we
have now to consider. If there is one literary distinc-
tion that indubitably belongs to him, it is that of historian
of the Co-operative Movement. But his historical works
convey only a poor suggestion of the debt the move-
ment owes to himself, and this chapter would be a brief
one if it relied on them. Indeed, with all its charm and
sparkle of narrative and its industrious massing of facts
his History of Co-operation is faulty and baffling from the
historical point of view. The composition is irregular
and the natural sequence of events too violently distorted.
When we read the story in its proper continuity we see
more clearly his own place in it ; though, of course, we
must restrict ourselves here to a mere outline of the
general story of the movement.
We have already seen, time after time, that the two
phrases, " Self-help by the people" and " Co-operation
instead of Competition," occur very early and constantly
in his teaching in different forms. He lived through
the adventurous early phase of Co-operation without
contracting the dull despair that fell on older men at
its failure. From his earliest years he was familiar
with the idea. Birmingham was a strenuous centre of
Co-operative interest when he was a boy. Curiously
enough, he discovered, when he set out to write the
history of the idea, that Birmingham had been the first
place to witness a Co-operative experiment, in 1777. At
other isolated centres in Oxfordshire, at Hull, etc.
the idea was roughly embodied before the end of the
eighteenth century, but it was the influence of R. Owen,
1 Preface to }\\B Jubilee History of the Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society.
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 179
"the originator of Co-operation," as he calls him, that
brought it fully on to the plane of social reform. The
first journal to advocate it was the Owenite Economist, in
1821, which announced a " Co-operative and Economic
Society " in its first issue, and declared, in the oracular
Owenite way of revealing things : " The secret is out:
it is unrestrained Co-operation, on the part of all the
members, for every purpose of social life." There was
a Co-operative Society at London in 1824, one in remote
Devon in 1826, one at Birmingham in 1829, and so on.
There was a Co-operative Magazine at London in 1826
the paper that advocated the beginning of the new age
by marrying a hundred handsome tailors by ballot and
a Co-operative Miscellany in 1830. Julian Hibbert founded
a " British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative
Knowledge," and made W. Watson a Co-operative
apostle. Briefly, there were 266 societies, with 20,000
adherents, and nine journals in support, by 1830 ; and
the number of societies grew to 400 in the next three
years. These were by no means all Owenite societies
of the 46 London societies many were attached to
Methodist and other congregations but Owen's teaching
gave the great impulse in the " enthusiastic period."
Throughout the thirties Co-operation was a familiar
scheme to every reformer. Most of the Radicals favoured
it, and Owen's 100,000 followers were wedded to the
principle. But in the course of that decade the tide
turned, and when Holyoake came into public life the
adventurous vessel of Co-operation seemed to be hope-
lessly stranded. The Labour Exchanges that the Owen-
ites created in 1832 were conceived as ideal Co-operative
stores, where capital had not an inch of footing, and
their rapid failure injured the general principle. Owen,
too, frowned on all these little experiments in industrial
reform, The nation must accept his big scheme at
i8o CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
once, and the details would mend themselves. More-
over, the early Co-operative stores were managed by
enthusiasts instead of experts. Amateur shopmen,
" mostly pale and thin " they were afraid to get plump
and ruddy, lest they incur suspicion of peculation
controlled the businesses, and " there was not a re-
generating lunatic at large who did not practise on
them." By 1843 " never human movement seemed so
very dead as this of Co-operation." Dead movements
were common enough in those days. The uncommon
thing was a young man trying to restore them to life.
And it was in 1843 that Holyoake lectured on " self-
help " to a little gathering of weavers at Rochdale ; and
in the following year they opened the famous Toad
Lane Store, which was the cradle of the gigantic
Co-operative organisation of modern times.
In 1843 Holyoake was released from Gloucester Jail,
and resumed his lecturing. The very lecture he had
given at Cheltenham, which led to his imprisonment,
was on "Home Colonisation," or the general principle
of co-operation. We saw that he quickly discarded the
Owenite idea that men should retire from the world to
co-operate in model communities ; he claimed that
sounder principles could be introduced into the actual
industrial world. In this spirit he went north in July,
and lectured to the Owenite societies that still lingered
in Lancashire. It was during this brief tour, which I
have recorded in an earlier chapter, that he delivered the
fateful lecture at Rochdale that he has described in his
History of Co-operation. Little did he or any member of
his audience dream that within twelve months they would
start a movement in Rochdale of which the fame would
be carried, through Holyoake, over the whole civilised
world. It was a drizzly night in early summer when he
went to the little room they had engaged in Yorkshire
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 181
Street. From the window at the back he watched the
tired workers coming over the sodden fields. There had
been hard times in Rochdale, and for months men had
put their poor brains together to find relief. The dis-
tressed flannel-weavers had formed a committee that
looked about helplessly for a plan. On Sunday after-
noons little groups of them met in the Temperance
room or the Chartists' room, and wearily discussed the
situation. The Socialists had had to give up their hall
in Yorkshire Street, and the Chartists had taken it ; and
in 1843 it was the debating place of the three small
groups that held social theories in Rochdale the
Socialists (" Branch 24" of the Rational Society), the
Chartists, and the Temperance folk.
This small combined group or, more correctly, the
Socialist Society, with a sprinkling of the others formed
Holyoake's audience in 1843. In his History of Co-
operation he has reproduced at length the address he
gave to them. One must take with a certain liberality a
lengthy reproduction from memory thirty years after the
event, but Holyoake had a wonderful memory. Countess
Russell once told me that, when she was a young girl,
she was taken to a house where Holyoake was staying.
Years afterwards only a few years ago she met him
again, and he at once reminded her of his seeing her in
her early years. But there are many other reasons for
accepting implicitly his statement that, amongst other
things, he advised them to open a store. There had
been a Co-operative store in Rochdale in 1830, and the
idea would be revived in their discussions. Further, a
few words he wrote in the Movement at the time (July
1843) afford an interesting corroboration of his memory :
" All my lectures in the north have been designed to
enforce what for two years has been with me a favourite
idea the capability of Socialism to build up individual
1 82 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
as well as general character, to serve as a complete body
of moral, political, and social philosophy ; in fine, in the
words of Milton, to enable a man * to perform justly,
skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public
and private, of peace and war.' I have been in earnest
about this, for seeing the many hindrances that would
lie in the way of the wisest of us in carrying out our
community-projects, and desiring to induce our friends
to regard, as they justly may, Socialism's benign and
practical philosophy as something in itself worthy of
esteem, even though ulterior intentions should never be
realised."
What he meant by " Socialism " we know. Indeed, he
wrote in the same paper (p. 315), a week or two later :
" We have only, by the Co-operative views, 'to floor
money and Malthus,' then moral and social improvement
will have a free hand."
And throughout the whole of that year he is urging the
workers to help themselves, for neither their rulers nor
the wealthy will help them.
These were seeds of Co-operative enterprise ; and when
we find the historic store opened at Rochdale a few
months afterwards, we have ample justification for his
claim that he stood by the cradle of the infant movement.
But a little research has shown a more direct connection.
Shortly after his visit to Rochdale, Holyoake published
the criticism of Queenwood that shook the whole
attenuated frame of Owenism. The " A i Branch" (at
London) passed a vote of censure on him, while several
provincial branches voted their thanks to him. Amongst
the latter was the little group at Rochdale that he had
addressed in 1843. Mr. James Daly, of Rochdale, wrote
a letter of support to the Movement, but I need only
quote its postscript :
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 183
" P.S. Some of the members of the Rochdale Branch,
hearing that I was about writing on this subject, and
thinking that he who gives expression to truth without
mystery should not be paid with votes of censure by
Rational Philosophers, requested leave to attach their
names to this letter.
" But I wish it to be understood that I have neither
canvassed for signatures nor made this letter public with
a view of forming a party had I done so I could have
sent a longer list of names.
" CHAS. HOWORTH, President of Branch 24.
" WM. M'MALIM, late President.
" JOHN JENKINSON, Secretary.
" WM. COOPER, ROBERT KERSHAW, JOHN CRANNIS,
JOHN GARSIDE, SAMUEL TWEEDALE, JOHN BENT,
MALCOLM KINCAID, Members of Branch 24."
This document is interesting. It shows that the chief
members of the Rational Society were among the chief
founders of the Pioneers' Society. Daly was its first
secretary, Howorth one of the first trustees and the
originator of the idea of profit-sharing, Tweedale one of
the first directors, Cooper "the principal organiser of
the Pioneers' Society " (as Holyoake is told in a letter
in 1866), and Bent an original member. Two other
Owenites, Smithies and Greenwood, Holyoake's constant
hosts afterwards, were amongst the chief workers.
Alderman Lister, who helped to arrange the lecture,
was an Owenite, and greatly aided the store. The
Pioneers met for their preliminary meetings in the
Socialists' room, and they borrowed some of their rules
from the laws of the Rational Sick and Benefit Society.
And amongst their rules was the unmistakably Owenite
resolution: "That as soon as practicable this Society
shall proceed to arrange the powers of production, dis-
tribution, education, and government : or, in other words,
to establish a self-supporting home-colony of united
1 84 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
interests, and assist other societies in establishing such
colonies."
It seemed interesting to establish more fully than
Holyoake himself would have been justified in doing the
connection of the Rochdale store with Owenism and its
young apostle. The rest of the story need not detain us.
How the Socialists and Chartists took the idea of a store
to the Weavers' Committee and secured their co-opera-
tion : how they put their twopences together and pur-
chased a stock of plain and necessary articles : how they
timidly opened their shutters one Saturday night and
exposed their flour, butter, sugar, and oatmeal, and
plodded on through every peril and discouragement,
and their 28 members became 1,500 in ten years,
and the "grim, despairing, sloppy hole of a town" put
new life into the Co-operative ideal all these things
are familiar history. The characteristic of their experi-
ment was that they distributed profits according to the
amount of purchases made. This had been done at a
Co-operative mill in Yorkshire for many years, though it
was original at Rochdale. The earlier societies, which
failed, had shared profits on a basis of capital invested in
them. Rochdale, adopting the new basis of division,
and rigorously setting aside a part of the profits for
educational purposes, opened the new era in Co-opera-
tion. They were ever mindful of the counsels of
Holyoake. Year after year he came again to address
them, and there were always r one or two of the Pioneers
to meet him at the station with a " Tha mun coom and
see t' Store." His letters were always addressed there.
Slowly the story of Rochdale's democratic work moved
over the country, and Co-operative societies began to dot
the map once more. Leeds, which now has the greatest
of all the stores, heard of the Pioneers in 1847, and
followed their example. Derby heard of it in 1850, and
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 185
set up a society that has prospered beyond all its dreams.
Bingley and Oldham (the Industrial Society) were
founded in the same year ; and the Oldham Equitable
and Halifax (for which Holyoake obtained encouraging
letters from Mazzini and Francis Newman) followed in
1851. Manchester already had an Industrial Society
(with shops in Ashton Old Road and Ardwick), founded
by the Owenites, but its great modern Co-operative
institution dates more directly from a religious effort in
1859. By that year Holyoake had written the history of
the Rochdale Pioneers, and its inspiration brought
societies into being all over the country. In 1846 the
Friendly Societies Act extended some protection to their
funds and facilitated their trade, and in 1852, largely
through the activity of the Christian Socialists, the
Industrial and Provident Societies Act gave them
complete legal security.
It would be tedious and difficult to attempt to trace
Holyoake's personal relations with the Societies that were
formed in these years. His service to the movement lay
chiefly in his persistent advocacy of the Co-operative idea
in the journals he controlled. The New Moral World,
the last Owenite journal, came to an end early in 1846.
After a brief interval of the Herald of Progress, Holyoake
started the Reasoner in June of the same year. In the
first issue he included his maxim of " Co-operation
instead of Competition " amongst its leading principles,
and he consistently advocated it. For two years his was
the only journal in England that wrote in the interest of
the new movement. In 1848 he established the Spirit of
the Age, and declared that its chief object was "the
organisation of labour." In that year the cause of Co-
operation obtained new and powerful friends. John
Stuart Mill spoke of it in his Political Economy as "a
noble ideal," and said that "there was no more certain
186 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
incident of the progressive change taking place in society
than the continual growth of the principle and practice
of Co-operation." In spite of his plea for the retention
of competition, these and similar passages in Mill's work
gave weighty economic sanction to the struggling efforts.
He sent a copy of his work to Holyoake, for whom he
already had esteem and respect. Miss Martineau and
Lord Brougham also could soon be quoted in support of
Co-operation.
The other auxiliary that the movement found at this
time was Christian Socialism, and Holyoake's relations to
this body merit a fuller investigation. Two points in
those relations may be indicated at once. The first is
that the movement was set up explicitly in opposition to
Owenite or Secularist Co-operation, and cordiality be-
tween them is not to be expected. Since the only journal
in England that advocated Co-operation was an " athe-
istic " journal, the establishment of an organisation and
a journal under a distinct Christian ensign was inevit-
able ; and some aloofness on Holyoake's part was equally
inevitable. But the second point is that Holyoake has
appraised very highly in his history their influence on
the development of the Co-operative movement. They
had a useful " idealist" action on the societies, besides
their spreading of the idea of Co-operation, and their
influence was " the most fortunate which has befallen
the movement." The time came when their separative
colours were hauled down, and they worked together.
The last time Kingsley saw Holyoake he said : " The
world is very different now from what it was when you
and I commenced trying to improve it twenty-five years
ago."
Christian Socialism had its rise in the intense and
informed zeal of Frederick Denison Maurice, the his-
torian of philosophy and distinguished social student.
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 187
Teaching at King's College, Maurice gathered about him
a group of religious students and professional men who
caught his ardour for social service. The revelation of
the sufferings of the London poor in one of the dailies
and the eruption of similar suffering all over the country
in Chartist agitation gave keen edge to his zeal, and he
summoned Kingsley, from his rectory at Eversley, to
help him in the metropolis. Kingsley had conceived an
equal zeal at sight of the sufferings of the rural workers.
With their band of religious followers they tried to turn
Chartist violence and despair into more peaceful chan-
nels in 1848, and posted a placard on the walls that drew
the attention of the workers to them. In May Maurice
and Ludlow (a young barrister) edited Politics for the
People, which soon failed, and they afterwards issued a
series of tracts, including Kingsley's famous essay on
" Cheap clothes and nasty." In 1850 they issued the
Christian Socialist, and opened a Co-operative tailoring
shop on the model of the French Associations Ouvrieres.
Edward Vansittart Neale and T. Hughes (afterwards
Judge Hughes) were now working with them, and they
held a conspicuous position in the progressive life of the
metropolis. Other workshops followed, and a " Society
for Promoting Working Men's Associations " was
founded. Further they gave valuable legal assistance
to the Trade Unions, and helped in the passing of Acts
that protected industrial organisations ; and they were
the founders of the " Working Men's College."
This is a bald summary of the work done by the
Christian Socialist party from 1850 to 1855. Their
workshops failed, from unskilful control and other
causes. The "Society" broke up in 1854, and after
that time (Woodworth says in his historical sketch of
the movement) there was no party calling itself Christian
Socialist ; though we shall find the men in the van of
1 88 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
progress long afterwards. The modern Co-operator
knows what he owes to E. V. Neale, Judge Hughes,
and J. M. Ludlow. But we cannot well understand
some later episodes, and some of Holyoake's literary
references to them, unless we glance at the friction
between them.
The Christian Socialist party had the aim of propagat-
ing Co-operation, which was what they chiefly meant by
Socialism, and at the same time defending religion.
Holyoake says that their work was, in Maurice's own
words, " to Christianise Socialism"; and we saw that
this was very far from being Christian. Woodworth, a
sympathetic writer on the Christian Socialists, says that
there was much confusion about their aim, but it was
" primarily religious." We cannot be surprised, there-
fore, to find Maurice writing to Kingsley (January I5th,
1851) that " Holyoake has declared war" and " you
young men must fight." Holyoake would naturally
oppose any attempt to associate a broad social reform
with theology. He was at that time, as we shall see,
conducting the Co-operative columns in the Leader with-
out the least tincture of anti-theological spirit. It was a
secular issue ; and he resented the suggestion that social
zeal needed a theological base. So far it had been
mainly the people without a definite theology the
Socialists and Chartists who had shown any such zeal.
But F. D. Maurice (like his son and biographer) ex-
aggerates the friction that naturally arose. The copy of
the Reasoner that fell into his hands on January i5th
contained this editorial passage, which he calls a
" declaration of war" :
"From various parts of the country inquiries have
come, ' What are we to do with the Christian Socialists ?
Are we to debate with them, or hear without dispute
what we feel to be incorrect?' My advice has been, and
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 189
is : ' Open your halls to them whenever asked ; give
them the hand of generous fellowship, till time furnishes
the proper opportunity of remonstrating without damag-
ing the efforts after practical good which they are
making.' Those of our readers who were with us in
the former Socialist agitation will remember that many
among us committed the same fault on the other hand.
First enthusiasm is seldom reflective, and where men
mean well, all may be rectified when the time of con-
sideration comes. When doctrinal error is allied to
excellent practice, such as that presented in the Co-
operative exertions of the Christian Socialists, we will
leave their doctrinal error alone till we can find an oppor-
tunity of disproving it, without appearing at the same
time as the opponents of their good works. For the
present we can find plenty of opponents whose doctrines
and practices are open to our animadversion. These we
will seek out first. The position taken by the Christian
Socialists is both illogical and ungracious ; but we do
not despair that appeals to their good sense and good
will will lead to some improvement in these respects."
Never was there so humane and dignified a " declaration
of war" ! Professor Maurice's son, General F. Maurice,
is very unhappy and misleading in his whole account of
their relations. He says that " the stock agitators were
afraid of the working men being drawn from them by
Co-operation," and that " Ernest Jones and Holyoake
fought hard to warn off working men from Christian
Socialism," which he identifies with the cause of Co-
operation. The truth is that, whereas Ernest Jones did
resent the new interest in Co-operation as a distraction
from the Charter, Holyoake was wholly opposed to
E. Jones, and was doing at that time more valuable
propagandist work for Co-operation than any man in
England.
There are only two episodes that call for particular
190 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
notice. The first was the trouble that Maurice incurred
at King's College, the supporters of which were gener-
ally wealthy and religious. Dr. Jelf, the principal, wrote
to Maurice in November (1851) to say that the authorities
were concerned about his position. He is known to be
a friend of Kingsley's (whom Jelf detested), and Kingsley
was identified with Holyoake, who was identified with
"Tom Paine." The letter does little credit to Jelf.
Paine was as convinced a theist as he, and much more
convinced than Kingsley (according to what Sir Leslie
Stephen told me of conversation with Kingsley on the
subject). On the other hand, the only association between
Kingsley and Holyoake was that the names of both were
included in the list of contributors to the Leader, a
politicaland social journal. However, Maurice secured
from Kingsley a violent repudiation of the Leader and
its " impudent attempt to involve him in opinions which
he utterly disclaimed and hated."
Jelf was pleased, but went on to say that their uneasi-
ness remained. Maurice's personal orthodoxy was not
quite clear, and his social opinions were suspicious. For
the time Maurice quieted their concern with a vehement
rejection of "communism," but he was superseded two
years later. General Maurice says that on that occasion
Holyoake inserted in the Reasoner "a warm eulogy on
Dr. Jelf," and gives point to it by referring to the
Inquirer's "less savage terms." Holyoake says that
he again was the innocent occasion of the trouble. An
address that he delivered at the grave of Mrs. Emma
Martin was published in the Leader, and revived Dr.
Jelfs concern. But to speak of his comments as
"savage" is most improper. His article (December
2ist, 1853) is headed, "A word on behalf of the Rev.
Principal Jelf." He premises that he has often joined in
the appreciation of Prpf. Maurice, and will now say a
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 191
word for Dr. Jelf. But the article is mainly ironical.
He applauds Jelf s action in expelling " an able minister "
from the Church, on the humorous ground that the more
of its abler ministers are expelled the better from the
Secularist point of view ; and because Jelf, in pinning
the Church to the " repulsive dogma of hell," makes
the attack easier. There is not one word of attack
on Maurice ; and the only serious word of praise for
Jelf is that he has shown " manliness" in deposing
an influential cleric when he thought it his duty to
do so.
The second point, of greater interest, is that Holyoake
worked to some extent in their Co-operative schemes,
and was brought into relations with a very curious
member of the group. In setting up their workshops
they engaged the help of a French refugee, who pro-
fessed advanced views. This " J. L. St. Andre" was a
St. Simonian, " handsome, literally smooth-faced, and
mellow ; he was quite globular, and when he moved he
vibrated like a locomotive jelly." Having " large com-
mercial views of an indefinite outline " and some know-
ledge of the recent French national workshops, he was
associated with Lloyd Jones in establishing their Co-
operative tailoring house, and afterwards in the " London
Co-operative Store and General Agency," at 76 Char-
lotte Street. In the autumn of 1851 the manager of the
Stores writes to congratulate Holyoake on his notices of
their house in the Leader " the best I have seen " and
begs to see him. A second letter appoints him agent of
the business during his tours in the provinces. Holy-
oake's report declares: " Whether your agency be
ostensibly based on Christian grounds, or avowedly on
Secular principle, I would alike aid it, because its object
would be good ; but when represented as strictly com-
mercial I can do it without exposing myself to an
192 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
ambiguous judgment." This is in complete accord with
his article in the Reasoner. The reply to his report
thanks him for his " discretion " and his " able and use-
ful notices" in the Leader, but regrets that " from the
strong objection which many of our best friends and per-
sons with whom we are publicly connected feel to the
opinions identified in popular apprehension with your
name, we think that on the whole it will be desirable that
the formal connection between us should be brought to a
close, though we have no desire to change the pecuniary
arrangement into which we entered with you, as to any
orders you may be able privately to obtain for us."
This document is signed by E. V. Neale and Thos.
Hughes.
Holyoake remained friendly with the globular French-
man. When the Christian Socialist Co-operative schemes
failed one after the other, and they concentrated their
energy on the Working Men's College, St. Andre set up
a business as " Universal Purveyor," which was to
' ( undertake an Equitable Arbitration between Producers
and Consumers, etc." He had secured the aid and patron-
age of the Dean of Oriel (the Rev. C. Marriott), and took
Holyoake to Oxford on a pleasant visit to the Dean. His
business failed, and he returned to France. After 1870,
when the secret documents of Napoleon III were ex-
posed, it was discovered that St. Andre had been all the
time a paid spy of the Imperial Government !
Holyoake's further relations with the principal workers
in the brilliant episode of Christian Socialism in the early
fifties will fall under our notice later. For the moment
we may revert to his journalistic activity on behalf of Co-
operation. There are frequent appeals for Co-operative
action in the Reasoner in the course of 1849. On April
nth a lengthy " Ion " letter, the first of the new series,
occupying the first four pages, deals with " First Steps to
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 19$
Association." He pleads that, as there is so grave a re-
action against Socialism, its friends should " in the mean-
time work for Association, and thus prepare the public
for the next wave of opinion." He criticises Mill's defence
of competition, and holds that " it brings neither Justice,
Harmony, nor Satisfaction." There are no specific sug-
gestions, but the general principle is advocated: "As
property is accumulated, let it be distributed more among
its creators than now." He does not attack " Property."
" So far from assailing riches, I would that all men were
rich." But point is given to the principle a few weeks
later when he announces : " We have received the Laws
of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. Those
persons forming Co-operative Stores in any locality would
be advantaged by procuring a copy of these Laws from
the secretary, James Daly, of Rochdale." In the follow-
ing year he again visited Rochdale, and, in describing
his tour, observed: "This town presents the most in-
structive example extant of a Co-operative experiment.
Those who are curious upon this subject may see in the
Associative department of the Leader some explanatory
papers embodying the principal facts." He also visited
Leeds and Derby, where stores had already been opened.
But with the beginning of 1850 he had begun pro-
pagandist work on behalf of Co-operation that it is
impossible and needless to pursue at any length. In
the first issue of the Leader, Alexander Somerville the
Scots Grey who had dropped anonymous letters to the
people on the streets of Birmingham in 1832 had a letter
urging " association on reproductive principles." Holy-
oake criticised his remarks on the u moral sentimentality "
of the Socialists, but otherwise supported him. In June
Holyoake gave an account of the progress of Co-operation
in Lancashire. A number of Co-operators from various
parts had held a joint meeting at Middleton, to compare
VOL. i. o
194 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
views and measures. He added: " Let the operatives
follow the advice here given to them : let them have
confidence in each other, let them act so as to preserve
confidence, and they cannot fail to elevate themselves.
If they want help from the middle classes, they may
rest satisfied that the surest way to obtain that help is
by showing how much they can do for themselves and
each other." In the same issue a letter appeared urging
the formation of " Joint Stock Co-operative Societies,"
and a leader was written in support of it.
The notices multiply, and at last, in August (1850),
Holyoake is entrusted with a special department of the
journal, consisting of from two to four columns, under
the heading of " Associative Progress." "It is very
gratifying," he says, "to find the Co-operative-store
plans, which have been ignored for so long a time
which promised such useful results eighteen years ago
reviving and bearing fruit in late season." For several
years Holyoake kept this unique record of Co-operative
progress in the columns of the Leader, and gave great
prominence to the reports from the distributive stores.
His columns furnish a valuable record of progress in
that first decade of the modern movement. The net-
work of stores was now slowly spreading over the map,
and at the older centres the work had got beyond the
experimental stage. A weekly and ample record of all
that was being done must have been of incalculable
service to the cause at such a period ; and not only was
the Leader a journal of far wider and greater influence
than any slight distinctive organ could be, but it was
once more the only paper explicitly furthering the
Co-operative movement.
From this time onward, until Holyoake takes a more
important part in the constructive work of the move-
ment, it is unnecessary to recount every occasion on
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 195
which he comes into direct touch with the new centres.
In May, during a provincial tour, he " spent an agree-
able day with Mr. David Green, Dr. Lees, Mr. West,
and the founders and promoters of the Redemption
Society," the earliest Co-operative venture in the Leeds
district, and the germ of the great Leeds Society of our
time. In October he opened a new Socialist hall in
Manchester (Garratt's Road). The event is not without
interest in itself, as one of the latest spurts of Owenite
activity, bringing together audiences of six or seven
hundred people. But when we learn that this Society
went on to form a " Manchester Co-operative Manu-
facturing, Trading, and Agricultural Association," the
interest is increased. On the Monday he lectured at the
Miles Platting Mechanics' Institution, and was elected as
their delegate to the Educational Conference summoned
by the Lancashire League, at which Cobden and other
educationists spoke. From Manchester he revisited
Rochdale, and on his return he wrote in the Leader a
sketch of the history of the Rochdale Pioneers the
germ of the little work of 1857 that would carry the
account of their adventures all over the world. Roch-
dale became one of his favourite centres in Lancashire
his favourite county for lecturing and he knew it well
when he began his history. A letter written to him a
few years ago by Mr. P. A. Lister, son of the Alderman
Lister who aided in the formation of the Society, has
recollections of him about the time we are considering :
11 DEAR MR. HOLYOAKE,
" I read your letter in the Daily News. I
thought it may interest you to know that I always read
your name and all you have to say with much interest.
" I recollect you well when you used to visit my father,
George Lister. I have often thought of the time when
you came there, and were unwell had weak eyes, and I
196 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
used to fetch cold water from the pond whilst you bathed
your eyes in the shade of the yew bushes on the lawn.
That was about fifty years ago. You were a man of
about 35, and I a boy of about seven. I have never
forgotten it. ...
4 'You must be a wonderfully strong man for your
years, and yet, as I recollect you, you seemed anything
but robust in those days. . . ."
The son in turn founded a Co-operative store at
Dursley, where he settled as an agricultural engineer.
Holyoake had by this time many friends in Lancashire,
who made absence from home more tolerable. An
anonymous letter to him from Manchester about this
time begins :
" DEARLY BELOVED AND MUCH-HONOURED MASTER,
"If it should seem fit to you to grant to your
disciple the honour of being your host during your
Manchester visit, the which he much covets, desires,
and seeks earnestly to obtain : write to him forthwith
and inform him when you will make your appearance in
his abode in No. Rusholme Road, to which he removes
on Monday.
" I must drop the third person damn it: it is no
go "
The writer seems to have been Mr. Percy Greg. From
Derby a friend (Hetty Jackson) wrote :
" DEAR FRIEND,
" Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it is some-
times adverse to social enjoyment. May I trouble you
to inform us whether you can stay in Derby one evening
besides the one on which you lecture? ... A few
Unitarian reformers with Dr. Hutton, their minister,
have requested the pleasure of meeting you here."
One of his older friends, T. Cooper, who changed the
views he had once shared with Holyoake, wrote him
CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 197
that amidst his " opulence of new ties" they could
afford to part. "Go on in your polite way," Cooper
said ; " my old rugged path suits me better. We need
not jostle: the world is wide enough for both of us."
But Cooper renewed his friendship and took part in the
presentation to him at the Freemasons' Tavern.
His father died in May 1853, and he went home to
spend the last day or two with him. In an entry in the
diary shortly before that date he says : " Breakfasted at
Muswell Hill. Mr. Home made a magnetic calculation
of my head. Cautiousness as 16. Home 79." If the
ratio of Holyoake's domestic feeling to his cautiousness
were really 79 to 16, it would be phenomenally high for
a public man. In fact, however, it was high. His
sister, now living in America, gives me some recollec-
tions of him at this period. When he came to visit
them, she says, he would
"open his valise and give me sixpence to go and buy
him a large pear for his dinner, and mother would
say : ' He is just like his father, very fussy what he
would eat.' Mother often talked to us younger children,
and told us what a dear son he was to her. She could
always depend on him for the truth, from a boy to a
man, and a more affectionate son and brother never
existed. . . . When my father died in 1852 [1853] I
was twelve years old, the youngest of the family, and we
were all round his bed. He took my hand and put it in
George's hand, and said : * George, you are the oldest
son. Take care of your dear mother all you can, and
this your youngest sister.' And if any son or brother
kept the promise as he did, I am sure they would be,
like me, very proud of their brother."
Austin and he went down to Birmingham on the
Sunday, and found their father dying. "Smoked a
cigar with him," the diary notes. The next day the
198 CO-OPERATION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
entry runs: " Found father anxious to see me. Died
while I was at Baker's and looking for a pipe for him.
Smoked a cigar with him previously. Left five pounds
to buy black." He returned for the funeral, and on the
following Sunday took his mother to church. From that
time he constantly sent money to Birmingham.
We will take up again later the thread of his Co-
operative work, and see how he passes from propagandist
and counsellor to constructive statesman. But his work
from 1844 to J ^54 na d great influence on the fortunes of
the movement. Through him men like Mazzini and
Saffi became interested in it, and took the idea with
them into the new Italy of a later year. Through him,
through his articles in the Reasoner and columns in the
Leader, scores of social students and thousands of
workers were reminded constantly of the Co-operative
idea and its growing success, until they at length stirred
themselves to give it a fresh embodiment.
CHAPTER X
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
THROUGHOUT these early years of the more dis-
tinguished and more pleasant part of Holyoake's
career we have found his older friends frequently
suggesting that he had been unworthily lured away
from them. To them, as they observed his advanc-
ing fortune, it brought some consolation to reflect
that he had left them on the rugged paths up the
hillside to mingle with easy folk on the plains. Nor was
their memory of his career an impediment to their
thinking this with some sincerity. Atheists recalled
phrases he had used in the Oracle, and frowned when
they now heard of his taking tea with Brooke Herford
or the Dean of Oriel. Chartists and Socialists looked
back over thair copies of his flamboyant Cause of the
People, and felt that to share the hospitality of a
Lady Walmsley or Lady Beaumont was apostasy. It
seemed to them that he was now firing shot into the
faded flags he had once borne with them.
Certainly there had been a change. To us who look
back on the whole social history of the nineteenth cen-
tury, and see how Chartism and Socialism had played
their parts and must make way for new actors, the
change offers no difficulty in the interpretation of his
character : to them, having no glimpse of the greater
movements to come, the change was treachery. We
must, indeed, be careful not to exaggerate the change
in him or the charge against him. As late as April I3th,
199
200 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
1853, I find him at a "Tea Party and Public Meeting"
in honour of " the Incorruptible Robespierre," with half
the firebrands of Europe Louis Blanc, Nadaud, Saffi,
Kossuth, Ledru Rollin, Dawson, Harney, E. Jones,
Linton, R. Moore, and other pyrotechnic orators. Yet
there had been a change a more fixed habit of walking
in "the polite way" that Cooper deprecated, and a
clearer conviction that even peers, priests, and politicians
might become sincere co-workers in the cause of the
people. Such changes are peculiarly apt to bring the
word "compromise" to the lips of the captious. Com-
promise may mean wise idealism : when you take as
much as you can get of a good thing, and wait im-
patiently for more. But the suggestion that one has
surrendered or modified an ideal with an eye to comfort
is a different thing.
Any such suspicion in connection with Holyoake's
development at this stage is wholly precluded by the
story of the present chapter. Most of his ideals were
repugnant to some or other body of his neighbours.
One ideal that of the outspoken criticism of religious
beliefs was repugnant to the vast majority in the
country, and was deeply regretted by almost all his new
political associates. It had conducted him to a jail, with
every circumstance of ignominy and discomfort, when
he stood on the steps of manhood ; it gave pain
throughout his career to the men and women he re-
spected most ; and it was the one shade that lay upon
his memory for the majority of those who came to
honour him in death. Yet he maintained that ideal
without swerving to his last year. He knew well all
that it would mean to him if he would desist from his
critical work ; and he not only did not desist, but he
spent large sums of money and great stores of energy
in pursuing it. Whether or no one can understand why
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 201
it was a matter of conscience with him, the fact that he
held duty before comfort remains. Nor can it be with-
out interest, even to the religious, to see how the first
organic body for the criticism of religious beliefs arose
in this country, and what design of its structure and
activity took shape in the mind of " the mildest-
mannered man in the ranks of public disputants."
Until 1853 there was no free-thinking organisation in
England. How far the Rational Religion should be
entitled to that name we need not stay to consider.
There was a large amount of criticism effected through
its machinery, but its chiefs repudiated the description
and their followers were divided. The attempt to reject
the description altogether split a large fragment from it,
and for a time Holyoake and his colleagues led some-
thing of a party. A nearer approach to organisation
came with the establishment of the Reasoner^ which at
first professedly succeeded the Oracle and the Movement
as an " atheistical" journal. But Holyoake was never
happy under the name " atheist." In the minds of most
people it connoted dogmatism of statement and hard-
ness, if not coarseness, of character. He saw, too, how
a narrow concentration of interest into critical channels
was consistent with poor types of character. One needed
to be clever for the work, but moral quality could he
observed be dispensed with. He saw that it would be
folly to dissipate, or to divert to selfish purposes, the
great stream of energy and devotion that had been
associated with religion. It should be directed to
tangible human interests. On these considerations he
created Secularism, in which the criticism of theology
should be balanced by a concern for culture, character,
and social progress. It was bound to fail the aim now
was too broad but it became for some years the chief
interest of his life.
202 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
On March 2ist, 1849, he notes in his diary : " Issued
the first ' Secular' number of the Reasoner" There is
really no perceptible change in the paper at that time ;
possibly articles on social matters begin to occupy
more space. From the first the Reasoner had maintained
a good tone, and he wished to give the paper solidity.
Once he tried to draw Dr. Martineau into its columns,
but the distinguished Unitarian replied :
"SIR,
" I am obliged by your attention in sending me
a copy of the Reasoner with the article by * Aliquis ' on the
question at issue between the theist and the atheist. I
willingly acknowledge the duty of persons who have
anything new to advance on this question to communi-
cate it, where there is a fair chance of an unprejudiced
hearing. But I also esteem it the duty of those who
have nothing new to advance, to hold their peace and be
content with their private convictions. Agreeably to
this rule, as I think, Aliquis would have done wisely not
to write his paper, so must I decline the invitation to
answer it. Moreover, those who fancy they have any
fresh truth to state must really choose their own time
and mode of stating it ; and Aliquis is less of a workman
than I if, on a chance invitation, he can stand up and
find time for a game of theological battledore and
shuttlecock. In this noisy world we must get our
matters said as the pauses may allow.
" Meanwhile I freely confess my opinion that the
course of speculation on which Aliquis has entered has
no tendency to settle the question at issue, one way or the
other. And I could feel no interest in becoming party to an
argument, apparently holding in suspense a grand truth,
which in reality is quite independent of its whole scope.
"I remain, Sir, yours with respect,
1 ' JAMES MARTINEAU."
Holyoake answered with courtesy, and embraced the
" opportunity of thanking him for the several charming
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 203
things he had said elsewhere from which he had derived
infinite gratification." The Reasoner was, of course, far
below the intellectual level of Martineau. It was "a
work of vulgarisation," in the pregnant French phrase.
Holyoake's articles were always shrewd, and often
thoughtful and helpful, but he had neither time nor
equipment for philosophy. 1 Ashurst wrote occasionally
in it over the name of " Edward Search," and MissS. D.
Collet over that of " Panthea." Her brother wrote in
it, in 1848, a long series of articles on "The Rise and
Progress of the Swiss Republics," and for some time
made it the organ of their campaign on the press-stamp.
" Aliquis," whose identity was so carefully concealed,
was a wealthy Teignmouth gentleman, Mr. Gwynne,
a strong supporter of Holyoake and his journal.
"Eugene" was George Hooper. "Lionel Holdreth "
was Mr. Percy Greg. W. Chilton, who was evidently
well acquainted with the theories of Lamarck and the
contemporary discussions of Cuvier and Agassiz, wrote
scientific articles, and brought the new batteries of
geology to bear on Genesis , Paleyism, etc. When we
remember that the paper was bound, from the very nature
of its political and social articles, to seek a circulation
mainly amongst the workers, its quality and competence
cannot be disputed. We have seen how the Daily News
singled it out as one of especial capability amongst the
rebellious journals of the time. A Unitarian clergyman,
Mr. Layhe, wrote in his Report: " The chief merit of the
1 Several other letters passed between them, of which a sentence or
two are interesting. In declining Holyoake's challenge to a public
discussion, Dr. Martineau said :
" I do not think that the theistical doctrine is one which can be proved
or disproved by any mere scientific reasoning at all, but is a higher cer-
tainty than any that can come under this description. ... As to books
in confutation of your views, it is not in my power to mention any : simply
because I do not see that you have any views, beyond critical objections
to other people's arguments ; and I do not think much better of those
arguments than you do."
204 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
editor is the improved moral tone which he has intro-
duced into the literature of unbelief. . . . It is greatly to
be regretted that a man of so much nobility of nature has
no faith in God." But its circulation was always small;
it had to appeal constantly for what the editor lightly
called " Reasources," and even with that help he drew
only about fifty pounds a year from it.
The condition of anti-Christian feeling in the country
at that time about 1850 will have been gathered from
what has preceded. The writings of Paine, Shelley, and
Gibbon had engendered a good deal of revolt against the
Churches, but the free-thinkers were still generally deists.
The lectures of R. Owen and his disciples, of R. Carlile,
and of most of the Chartists, had stimulated and spread
the feeling once more generally within the limits of
theism. But the Secularist theories of Bentham, now
enforced by the two Mills, the translation of Strauss I
find the Chapmans consulting Holyoake as to a popular
edition of the Life of Jesus and other advanced Germans,
the opening of the scientific controversy over Genesis^ the
pantheism of Coleridge and Carlyle and Emerson (which
obliterated the God of Deists and Christians, and offered
no substitute that the artisan-mind could fix and retain),
and the prolonged and intense fight over secular issues,
greatly promoted the spread of what was vaguely called
" infidelity." When Southwell, Ryall, Chilton, and
Holyoake began their atheistic campaign, for the first
time in our history, they found a comparatively large
body of followers. This body was scattered again at
the closing of the Owenite halls, and by 1846 there were
not sufficient followers in the country to pay for the mere
printing of the one small weekly (the Reasoner) that
criticised theology. By 1848 Holyoake and his friends
had half a dozen lecturing centres in London, and that
number was maintained for some years.
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 205
The condition of the provincial towns in this regard
can be seen most vividly in Holyoake's lengthy account
of his tours in 1850. He had a week in Scotland in
March. In the following month he had a debate with
the Rev. John Bowes at Bradford, in whom he found
" the two worst qualities a man can have to contend with
in debate prudence and dulness." But 1,500 people
crushed into the hall, and hundreds were turned away
nightly. His thin voice was at a disadvantage, for "a
Methodist junto " was trying some refractory preachers
in the next room, and the friends of the accused gathered
at the doors and sang hymns for three hours to intimidate
the judges ; until a burly Yorkshireman in Holyoake's
audience arose and said : " Mr. Chairman, I move as
how some on us go out and move yon singers away."
The motion was hailed with delight, but Holyoake, who
feared they would " put an end to the melodists as well
as the melodies," dissuaded the men and endured the
" pipers." Of the 1,500 auditors he calculated that 1,000
agreed with himself. The Bradford Observer made com-
ments on " the religious boxing match," which you
paid id., zd., or 3^. to witness, but Holyoake interviewed
the editor, and he became more polite. The Leeds Times
called them a couple of " noisy wind-bags," and hinted at
a "wind-fall" of profit. During his week in Bradford,
he was invited to speak at an education meeting, at which
the vicar took the chair with great courtesy and Mr.
Forster also spoke. From Bradford he went to Keighley.
He had full but perplexed audiences. They could not tell
" what yon man wurloike : he wanna loike a Christian."
Bingley and Heckmondwike also were visited.
After visits to Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool, he
went up to Sunderland and Newcastle, where the clergy
appeared and challenged him to " a six nights' debate."
Before it could be arranged he had to keep engagements
2 o6 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
at Ipswich and Norwich, and return to London for
Leader work and classes. At Ipswich, where the local
clergy had attacked him, the Quaker-proprietor of the
only hall refused to let it to him, as a Quaker had
done at Northampton. He hired the bowling-green of
the Freemason's Tavern. The audience numbered more
than four hundred. 1 It happened to be a fine evening,
and he went on answering questions far into the dark
hours ; and as the people could not be seen in the dark
by their pastor, who was present and militant, they gave
him an anxious time. The meeting ended with three
cheers for the lecturer. At Norwich he spoke in the
Maid's Head Inn, to large audiences. The Norfolk News
says that the address was distinguished by good feeling
and " great clearness and simplicity of style," and that
the answers to objections "appeared to give general
satisfaction." The meeting lasted three hours.
There was another set debate (with Dr. King) in
London on his return. Remembering that this was the
first year of the Leader, we feel that he must have worked
hard. On October i6th he took the chair at the Temper-
ance Hall in Commercial Road, when a tall, vigorous
youth of seventeen discussed the "Past, Present, and
Future of Theology," and took the collection, because he
was " the victim " of a neighbouring clergyman. It was
Holyoake's first acquaintance with Charles Bradlaugh.
A week later he was opening the new Socialist hall at
Manchester, and attending the Educational Conference
there with Cobden and others. He had lively meetings
at Rochdale ("that tea-cup of Huddersfield "). One
clergyman "began a speech, the melancholy burden
of which was the number of persons who had been
1 It may not be without interest to note that these audiences in 1851
were larger than any lecturer on the same lines can get in the same
towns to-day.
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 207
murdered by the atheists during the French Revolution :
one million seven hundred and fifty-four were, I think,
the number." He was a muscular Christian, dancing
about frantically from seat to seat, and at last precipitat-
ing himself at a window which he took to be a door.
He was followed by a preacher " of sanguinous tempera-
ment, and of somewhat sanguinous speech," and the
long string of orators concluded with an old "hard-
working hard-looking man " who assured them that " at
the bottom of all things is a globulic principle, round
and circular." From Lancashire he went further north,
gave two lectures at Newcastle and two at Sunderland,
and finished with a three-nights* debate at Newcastle
before 500 people. A clergyman who wished to debate
with him was held back by his apprehensive congrega-
tion, and he could only secure a lay Unitarian speaker
for what the papers were calling " gladiatorship." The
debate was polite, though the Gateshead Observer called
it "a revival of the savagery and bigotry of the fifth of
November." The Newcastle Journal thought it a "shame-
ful exhibition," and wanted to know where the magis-
trates were that they did not suppress this "cockney
atheist" and his "sham opponent." Holyoake generally
bearded these editors in their dens, and generally dis-
armed them. He remained in the town for the local
"reply," which gave him a fresh audience of 1,000.
When Holyoake had gone, the Newcastle Journal wrote :
" The town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been for some
time past infested with a succession of low, scurrilous
vagabonds, too lazy to work and too illiterate to earn
an honourable livelihood creatures who appear to be
proficient in nothing but in spouting blasphemy and
infidelity. It would seem as if there were to be no end
of this abomination that the inexhaustible channels of
vice and immorality in the metropolis were to be
2o8 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
distributed in innumerable streams over the provinces,
and that this town was destined to receive considerably
more than its proportionate share."
Fresh lectures at Norwich, and at Diss, Derby,
Longton, Leeds, and other places occur in the same
year, and the tours are repeated each succeeding year
with infinite variety of adventure and ever-increasing
audiences. We have seen sufficient to form an opinion
of the state of feeling in the provinces. The residue of
Owenite agitation, with the new stirring caused by the
religious movements of the time, gave the elements for
an organic body, and Holyoake began to frame his
plans in the beginning of 1852. The first difficulty lay
in the choice of a name. Atheism he was now determined
to supersede, for reasons I have explained. At one time
he suggested " Netheism," but a clerical critic promptly
pointed out that ne was merely the Latin for the Greek a.
" Limitationism " also occurred to him. But all these
titles were negative, and what he really sought was
positive culture, to which the correction of errors should
be incidental. The word " secular " had been used by
him several times as a good description of the interests
he sought to promote the interests of this world and
" Secularism" was an obvious appellation for a system
that aimed at concentrating attention on mundane
affairs. " Giving an account of ourselves in the whole
extent of opinion," he says, when he uses the word
for the first time (December 3rd, 1851), " we should use
the word * Secularist ' as best indicating that province
of human duty which belongs to this life." From the
first he thought so little of including atheism necessarily
in it that he asked Miss Collet to join ; but from the
first the tendency was plain enough, and she refused to
join. Her comments on him and his views at the time
(published in her biographical sketch) are interesting :
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 209
" In attempting to estimate Mr. Holyoake's character
as a public teacher, the chief characteristic thereof
that attracts the attention appears to be this that in
theological criticism, which is usually abandoned to the
keenest, coldest exercise of the mere intellect, he is
remarkable for the pre-eminence of his moral develop-
ment. He is not a systematic thinker. Though endowed
with manly good sense, and frequently flashing forth
striking and eloquent thoughts, he is remarkably [!]
deficient in speculative genius. His literary culture is
also very imperfect a circumstance which frequently
leads him into awkward blunders. . . . The inspiration
which for thirteen tireless years has urged on his steps
is the resolution to conquer a free field for the human
conscience, where, unfettered by harsh creeds and unjust
laws, it may develop into its true proportions." 1
Another contemporary estimate of some value is that
of the Rev. W. N. Molesworth, the historian. Writing
under the year 1846 the paragraph is a little antedated
he says :
" In the course of this year a ' system of ethics ' to
which its author gave the name of Secularism was
widely propagated by Mr. G. J. Holyoake, a London
bookseller. We place before the reader the description
of the system as given by its founder . . . [long descrip-
tion in Holyoake's words]. Secularism is, in fact, the
religion of doubt. It does not necessarily clash with
other religions ; it does not deny the existence of a God
or even the truth of Christianity, but it does not profess
to believe in either the one or the other. Nay, most of
its advocates have often and strongly assailed both. It
differs little, if at all, in substance from the opinions of
the freethinkers of the last century, but it differs widely
from them in the manner of its propagation and the
persons by whom it was embraced. The old freethinkers
made few converts, and these chiefly, if not exclusively,
1 George Jacob Holyoake^ p. 24.
VOL. I. P
210 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
among the upper class ; but Secularism was embraced
by thousands and tens of thousands of the working
classes. The success which attended the attempts made
to propagate it was due partly to the fact that great
masses of the working classes, especially in the large
manufacturing towns, were already lost to Christianity,
and had, in many cases, almost unconsciously adopted
the ideas which Mr. Holyoake fixed and shaped into
distinct doctrines, but which are in fact the views
that naturally replace Christianity in the minds of
those who have practically renounced it ; partly to
the zeal, activity, ability, and boldness with which
Secularism was propagated and defended ; and in no
small degree also to the qualities of Mr. Holyoake,
who had assiduously cultivated great natural gifts, who
delivered his opinions with a calm, quiet, and persuasive
earnestness, and had won the favourable attention of the
working classes by the enlightened interest he had on
many occasions taken in their welfare, and the thorough
mastery he displayed of many social problems in the
solution of which they were deeply interested." 1
Thus it was well understood from the first that Holy-
oake aimed at a positive culture. He did not think the
system should take its name from its inconsistency with
certain religious views any more than from its incon-
sistency with certain political or social views, to which it
was equally opposed. We shall see how his aim was
frustrated, and how this broad expansion of his principles
put too severe a strain on them. From 1851 to 1853 he
worked slowly at the organisation of the movement. A
handbill announces, for December 29th, 1851, " the first
Free Discussion Festival in connection with the Secular
Society " at the Hall of Science, City Road, with tea,
1 History of England 1830-1874, II, 235. The reader who desires
further information may consult Holyoake's Origin and Nature of
Secularism and Chambers' Encyclopedia, in which the article on Secularism
is by Holyoake. Mr. Molesworth writes with knowledge. He lived
near Rochdale, and was connected with Co-operation.
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 211
songs, and speeches on the provincial plan. At this meet-
ing Holyoake gave an account of " the present position
of Secularism in the provinces." Other speakers were
Mr. W. J. Birch (an Oxford M.A., and writer on Shake-
speare), T. Cooper, Dr. Brooks, and Mr. Eb. Syme
(Unitarian minister). In March, at another of these
quaint " festivals," and an "aggregate meeting of
London Freethinkers," Holyoake was to "state the
constitution of the Society of Seculars, being the model
proposed for the organisation of Freethinkers." The
list of lectures he offered to provincial societies contained
only six on theology to thirteen on political and social
subjects, and in October he visited Oldham, Manchester,
Stockport, Accrington, Rochdale, Lincoln, and Middles-
borough. At Manchester he convened a conference in
the new hall now the "Secular Institute" to which
delegates came from all parts of Lancashire, as well as
Scotland. A remarkable number of familiar Co-operative
names appear amongst them. From that date the
adoption of the name Secularist became general amongst
freethinking societies, and Holyoake was recognised as
the leader. T. Cooper found the movement too sceptical,
and withdrew. Southwell first criticised its mildness,
then imitated it, and finally emigrated to New Zealand,
where, for want of better employment, he edited a
Wesleyan journal, and horrified his employers by a
death-bed avowal of atheism after having controlled their
paper for several years.
In 1853 Holyoake was presented with 250, as we
have previously described. With ^50 he had founded
a paper : with ^250 he determined to found an institution.
Money was scarce enough at 17 Woburn Buildings,
where there were now school-bills for the children. But
not a penny of the presentation, which was a purely
personal gift, went to personal use. The movement he
212 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
was interested in needed a habitation in the metropolis,
a centre of crystallisation, and the whole of the money
was used in creating one.
The first step, and the first error, was to buy the pub-
lishing business and the stock of his friend James Watson
in Paternoster Row. Watson was a brave and earnest
man. He had served in R. Carlile's shop, and had then
for years sold prohibited literature himself. He was well
known to the police. But his conduct at this juncture
was not pleasant, probably from some tincture of jealousy.
His business was worth very little, and his entire dusty
stock did not realise ^50, but he claimed ^350, and
pressed Holyoake hard for the payments. Mr. Ashurst,
who acted legally for them, clearly thought Holyoake
quixotically generous, and Watson rather mean. Holy-
oake gave him 100 down, and was to pay the rest
within five years ; but he one day saw Watson looking
hungrily at his shop, and he sent Austin over with the
balance due to him the whole of the money they had.
The whole of his presentation had gone in an act of
excessive generosity. The little shop in Queen's Head
Passage proved quite unsuitable, and he had, towards
the end of 1853, to buy the lease of 147 Fleet Street
(now the " Press Restaurant"). This cost him ^570,
and he had to find ^150 for fittings, etc. He had won
the citizenship of Fleet Street for his organisation, but
had sown a crop of debts and troubles.
Mr. Birch, Mr. Ashurst, and other friends, had ad-
vanced money, but he had insisted on affording proper
security, and had even pledged his life-insurance policy.
At first he felt little anxiety, but the clouds quickly
began to show. A friend who had promised him ^"1,000
had losses in business, and could not pay it. I fancy
this was Le Blond. Presently a graver disappointment
came. His chief source of content was that he had in
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 213
his care the will of an elderly admirer, Mr. Fletcher,
which bequeathed him 30,000 on that gentleman's
decease. One day Mr. Fletcher asked him to tea, and
begged him to bring the will. His rival, Robert Cooper,
was present. Fletcher took the will from him, destroyed
it, and assigned his money to Robert Cooper.
The sequel to this disastrous experience is one of the
most striking illustrations of Holyoake's chivalry. It
was not long before he discovered that Mr. Fletcher had
been told by one of his own shopmen that he had
hindered the sale of Cooper's pamphlets and other liter-
ature of the fiery order, which Fletcher esteemed. This
man, Mr. F. R. Young, had been a clerk and a Wesleyan
local preacher at Ipswich, when he made Holyoake's
acquaintance in 1853. His early letters are repellent in
their mixture of piety and adulation of Holyoake. At
his appeal Holyoake paid his debts, amounting to some
twenty pounds, and gave him the management of his
shop, though he remained a Christian. Within a year
or two he partly borrowed and partly appropriated 101
of Holyoake's money, and was dismissed but not prose-
cuted. It was then that he made the charge against
Holyoake, and Cooper retailed it to Fletcher. When
Holyoake threatened action he withdrew his many
calumnies of freethinkers, and merely claimed that Holy-
oake did not press the sale of Cooper's works. That
will seem plausible enough to any one who reads the
Infidel's Text-book and Cooper's other writings. In 1857
Young applied for admission into the Unitarian ministry,
and, on the application of Mr. Kenrick, Holyoake
accepted 50 and gave Young a clean bill. His letter
to Mr. Kenrick, which was not published, runs :
"DEAR SIR,
" My position is this. The loans obtained from
me by the Rev. F. R. Young, and monies used by him
214 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
while in my employ, were, as he was aware from the first,
Trust-money. The whole I have to repay, and I do not
see that I ought to accept less than ^"50 IQS. in settle-
ment of my claim of ;ioi. By doing so I am under-
taking to pay the other ^50 IQS. myself. Those to
whom I am debtor forbear and acquit me morally while
I place the full claim in their hands. Not wishing any
harm to Mr. Young, and not desiring to take a course
which may appear to his present colleagues as personal
hostility to him on account of his ministerial position, I
have forebore all mention of his name in this matter
publicly. By such a step I could obtain the whole by
public subscription to make good a loss sustained by
such a person in such a way. By giving the facts of the
case at the point I mark in the History of the Fleet St.
House, where the loss is mentioned but the name con-
cealed, I might have had the whole money before this.
My personal regard for so many gentlemen of the
Unitarian body with whom I have friendly relations
makes me unwilling to take this course, and, though I
cannot hope to be credited with such a feeling, it alone
has restrained me, and has induced me to repeat the
offer previously made to Mr. Young. I write after
having consulted with Mr. Shaen.
" Yours very respectfully,
"G. J. HOLYOAKE."
Another unforeseen tribulation that befell the Fleet
Street House was that the Vicar of St. Bride's demanded
his tithes. When Holyoake hinted that tithes on the
profits of infidel works seemed a little incongruous, he
declared that the right had been sold to a layman two
centuries before, and they collected them for his descend-
ants. Holyoake demurred in principle to paying tax to
the clergy the profit of the earlier transaction was still
theirs and every half year they made a descent on his
shop, and carried off the clock, rolls of paper, or the
more innocent-looking books they could find. At last
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 215
Holyoake told the officers he would pay, and send the
tithe to the vicar. The clergyman received from him
4 1 payment in kind" three or four volumes of the
Reasoner, "that being the * kind ' of property produced
on my farm." That put an end to the persecution.
But friends were generous, and the Fleet Street House
was maintained for eight years. Mr. Ross, the famous
optician, came to him in one of his darkest hours, and
gave him ^"250. Mr. Birch regarded as a gift, when
things went badly, his loan of ^200. All this, with the
initial ^250 and ^500 more that was given him, was
swallowed up in the " British Secular Institute of Com-
munism and Propagandism." Robert Owen, Harriet
Martineau, J. Cowen, Major Evans Bell, Mr. Ashurst,
Mr. Lister, Mr. Trevelyan, and others, had shares in
it, and were generous. Malicious colleagues brought
charges against him, of course, and we will consider
them later ; but when he showed Southwell the real
nature of his transactions (with Watson, etc.) that critic
changed his censures into: " Jacob, you're a damned
fool ! " He allotted only ^75 a year to his brother, who
was secretary and took his place when he was absent.
He himself drew only ^200 a year, as Director and
Lecturer and Editor of the Reasoner ; and he now assigned
the net proceeds of all his lectures to the Institute. 1
The work of the Institute and the stirring part it took
in English and even European life during its short career
fully rewarded him for his losses and labours. " We do
but reap where you have sown," Professor Tyndall once
said to him at a meeting of the British Association.
But criticism of theology was only a part of its work.
The front parlour over the shop was turned into a
44 Political Exchange," and became the " rendezvous"
1 History of the Fleet Street House, by Holyoake, published in 1856
(20 pp., price
216 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
of political, social, and religious heretics of every
nationality. If the walls of the " Press Restaurant"
could speak, they would tell us many a secret that has
gone to the grave with the last of the insurgents who
plotted in it. French, Italian, German, and Polish
refugees loosed their torrents of grievances in it. Defiant
flags waved from its windows, and literature of every
shade of defiance covered its tables. The campaign on
the press-stamp was largely framed in it. The destruc-
tion of the Conspiracy Bill was plotted in it. The
Garibaldian Legion was partly organised in it. But all
these things, so far as we know them, will be considered
in due order. For the moment I return to Secularism.
In addition to his lectures, debates, and journalistic
articles, Holyoake wrote a number of small works at this
period that were intended to correct misconceptions of
his system. A complete list of his writings will be found
at the end of this work, and I will not attempt to notice
each pamphlet as it appears. In 1848 he wrote his Hints
toward a Logic of Facts, an " unceremonious endeavour
to enlarge the province and abbreviate the details of
logic." He deals with it as he had dealt with grammar,
and the little work (of 92 pages) is bright, sententious,
and helpful to young men. Douglas Jerrold^s Weekly
thought it " a bold and able treatise," and the Critic said
it was " invaluable to the learner." In 1847 he published
his Life and Character of H. Hetherington (his address at
the funeral) and his Rudiments of Public Speaking and
Debate. The shrewd hints and bright, terse style of the
latter won a long popularity for it. It ran through many
editions, and was published in America. Wendell
Phillips, the great Abolitionist orator, " studied it faith-
fully, "he told Holyoake, until his " well-thumbed copy"
was detained by a friend. He also wrote a sixpenny Life
of Car Hie. In 1851 he announced a " Cabinet of Reason."
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 217
The first volume was the Task of To-day ', by Major Bell ;
the second, Holyoake's Why do the Clergy avoid Discus-
sion ? which was at least successful in bringing debates ;
the third was his Organisation, not of Arms, but of Ideas, a
criticism of Chartism, and appeal for his new organisation.
For the secular education of children he issued four
elementary spelling and reading books, based on his
experience at Sheffield. Other little works of that period
are his Logic of Death (an able and eloquent lecture,
which had a very wide circulation and has been recently
republished), Literary Institutions, Catholicism the Religion
of Fear (a censure of Hell Opened to Christians), Philosophic
Type of Christianity (an examination of F. W. Newman's
work, The Soul), and other small and unimportant
pamphlets that are given in the appendix. Much more
important and effective was his Last Trial by Jury for
Atheism in England, an ample and temperate account
of his trial (with the nine hours' speech) and imprison-
ment. Amongst the congratulatory letters on it I find
one from Mr. Reynolds (of Reynolds' Weekly) saying
that it was he who began the agitation for Holyoake in
the Weekly Dispatch in 1843, and he had become proud
of introducing Holyoake to public notice. Further small
works The Constitution and Obligations of Secular Societies
(1852), Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People
(1853), Secularism Distinguished from Unitarianism(\$>$$),
and The Principles of Secularism (1859) discussed various
aspects of his system.
As his views found clearer expression his theistic
friends evinced less displeasure. Miss Collet wrote :
"I feel increasingly persuaded that you are doing a
great work in the reformation of ' matters pertaining to
religion.' Though I demur to the definitions you have
hitherto given of Secularism, I have a strong sympathy
with that which, I believe, forms the main idea of what
2iS THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
you mean by Secularism i.e., with that development
and culture of free humanity trained by disciplined
conscience."
She merely quarrelled with him for claiming- only a
"tolerable morality" for his system. He must and
could claim a lofty one. On the other hand, Thornton
Hunt wrote him that " in insisting upon ' moral ' conduct
on the part of persons aiding such movements he might
commit against persons who are heterodox in morals
or politics exactly the same kind of injustice that is
committed in religion upon persons in his own position."
Brooke Herford had a very cordial correspondence with
him. The distinguished Unitarian minister had noticed
the growing movement, and begged that he should be
allowed to plead for theism to the Secular audiences.
He wrote to Holyoake :
"My DEAR SIR,
"Great press of work and absence from home
have hitherto prevented me from fitly acknowledging your
kind insertion of my letter and advertisement hi the
Reasoner and your very fair and friendly remarks thereon.
I do now most cordially thank you, and believe me your
readiness herein has done much to confirm into a
permanent respect the feeling of friendship which I have
felt for the Secularists as far as I know them.
"You will, I know, be glad to learn that my appeal
to the Secularist Societies has not been in vain ; already
in the few days since it appeared I have received
applications from Halifax, Sheffield, and Keighley,
besides the particularly kind and pressing one from
London of which you may probably be aware. You
will see by my letter to Mr. Adams my reason for
declining to deliver the lectures first in London. I have
not confidence enough in myself, and shall be better able
to do justice to my own and your arguments after a few
lectures to people, to some extent familiar with me, as
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 219
those at Halifax are. You would, I am sure, desire that
London should be the scene of the most thorough rather
than the first investigation of our conflicting ideas. . . .
"For the present, my dear friend, farewell. Don't
forget our little den when you come by this way.
" Your affectionate friend,
"BROOKE HERFORD."
Other cordial letters were exchanged, and Holyoake
stayed some days with Brooke Herford at Todmorden,
and then entertained his friend in London.
Another Unitarian clergyman who ventured to express
friendship was Mr. W. H. Crosskey, who later attained
some distinction in geology. In 1851 he dedicated his
Defence of Religion to Holyoake, causing a great com-
motion in the Unitarian body. The dedication ran :
"To George Jacob Holyoake, a man who, notwith-
standing his inability to share the theist's faith, must
permit atheist to regard his brave sincerity and reverence
for truth and justice as acceptable worship at the altar
of the Holy of Holies, this brief essay is affectionately
inscribed."
The book had importance, as it appeared in a series
(Chapman's Library for the People) that included works
by Emerson, Newman, Froude, H. Spencer, etc., and
Crosskey was violently assailed. The British and
Foreign Unitarian Association declined to sell some of
his pamphlets. Dr. Martineau wrote to him :
" I do confess that, while I would stoutly resist any ill-
usage of such a man as Holyoake, or any attempt to gag
him, I could hardly dedicate a book to him, this act seem-
ing to imply a special sympathy and admiration directed
upon that which distinctively characterises the man. . . .
However, it is a generous impulse to appear as the
advocate of a man whom intolerance unjustly reviles."
220 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
Mr. Crosskey may have replied that he meant precisely
to show his admiration of "that which distinctively
characterised " Holyoake. When he took the Unitarian
Church at Glasgow in 1852, he placed it at Holyoake's
service one week evening as he did to Mazzini, Louis
Blanc, and others and greatly embittered his religious
neighbours. Holyoake had a high admiration for such
clergymen, and treasured their friendship. His Secu-
larist's Catechism (a penny catechism for Secularist
children, of admirable spirit and contents) is based on
a catechism written by Mr. Crosskey.
The Rev. H. N. Barnett (editor of the Advocate) and
other clergymen wrote friendly letters to him, and this
cordial correspondence with the clergy, which grew so
much in later years, distinguishes in both senses of the
word Holyoake amongst militant Freethinkers. It is
hardly less instructive to consider his relations with lay-
men of culture and refinement who dissented strongly
from his agnostic views. Most of his cultivated friends
were of this class, and we have seen many of their letters.
There is an interesting letter to him about this date from
Leigh Hunt :
" MY DEAR SIR,
" Accept my best thanks for your kind letter and
notice. The more we differ on some points, the more glad
I must needs be at our agreement on others, for I have
long esteemed your abilities and integrity. Do not
measure the amount of my thanks by the brevity of this
acknowledgment. I am not well, and am very busy,
and so cannot write as much as I could wish. But I
could not let another day pass without saying how great
a pleasure you have given to
" Your obliged fellow-seeker of what is best,
" LEIGH HUNT."
With Francis Newman, brother of the Cardinal,
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 221
professor of Latin at University College and ultimately
Vice-President of the British and Foreign Unitarian
Association, 1 he had life-long friendship and a volumin-
ous correspondence. The three Newmans John Henry,
Francis, and Charles represent three types of mind so
utterly diverse that they offer a problem in heredity.
Francis had far more scholarship and philosophic ability
than the Cardinal, but little of his brilliant utterance and
subtlety of mind. He was also a keen and liberal
student of politics and social questions. Throughout
life he stood outside the pale of Christianity, but was an
intense theist ; in the end he surrendered his conviction
of a future life. He had referred plainly enough, with-
out naming him, to Holyoake in his work The Soul,
which he published in 1847. He protested (p. 87) that
some were carried into atheism
"not from any want of religious susceptibility, but,
just as others [his brother, etc.] into Romanism, from
an inability to disentangle sophistical arguments and
from a desire to be honest in sacrificing their instinctive
convictions to their technically erroneous reasoning.
Those professors of Atheism who retain pure moral
sympathies do, perhaps, under other names, such as
Veneration of the Infinite and of Eternal Law, nourish
within themselves some nucleus of religion. On no
account let us exaggerate the real difference between
them and us, though real it is and must be."
These are the phrases he uses in his letters to Holy-
oake, and indeed Holyoake was the only atheist of that
type he knew of in 1847. The studies at Gower Street
College brought them closer together, and the founding
of Secularism, the stir in European politics, and the rise
i " I have not changed towards them : they have moved towards
me," he wrote Holyoake in 1876.
222 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
of Co-operation led to a remarkably busy correspond-
ence. It is impossible to give more than a few sentences
from these letters, but one of June 8th, 1853, may be
reproduced :
DEAR SIR,
" I was late in seeing a notice of the very gratify-
ing social meeting at which a well-deserved testimonial
[the purse of ^250] was presented to you, at which
I heartily rejoice. Much as I (physically) dislike such
meetings, I should have felt it a duty and honour
to attend, if I had been invited. This I say, not as
though / ought to have been, but merely to vent my
own feelings. However, it causes me the less regret
that I had not this opportunity of adding my public
testimony to your honour, since in my now forthcoming
edition of the Phases of Faith I am naturally led to
contrast your conduct to the coarse and profane attacks
made on me by a Christian (!) opponent. I rejoice to
feel that we (* atheists ' and ' infidels ') are really in
no small measure through your aid winning a higher
moral place in controversies than our effete opponents.
" Believe me, Dear Sir,
" Sincerely yours,
" FRANCIS W. NEWMAN."
A letter of June i3th (1853) puts Professor Newman's
attitude to Dr. Martineau in an unusual light :
" While I have an exceedingly high love for him
and estimate of him, mentally and morally, I feel my
differences from him instructive. He has misunderstood
and perverted my Phases almost as badly as my most
inveterate calumniators."
Newman altered the new edition of his Soul to meet
Holyoake's objections, and when Secularism was
formally presented he wrote :
"I think that such a society ought to exist: I am
glad that it does : I see services tQ be performed by it,
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 223
and I hope they will be performed the more perfectly
the better. But I desire a Moral Union less sharply
limited than Secularism ; and I hope to see a wider
union of which Secularism shall be one branch."
When Holyoake criticises his theistic position, he makes
an interesting rejoinder :
" You appear to me to treat it as something bold and
strange and unreliable in me (though frank and manly)
to avow that I have no logical proof oi my first principles.
But this is a mere axiomatic truism. If a principle had
a logical proof, it would be only a secondary or tertiary,
and not a first principle. ... So : that the infinite
fitness of Animated to Inanimate nature indicates Mind
acting on a vast scale in the universe : that human
intelligence is a result of other intelligence higher than
itself is not a source, or a result, of what is un-
intelligent : this conviction, which is the foundation
of all religion, is in my opinion incapable of proof,
because all proof presupposes earlier principles, and
this is the earliest."
Holyoake's point was, of course, that this was not a first
principle, and so should be proved. He came to Holy-
oake's house to meet Brooke Herford, and Holyoake
often visited him. But Mrs. Newman was a devout
follower of the Plymouth Brethren, and he says : " I
think I shall consult for the tranquillity of another's
mind by requesting you to give your name to my
servant as Mr. George Jacob." A woman who would walk
out of the room when Dr. Martineau was announced
" Mr. Jacob " being already there would have shuddered
at the name of Holyoake.
Politically, Newman was a Republican, and had warm
sympathy with the foreign refugees. " I think it is now
manifest," he writes in 1851, "that Republicanism is
the only form in which for the future any portion of
224 THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM
Truth, Right, Freedom, Intellect, can advance in
Europe." But we shall meet him again in connection
with political questions, and must pass over the wide
range of subjects finance, philology, marriage, popula-
tion (on which he differs violently from J. S. Mill,
though Mill's later conduct in Parliament swept away
all his resentment), metaphysics, ethics, etc. on which
he corresponded with Holyoake. Francis Newman,
who was a competent judge, would apparently have
quite agreed with Dr. Flint, when he says : " There is
an impression in some quarters that Atheism is advo-
cated in a weak and unskilful manner by the chiefs
of Secularism. It is an impression which I do not
share."
The correspondence with Charles Newman, the youngest
brother, belongs to a later date. We may conclude with
a glance at the formal debates with the clergy that
Holyoake held at this period. The chief gladiator on
the Christian side to step out, when Holyoake published
his Why do the Clergy avoid Discussion ? was the Rev.
Brewin Grant, a Congregationalist minister of "fine
disputative faculty." As discussion was the main thing
that Mr. Grant sought, he very soon responded to the
challenge, and a debate took place in the Cowper Street
School-rooms (London) on six Thursday evenings in
January and February, 1853. These duels were arranged
and conducted with great elaborateness, each disputant
having a committee, that met and discussed for weeks in
advance, and a chairman ; and there was a more or less
impartial umpire. At the Cowper Street Debate Mr.
Samuel Morley was chairman for Mr. Grant, and the
Rev. Ebenezer Syme, an ex-Unitarian minister, for
Holyoake. The umpire was a Congregationalist clergy-
man, the Rev. Howard Hinton. It is interesting to find
that all the clergymen taking active part, and Mr. S.
GEORGE JACOB IIOLYOAKE
(1882)
THE FOUNDING Of SECULARISM
Morley, had friendly relations with Holyoake afterwards,
except Mr. Grant. Holyoake says of his opponent :
" He boasted that he should talk three times as fast
as I should, and so have three times more pages in the
report. . . . He was the nimblest opponent I ever met,
but he never bit your arguments ; he only nibbled at
them. He was rabbit-minded, with a scavenger's eye
for the refuse of old theological controversy. With him
epithets were arguments."
Frankly, Mr. Grant was too loud, arrogant, and
vituperative for a debater like Holyoake. He should
have met Southwell. He was already boasting that he
had " silenced Cardinal Newman," and his little world
rang with his crushing victory over Holyoake. I do
not intend to analyse the debate, which may still be
read by the curious. The subject was: "What ad-
vantages would accrue to mankind generally and the
working classes in particular by the -removal of Chris-
tianity and the substitution of Secularism in its place."
The arguments used on both sides are familiar.
Mr. Grant was generous enough to say that " if they
were to search England through they could not find one
who was better fitted to defend their views " ; but as he
sank into mere bombast and abuse, and rarely followed
an argument out, Holyoake was at a disadvantage. Grant
had diligently read through all the preceding volumes of
the Reasoner, Movement, and Oracle, for lurid quotations
that would suit his style of attack. Miss Collet describes
his conduct as " disgraceful," and says that he had
recourse to " the meanest insinuations and grossest
abuse," his purpose being to weaken Holyoake's per-
sonal authority. The Rev. H. N. Barnett, editor of the
Advocate, and understood to be a friend of Grant's, wrote
to Holyoake: " Brewin is as great a miracle, and quite
as great a folly, as the winking virgin : he may awaken
VOL. I. Q
226 THJS FOUNDING Of SECULARISM
contempt, but never convictions." But Mr. Barnett was
another who was seduced from the ministry. Mr. Syme
wrote even stronger language about Grant. They had
a further debate at Glasgow in 1854 before 3,200 people
(in the City Hall) on the subject : " Is Secularism incon-
sistent with reason and the moral sense, and condemned
by experience?" This debate also was published.
" The first striking point in the debate," wrote Miss
Collet, after reading it, "is the almost superhuman
blackguardism of Grant." As Mr. Grant afterwards
left the Nonconformists and became a Churchman, and
turned his power of invective upon his old friends, they
became willing to acknowledge it. He wrote a book
about them, which the Athenceum described as over-
flowing with " spite, vanity, insolence, and coarse
derision." A Glasgow paper said that the casual visitor
would take Holyoake to be the Christian and Grant the
infidel.
Holyoake's quality as a debater is seen better in a
public discussion he held at Newcastle on August ist,
3rd, and 5th, 1853, with the Rev. J. H. Rutherford.
They dealt with the truth of Christianity and the teach-
ing of Christ. The tone is much better, but the
arguments are too familiar now for me to dwell on '
them. The duellists afterwards breakfasted together,
and their correspondence shows mutual respect. In the
following year Holyoake had a public discussion with a
young minister " of whom the world has not yet heard,
but of whom it will hear pleasing things some day," the
Christian Weekly News said. The world did hear of him
later as the Rev. Dr. J. Parker. The local press said
that "the proceedings were conducted with good temper
on both sides," but qualified this by censuring Dr.
Parker for "that vituperative style of oratory he ex-
hibited on Monday evening to the disgust of all persons
THE FOUNDING OF SECULARISM 227
who heard him." His admirers appealed to Holyoake
in a friendly way to rebut this, and he did so at once. Dr.
Parker was added to the growing number of his clerical
friends. In declining a public discussion with Holyoake
in 1855 Dr. Parker, after stating the impediments, said :
" Otherwise it would have given me pleasure to have
spent a few evenings with Mr. Holyoake in thoughtful
and earnest debate. Any man who conducts himself
properly would have much satisfaction in meeting such
an opponent." The great preacher was not less respected
by Holyoake.
CHAPTER XI
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI AND OTHER REFUGEES
WE turn now to another work that occupied much of
Holyoake's time in the busy years of the early fifties.
His political life, it will be remembered, had been
quickened in 1848 by that glare of continental revolu-
tion which had given a last impulse to the revolutionary
Chartists of England. The reaction that followed on
the Continent gave weight to the sober counsels he was
urging upon English workers. Within a few months
the structure that had been raised with apparently
such brilliant success by the revolutionaries of France
and Italy began to tumble into ruin ; in less than two
years it was almost wholly obliterated from the map of
Europe, and despotic thrones were set up with more
solidity than ever. All this gave ample confirmation to
Holyoake's ideal of political action in England. His
" organisation, not of arms, but of ideas" was fully
accredited. If in countries where the burden of des-
potism pressed so heavily on the people violent action
brought so little relief, it was futile to dream of resorting
to it in England.
But, conversely, the difference in political condition
justified him in setting up, or countenancing, a different
mode of political action for the Continent. In the Papal
States, Hungary, or Poland, no constitutional action
was possible, because there was no constitution that
allowed action. In France the power was taken from
228
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 229
the people once more by the manoeuvres of a Napoleon
who had not the redeeming glamour of his great prede-
cessor. Hence, when the radical leaders from these
countries fled to London, and associated with or sought
the help of Holyoake, he was willing to go to a length
that the most fiery Chartist had never asked of him.
His action was consistent enough, and the documents at
my disposal show it to have been even more romantic
than has been suspected. To older readers, whose
memory almost reaches back to those stirring days,
some of these documents will have the character of
revelations. But our generation has, on the whole,
only a dim knowledge of the events of the fifties, and
I must, as usual, give a brief outline of the historical
development.
In February 1848 Holyoake listened at the John
Street Institution to the report of their delegates on
the French Revolution, and heard with enthusiasm of
the prominence at Paris of democrats like Louis Blanc.
In December of the same year he notes that he has been
dining with Louis Blanc at Mr. Birch's house. Within
six months Louis Blanc had fallen from his pinnacle,
and been driven into exile. No sooner had the royal
family disappeared than a breach steadily opened
between the middle class and the workers. Ledru
Rollin and Louis Blanc, representing the workers, at
once pressed the question of the unemployed, and
Rollin secured the erection of " National Workshops."
Workers and idlers flocked to Paris from all parts, and
the crowd of applicants seems to have utterly disordered
the new machinery. By the month of May 120,000
men were being paid " wages" out of national funds.
The National Workshops could employ only 14,000,
and, as men left the private shops and clamoured for
admission to those of the Provisional Government,
230 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
Paris was soon irritated and intimidated by an army of
100,000 paid idlers. The middle class became deeply
hostile. The radicals, fearing an electoral decision on
their work while the confusion lasted, secured a post-
ponement of the elections, but they took place on April
23rd, and gave overwhelming power to Lamartine
and the Liberals. The Government, seeing that the
Socialists were really a small minority of the 8,000,000
voters, began to undo the obnoxious arrangements in
regarcj to labour. They refused Louis Blanc's plea for
a ministry of labour, put down riots with the aid of the
National Guard, and at length closed the workshops and
ordered the dispersal of the superfluous workers from
Paris. For three days the two parties fought on the
streets. On June 26th the troops crushed the rebellious
workers, and the first refugees from the Continent began
to appear in London.
Louis Blanc, who fled to escape a trial for implication
in the riots, became a friend of Holyoake's and intro-
duced him more deeply into French politics. He was
then only in his thirty-fifth year, and with his small
stature he was less than five feet high his smooth face
and youthful features, looked even much younger. He
had not favoured the opening of National Workshops,
but he had been the chief representative of the workers
on the Provisional Government, and he knew that the
trial he was menaced with could have only one result.
From him, very largely, Holyoake took his view of the
events that followed in France. He was once described
by the Times as "the greatest historian of his age and
country." Louis Napoleon, the ex-Socialist, working
his way upward with great astuteness and hereditary
ambition, secured the Presidency of the Republic before
the end of 1848, and the title of Emperor at the beginning
of 1852.
RELATIONS WITH MAZZ 'INI 231
Meantime, Austria was recovering its despotic sway
in Italy and South Germany, and throwing fresh waves
of refugees on our shores. We saw that the Italians
successfully rose against Austria at the beginning of
1848, and inaugurated the continental movement. By
August of the same year Austria had driven the Pied-
montese army back to its own territory, and overrun
most of northern Italy once more. At Rome, however,
there was a rising against the government of Pius IX.
His prime minister, Rossi, was assassinated, and the
Pope fled to Gaeta. Mazzini and his friends at once
went to Rome, declared the papal power abolished, and
set up the Roman Republic on February yth, 1849.
Charles Albert set his troops in motion against Austria
once more, and was completely defeated ; and Austria
and Naples concerted action to restore the papal power.
Louis Napoleon, however, forestalled them. To gain
the support of the Catholics and counteract the advance
of Austria, he sent an army to Rome. By July 1850
the Republic was at an end. Mazzini was flying to
Switzerland, and on to London ; and Garibaldi was
leading his heroic 4,000 to the hills. English repub-
licans had now an Italian as well as a French question
to deal with.
Austria brought her victorious armies back to Vienna,
and prepared to tear up the constitutions she had granted
in the revolutionary spring of 1848. The racial ani-
mosities of her various provinces soon split the rebellion
into fragments, and she could bring them separately to
her feet once more. First in Bohemia the quarrel of
Germans and Czechs, and the riots that ensued, made
an opening for her troops, and enabled her to recover
her despotic power. In Hungary the Serbs, Croats,
etc., rose against the dominant Magyars, and their scat-
tered forces could not withstand the imperial troops.
232 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
After a stubborn war, with varying fortune, Hungary
was brought again under the yoke of Austria, and
Kossuth, Pulzsky, and others, joined the group of the
proscribed at London. The Emperor of Russia had
joined his forces with those of Austria to stamp out
the last sparks of revolution. In Prussia, where con-
cessions had been made solely in view of the impotence
of Austria, the return of that Empire to triumphant
despotism undid all the work of the radicals, and sent
more extremists to London. By 1851 Europe was
under the heels of the monarchs once more. Haynau
was bespattering Hungary with its own blood : Napoleon
III was expelling or transporting from France 10,000
of the best workers in the people's cause : Pope Pius IX
and Francis Joseph of Austria were seeing to the extinc-
tion of all democratic aspiration in Italy and Austria.
It was in 1851 that Mr. Gladstone wrote the famous
letters on the bloody methods of Neapolitan despotism
that made England shudder.
This very meagre outline of the course of events on
the Continent will enable the reader to understand the
work in which Holyoake now engaged at London.
Broadly speaking, that work was to raise funds for the
political or military operations of the continental insur-
gents, procure friends for them in this country, and use
the press as much as possible in their interests. From
1850 to 1860 London was a huge anarchist club, in
the eyes of European monarchs. German, Polish,
Hungarian, Italian, and French conspirators not only
abounded, but were at times greeted with the most
enthusiastic demonstrations. Societies for aiding them
were openly formed, and collections made all over the
country ; and in the end it saw the manufacture at Bir-
mingham of bombs for the destruction of Louis Napoleon
and the thinly-disguised enrolment of a regiment of
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 233
Garibaldian soldiers in the heart of London. In all this
work, and particularly in the last and most audacious
performances, Holyoake was prominently engaged. It
would be wearisome to follow in detail his extraordinary
activity during those years. Reserving his relations with
Garibaldi for a later chapter, I will give some account of
his connection with the more famous of the refugees,
and the chief points of his activity on their behalf.
With the Hungarian leader, Louis Kossuth, his
intercourse was rarely personal, and was several times
interrupted. After the defeat of Hungary, Kossuth fled
to Turkey. Russia and Austria demanded his surrender,
but the British fleet sailed to the support of the Sultan,
and his name became popular with British crowds long
before he arrived at Southampton. For a month he
made a triumphal march over England, addressing
vast crowds and receiving civic honours at London
and Manchester and elsewhere. It was the speeches
he delivered on these occasions that led to a misun-
derstanding with Holyoake. Kossuth had gone to
America, and Holyoake had worked diligently for his
cause. When he opened his Fleet Street shop he
engaged some of the artists among the refugees to
make busts and pictures of their leaders, and he sold
copies or casts of these to the public. A Hungarian
sculptor made for him a bust of Kossuth. He then
made a collection of Kossuth's English speeches, and
intended to issue them in a popular edition. When
Kossuth returned from America, he sent him a proof-
copy, through Francis Newman, and was astonished to
hear that Kossuth was much annoyed with him.
The correspondence with Newman shows that Kossuth
was not only piqued that the crudities of his English
delivery were reproduced, but he had looked forward to
making a little money by publishing an edition himself.
234 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
He was living on a fragment saved from his wife's
fortune, and needed to earn money. When several
publishers had his speeches reported, and published
them, he said to Newman that "it might be lawful,
but it was not the deed of gentlemen." Newman only
partly removed his irritation. He took a strict view
of his proprietorship of a speech, whoever reported it.
Holyoake was, of course, unaware of any other intention
to publish, and had acted mainly in zeal for the cause of
Hungary. As Kossuth in time also had differences
with Mazzini, apparently from some little jealousy of the
greater help given to the Italian cause, there was a
further hindrance to good feeling. It is largely on these
grounds, which he has not published, that Holyoake
represents Kossuth as never obtaining the understanding
of English ways and character that Mazzini and Louis
Blanc evinced.
With Pulzsky, who had been Prime Minister of
Hungary during its brief independence, he had very
friendly intercourse. Pulzsky had settled in Kentish
Town (afterwards at Highgate), where he kept the royal
jewels and crown of Hungary in half a dozen iron-
clasped chests in a bed-room. Holyoake dined with
the family several times, and contrasted the humanity
of the revolutionaries in 1848 with the savagery of their
repressers. To his confusion Mme. Pulzsky, a gentle
little lady, assured him that if ever they recovered power
in Hungary they "would cut all the throats they had
spared before." Pulzsky took great interest in his sale
of busts and pictures of the refugees, and Holyoake
had his own picture painted by one of the Hungarian
artists, Hahn.
His relations with Mazzini were more important and
cordial, but it is well to remember that there were
impediments to anything like intimacy between them.
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 235
Mazzini was an intense and devout theist, and habit-
ually looked with extreme dislike on atheists. He once
spoke of them in Garibaldi's presence with his usual
vehemence, and the General had to remind him that
he was an atheist himself. With all his recognition
of Holyoake's services to Italy this seems to have
imposed some restraint on him for a long time. Athe-
ists like A. Trevelyan retorted, in letters to Holyoake,
that Mazzini's thirst for war was not consistent with
his professions, and after a time Mazzini offended many
of his helpers by his strictures on Socialism. Sir James
(then Mr.) Stansfeld writes to beg Holyoake to overlook
them.
But Mazzini showed appreciation of the work and
character of Holyoake. They met for the first time
that I can trace in September 1850, when he returned
in deep sorrow after the fall of his Roman Republic.
He had lived in England since 1837, when his political
ardour first brought exile upon him, and he was quite
at home in our tongue and our ways ; though the dull,
gray face of London oppressed him after the radiance
of Italy, and he lived in poverty and self-denial. Dante
had long been a connecting-link between English cul-
ture and Italy, and Mazzini, an industrious and dis-
tinguished literary man, made many friends. When
the Government opened his letters in the interest of
Austria, he became more widely known and respected.
As his friends, such as Ashurst and Stansfeld, were to
a great extent Holyoake's friends, it is possible that
they met earlier. In 1847 they founded the Society of
Friends of Italy, and in the following year, when the
news of the Pope's flight reached London, Mazzini set
off exultantly for Rome. In six months his Republic
fell, owing to the treachery of Louis Napoleon, and he
was back in London. Holyoake met him in September.
236 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
He was then in his forty-fifth year : a tall, slender man,
with high forehead, and large black eyes flashing on you
unexpectedly from his grave, scholarly features features
now worn to gray sadness.
The Friends of Italy gathered about him once more,
and Holyoake met him frequently. Before long he
mastered his instinctive and ill-informed repugnance
to know a " materialist." " To my friend, G. J. Holy-
oake, with a very faint hope," he wrote in a copy of his
Duties of Man that he gave to him. His mind was of
so spiritual a texture that he was literally unable to
understand such an attitude as Holyoake's on religious
matters. He even hinted to him one day, with perfect
delicacy, that "a public man is often bound by his
past." It is a common failing of minds of his refined
type to set up theoretically a certain low standard
of character in connection with minds of a more con-
crete and logical order, and, when they meet these
characters and find them different, declare that they are
inconsistent. In the spring of 1852, and afterwards,
we often find Holyoake breakfasting with him, or dining
with him at Stansfeld's (in Fulham) or Ashurst's, or
sharing his one luxury his cigars. Mazzini never
wrote an insincere word; and the " my dear sir" of
his earlier letters to Holyoake was exchanged in time
for " my dear friend."
So many desperate causes besides that of Italy now
pleaded for aid in London that a " People's International
League" was substituted for the "Friends of Italy."
An engraved card was issued, signed by Mazzini for
Italy and Kossuth for Hungary, and thousands of
working men all over the country gladly gave their
shillings to the common fund in return for the treasured
signatures. Holyoake was already on the committee
of the League, with Cowen, Froude, Forster, Viscount
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 237
Goderich, D. Masson, Linton, Lewes, W. S. Landor,
Miall, F. Newman, and others. But Mazzini felt his
personal action to be of great importance, and appealed
to him to open the columns of the Reasoner for sub-
scriptions. This is the letter that Linton so unfortu-
nately misrepresented. That Holyoake should wait for
an appeal is intelligible enough. Mazzini's constant
strictures on Atheism and Socialism were well known
to readers of the Reasoner, and it could not be assumed
that either they or Mazzini would welcome the use of
the Reasoner in this way. Mazzini conquered his
scruples, and Holyoake had none to conquer. He in-
serted the letter in the Reasoner, and then had it neatly
printed and circulated at his own expense amongst
likely supporters. The letter reproduced in Bygones
(I, 209) is only a part of the original, and it will be
read with interest in full :
"MY DEAR SIR,
" You have once, for the Taxes on Knowledge
question, collected a very large sum by dint of Sixpences.
Could you not do the same, if your conscience approve
the scheme, for the Shilling Subscription? Could you
not at least insert the enclosed statement, 1 with a few
words of appeal, in the Reasoner?
" 1 have never made any appeal for material help
to the English public; but, once the scheme started,
I cannot conceal that I feel a great interest in its success.
The state of Europe, and the dispositions of the active
party everywhere, are such as to make us foresee that a
supreme struggle will take place between Right and
Might before a long time has elapsed, and every
1 Holyoake observes in a foot-note : "Our opinions of Mr. Mazzini's
views on Socialism we have before given in the Reasoner^ and we shall
re-discuss the subject in the same place." Mazzini, I may remark,
wrote with even more scorn of the " individualistic age." His objection
to Socialism (as then understood) was rather based on spiritual grounds,
and directed against what he regarded as the mechanical theories of
the French Socialists.
238 RELATIONS WITH MAZZIN1
additional strength imparted to militant Democracy for
that time is not to be despised. Still, the moral motive
is even more powerful with me. The scheme is known
in Italy, and will be known in Hungary ; and it would
be extremely important for me to be able to tell my
countrymen that it has not proved a failure. Ten or
twenty thousand working men, standing up in England
and bearing witness to their sympathy for our cause,
would constitute a vital fact, equally strengthening for
us and honourable for you. And I think this Shilling
Subscription one of the best and most undeniable prac-
tical means for that end. Look at the Rothschilds' loans
to absolutism ! Is it too much for European Democracy
to oppose a voluntary tax of One Shilling ?
" I know the prejudices that are creeping up amongst
a portion of the working classes since the attack of the
French Socialist leaders. It is because these prejudices
are an unjust thing, and a pernicious one to the general
movement, that I address myself to you, as one who is
influential among the deluded working men. Though
blaming what you call the violence of some of my ex-
pressions, you have felt that I might in the end be right.
I think I am. I think the time has arrived to stand
up for the great, free, collective, progressive, European
Social Thought, against narrow, despotic, individual,
stereotyping, French, Socialistic crotchets and formulae.
Many Frenchmen thought so, silently. I was bold
and careless of the results that's all. Since then my
influence amongst the Parisian working men and
I quote it as an excellent symptom has increased
in a measure astonishing even for me ; there is a
transformation going on in that element which in a
short time will show itself. All this has very little
to do with the object of my note, but I take gladly
the opportunity of adverting to it. Your working
men, and some of you, seem to be lying under a
strange delusion. What is it that you value so much
in Louis Blanc, Cabet, and others? Their own indi-
vidual solutions or systems? No. The first must be,
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 239
if read and understood, unsatisfactory to an English-
man, more than to any other man. You are, above
all, Apostles of Liberty. The second is unknown, I
dare say, to almost all who complain of my attack.
Let them read, from the first to the last page, the
Icarie and judge. Is it their love for the cause of the
People? And are we not fighting for it these twenty-
four years, and now more actively than they do? Ask
our common enemy whom they fear the most. Is it
their influence on France? They have none. They
are 200,000, divided in six or seven schools, in a
population of 35,000,000. Depend upon it, my dear
sir, there is no danger done to the cause in telling
the French people to bury their dead, and march on
with us to the highway of Humanity. I have never
in my life yielded to an impulse, and on this occasion
I have tried to fulfil a great duty.
" At all events, do the English working men believe
we are honest that we are trying to put down for
ever the two heads of European despotism, Pope
and Emperor? That we shall not do that for the
benefit of aristocracy, but of the people at large? If
so, let them be consistent, and show by some external
act that they side with us. Should you approve, you
may ask cards and statements, either from Sidney
Hawkes or from myself. We have, too, large bills.
" Ever faithfully yours,
" JOSEPH MAZZINI.
"15, Radnor St., King's Rd., Chelsea.
"June 12, 1852."
The letter was imprudent thoroughly Mazzinian.
To remind English Socialists of the fatal rift in the
revolutionary movement the division of liberals and
radicals and to discredit Holyoake's chief friend, Louis
Blanc, was a bad introduction of an appeal. Many of
Holyoake's wealthier supporters resented it on one
or other ground. W. J. Birch declined to look upon
Kossuth's cause as parallel to Mazzini's : Trevelyan
240 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINl
grumbled at Mazzini's transcendentalism. But Holy-
cake worked earnestly, and in a few months collected
9,000 shillings. Mazzini thanked him for his " noble
appeal in the Reasoner" It was not, as Linton sug-
gested, his first appeal for Italy. In 1849 he notes in
his diary a collection of seven pounds he made after
one of his lectures on the Italian question, and the
receipt of a ten pound note from J. S. Mill for the
same cause. On Christmas Eve (1852) he writes in
the diary :
" Went to Stansfeld's and Hawkes's at 9, Beaufort
St., Chelsea. Mazzini came in at n. Shook hands
with me without noticing me. But having lighted a
cigar he came to me, when I found that he did recog-
nise me, for turning to the company, he said : ' Mr.
Holyoake is the most practical man in England.' ' ;
It is the longest entry he ever made. But Mazzini
came to esteem him for other qualities than his practical
capacity. From Mazzini's numerous and cordial letters
to him I will quote only one more. It is quoted in
Bygones, but in a curtailed form. Holyoake had asked,
in 1855, if he might publish some of Mazzini's work,
and the reply was :
" DEAR SIR,
" You are welcome to any writing or fragment
of mine which you may wish to reprint in the Reasoner.
Thought, according to me, is, as soon as publicly
uttered, the property of all, not an individual one. In
this special case, it is with true pleasure that I give the
consentment you ask for. The deep esteem I entertain
for your personal character, for your sincere love of
truth, perseverance, and nobly tolerant habits, makes
me wish to do more ; and, time and events allowing, I
shall.
" But, whilst gladly granting your kind request, I feel
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 241
bound in my turn to address one to you ; and it is to
grant me the selection of the two first fragments. They
will shield my own individuality against all possible
misinterpretation, and state at once the limits within
which we do commune. These limits are political and
moral, not philosophical. We pursue the same end-
progressive improvement, association, transformation of
the corrupted medium in which we are now living, over-
throw of all idolatries, shams, lies, and convention-
alities. We both want man to be, not the poor, passive,
cowardly, phantasmagoric unreality of the actual time,
thinking in one way and acting in another, bending to
powers which he hates or despises, carrying empty
popish or thirty-nine article formulas on his breast and
none within ; but a fragment of the living truth, a real
individual being linked to collective Humanity, the bold
seeker of things to come, the gentle, mild, loving, yet
firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that is
Just and Heroic, the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet.
" We widely differ as to the how and why. You, sir,
are a Secularist : I can scarcely understand the word :
everything seems to me meaningless, worthless, unin-
telligible, unless it be a step to something higher usque
ad infinitum, a line of the everlasting Poem which
extends from the depths of creation to God. You find
before yourself a form of creed spurning earth, and you
answer by spurning heaven. Heaven and earth are to
me the two poles of the axis : I spurn neither : I want
to relink them both. You reject God as a mystery : I
feel myself surrounded by mysteries, life being the first
of all. I do not pretend to solve them, but I cannot
deny them. They are to me like rays coming down
from far distant stars which neither naked eye nor
telescope can now discover. You do not understand
Immortality : I do not understand Death. Life and
Death are to me what vigil and sleep are in this
terrestrial period of existence a successive renewal
and transformation. I find within myself an incessant
aspiration towards an ideal which I cannot realise here,
VOL. i. R
242 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
I own ; I must therefore realise it somewhere else ; and
philosophy, science, the continuous life of collective
humanity, everything around me, appears to me like a
symbolic confirmation of this intuition of my heart.
" You say with me that [the right thing is a] Religion
of Humanity ; it is, but because Humanity is God-like,
the progressive expounder of God's law, the realisation
of God's scheme, the successive embodiment of a higher
Divine ideal, of which, from epoch to epoch, we discover
a new fragment. You believe that religion is dying ;
I believe that a religion, or, rather, a form of religion,
is dying ; that a higher conception of the Ideal is dawn-
ing ; that, once reached, it will shape itself religiously,
as well as politically and scientifically. Religion the
high covenant of humanity agreeing about its own
origin, and duty cannot but, as we get a clearer insight
of these things, develop, modify, and transform itself.
We are going to substitute for the old doctrine of the
Fall the doctrine of Progression ; is there not in this
new advancing step through the sphere of the Ideal the
germ of a whole religious manifestation, if not a new
definition of life, the foundation of a collective creed?
I perceive through history undeniable traces of a Divine
educational scheme, of an intelligent providential law.
Am I not to acknowledge, love, and worship the law-
giver? Or can I admit Providence and limit its action
to one single aspect of life, to the collective, and not
to the individual, to mankind, and not to man? God,
Immortality, Progression, Religion, are, in my mind,
inseparable terms. On these is grounded my knowledge
of a law of duty and self-sacrifice, of man's mission on
earth : on these my right to educate : without these I
could only appeal to force, and establish or accept the
worship of the established fact. It is what our irre-
ligious society, issued from the negative work of the
nineteenth century, tottering between a degrading theory
of utility and a forlorn hope of temporal happiness,
between Bentham and Volney, has come to.
" I do firmly believe that all that we are now struggling,
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 243
hoping, discussing, and fighting for, is a religious ques-
tion. We want a new intellect of life ; we long to tear
off one more veil from the Ideal and to realise as much
as we can of it ; we thirst after a deeper knowledge of
what we are and of the why we are. We want a new
heaven and a new earth. We may not all be now
conscious of this ; but the whole history of mankind
bears witness to the inseparable union of these two
terms. The clouds which are now floating between our
heads and God's sky will soon vanish, and a brighter
sun shine on high. We may have to pull down the
despot, the arbitrary dispenser of grace and damnation;
but it will only be to make room for the Father and the
Educator.
" The two fragments which I send will point out the
view I take of the actual state of our European society
and some glimpses of the future, such as it appears
to me to be forthcoming. After these you will freely
choose which will best suit you and the Reasoner.
11 Ever faithfully yours,
" JOSEPH MAZZINI."
Mazzini's patient and affectionate effort so far miscarried
that, in reproducing his letter, Holyoake has omitted
the most beautiful passages. War and political in-
trigue and Co-operation were, in Holyoake's viewf best
dissociated from mystic speculations.
When the Fleet Street shop was opened, and the upper
room turned into a " Political Exchange," Holyoake
found himself a centre of insurgent activity. Anarchists,
Socialists, Radicals, and progressive Liberals Poles,
Germans, Italians, Austrians, French, and Irish-
enlivened it with polyglot rhetoric. It had a bad
name amongst its respectable neighbours. When they
decorated for war, it remained drab : when they illumin-
ated for peace, it put up defiant mottoes. Most of the
" stormy petrels" of Europe visited it at one or other
perio$ r Hplyoake had met Dornbusch and Weitling,
244 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
fugitive German communists, years before. With
Weitling he had a publishing experience analogous to
that with Kossuth ; and when he had engaged the
German, who followed the sober occupation of dress-
maker, to make a dress for Mrs. Holyoake, Weitling
disconcerted her by asking her to take off her dress so
that he could make the measurements. Dr. Arnold
Ruge, a refugee from the Frankfort Parliament, who
settled at Brighton, was another sensitive German, for
whom he published and met difficulties. In 1854, how-
ever, Ruge wrote him : " Your kindness in publishing
my little pamphlet and your friendly way in appreciating
that condensed result of a life's working will be a great
help to me." Prater was another German refugee who
incurred, and finely expressed, indebtedness to him.
The secretary of the Polish Central Democratic Com-
mittee, Worcell, wrote : " I am instructed to express to
you our gratitude and the weight which in our eyes
such a help as yours in the present European and
especially Polish crisis has for the welfare of our
cause . . . your generous heart and enlightened mind
were aware of it [the importance of the crisis] when you,
so generously, offered us your co-operation." Ledru
Rollin (member of the Provisional Government in 1848)
and Victor Schoelcher (afterwards member of the Senate)
were French fugitives who often visited 147 Fleet Street.
Of Russian insurgents Heinzen, Herzen, and Bakounin
were seen there ; and later Krapotkin, Elie Reclus, and
Karl Blind were added to the " roll-call of imprisoned
friends." Aurelio Saffi, one of the Triumvirs of the
Roman Republic, was another friend and visitor ; and
we shall see presently a much closer relationship to
Dr. Bernard and Garibaldi. Mme. Mario, the English
wife (J. Merriton White) of Alberto Mario, was a frequent
visitor at the shop, and wrote many friendly letters.
RELA T1ONS WITH MAZZIN1 245
Beyond this picturesque circle, and often invading it,
was another group of interesting foreigners. These
were the spies who came from the Continent to watch
the conspirators. Napoleon III, especially, had a large
number of spies in London in the fifties. We have seen
how one who obtained Holyoake's friendship, St. Andre,
turned out in the end to be a paid spy of the French
Emperor. Another " in whom I had more trust," he
curiously observes was an Italian major, who often
came to talk with Holyoake, and bring him little presents.
Holyoake noticed that he spent money rather freely for
a fugitive, at the Cafe d'titoile, where foreigners met,
but he acknowledges that he was " very much surprised "
when the major's name was eventually discovered, with
Andre's, on the list of the Emperor's spies. A third,
who seems to have belonged to the same fraternity, was
a young Italian, calling himself " Count Carlo di Rudio."
Like the wounds that the " major " received in the Italian
cause, Di Rudio's title was more than doubtful. He
was one of the three who took bombs to blow up
Napoleon, but he "did not get near enough" to throw
it, and escaped from the French prison with suspicious
ease. They could prove nothing against him, and they
eventually paid his passage to America. He tried to
disarm Holyoake with open confessions that he had been
tempted. " Many a day we have been without anything
to eat," he wrote, "without coal to warm us: twice
some propositions very brilliant has been offered to
me, but them was brilliant to those that have another
heart than mine." But this was in 1861, when they
knew something of traitors, and they held Di Rudio in
suspicion.
In 1857 a young Italian found four spies in a restaurant
in Panton Street, and stabbed the whole of them, with
patriotic vigour, before they could escape. Holyoake
246 RELATIONS WITH MAZZ1NI
was asked to shelter the Italian from the police for a
time. He calculated that his premises (i Woburn
Buildings) would be suitable, and offered to do so ; but,
as there was illness in the house, he wanted an assurance
that there should be no more stabbing if the police held
the young man up, and the plan had to be abandoned.
He had had some experience of spies and their ways in
the Chartist days. One of them came to a house he
was staying at with a mixture that could be poured into
the sewers of London and blow up the whole city. He
discovered afterwards that they tried the compound in
the cellar while he was taking tea in the parlour above.
This chapter would run to an inordinate length if we
attempted to follow Holyoake through all his journalistic
work and his lecturing on behalf of Poland, Italy, and
Hungary during the fifties. The general indications of
his work that we have given must suffice. But in 1857
he was induced to do a service of a remarkable kind
one dangerous in itself, and that would have brought
him into more serious collision with the law, if it had
transpired, than his impetuous speech at Cheltenham.
He was persuaded to give certain assistance in the pre-
paration of bombs. They were, it is clear, part of the
consignment of bombs that were afterwards used in an
attempt on the life of Napoleon III, and the experi-
ments that Holyoake made with them were of use to the
conspirators. Further, it is now clear, from documents
I will quote, that those for whom Holyoake acted were
quite aware of, and in sympathy with, the purpose of
the bombs ; and he would have found it difficult to
persuade a jury, knowing all the facts, that he himself
was not involved in the terrible occurrence at Paris.
The " affair of the Rue Lepelletier" will be no more
than a brief line of history in the minds of most readers
of this work, and a few introductory remarks will, I think,
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 247
be welcomed. By the year 1857 the feelings of all who
worked for the unification of Italy and the republican
cause in France were concentrated in a bitter hostility to
Napoleon III. Louis Napoleon, a rebel, Socialist, and
Carbonaro in his youth, had, by a series of cunning
appeals, ending in a coup a%z/( December 1851), obtained
despotic power in France, and had expelled 1,545 and
deported 9,769 of his most active opponents. In No-
vember 1852 he was chosen Emperor of the French.
Fugitive republicans hated him with all the hate that
such a career naturally engendered. Further, his army
alone kept the papal power intact at Rome, and frustrated
the work of Mazzini. As it was agreed that the cause of
Hungary must wait upon that of Italy, it will be under-
stood how fiercely attention was focussed on Napoleon.
Men talked freely of tyrannicide. W. Savage Landor
offered his last 100 in a London journal (the Atlas) for
the family of any man who would strike him down. 1
At this juncture a handsome, fiery young Italian
escaped from his Austrian dungeon in Italy, and came
to London. Like so many others, he found the way to
147 Fleet Street, and asked Holyoake to publish the
vivid narrative of his experiences. Holyoake directed
him to a publisher who could pay him better, but he did
not lose sight of the dark and eloquent Italian. Felice
Orsini lectured to enthusiastic audiences everywhere, but
was discouraged when there seemed to be no prospect of
a public action on the part of England following upon
the applause. He concluded, like many others, that the
1 In 1855 Napoleon visited London, and drove through the City.
Holyoake begged his more violent friends to refrain from making a
demonstration on the ground that he was " the Queen's guest." But
he put up an eight-feet long placard before his shop, announcing the
Rcasoner^ with articles by Mazzini and others. The Emperor put his head
out of his carriage and read it. Truelove got into trouble with the police
again through the visit. " The course of Truelove never did run
smooth," said Holyoake.
248 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
influence of Napoleon, who visited Osborne at the time,
obsessed England, just as his army guarded the Pope.
He quitted England at the end of 1857, a d on January
i4th, 1858, as the Emperor and Empress were driving
along the Rue Lepelletier to the opera, three bombs were
thrown at them. They escaped, but ten people were
killed and 156 wounded. The assailants were Orsini,
Fieri, Gomez, and Di Rudio. Orsini and Fieri were
executed. Dr. Bernard, a French physician living at
London and active in insurgent circles, a friend or
Holyoake's, was tried for complicity, but escaped con-
viction. T. Allsop, another friend of Holyoake's, was
sought by the police, and a reward of 200 offered for
his apprehension.
That is a brief outline of the occurrence, and I am now
able to fill it in with details, some of which could not be
made public while any of those concerned still lived.
Allsop deliberately co-operated in Orsini's plot. Dr.
Bernard co-operated still more intimately. Hodge was
perfectly cognisant of, and active in, the plot. And
Holyoake, though he was not in their explicit counsels,
co-operated in a lesser degree.
In one of the most amusing chapters of his Sixty
Years (ch. Ix) he tells how he took loaded bombs to
various parts of the country to test them. They were
round shells, four or five inches in diameter, with little
nipples sticking out " like porcupine quills" all over
them, percussion caps on the nipples, and an explosive
of fearful repute inside the shells. He took them to his
home, carrying one in each side-pocket, " lest coming
into collision with each other they might give me pre-
mature trouble." He packed them in a brief-bag at
home, and Mrs. Holyoake one wonders how much she
knew found a safe place for it. He had to travel to
Sheffield for a lecture on the following day, and he took
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 249
them with him. He carried his bag cautiously to the
station, where he transferred the shells to his pockets, and
sat with eyes very alert during the long, slow journey
north. One bump against a hard substance would have
ended his story prematurely. He watched his bag care-
fully in his lodging, took it with him morning and evening
to the lectures, and kept it on the table before him. If
he put it down, one chance kick might have dispatched
them all. Was ever lecture given under such circum-
stances before?
But his adventures may be read in his own account.
On the Monday he left one bomb under the mattress, and
took the other into the country for experiment. He
wandered all day without finding a suitable road, but on
the Tuesday he found a disused quarry and flung it
from the top. When an inquisitive person appeared, at
the roar, he drew him in a different direction, to see if
they could find " cannon" anywhere; and at night,
when he returned to look for fragments, he found that
the explosion had been drastic enough to leave no trace
of the shells. He wrote an unsigned note to London :
" My two companions behaved as well as could be
expected. One has said nothing ; perhaps through not
having an opportunity. The other, being put upon
his mettle, went off in high dudgeon. He was heard
of immediately after, but has not since been seen."
He returned warily to town with the second bomb, and
was requested to take it to Devonshire for a trial. In a
house, known as "The Den," in Devon, he says, there
" dwelt one who had the courage for any affair advancing
the war of liberty." They found a solitary road, and
Holyoake flung it from behind a stone wall, but it stuck
in the soil, and a wayfarer nearly found him gingerly
extracting it. Eventually they fired two bombs, and he
reported to town :
250 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
" Leniency of treatment was quite thrown away upon
our two companions. As a man makes his bed, so he
must lie upon it ; still, out of consideration, we wished it
to be not absolutely hard. But that did just no good
whatever. The harder treatment had to be tried ; and I
am glad to say it proved entirely successful. But nothing
otherwise would do."
The point of these experiments was to ascertain the
degree of hardness necessary in the ground on which they
were to be thrown. Holyoake says that he was told that
they were to be used in the warfare in Italy. Whatever
we may think of his own suspicions, we have his word
that neither he nor Mazzini was told the real destination
of the bombs. But he acknowledges that he received them
from Dr. Bernard at Ginger's Hotel, near Westminster
Bridge. He had been asked, as one with mechanical
knowledge, to examine their construction. A letter that
the police obtained showed that Thomas Allsop had
ordered the making of the bombs at Birmingham, alleging
that they were parts of some new gas-fittings ; and as the
letter was dated from Ginger's Hotel, we know that Allsop
was there with Bernard and Holyoake. The evidence
in regard to Bernard I will give presently, but will first
run through Allsop's letters to Holyoake in 1858 which
have never been published.
Allsop, a cultivated business man with whom Coleridge
dined every Sunday for many years, is one of those
execrable penmen whom Holyoake describes as " the
natural and ready-made secretaries of secret societies."
As he, in addition, often used the thinnest paper, crossed
his letters like a lady of the last generation, rarely dated
them, and spoke a cryptic dialect on this dangerous
subject, one does not follow him easily. But there are
passages enough, and plain enough, to show that he was
wholly with Orsini in his enterprise. "The Den," at
RELATIONS WITH MAZZIN1 251
Teignmouth, Devonshire, was a house taken by Allsop.
An early letter to Holyoake runs :
" This is a delightful place. You should come here
though, to judge from the sledge-hammer force exhibited
in your whole bearing when I last saw you on the Bir-
mingham platform, you would better bear reducing than
invigorating. However, it is very beautiful, and I do
not see why the Devil should not have moments of
enjoyment."
In a letter dated 24th December (apparently 1857), he
says: " Many thanks for your remembrance. I am
glad that the visits to our hills and moors has resulted
satisfactorily." This seems to refer to the Sheffield
experiment. A fragment cut from another letter asks :
" Can I do anything for you at Exeter? Can I confirm
the out-and-outer at Starcross? I sadly miss your horrid
atheism." And on December 25th: " Can I facilitate
your advent here? i.e. at Exeter or at Plymouth.
Remember I am interested."
However, the letters that follow are more decisive.
Orsini's attempt was made on January I4th, 1858. As it
was known that he came from London, a storm of indig-
nation raged in the French press. Colonels of regiments
wrote demanding an invasion of " the land of impurity
which contains the haunts of the monsters who are
sheltered by its laws," and the French minister made an
official request for some Government action. Dr. Bernard
was put on his trial, and inquiry at Birmingham put the
police in possession of the letter in which Allsop ordered
the bombs to be made by an engineer whom he knew.
Allsop fled, and the Government offered 200 (not 500,
as stated in the Dictionary of National Biography) for
information of his whereabouts.
Allsop had gone to New Mexico (Santa Fe), and he
wrote from there to Holyoake on March ist and for some
252 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
months. In these letters, sent through a friend and
delivered by hand to Holyoake, he makes no secret of
his interest in Orsini's action. He speaks with scorn
of " that arrogant and insolent Lord Derby" and of
Clarendon, and those who pressed the analogy of a
possible attempt on the life of the Queen. " The essential
difference is that little Vicky has never had the oppor-
tunity to play the tyrant, and therefore is safe from all
attacks which are reserved for the evildoer. I need not
say that if it were possible that she should ape his
rascality, she would be exposed to his fate." He is
delighted that " Joseph" [Mazzini?] has " justified
Orsini." It makes amends for "all his mysticism."
" Do not," he says, in another letter, "think, speak, or
act as though Orsini's attempt was a failure. It was, is,
and will be, a mighty success." In June he writes :
"The not merely possible but probable consequences of
Orsini's attempt bid fair to make the i4th of January
more celebrated than the 2nd of December. If I were
amongst you, I would get up a celebration of that day
by means of an anniversary meeting to celebrate his
birth day. . . . What a glorious opportunity for Mazzini
to preside and to address the meeting in honour of the
[unintelligible] and martyr." He begs Holyoake to
publish discreet quotations in his journals in favour of
tyrannicide. " I suppose the people who keep gigs look
upon tyrannicide as a dreadful crime." Holyoake is to
quote Brutus on tyranny from Gibbon. "It is wholly
applicable" he says; and he asks "Is the assassin yet
alive, and, if so, why?" In another letter he says that
he is sending a pamphlet which shows that to kill a
tyrant, who is also an atrocious traitor, is not only
"moral" but an "absolute duty"; and there are
frequent references to "the midnight-murderer of
December 2nd," "miscreant," and so forth.
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 253
There is no mention of innocent " gas-fittings," or
even of " Italian warfare," in this secret correspondence.
The bombs were meant to kill Napoleon III, and Allsop
only regrets that they failed. Holyoake knew this at
least from March 1848, and has never denied it. Mrs.
Allsop wrote to Holyoake asking his help to remove
the " stigma" from the family. " The shells, we all
know, were intended for a very different purpose," she
says, and " it is a monstrous thing to be accused of."
She was allowed to retain her impression. But from the
first Allsop declared that he was willing to face a trial,
if he were secured against heavy expense. Holyoake
and another friend (B. Langley), therefore, audaciously
offered to give up Allsop, if the Government would
promise them the ^200 for use in his defence. On June
1 6th Mr. Secretary Walpole wrote them that " the Two
hundred pounds offered by the Government in the case
referred to in your letter has not been withdrawn." They
set themselves vigorously to fan the popular feeling that
the British Government was " truckling to a foreigner," a
tyrant, etc. , and on July 1 2th they received another letter :
" GENTLEMEN,
" I am directed by Mr. Secretary Walpole to
inform you that since the date of my answer to your
application of the gth ult. the Law Officers of the Crown
have been consulted, and have expressed an opinion that
it is not advisable to take any further steps in the
prosecution against Mr. Allsop. The Government have
consequently determined to put an end to the proceedings
against that gentleman, and to withdraw the offer of a
reward for his apprehension."
Allsop returned, on September i7th, grateful and un-
repentant. "Many and heartfelt thanks from the poor
proscrit to the horrid atheist for his genial, gentle, and
most gracious consideration," he wrote. He talked of
254 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
the " blood now shed, and yet to be shed," and said:
"It is useless to disguise the truth : we are about to
enter into a crusade compared to which all that has gone
before is child's play. The next man to devote himself
will succeed." Holyoake seems to have reminded him
of the loss of innocent lives (which he never notices), as
he writes playfully: " After all, you are the worst.
What is the evil done by an assassin who only kills the
body compared to that inflicted by a horrid atheist who
kills the soul?" He retained a deep affection for Holy-
oake ; and Mrs. Allsop, whose hospitality was famous,
often entertained Mrs. Holyoake. 1
With Dr. Bernard we must deal more briefly. A
careful reader of Holyoake's chapters on the affair will
see that he never acquits Allsop and Bernard. He
pointedly disclaims knowledge on the part of Mazzini
and himself alone, and says that, "if there was any
thought of operating in Paris," at the time when he
received the bombs, "the design was only known to the
six persons ultimately concerned." There certainly was
such a design ; and the six persons seem to have been
Allsop, Bernard, Hodge (whom Allsop describes as
"secreted in Devonshire or Somersetshire"), Orsini,
Fieri, and Di Rudio. Allsop's letters often mention
Bernard, but never suggest that he is wrongly charged.
There is, however, an anonymous French work on the
subject, La Verite sur Orsini, which, although its pages
generally have a reckless and undiscriminating aspect,
describes the preparations for the outrage in terms that
engender a feeling of authenticity. 2
1 Holyoake is curiously wrong in saying (Sixty Years, II, 73) that
Allsop was in exile two years. He left England in February 1858, and
was back in September of the same year.
2 The work was published shortly after the fall of Napoleon III, and
is, moreover, a fierce attack on the Emperor ; it has no French bias
against Bernard.
RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI 255
The author says that Orsini saw some bombs in a
Belgian museum, and got a carpenter to make him a
model of them. On this he designed additional nipples,
and then gave it to Allsop, who ordered five to be made
by Taylor, of Birmingham. They were in two sizes, so
that no difficulty arises from Holyoake's saying that he
saw fragments of the Paris shells very tiny fragments
they must have been, when three bombs inflicted 516
wounds and they were not the same as those entrusted
to him. The five bombs were delivered to Allsop at the
beginning of November. Orsini went to Brussels with
Allsop's passport, and a Swiss waiter, Georgi, followed
him with the upper halves of the shells. Bernard made
a solemn declaration at his trial that the shells taken by
Georgi to Brussels were not the ones used by Orsini, and
that he knew nothing of Orsini's intention. From
Allsop's letters and Holyoake's reticence we must con-
clude that Bernard was in the plot, and the dates alone
show that the bombs were the same. We may therefore
follow with interest the French writer's circumstantial
account. Bernard first secured that arms should be avail-
able for Orsini at Paris, by an astute arrangement with a
Parisian merchant. Then he went to Brussels himself
with the upper halves of the bombs Holyoake says they
were in sections at Ginger's Hotel and the explosive.
Orsini put them together on the way to Paris. Bernard,
an able physician, was also an experienced conspirator.
He had faced eight prosecutions before he came to
England, and this was not his first prosecution in
England. But his advocate, Edwin James, made an
impassioned appeal to the jury to in a word give a
defiant British answer to the French Government, and
they acquitted Bernard. He was fortunate. It will be
noticed that Holyoake speaks coldly of him. Possibly
he remembered that amongst his correspondence are
256 RELATIONS WITH MAZZINI
letters from the north accusing Dr. Bernard and his
lecture-agent of systematic swindling.
The second Englishman in the plot was Mr. Hodge, a
republican politician of the time. One fact will be
sufficient to indicate his complicity, and it confirms the
case in regard to Allsop and Bernard. In 1860 Hodge
(as we shall see) lent Holyoake and a London Committee
one thousand pounds to meet pressing expenses in regard
to the Garibaldi Legion. It was publicly notified as a
loan from " a friend of Orsini." But in the letter before
me Hodge carelessly asks to have it notified as coming
from " a member of the old firm of January i4th."
Other adventures that arose out of this remarkable
experience of Holyoake's must be deferred for the present.
We must turn now to a more constitutional fight that he
was conducting simultaneously with those described in
this and the preceding chapter. This was the struggle
for the abolition of the press-stamp, in which he played
a prominent and even hazardous part.
CHAPTER XII
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
THE first plea that Holyoake made when he found at
his disposal a journal of wider influence than his own
sectarian organ was a plea for the abolition of the press-
stamp. In the first issue of the Leader , on March 3Oth,
1850, he wrote:
" When I was working in a factory I first heard that
phrase, indigenous, I believe, to political economy, a
' glut in the market.' Neither myself nor my co-workers
understood it beyond this that it meant having nothing
to do at the beginning of the week and nothing to eat at the
end. Naturally stimulated to correct at least the culinary
part of the defalcation, we had recourse to combination,
and, as wages fell, we sought to raise them by strikes.
These were as fruitless in effect as they were fallacious in
theory. Knowing no better, we still went on sowing
anxiety and reaping disappointment. All this time, as I
have since learned, many newspapers were writing wise
words for our enlightenment, but their cost kept them
from us."
This passage clearly expresses the motive that informed
his vigorous share in the struggle for the abolition
of the newspaper-stamp. There is, perhaps, no other
part of his work on which a more general verdict of
utility would be passed to-day. No one now regrets that
taxation has ceased to hamper the free development of
the press. Holyoake enlisted his pen in its cause at a
time when few men in the country saw the iniquity
VOL. i. 257 s
258 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
and the social evil of the stamp ; and in the tensest
hours of the struggle he was engaged by his colleagues
to undertake for it perilous duties that few dared to
assume. The readers of the cheap journals of our time
should follow with some interest the brilliant and adven-
turous campaign by which the field was won for them
fifty years ago.
The " taxes on knowledge " to use the effective phrase
that Leigh Hunt so happily invented were a very serious
hindrance to the enlightenment of the people when
Holyoake first entered public life. The gross illiteracy
of the workers was being reduced by the spread of ele-
mentary schools ; but books were dear and comparatively
scarce, and the press, on which they must mainly depend
for political and social guidance, was hampered by three
heavy taxes. A considerable duty was laid on the paper
before a single type was impressed on it ; a tax of
three shillings and sixpence (shortly reduced to one
shilling and sixpence) was levied on each advertisement ;
and a further tax of fourpence was exacted on every issue
of a periodical publication. Sixpence-halfpenny was the
lowest price at w^ich a paper could be legally and profit-
ably issued, and the force of this disability will be appre-
ciated when we remember the low wage of the workers
for several decades after Waterloo. The papers of the
gentry might pass tardily through the servants' halls
into the hands of the artisans or peasants, or they might
club their farthings to buy a two or three days' old paper
from town. But it was only the novelty of being able to
read at all and the fierce political life of the time that
sustained their interest under such conditions. It is, in
fact, maintained by the secretary and historian of the
movement, C. D. Collet, that these taxes were largely
imposed, or at least augmented, for the express purpose
of withholding knowledge from the workers. Devised
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 259
originally in the reign of Anne as a war-tax, the paper-
stamp was raised from one halfpenny to fourpence by the
Georges, and the most drastic penalties were imposed for
infringement or evasion of the law. Any person could
arrest a hawker who sold unstamped papers, and would
gain a reward of twenty shillings, while a fine of 20
for each copy of the paper was imposed on those who
printed, published, or merely had in their possession,
unstamped periodicals. Newspaper-proprietors had to
provide heavy securities of good behaviour, and the
makers of type had to furnish the Government with rigid
lists of their customers.
Happily there were from the first men of spirit and
courage who scorned the penalties, and through these
Holyoake was initiated to the "holy war." The most
famous of these rebels were Richard Carlile and Henry
Hetherington, who had great influence on Holyoake.
Moved by the conviction of an unstamped paper in 1831,
Hetherington at once announced a penny weekly with
the title of the Poor Man's Guardian. Popular publishers
had hitherto been content to evade the law. The rugged
spirit of Hetherington gave open defiance. * * Established
contrary to law " he boldly inscribed on his paper ; and
in the place of the red Government stamp he put a black
one. The widespread interest in the passing of the
Reform Bill gave importance to his efforts, and hundreds
of poor men risked their liberty in the collision with the
police. Twice in six months the authorities sent smiths
to break up Hetherington's press and strip his shop.
The Times described him as one " familiar with the inside
of every jail in the kingdom " ; and his manoeuvres to
keep his paper in circulation his disguises, his sending
out of bogus parcels by the front door, while the precious
Guardian left by the back, and so on make a diverting
story of heroism. For three years he fought the Board
2 6o THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
of Revenue ; 500 men went to jail for selling his paper ;
and the battle only ended with a jury's verdict a quite
illegal verdict that the Guardian was not liable to the tax.
In 1836 the stamp was reduced to one penny by the
reformed Parliament, and from that and other causes the
agitation subsided until 1849. During this period Holy-
oake entered upon his journalistic work. The Oracle,
Movement, and Reasonerborz no stamp, but ran no serious
risk. The Board of Inland Revenue, with the elusive
task before it of defining what was or was not a news-
paper, and the still more difficult task of crushing impe-
cunious rebels who regarded committal as an honour,
had dropped into a pleasant torpor as far as popular
propagandist weeklies were concerned. The paper-duty
alone brought in three-quarters of a million yearly, and
the large dailies paid another ^"300,000 in stamp-fees,
besides the tithe on advertisements. The officials were
content to protect these honest traders of the journalistic
world from serious competition, and were not disposed
to notice small journals, with scanty fragments of sect-
arian news, like the Reasoner. The average price of a
daily newspaper was now fivepence, and the proprietors
still had to find security against indulgence in political
libel or blasphemy.
The active campaign was renewed in 1848, when a
fresh wave of political interest poured over the country.
In 1846, when the Corn Laws were abolished, Cobden
and the other orators of the League were free to turn to
new work. Financial reform appealed to Cobden, and
in 1848 he framed an ideal budget, which abolished the
paper-duty and advertisement-tax, but left the penny
stamp untouched. The advertisement-tax had been the
subject of attack from a different quarter for many years.
Mr. John Francis, editor of the Athenceum (father of the
present editor), had formed an association for the repeal
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 261
of the still heavy tax of is. 6d. on each advertisement,
and led the agitation with great judgment and public
spirit for more than twenty years. But the omission of
the stamp-tax from Cobden's ideal budget was discussed
by Holyoake and his friends on the Chartist Council,
and in January 1849 they put themselves in communi-
cation with him. Mr. Collet, from whose History of the
Taxes on Knowledge I take the outline of the story,
confesses that the Chartists were anxious that middle-
class agitators like Cobden, Bright, and Fox should not
secure another great victory independently of the workers.
Holyoake, we saw, was at this time eager for the co-
operation of the middle class with the more sober of the
workers, and the new scheme was entirely to his mood.
He had himself edited a paper in 1848 in evasion of
the stamp-law. In the actual state of the law the stamp
carried with it the privilege of free postage hence,
largely, the reluctance of some enlightened statesmen
to see a grievance in it and the postal regulations of
1840 had extended the privilege of free transmission to
journals published in the Channel Islands or the Isle of
Man, which escaped the stamp-law. Linton and Holy-
oake therefore brought out their Cause of the People at
Douglas, as we saw. But its career was brief, and the
growth of similar publications led to an alteration of the
postal regulations.
With the year 1850 the campaign entered on the
brilliant and entertaining stage that was to lead to
victory. Cobden complied with the Chartist appeal to
include the abolition of the stamp. Indeed, the rest
of his budget soon fell out of notice, and the fight raged
about the " taxes on knowledge." The Chartist Council
supplied men like Collet, Watson, and Moore, of long
experience in defying unjust laws ; and these, with
veteran tacticians like Francis Place and spokesmen like
262 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP
Cobden, formed a " Newspaper-stamp Abolition Com-
mittee." A few months after its formation Holyoake,
J. Stansfeld, and George Dawson were added, and in
a short time its crowded list of speakers included J.
Bright, W. J. Fox, Milner Gibson, J. Hume, and most
of the famous orators of the Corn Law agitation and the
Radical party. Their tireless secretary, Collet, took a
two-roomed attic in Essex Street one room to sleep in
and one for an office and opened the siege of Somerset
House. No secretary was ever more fertile in devices ;
and few secretaries have had so judicious and experienced
a Council to control and improve their devices. But I
must restrict myself to Holyoake's adventurous share in
their spirited campaign.
As we saw in regard to the Co-operative movement,
his journalistic service here also was incessant and
important. Few papers the Atkenceum and the Daily
News were honourable exceptions had a sufficiently
clear judgment of the situation, or sufficient trust in an
educated people, to assist in the work of breaking their
own fetters. Holyoake's insistence in the Reasoner and
the Leader was felt to be of value. " The most encourag-
ing event recorded," says Mr. Collet, in the first year of
the campaign, " was that the Reasoner, always animated
by G. J. Holyoake's genial personality, combined
with its editorial support of the cause the collection of
expenses to the amount of nearly n t afterwards made
up to ^25, for our funds." 1 But the concerting of plans
with Collet for the irritation of the Commissioners of
Stamps was a more fruitful service. The easy and
indulgent inconsistency of the officials was soon shaken
with pitiless onslaughts. The Committee would dis-
cover some provincial newspaper, whose sin of omitting
1 History of the Taxes on Knowledge, I, 99. The work has a preface by
Holyoake, and was published in 1899.
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 263
the stamp had been genially overlooked, and force it
on the attention of the officials. Then, when the heavy
penalties of the law were fulminated against the pro-
vincial editor, Collet and his friends would put up one
of their members to ask in the House why Punch, or the
Athenceum, or the Builder, was suffered to evade the law,
and insignificant papers were visited so severely. At
another time they would induce friendly editors to ask
the Board why they were compelled to stamp their
whole issues, while 51 journals on the enclosed list
supplied by Collet published news in stampless im-
punity, or stamped only the part of their issues that was
to go by post. Then they would write of the perplexities
and inconsistencies of the Board in every available
medium, until they had generated a feeling of contempt
for the tax. When, at the close of 1850, they forced
the Board to take action against Dickens's Household
Narrative of Current Events, which was unstamped, they
excited indignation in its vast circle of readers.
At the beginning of 1851 Holyoake was selected by
the Council to defeat the plan of a rival association for
the prior repeal of the paper-duty. John Bright, though
personally friendly to Holyoake, thought the selection
impolitic. " We might be described by the enemy as a
society of atheists," he said. But Cobden said he was
ready to " accept the assistance of the devil in a justifi-
able enterprise," and Collet hints that they thought
Holyoake particularly qualified in tact and amiability
to move a hostile resolution without the semblance of
hostility. The meeting, which was held at the London
Tavern on January 2nd (1851), was chiefly supported
by paper-manufacturers and newspaper-proprietors.
Borthwick of the Morning Post and other editors and
proprietors had formed an association for the repeal of
the paper-duty, and the opponents of the stamp were
264 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
unwilling to wait until this very heavy impost was
remitted by the Government. Holyoake's work was,
therefore, to propose an amendment to their resolution,
and make arrangements for its success.
To the extreme discomfiture of the conveners of the
meeting he secured his object. " In an uncompromising
speech," says Mr. Collet, " he declared that the question
should not appear as one affecting a trade, but should
rest on the dignity of a public principle." Collet and
Milner Gibson followed him, and the feeling of the
audience was made very apparent ; Holyoake and Collet
had, in fact, whipped up their Chartist and Socialist
followers for that express purpose. The chairman saw
that his friends were defeated. He took Holyoake's
amendment as a rider to the original resolution, and it was
carried with one dissentient. The cause of the separate
paper-duty was killed at one blow. It had been intended
that this should be the first of a series of meetings. It
was the first and the last. Holyoake merely notices that
Francis Place declared his speech " capital," and even
the Times praised it. The Times (Jan. 3rd) stated that
he moved his amendment in " a speech of some ability."
The rest of the year 1851 was spent in propaganda
and in reorganising the Association. It reappeared in
May as the " Association for Promoting the Repeal
of the Taxes on Knowledge," with Milner Gibson as
president, Francis Place treasurer, and Cobden, Bright,
Cassell, Passmore Edwards, W. Ewart, Holyoake, J.
Hume, Thornton Hunt, Larken, Lewes, and other
brilliant workers, on its Council, and the agitation
rippled over the country. We do not find any promi-
nent action of Holyoake's until 1854, though he was
assiduous on the Council and in the press. No doubt
he was mainly instrumental in one of their chief ventures
in 1852, when they induced a friend and contributor of
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 265
his, Frank Grant, to run a defiant journal in the Mid-
lands. Grant, the son of a clergyman, confined to his
couch by paralysis, was a young fellow of remarkable
spirit and rebellious temper. In December (1851) the
long-delayed trial of Dickens's Household Narrative had
taken place, 1 and the jury had increased the confusion of
the revenue officials by acquitting the paper. A con-
viction would have better pleased the conspirators, but
they soon found a way to profit by the acquittal. Within
two months of the Dickens verdict Mr. Timm, the
solicitor to the Board of Inland Revenue, received from
his tormentors a copy of the Stoke-on- Trent Narrative of
Current Events, edited by Frank Grant. It not only
copied Dickens's title, but boldly declared itself published
" by authority of the Dickens verdict." Mr. Timm
tried his usual threat of the heavy penalties incurred,
which generally ended such affairs with a small payment
and a hasty retreat, but the paralysed youth defied him.
Mr. Timm decided to overlook the matter, and could
not be drawn, even when they sent their solicitor, Mr.
Ashurst, to accept service of any writ he cared to issue.
More questions in Parliament and more ridicule in the
press increased the discomfort of Mr. Timm. At last
(February 1853) they arranged with Grant to issue a
still more defiant weekly, the Potteries Free Press, and
the Commissioners took action. They summoned the
London publisher, Truelove, for selling a copy of it.
The Association had the case taken up in the Court of
Exchequer, and the verdict was given for the Crown.
It served their purpose, as it put Somerset House once
more in a ridiculous position.
1 It is well to note that, whereas Holyoake says the paper was sus-
pended during the long interval, and Dickens lost 4,000 a year, Collet
makes a point of the fact that it was not suspended ; whereas other
periodicals were. Holyoake had a " thousand threepences " subscription
for Grant in the Reasoncr,
266 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
In the spring of 1853 the first victory was won by the
repeal of the advertisement-tax. Milner Gibson, the
Parliamentary leader of the movement, a " debonnaire
country squire" working cordially with Chartists and
Radicals, made a vain effort to repeal it in April. He
wrote to Holyoake on the morning of his motion in the
House :
"MY DEAR SIR,
" I intended to have written to you a few days
since to have expressed the pleasure I had experienced
in reading your two letters in the Leader. I have not
seen the last Leader to know whether you have inserted a
third. We must make up our minds now to strike while
the iron is hot [while Gladstone's budget was in prepara-
tion], and to worry them out of that stamp. It may be
done, I am persuaded, in that way, and the Board of
Inland Revenue, from what I hear, begin to show
decided symptoms of ' punishment.'
" I dread the proposal to-night of a reduction instead of
a repeal of the advertisement-duty. However, we may
perhaps hear what is to be taken off after the vote of the
House on Thursday.
" Yours ever faithfully,
"Tnos. MILNER GIBSON."
Gibson was defeated, and Mr. Gladstone carried his
reduction of the advertisement-tax from -is. 6d. to 6d. on
July 2 1 st. Contented ministers and their followers went
home to dine, and then there ensued one of those dra-
matic episodes that enliven the history of the House of
Commons. Mr. E. H. J. Crawfurd, member for the Ayr
Burghs, seeing that the Government's supporters were
now in a minority in the House, moved that a cipher be
substituted for the figure 6 in the Budget. It was put to
the vote and carried, and, to the laughter of London and
the wrath of the Government, the Budget was passed
with a tax of " o os. CK/." on advertisements. " See the
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 267
conquering zero comes,'* men chanted at Crawfurd's club
when he came in. Collet says that Milner Gibson was
the real deviser of this famous piece of parliamentary
strategy.
The war on the press-stamp was now prosecuted with
greater vigour and resource than ever. Gladstone had
relieved monthlies from the tax, and the Association
induced the editors of four monthlies at Wigan and four
at Dunfermline to bring out their papers in successive
weeks, so as to make a virtual weekly. The Lord Mayor
of London issued a large placard on the Crimean war,
which had then broken out, and the Association threat-
ened to draw legal penalties on him if he issued a second
within a month, because he was publishing news. They
induced Mr. Novello, now their treasurer and a colleague
of great value, to bring out his Musical Times fortnightly,
and send Mr. Timm a copy ; and when the secretary of
the Board kept silent, Mr. Novello sent persistent in-
quiries about his position, saying that his friends were
anxious about the risks he ran. But the year 1854 was
chiefly occupied with an enterprise in which Holyoake
played a leading part, and we must be content to
consider this.
The Council of the Association felt that a more drastic
irritation of the Board was needed, and Holyoake offered
his services. First he worried the authorities with his
little Reasoner, which they had found it convenient to
overlook. He applied for the stamp for the Reasoner,
and was told that it was not a newspaper. His solicitors
then applied to the Post Office to know if the Rea,oner
could be transmitted in the ordinary way of journals by
post, and were told that it could do so if it bore the news-
paper-stamp, which the Postmaster-General suggested
they could obtain by making a simple declaration that
it was a newspaper. Holyoake then made a dignified
268 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
appeal to the Treasury for advice. Was it possible that
he could only secure justice by making a false declaration
that the Reasoner was a newspaper, when the officials had
assured him it was not ? He enclosed a list of seven-
teen trade-circulars and papers three of them ecclesiasti-
cal journals, quite analogous to his own from the legal
point of view which made this false declaration and
secured the postal privilege. The indignity of the whole
proceedings must have impressed a man like Gladstone,
who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but this
particular difficulty was met by fresh postal regulations.
Meantime, Holyoake was taunting Mr. Timm with his
failure to prosecute the Reasoner, which he was now
willing to stamp for postal purposes, and action was
promised ; though when it was found that Holyoake,
having the freedom of the City, must be brought before
the Lord Mayor (who was opposed to press-prosecutions)
the matter had to be dropped.
But a more crucial test was needed, and, Mr. Collet
says, " we got our friend Mr. Holyoake to publish a
weekly paper with the object of testing the blank-space
question." To leave a page or more of a newspaper
blank was one of the familiar devices for evading the
complicated regulations of the Board, and a provincial
proprietor had been mulcted by the Board for using it.
The Fleet Street Advertiser, which Holyoake brought out
to test it, was a humorous production. It consisted of
two pages, one of which was blank, and the other con-
tained the same news week by week in varied order. Its
only customer was the Revenue officer, who bought six
copies every Saturday morning. But it was allowed to
run from June to December without consequences, and
served to illustrate the ridiculous plight of Somerset
House.
Then came the decisive experiment. The Crimean
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 269
War had broken out, and the demand for news evoked a
crop of illegitimate newspapers. These were dispersed
by a shower of writs from Somerset House, and the
Association took up the challenge. It was decided to
issue four monthly chronicles in four successive weeks
of the month, and Holyoake undertook to publish them.
Pigott, the proprietor of the Leader, and other men of
means refused very naturally to expose their fortunes
to the very obvious risk involved in an experiment of
this kind, and Holyoake was willing to make the sacrifice
of his liberty and stock. A 20 fine on every copy of a
paper would soon reach a ruinous sum, and imprison-
ment, with the loss of whatever he possessed, seemed
the inevitable penalty. With lively recollections of his
former prison experience he kept a warm cloak and some
refreshments under his counter, and took his place as
salesman of the dangerous papers. Austin Holyoake
was ready to take his place when he was removed by
the police. In December 1854 he began with the issue
of Collet's War Chronicle, and this was followed on suc-
cessive Saturdays by Moore's War Chronicle, Hoppey's
War Chronicle, and The War Chronicle. He would
not allow any of his assistants to sell the papers, and
his solicitors obtained a reluctant promise from the
Government that they would not prosecute any other
person until Holyoake himself was put on trial in the
Court of Exchequer. Gladstone, whom they interviewed,
said that " he knew Mr. Holyoake's intention was to try
the law, not to break it." In addition to these nominal
monthlies, Holyoake issued a halfpenny War Fly Sheet,
and bombarded Somerset House with defiant declarations.
During the weeks that these papers were issued Holy-
oake was liable to the penalties that Hetherington had so
often incurred. His presses might be broken up, all his
books taken away, and he himself incur a long term of
270 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
imprisonment. It was not twelve months since he had
opened his " Fleet Street House," and there were heavy
liabilities attached to it. Every penny of his money had
gone into the business, and his wife and four children
depended wholly on his weekly income. I stress these
considerations, because the light and entertaining way in
which he has written of these things in his autobiographic
chapters tends to hide from us the gravity of his position.
He was prepared to make a great sacrifice, without any
guarantee of indemnity from the Association. Yet it
seems that even in the midst of his danger he kept a
light and mirthful pen. Before many weeks a writ came
summoning him before the Court of Exchequer on
January 3ist (1855), and threatening him with the full
penalty of 20 for each number of the War Chronicle
and War Fly Sheet he issued. It was computed in the
end that he issued 30,000 copies, so that the penalties on
this count alone amounted to ^600,000 ; while he had
incurred fines of ^"2,280 on the copies of the Fleet Street
Advertiser, sold to the Revenue officer, and a good million
on the Reasoner, if they cared to prosecute that journal.
The solicitors to the Association took up the writ, but no
case was entered. There was clearly trouble at Somerset
House and Westminster. Collet says that the authorities
had "too much good sense to take advantage of Mr.
Holyoake's courage and public spirit." Elsewhere he
relates that when they interviewed Gladstone and the
Attorney General on the subject of the trial, Sir Alexan-
der Cockburn was heard to say : " God forbid that my
name should be connected with the prosecution of any
newspaper." On the other hand, Mr. Timm was now
complaining bitterly of a tax that only brought in
^"300,000 a year, yet cost more trouble to collect than all
the rest of the revenue.
Holyoake pushed on the campaign with spirit as he
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 271
noted the enfeeblement of the enemy. He put a large
and conspicuous placard in front of his shop, headed :
"Sham war against the unstamped press," and setting
forth that, "though diplomatic relations between Fleet
Street and Downing Street were suspended," he doubted
if there would be an effective "blockade." The atmo-
sphere, it must be remembered, was full of military phrases
on account of the Crimean War. Gladstone announced in
January that he would repeal the stamp-tax, and Collet
and his friends ceased to issue their Chronicles ; though
Holyoake continued to print his weekly Fly Sheet until the
royal assent to the repeal was given. His policy was
right, as the ministry was defeated in February, and
Gladstone's successor, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, was
disposed to alter the measure that Gladstone had intro-
duced, and insisted on retaining the Securities-system.
Holyoake wrote to the Treasury that, as it was impossible
for him and many other editors to declare themselves
worth ^400, as the Securities-system demanded, he con-
sidered the Bill that had been introduced for his relief
to be abandoned, and would take action against some
of the papers that evaded or transgressed the law. His
solicitors (always Mr. Ashurst's firm) drew up an
indictment and procured ample evidence, but the Grand
Jury concluded that these papers evaded the law with
the connivance of the Government, and ought not to
be penalised.
At the same time, however, the new Chancellor of the
Exchequer promised to modify his restrictions. Involved
in a maze of petitions, threats, and suggestions, with a
clear prospect of renewed fighting on the part of the
Association, he abandoned his obnoxious amendments.
Holyoake was in the House from four in the afternoon
of March 25th, when the Bill was passed, until one the
following morning. Tory after Tory arose to defend the
272 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
ancient restrictions on demotic journalism. Each mem-
ber had received a circular containing extracts from the
Reasoner^ to show the lurid horrors of a free press.
Suddenly an "elegant-looking lounger" flung down his
hat, and, catching the Speaker's eye, poured out an elo-
quent appeal for the complete freedom of the press. It
was, he learned, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Waverers
were won over by his stirring speech, and the Bill was
passed. But Holyoake would not lower his flag until
the Queen's signature was on it. Disraeli had contributed
to the debate an after-dinner speech in which he defined
"news" as " what came from the N[orth], E[ast], W[est],
and S[outh]." The next issue of the War Fly Sheet
announced that it " consisted exclusively of intelligence
from the seat of war in the East, and was published in
accordance with the recorded and mature judgment of the
Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, formerly Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer, that intelligence from only one
point of the compass is not news." On June I5th the
Bill for the Repeal of the Newspaper-Stamp received
the royal assent. On June 27th Holyoake issued the last
number of his triumphant Fly Sheet. He had been to the
end one of the most prominent and courageous workers
in what few will now question to be a great reform.
There remained, not only the Securities-system, but
the formidable paper-duty, the third of the taxes on
knowledge. The Securities-system was, Mr. Collet says,
" deprived of all meaning by the repeal of the stamp,
and might be left to die a natural death." But the
paper-duty still laid a very heavy tax on journalistic
enterprise, and, as it brought a million a year to the
Treasury, its abolition would entail a long and severe
struggle. With the details of that struggle we are not
concerned, as Holyoake's share in the work was little
more than that of an industrious member of the Council.
THE FtGtif FOti A CHEAP PRESS f 3
The day after the repeal of the stamp-tax the Association
issued a number of its Gazette, announcing at once the
abolition of the second tax on knowledge, and its deter-
mination to continue its work until the third had
disappeared. It said :
" Talk of the difficulty of making paper out of common
vegetable matter, why, the hornet makes brown paper of
field herbs, and so would Englishmen, if the Inland
Revenue gentlemen would let them alone ; that Board
forbids that they shall, like the hornet, make brown
paper, but when forcing the hornet to be idle, it cannot
deprive it of its sting ; the paper-makers should build a
hornets* nest in Somerset House the achievement will
not be a difficult one."
The wearied officials knew well that to Collet and
Holyoake and their colleagues the achievement would
not be a difficult one, but the Revenue Board had a far
larger sum at stake in the paper-duty, and resisted for
six years. We have only to sae how Holyoake took his
part in the congenial work of constructing the hornets'
nest.
There was the usual relaxation of interest when the
stamp was abolished, and, as the Association showed a
considerable deficit, it was proposed that it be dissolved.
At the next meeting Cobden proposed, and Holyoake
seconded, that the debt be cleared off, and the Association
take up the work of abolishing the paper-duty. The task
of gathering material in a new field and organising a
campaign in and out of Parliament had to be recom-
menced. The paper-maker, they soon found, was caught
in an elaborate network of regulations, to each of which
was attached a penalty, rising in cases to ^300 for a
single omission. To take one curious instance, he was
liable to a fine of ^200 if he opened a stationer's shop
within a mile of his mill ; and the duty was so high that
VOL. i. T
274 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
Mr. Charles Knight found he had paid ^50,000 in
twenty years, more than half what he had paid for copy-
rights and editorial work. The Association set to work
to make public facts of this kind, and detect flaws, and
openings for provocation, in the irregular working of the
complex Act. Holyoake conducted one of these pieces of
vexation on his own account. As the law still stood, news-
papers and pamphlets that were published periodically
had to be registered. But the Board had fallen into one
of its easy ways in regard to pamphlets, and on this
Holyoake fastened. He sent a copy of a pamphlet he
had published without registration, and asked Mr. Timm
if he would prosecute it. The usual irritable letters were
sent in reply to his staid and polite inquiries. Mr.
Timm was known to have begged the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to " sweep away " all the restrictions on
newspapers. Holyoake was really liable to a penalty of
100 for not registering, but in the eighth letter of the
correspondence they had to admit that it would be a
departure from their practice to prosecute. Once more
he had exposed their irregularities and the cumbrousness
of the old Act.
But it is unnecessary to enter into details. They so
effectually worried the Board of Revenue that by the end
of 1860 it confessed that the paper-duty was " rapidly
becoming untenable," and they instanced as difficulties
that " converted " them, as J. S. Mill said, the very
devices which Collet and his friends had initiated. In
1 86 1 the duty was repealed, after a severe struggle with
the Lords, and the last of the " taxes on knowledge"
was swept away, thirty years after Leigh Hunt had
invented that militant phrase. The Securities-system
followed in 1869. The last mention of Holyoake's name
in connection with the reform is in 1861, when it was
decided to make a presentation to Mr. Milner Gibson.
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 275
Mr. John Francis announced that Holyoake collected
200 towards this presentation.
The campaign on behalf of a free press has led us to
advance somewhat rapidly in the story of Holyoake's
life, and we shall have to retrace our steps to 1855, to
consider other important incidents in his career. But
we may take the opportunity to reflect briefly on his
journalistic activity at this early period. The list of
journals in which he wrote between 1840 and 1905 would
fill pages. His terse, bright, entertaining manner of
writing was particularly suitable for the daily and weekly
press, and, in spite of the shudder that his familiar name
provoked in religious readers, he had many invitations.
When his contributions were to be signed, he was
not unwilling to assume a fictitious name like " Ion,"
" Landor Praed," " Disque," and so on. The disguise
was not worn to protect himself, but to obtain a hearing ;
though he always advised professional men to protect
themselves with a pseudonym when they wrote in his own
journal. In some cases no one but Holyoake himself
knew the identity of his contributor or supporter. 1
In the course of the fifties Holyoake had a good deal of
journalistic experience. He not only had the editing and
managing of his own small weekly, and the managing
and control of an important department of the Leader,
but he wrote for several other papers, projected new
ones, and negotiated the sale or purchase of others. In
1850 he suggested the title and framed the early plan of
1 He speaks (Sixty Years, I, 301) of a wealthy gentleman who used to
call at his office with money, and write in the Reasoner, whom he knew
only as " Aliquis " ( = Somebody) for ten years. This is not correct, how-
ever, as I find a letter from "Aliquis " to him in 1854, giving his name,
George Gwynne. He was in Switzerland, and had to send a cheque
instead of the usual note ; but he directed Holyoake to " burn this leaf
after copying the address " a direction that seems to have been over-
looked. Otherwise even in his private diary Holyoake never described
him as other than " Aliquis." He lived at Ilfracombe.
276 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
Public Opinion for Mr. Ashurst, who gave it in charge of
Robert Buchanan. The title occurred to him through
Peel's saying that " England was governed by opinion."
A few months later his diary notes that he is negotiating
the purchase of the Northern Star for Ashurst ; and two
days after this he is offering to Thornton Hunt a little
unstamped paper, the Workshop, owned by himself and
Mr. Collet who, curiously, makes no reference to it.
A few weeks later he is offered an engagement on the
Daily News, which began its career in 1846. Some time
afterwards he is " invited to breakfast with Thornton Hunt
to discuss Colonel Torrens' proposal re the Globe" In a
later year he speaks of " offering Hunt the Melbourne
Age" I have seen the minute and scrupulous accounts
he kept of some of the papers he managed, and can
understand that his judgment was of value. He was on
the board of the Peoples Journal in 1856, and on the
Metropolitan Press Committee in 1858.
His descriptive reporting ranged from prize fights and
cricket matches to public executions and royal ceremonies.
But it is difficult to discover the extent of work that was
generally anonymous. Letters from the editor of the
Morning and Evening Star, one of the new papers
brought out after the abolition of the stamp, show that
he was writing leaders in 1856 for Mr. Hamilton, who
signs himself his " good-natured brother in humanity."
Another friend of his, Mr. J. Baxter Langley, edited it
in 1857. In 1858 Mr. Langley (then editing the People's
Paper and the London News) offers him the editorship of
one of the two, but he declines. In 1859 he reports
G. Stephenson's funeral for the Newcastle Chronicle, and
engages to supply a weekly letter for that journal.
Langley wrote him :
" You need not be too sensitive on my account about
it being known that we are friends. I should not consent
THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS 277
to pass you in the street without speaking, or do any
such gross act of servility to the cant or convention of
the place or time."
A little later, when Holyoake fell ill, Mr. Langley
wrote :
44 I cannot tell how it is, but in all sincerity my
attachment to you has become so strong that the
knowledge of your sufferings has disturbed me much.*'
Other friendly letters show that he wrote in 1860 for
the Manchester Examiner and Times, the Daily Review,
and other journals.
His relations with the Leader deserve special notice.
They were more chequered than one would imagine
from his chapter on that journal. The Leader was
started in 1850 with Holyoake as manager, and occupy-
ing a minor place on the brilliant staff. The publication
of "Ion" letters and leaders, and the opening, under
his control, of a Co-operative section, gave him more
importance. There are cordial letters to him from the
chief proprietor, Mr. E. Pigott, in 1852, though he
shows a suspicion of petulance at Holyoake's failure to
borrow money for him and secure more subscribers.
The need for economy then led to a drastic curtailment
of the staff, and Holyoake was asked to write little. A
letter of Pigott's to him on May 3ist, 1854, prevents us
from misinterpreting this :
44 MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
44 It was a true pleasure to me to get a letter in
your handwriting again this morning. It seems a century
since we met or corresponded, and, I deeply regret to
add, since 4 Ion ' has appeared in the Leader. You know
very well what my feelings are towards you, both per-
sonally as a friend and officially as editor of the Leader,
and that it is neither my fault nor my purpose that you
278 THE FIGHT FOR A CHEAP PRESS
should have been so long absent from our pages. You
know that, differing as I do conscientiously from you on
the great subject of belief, I am with you heart and soul
in the one great cause of freethought absolute liberty of
conscience. ..."
Thornton Hunt had disappeared, in the curtailment of
expenses, with other of Holyoake's friends. In 1855,
moreover, the Leader spoke with so little of its old
radicalism on the American slavery-question that New-
man, Miss Martineau, and others, dropped it in disdain.
Miss Collet wrote that its tone was " unspeakably dis-
graceful " and " unblushingly impudent." He criticised
it in his Reasoner, and Pigott seems to have complained
bitterly ; Holyoake had to remind him of his services
and sacrifices for the paper. Pigott had some notion of
shifting the appeal of the paper to a more respectable
audience, but he failed ; and in a few years (1857) wrote
letters of exaggerated cordiality to Holyoake, begging
him to induce "the freethought party " to rally to his
journal.
Holyoake continued to write on it until 1859, when
Mr. Pigott passed from the editorial chair, on good
terms with Holyoake. It is amusing to read in his
letter that Holyoake is pleased with the new editor, Mr.
Whitty, and to find a letter in which Whitty begs
Holyoake to " regard the Leader precisely as before."
When we turn to the chapter on the Leader in Sixty
Years (ch. xliv) we learn that Mr. Whitty was ia Roman
Catholic, and " sentiments appeared in it which made
its friends wish that it had ceased to exist earlier." It
did cease to exist shortly afterwards. With Thornton
Hunt (now working on the Globe and the Spectator]
Holyoake continued to be on terms of intimate friendship.
CHAPTER XIII
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
FOR the convenience 'of study I have now considered
separately the chief interests that engaged Holyoake's
attention from 1848 to 1860 the early struggles of the
Co-operative Movement, the establishment of Secularism,
the continental reaction, and the liberation of the press
and we may now retrace our steps a little, and follow the
progress of his career year by year. We have found him
working with such vigour in these movements that there
would seem to be little of his time left. In point of fact,
the whole decade is filled with a nervous energy that finds
expression in a hundred tasks. The cares of the Reasoner
and the " Fleet Street House," the constant exactions of
the growing Secularist body made painful and more
exhausting by attacks from jealous colleagues and the
heavy pressure of lecturing, writing, and committee- work
for half a dozen organisations, do not cover nearly the
whole of his work in the fifties. Several times he wore
himself down to a dangerous point. Few movements in
the civic life of London, or the political life of the nation,
failed to put fresh burdens on him ; and, to judge from
the bundles of letters lying before me, or mentioned in
the Reasoner, his correspondence was voluminous.
One is apt to forget, in studying his share in the great
movements of the time, or reading the warm phrases
of judicious correspondents, that he was still in his
early thirties, and had worked in a foundry until his
279
280 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
twenty-second year. His circle of friends was enviable.
Amongst the visitors to his little house at i Woburn
Buildings I find Robert Owen, Herbert Spencer, Sir
Joshua Walmsley, the Rev. Brooke Herford, Francis
Pulzsky (the Hungarian ex-Prime Minister), and others,
forming a very varied and interesting group. But his
friends generally knew the limit of his means and home,
and preferred to entertain him, or to drop in at 147 Fleet
Street. He seems to have been a frequent visitor at
Lewes's, Hunt's, Stansfeld's, Allsop's, Ashurst's, Maz-
zini's, Pulzsky's, Newman's, and Crawford's ; and wher-
ever he went he found hosts in the provinces. Mrs. Holy-
oake was clearly liked by his friends, and tended the
growing family a fourth youngster arriving in 1855.
The only shadow that fell on his family life at this time
was when his second boy, Maximilian Robespierre, was
run over and died in 1857. His uncalculating labours,
genial manner, and virile character outweighed the un-
popularity of his views on religion, which few of his
friends entirely shared. Four times in a few years his
portrait was painted by Merritt, Robinson, Hahn, and
Mrs. Hawkes and tributes in the press began to multiply.
The attacks that were made on him always evoked fresh
expressions of esteem that healed the pain. Linton's attack
drew a fine tribute from Miss Martineau, as we saw,
Miss Collet, Ashurst, and others. Another attack in 1856
induced Thornton Hunt to offer his services, and say :
" No public consideration could make me wish to throw
the slightest veil over a friendship which does me honour."
Golding Penrose wrote him that a friend of his had heard
a minister at a Wesleyan Tract Society meeting " confess
that one great need of Christian propagandism in these
times was that of men like Mr. Holyoake in candour,
cautiousness of statement, and love of the right." The
Nonconformist described him (in January 1853) as " one
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 281
of the most popular and learned of the apostles of
unbelief," and "an author of no mean ability," whose
" sympathies were on the side of virtue and truth." But
we shall see plenty of this as we proceed. I will only
add here an unpublished letter that Carlyle wrote him
in 1854. He never met Carlyle, and that stern idealist
detested his philosophy, but the note is not unfriendly :
"DEAR SIR,
* * Thanks for your civility and punctuality. The
letter is for me, the second I have got under the same
address unhappily only from a dark remote blockhead,
of the sturdy-beggar description, whom I am bound to
make a strict point of not answering.
" I remain,
" Yours sincerely,
"T. CARLYLE."
On one occasion Carlyle turned severely on some man
who depreciated Holyoake at Lord Houghton's table.
His relations with Mill, the other thinker in London at
the time, were, as I said, more cordial. In 1856 Mill and
a friend lent him *jo when he had put his name to
some bills of a friend (Le Blond, I believe, who fell into
drink and penury) and incurred a liability of ^70
beyond his means. Holyoake repaid the money, but
the friend made him a present of his ^35.
To have attained this position in so short a time, and
with such disadvantages, was some recompense for the
work we have described and the spirit in which it was
done. The same spirit and energy are found in the rest
of his occupations in the fifties. We have seen little up
to the present of what is called political life in the more
technical sense. The House of Commons lay generally
outside the range of his vision until middle age. He had,
it is true, listened to its debates with young eagerness
when he first came to the metropolis, under the shadow
282 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
of a charge of blasphemy : he had looked to the Whigs
in their new power in the Reformed Parliament with the
same hope as most other Radicals ; and he had followed
the debates on the taxes on knowledge with keen interest.
Generally, however, up to the end of his thirties he
conceived the House in a Chartist or a Carlylean mood.
It was a " talking-shop." Until an educated and fully
enfranchised people brought it to face social maladies
more boldly he had little expectation from it. His work
on the Leader and his new association with middle-class
reformers gradually drew it into his sphere of real interest,
and it became a centre of his political eagerness. I find
that as early as 1852 he was on the Council of the
National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Associa-
tion, and his relations with Milner Gibson, Fox, Cobden,
and Bright increased his parliamentary interest.
The outbreak of the Crimean War in 1855 was little
noticed by him. He got Collet to write on the Eastern
question in the Reasoner, and he published a map for his
readers ; but one does not find any condemnation of it.
Russia had long incurred his hostility for its treatment of
Poland and its general despotism. Indeed, he confesses
that he followed the war with a good deal of undiscriminat-
ing patriotism. At intervals he thought of arbitration,
but habitually he was for " the success of England, right
or wrong." When the peace was declared, however, he
refused to illuminate in Fleet Street, and put up a large
placard bearing Eliz. Browning's verses on the plight of
Poland, Italy, and Hungary. On the other hand, he wrote
frequently and with much dissatisfaction to both sides
on the question of American slavery. That he condemned
every trace of slavery goes without saying, but he fell
short of most of his friends in vehemence, and for a time
was regarded with suspicion by Lloyd Garrison. In 1853
he wrote an " Address of the Democrats of England to
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 283
the Democrats of America." Its moderation of tone
offended many of his friends. T. Cooper refused to sign
it, and Linton and Harney scorned it. In America some
of the chief abolitionists received it with respect. Horace
Greely inserted it twice in the New York Tribune^ and
" earnestly commended it to the grave and candid
consideration " of his readers. Wendell Phillips, who
became a warm friend, told him it was the only English
article on the subject that he cared to reply to. The
moderation of his tone had another ground besides his
general regard for that virtue. Our political relations
with America had to be considered, and there were
judicious politicians who thought that the language of the
extreme English abolitionists endangered them. There
is a very long and serious letter to Holyoake from Hunt
on the subject in 1855, and the sober tone of the Reasoner
must be considered in the light of their apprehensions ;
if sobriety needs any apology.
In 1857 he came within the penumbra of parliamentary
life, when he offered himself as candidate at the Tower
Hamlets. His chief object in seeking a seat was to press
more effectively for the substitution of an affirmation for
the oath, where there were scruples ; but he issued a very
full electoral programme. The chief points in it were :
triennial Parliaments, the ballot, and equal electoral
districts ; home colonisation on waste lands ; the abolition
of Church rates ; security to married women's property ;
and the opening of museums on Sundays. His chances
of election were slight, but a committee was formed, and
a subscription-list drawn up. J. S. Mill sent him ;io,
but he did not care to compromise Mill by publish-
ing his name. On March 2;th, however, Holyoake
received a letter from Mr. Baxter Langley begging him
to retire from his candidature, and he decided to do so.
He found that Mr. Ayrton, a strong Liberal (afterwards
284 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
Commissioner of Works) and a valuable worker for
the abolition of the press-stamp, was offering himself
for election, and he withdrew and gave his services to
Mr. Ayrton. His letter was cordially acknowledged by
Mr. Ayrton, who was " much gratified"; though he
discreetly declined to have Holyoake's name in any
prominence in his candidature. He was returned and
at once turned his back on the " infidel." Holyoake was
on the platform when the result was announced, and part
of the crowd clamoured for a speech from him. Mr.
Ayrton was asked by the returning officer to get a hearing
for Holyoake, as the religious opposition was turbulent,
but he refused.
Two of the items in the electoral programme we have
summarised enter for the first time in our story the
Sunday question and the Woman question. The idea of
securing some recreation for the masses on Sunday was
at this time beginning to assume the shape of a definite
reform, and it naturally appealed to Secularists. There
are few now who fail to see the evil of opening only two
public doors that of the church and that of the public-
house to the workers on Sundays, but the early agitation
in favour of opening the museums and arranging ex-
cursions met with the most violent opposition. An old
bill I have tells of a modest excursion that the Secularists
of Newcastle arranged. As soon as it was announced, a
neighbouring preacher put up a huge poster to say with
all the embroidery of the time that he would preach on
this " Trip to Hell." The Secularists retorted, after their
return, with a poster announcing the results of their
exploration. In many other places a spirited war was
going on over the new practice. The London Secularists
were very active in the cause of " the Free and Rational
use of the Sunday" ; and their religious neighbours just
as naturally resisted their efforts. The facilities that have
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 285
been won for recreation on Sunday have done more than
heretical propaganda to deplete the churches.
On Whit Sunday in 1856 Holyoake organised an
excursion to Rye House for the members of the London
Secular Society. He took his wife and two children with
him, and addressed the excursionists on the " Right use
of the Sunday." From that time onward he worked
constantly in the new movement. His journal was one
of the best organs in London of the newly-founded
Sunday League. He attended the meetings of the
League, and the great demonstrations in the parks (in
May and June) to protest against the removal of the
bands. The cry of the " French Sunday" was met by
him in several lectures in 1856. In the course of time
he formulated a curious theory (described in Bygones^
II, 205-7) ^at there ought to be two Sundays in each
week. The present Sunday " would be left undisturbed,
devoted to repose, to piety, contemplation, and improve-
ment of the mind," and the other would be a day of
universal and organised recreation a sort of weekly
11 Bank Holiday." He does not mention any friend, or
any section of his supporters, who favoured his theory. 1
The other reform which he inserted in his programme
was a measure of justice to women. " First among social
improvements," he said, " is the measure introduced by
Sir Erskine Perry for giving, under just conditions,
married women an independent right to their property."
His interest in the cause of women was one of his legacies
from the old Owenite movement, and a tradition almost
confined to heretics at that time. Acquaintance with John
Stuart Mill arid Harriet Martineau confirmed his feeling,
and he became one of the first parliamentary candidates
1 He reprinted his " Letter to Lord Palmerston " on the Sunday
question in a pamphlet entitled The Rich Man's Six and the Poor Man's
On* Day, in 1856.
286 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
to give a prominent position to the woman-question in
his manifesto. Ten years previously (1847) he had
written an article on the subject in the Free Press, and
suggested a programme for them which even his women-
friends deemed wildly visionary, but which the women of
the next generation almost fully realised. He urged that
they should " take their own affairs into their own hands,"
and form a " fifth estate" in the kingdom. They should
hold women-meetings with women-speakers a thing
abhorred at the time " draw up a list of their legal
disabilities, and take the usual constitutional modes of
obtaining redress," and run a Woman's Journal with a
purely feminine staff. It is singular that, while men so
often resist women's demands on the ground that they
are so largely conservative and subject to clerical dictation,
the heresiarchs of the early half of the nineteenth century
were their best advocates. Godwin, Owen, Holyoake,
and Mill pleaded for them, when to do so was a ready
invitation of ridicule. Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances
Wright, Harriet Martineau, Emma Martin, and Harriet
Law were heretics, and had the co-operation of heretics
alone.
But by 1857 Holyoake saw some movement in the
direction he had indicated, and he took an active interest
in it. When Miss Martineau's Household Education was
published, he engaged his wife to review it in the
Reasoner, in accordance with his principles. He himself
wrote and lectured frequently on behalf of the move-
ment. He reprinted unfortunately without permission,
which drew a philosophic rebuke from Mill Mrs. Mill's
article: " Are Women fit for Politics? Are Politics fit
for Women?" and sold many thousand copies. He
corresponded with a large circle of able women Miss
Martineau, Mme. Venturi, Mme. Mario, Miss Collet,
Miss Barbara L. Smith (Mme. Bodichon), Miss Bessie
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 287
R. Parkes (Mme. Belloc), Mrs. Crawford, Mrs. Stans-
feld, etc. and urged them to co-operate. Miss B.
Rayner Parkes (a descendant of Priestley, mother
of Mr. Hilaire Belloc) greatly appreciated his help,
writing constantly to him and sending him pamphlets
by herself and Miss Leigh Smith to distribute at his
lectures " which (allow me to say) God speed!" she
observes. Miss Parkes edited the Woman's Journal
(suggested by him in 1847) which was started in 1857,*
and bought large numbers of his Reasoner for distri-
bution. " Please to send me 12 Reasoners. ... A
thousand thanks for your valiant defence " ; and again :
" I have to acknowledge the safe receipt of several
Reasoners, which gave great pleasure." Miss Parkes
was liberal in her religious views, and in 1858 she
sent for insertion in the Reasoner (asking that her
name be " carefully suppressed") a translation of "a
curious controversy between Proudhon and one of the
new light ladies of France," as she described it. Several
pamphlets by her and Miss Smith were published by
him.
Holyoake's correspondence with Mrs. Hawkes (after-
wards Mme. Venturi a daughter of Ashurst's) had
more personal cordiality, but concerned the cause of
Italy rather than of woman. In 1857 Mrs. Hawkes,
who was separated from her husband, proposed that she
should share a house with him and his family, but the
proposal came to nothing. Her father died in 1855,
and she expresses gratitude in every letter for the help
Holyoake gave her in finding customers for pictures,
1 As it was stated at the time that the journal was written mainly by
men, I may note that she assures Holyoake in a letter that every article
not signed by a male writer (and they were few) is by a lady. Miss Isa
Craig, Miss Blackwell ("Paris Gossip"), Miss Blagden, Miss Merry-
weather, and Miss Parkes wrote the first number, with one male
contributor.
288 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
etc. " I cannot say how very grateful I am to your
friends for their kindness to me ; it is doubly welcome
as being shown for your sake." But Mrs. Hawkes
was mainly interested in Italian matters. She clearly
thought as little of bombs for Napoleon as Allsop did.
When Percy Greg wrote his poem " The Peace of
Napoleon," and Holyoake reviewed it, she wrote him
that his " habitual benevolence" had " misled his
judgment." Holyoake had merely trusted that the
Empress would be exempt from any fate that might
befall her husband ! Of Greg's poem she said it had
' ' rather a gas and orange peel effect, coming from
the pen of one who has generally used your pages to
proclaim his atheism."
That Miss Martineau came nearer to Holyoake in
sentiment than any other of his lady correspondents
goes without saying, but the terms in which she at times
expresses her admiration are unexpected. In a letter to
him on May 3ist, 1851, she says :
" I always read the Reasoner every line of it. You
must allow me to thank you, in the name of everything
that is wise and good, for the glorious temper you
manifest, without break or flattering, towards foe and
friend. Great as is your ability, one almost loses sight
of it in the charm of your temper. You do not need to
be told, as a general truth, that such a tone as I mean is
the best service that can be rendered to a good cause ;
but you may need to be told that your readers gratefully
recognise such a temper in you. I do long at times to
put in my word, and try to help you in those pages. If
I possibly could, I would. But my work is very heavy
for one who is growing old."
The one point on which she differed strongly from
Holyoake was, strangely enough, in his estimate of
Mazzini. A letter of December 28th, 1857, runs :
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1850) 289
" DEAR MR. HOLYOAKE,
" I do not see what I can do, in replying to your
letter, but speak the full truth. I am sorry to have to
refuse any request of yours and to hurt anybody's feel-
ings ; but, in reply to a direct inquiry, I must say that I
can do nothing in favour of Mazzini's policy. No one
appreciates more heartily than I do the disinterestedness
and devotedness of his character ; but I disapprove of
his cause so entirely that I would do anything in my
power to check and counteract it. Of the many and
mournful obstacles to human progress, Mazzini's life
and action seem to me to be the most painful and
discouraging. I disapprove both his objects and his
methods as thoroughly as possible.
" I am, very truly yours,
"H. MARTINEAU."
In 1855 Miss Martineau introduced him to her friend
and collaborator, Mr. Atkinson, and sent him on his
first visit to France. " Sure I am that you will never
know a better or a wiser man," she wrote. Atkinson,
whose correspondence with Miss Martineau in 1851
formed the work Man's Nature and Development, which
her brother, Dr. Martineau, scornfully treated as " mes-
meric atheism " (it was rather pantheistic), lived at
Boulogne. He was a man of means, and a keen student
of philosophy, with a cultured circle of friends. In
August 1856 Holyoake crossed over, and spent two
days with him at Boulogne. He had invited Holyoake
to come and "dine together and catch a mermaid out
of the sea chat and gossip, and gossip and chat sip-
ping sparkling bordeaux,'* and the bait was taken. He
afterwards corresponded at length with Holyoake on
philosophical subjects related to religious thought. His
attitude was not distinctly "atheistic," as nearly all the
reviewers pronounced it, but it tended to materialism.
A more interesting author with whom Holyoake was
VOL. i. u
290 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
brought into relations at this time was Walter Savage
Landor. A refined epicurean, of exquisite culture and
complete dislike of the concrete mob, Landor had pro-
fessed republicanism at Oxford, and advocated tyrannicide
in his eightieth year. He had lost his fortune, and
retired to Italy, when, in his eighty-fourth year, he asked
Holyoake to publish a dangerous pamphlet for him.
The circumstances that led to the publication are told
with impenetrable discretion even in Forster's life of
Landor, and Lander's letters to Holyoake (published in
Sixty Years, II, 11-14) nav e been treated with still more
discreet curtailment. The originals are no longer
available. Landor had quarrelled with a lady at Bath,
and lost a lawsuit she brought against him. Aged and
ailing as he was, his customary passionateness was
inflamed, and he wrote a pamphlet in his defence.
Owing to the scandal and the loss of his means, his friends
had sent him to Florence, and from there he directed
Holyoake to publish and distribute his libel. Holyoake
was careful to have the manuscript copied in his own
house, so that no one else saw it. A reward of 200
was offered for the name of the printer, but the secret
was kept for twelve years.
The correspondence with Landor was in 1859, but
there are earlier episodes that must not be overlooked.
In 1857 Holyoake was sent into Cornwall by the London
Secularists to investigate the case of a poor well-sinker
who had been condemned to twenty-one months' imprison-
ment for writing blasphemous phrases on a gate. The
mission of Holyoake brought to light a terrible case
of injustice, and led to Pooley's acquittal. Holyoake
found it undisputed locally that the man was exception-
ally sober and industrious, but very eccentric and very
heretical in his confused way. He was a good husband,
and would weep for hours over his child's grave. He
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 291
never drank or swore. But his eccentricity had brought
him more than once into collision with the magistrates,
and when offensive phrases were discovered in chalk on
gates in the district the writing was easily traced to
him. Of two witnesses one a carpenter and one a
clergyman the layman swore that the more offensive
words detailed by the clergyman were not on the gate at
all. However, Pooley was convicted, and Sir John
Coleridge sentenced him to one year and nine months
in prison. Buckle wrote afterwards with great severity
on the judge and on his son, Mr. J. D. Coleridge, who
was prosecuting counsel. Only one London paper, the
Spectator , had any report of the extraordinary trial, and
it passed heavy censure on the judge for " treating
stark folly with a tragic retribution." When the judge
pronounced his sentence Pooley told him to " put his
black cap on and have done with it." " If this had been
done," said the Spectator , " the ineptness of the sentence
would only have been more signally exposed." Holy-
oake'sfull report in the Reasoner (afterwards published in
his Case of Thomas Pooley) drew attention to the tragedy,
and Pooley was released after a few weeks. The inci-
dent led a little later to some acquaintance of Holyoake
with the historian Buckle, who made a drastic attack on
Coleridge. To Holyoake he wrote: "I shall always
entertain unfeigned respect for one who has not only
fearlessly advocated his views, but has shown himself
ready to suffer for them."
In 1857 Holyoake gave a great impulse to the Co-
operative movement by writing the History of the Rochdale
Pioneers. He began it as a series of articles in the Daily
News, but the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny made great
demands on their columns, and it appeared in book form.
No other of his small works has had a tithe of the effect,
and none of his works has had the remarkable popularity,
292 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
of this historical sketch. It has been translated into
Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Hungarian, and
has taken a Co-operative inspiration all over the civilised
world. In England Co-operative Societies multiplied very
significantly after its appearance. Authors and magazines
that shrank nervously from the name of the writer
borrowed it, or parts of it. He tells how, in 1863, a
Quarterly reviewer included it in the list of works he put
at the head of an article on Co-operation. The editor
cut out Holyoake's name, which he thought " offensive to
pious ears." When the writer pointed out that it would
be odd to cut out the name of the writer of one of the books
referred to, the editor expunged all the authors' names
from that particular essay, rather than have Holyoake's
odious name in the Quarterly Review.
The little work brought Holyoake his last message
from the great inspirer of the movement, Robert Owen.
Since 1853 Owen had been in friendly correspondence
with Holyoake. To the last the aged reformer was
framing plans for the regeneration of humanity on a
grand scale. He wrote from Sevenoaks in 1856 :
" MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,
" You will see by the Millennial Gazette, Nos. i
and 2, that a new movement of reform, which will include
all other reforms, is about to [take] place, and it is proposed
that negotiations should be formed to extend the move-
ment at home and abroad, so as to make it universal, and
thus to influence all governments through public opinion
to take a right course for the interest and happiness of all.
" Your Secular Societies will do well to merge into this
movement, as should all the societies of the working
classes, because all their objects will be obtained by the
New Reform of Nations, which will be advocated at the
approaching congress of the reformers of the world.
" A mere Secular Society cannot be much longer sup-
ported. It is now too limited in its objects, and progress
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 293
now requires much more from advanced minds. You
and Robert Cooper require a much wider field of action,
and should go forth as apostles of the only system which
can ever become universal, or be of permanent practical
benefit to the human race. . . ."
Holyoake was now almost the only one of his old workers
to whom he looked with hope, and his last letter to
Holyoake, written shortly before his death, is a final effort
to direct his energies into millennial work :
"Mv DEAR SIR,
" I have to thank you for sending me the copy
of the history of Co-operation in Rochdale, which I shall
read with much interest. And I have to request you to
tender my thanks to the Directors of the Pioneers' Society
for their kindness in not forgetting me.
" Next week I hope to send you a pamphlet to which I
wish to direct your particular attention, because I am very
desirous to give your useful active powers a wider and far
more valuable direction for yourself and for the public.
The rights of Secularism are now fairly established,
and, far more, the rights of all humanity to universal
advocation, unexclusive and practical, and to universal,
permanent occupation, beneficial for the individual and
for the public.
"The subjects of the British Empire ought now to
unite to obtain these for themselves and children as their
national birthright. You should commence this agitation.
With them, everything would be gained : without them,
nothing worth having. Think of this.
" Yours affectionately,
" ROBERT OWEN."
Holyoake gently ignored the too vague visions of the
master. Owenism was dead ; and Owen was too old to
see that its finest thoughts were finding more victorious
embodiment in the great young movements of the second
half of the century. He died in his native Wales a few
months aftcnvards (November lyth, 1858), after a last effort
294 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
to win public interest at a great meeting in Liverpool. On
the 2ist Holyoake and one or two others took the night
train to Shrewsbury, and the early morning coach to New-
town. Allsop, Ashurst, and a few other friends walked with
Holyoake behind the coffin. Some of them were angry
that the great heretic was buried with Church-service,
but the rector had refused to allow lay speeches in his
cemetery. " Better ten popes officiated at his funeral
than disturb it with a broil," Holyoake said.
Rigby remained by the grave while Holyoake went
home, and wrote his report and dined. Then Holyoake
came back to watch by it until late in the night. Rigby
had a curious reason for this, though Holyoake only took
part in it to gratify him. Julian Hibbert had, years
before, left his head for scientific investigation, and,
though his relatives took extreme precautions, the head
was secured for science. Baume, a phrenological Owenite
and extremely eccentric man, had disguised himself as a
mute, and got access to the body. Baume now lived in
quaint circumstances in the Isle of Man, but Rigby
dreaded a stealthy descent upon Newtown in his zeal for
phrenology. He had the grave stuffed with furze-bushes,
and induced Holyoake to watch with him beside it.
Robert Dale Owen gave Holyoake a book of his father's,
autographed for presentation to him. It was stolen
immediately ; and he was astonished to receive it from
a Newtown pawnbroker forty-four years afterwards, when
he spoke at the unveiling of the Owen monument. He
returned to London with his and Owen's old friends,
W. Pare and T. Allsop, and after a few weeks issued a
grateful and reverent appreciation of his dead master. 1
Owen's life was written very shortly afterwards by an
1 Life and Last Days of Robert Owen, price fourpence. Rosamond
Dale Owen (Mrs. Oliphant) wrote that she found it "very beautiful,"
and J. S. Mill and Lord Brougham spoke in high terms of it.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 295
author who stood entirely outside the school, but wrote
with sympathy, W. L. Sargant. Holyoake praised the
work, to Sargant's extreme gratification. But it is only
in recent years that the true significance of the great
Welsh reformer is being recognised. There has been
too obstinate a practice of regarding him as a man of ac-
tion. In that character he was a brilliant failure. Apart
from his splendid success at New Lanark, he touched
little that did not collapse. His enduring importance
was as the disseminator of principles that would provoke
more practical men to act. The spirit he brought into
social service at the beginning of the nineteenth century
was invaluable. It begot such attention to material and
economic conditions as had never before been given ; and
few particular social problems arose on which he did not
anticipate the later generation of reformers. As a theo-
retical student of social matters he had less limitations
than most of his distinguished contemporaries. The
course of this story amply shows how he sowed the seed
of the successful reforms of the second half of the century.
Owen had spoken of the Secular Societies as too narrow
in their aim. I have already suggested that they were,
on the contrary, too broad and diffused, and Holyoake
was at this very time discovering the weakness of his
organisation. Only a few months before Owen's last
letter reached him he received one from Atkinson to this
effect. "By trying to include too much within your
walls," he wrote, "you are risking the whole slipping
from your grasp : you seem to desire to make Secularism
so elastic as to include everybody and everything you
conquer worlds and seek other worlds to conquer, and all
by the force of a term." Atkinson thought that his party
"was breaking up." He urged Holyoake to amend his
formula, and make open profession that his aim was
negative and destructive, but only because destruction
296 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
was a necessary preliminary to any new construction.
" As a John in the wilderness your mission has been to
make way for science and to make silence for philo-
sophy."
Within five years the weakness of his scheme had
disclosed itself. It was an amiable and a characteristic
weakness. By temperament and policy Holyoake, though
a fighter of skill and competence, sought everywhere the
principles and feelings that united people rather than the
oppositions that divided them. His weakness was similar
to that of Positivism, and his system was really Positivist
in temper, without the encumbrance of ritual and with-
out Positivist science. The Secular Societies were to
foster intelligent interest in the problems of this world ;
even people who believed in a world to come might, he
trusted, unite with atheists on this ground. But, besides
the impracticable vagueness and largeness of the ideal, it
was in itself more or less of a reproach to current ideas
of the importance of another world, and from the first the
Secular Societies had a predilection for addresses on
theological subjects. Christians could not belong to
them. Even Pantheists like F. Newman and Miss Collet
lingered sympathetically in the courtyard. They strongly
approved his educative and social lectures, which were
still more numerous than the others, but he himself was
compelled to maintain on his list lectures in criticism of
theology. He admitted that this was his chief distinction
from the Positivists, whose name he frequently substituted
for Secularist ; and we may remember that the atheist
was still an outlaw in English courts of justice, and that
people were as much interested in theology as in any
other subject.
His ability and his impressive personality had for some
years silenced opposition, and the movement seemed to
be making rapid progress on the lines he indicated for it.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (i3;o i85o) 297
In 1857, however, the malcontents found spokesmen, and
a struggle began that was to last throughout his life.
His chief opponent in 1857 was Robert Cooper. Lloyd
Jones now moved in the small world of the Christian
Socialists. Thomas Cooper stood aloof in his mystic
views, and was personally friendly. But Robert Cooper
was jealous of the younger man, and gathered the new
critics about him. Most of these have passed into utter
obscurity, and we need not notice them, except to glance
for a moment at their personal charges. One of them,
however, became a power in England, and will cross the
line of our study many times in the years to come.
Before we consider the beginning of the relations
between Charles Bradlaugh and Holyoake, it will be
useful to glance at the position of the movement. We
saw that the word Secularist was unknown until 1851,
and there were very fewfreethinking centres, and no free-
thinking organisation whatever, until 1853. By the end
of 1855 there were eight societies, with weekly lectures,
in the metropolis, and there were Secular Societies at
Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford, Dudley,
Stalybridge, Leeds, Burnley, Bolton, Sheffield, New-
castle, Glasgow, Hyde, Huddersfield, Halifax, Stockport,
and Oldham. In the following year there were thirteen
London centres, and new Secular Societies were founded
at Edinburgh, Northampton, Sunderland, Rochdale,
Devonport, and Doncaster. Some thirty-five Societies
seem to have been founded between 1853 and 1857 ; and
to these we must add the many further centres where
Holyoake had permanent groups of friends who organised
lectures for him every year. In December 1855 he lec-
tured at Swindon, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Newcastle,
Blaydon, Middlesborough, Hartlepool, Glasgow (six lec-
tures), Paisley, Ashton, Rochdale, Todmordcn, Mottram,
Hyde, Halifax, and Bradford. Most of these places, and
298 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
many others, were visited periodically, and were prepar-
ing to form societies. All this had been done in five
years ; and as the number of provincial Secular Societies
stood only at 61 in 1880 36 being added in twenty-three
years to the 25 Societies he had founded in four years
we can easily test the allegation of remissness or failure on
Holyoake's part. The Reasoner, the weekly journal of the
movement, had a circulation equal to that of the Spectator,
and we have seen that it gained a respect that was not usu-
ally accorded to a freethinking journal. Even the Satur-
day Review, contrasting it with one of the chief Protestant
organs, said (April 5th, 1856): "The Record is bitter,
false, and malignant : the Reasoner is not by any means
taxable with these faults it is written with calmness, and
admits contradiction with candour." Considering Holy-
oake's exertions in so many other reforms, he had made
remarkable progress with his Secularist organisation in
the first four years, when the opposition came to a head.
Robert Cooper, an old Owenite, watched Holyoake's
progress with unfriendly interest. He was editing the
Investigator, a small atheistic journal, and in October
(1855) he gave free expression to his feeling. He
petulantly urged a claim to " co-paternity " of the new
movement, and attacked Holyoake's " pretensions " and
" personal rule," as well as his secular principle. It
was a piece of obvious and natural jealousy on the part
of the older man. Holyoake made a very temperate
reply, pointing out that he had actually urged Cooper's
appointment as President of the London Secular Society.
He continued to receive subscriptions in the Reasoner
for a testimonial that was being raised for Cooper, who
shortly afterwards retired from active work. The Inves-
tigator passed to " Anthony Collins " (W. H. Johnson),
one of Holyoake's bitterest opponents, in 1857, and then
on in 1858 to " Iconoclast" (C. Bradlaugh).
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 299
The lad of seventeen, for whom Holyoake had taken
the chair in 1850, had returned to London, after three
years' service in the dragoons, in 1853. Under the name
of " Iconoclast " he soon resumed his atheistic lecturing.
His first lecture is announced in 1855, but it is not until
the autumn of 1856 that he lectures with any regularity
in the London halls and then generally at the East
London Society's Hall. By the middle of 1857 it is
apparent that he is opposing Holyoake's broad scheme
of Secularism, and trying to narrow the movement to
atheistic work. In July a bill announces that Holyoake
will lecture on the subject at the East London Society,
and " Iconoclast will attend and reply to the lecturer."
In the summer of 1857 Holyoake begins to publish for
him, in serial parts, a work called The Bible^ which was
to be " an examination thereof from Genesis to Revela-
tions," and was afterwards issued by Mr. Bradlaugh in
a complete volume. After the third part had been issued
it was transferred to the publisher Truelove. The reason
for Holyoake's abandonment of it is not obscure : it
was given to the public by Bradlaugh himself. " My
original publishers," he wrote in the later issues, " more
moral than the Queen's printers, decline to print or
publish any comment upon, or any quotations from, the
obscene parts of this chapter (Genesis xix)." When
Bradlaugh went on to publish the comments that Holy-
oake objected to, Holyoake requested him to remove the
name " Holyoake and Co." from the work ; and Brad-
laugh issued a complaining circular amongst the London
Secularists and others.
One is not surprised to find Mr. Bradlaugh soon
afterwards in companionship with Holyoake's more pro-
nounced critics in the movement. The Secularist body
had now come to occupy a position almost as prominent
in public notice as that of the Owenite body a decade
300 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
earlier. Within a few weeks in 1857 we find Holyoake
lecturing to crowded audiences often on the Rochdale
Co-operators at Plymouth, Bristol, Exeter, Glasgow
(where he was offered ^150 a year to remain as resident
lecturer to the Eclectic Society), Paisley, Newcastle,
Bolton, Blackburn, Todmorden, and other towns. In the
summer of 1858 the Lancashire Secularists mustered to
the number of 4,000 for an excursion to Hollingworth
Lake, and Holyoake joined the formidable picnic and
addressed the great gathering. Another address was
delivered by " Anthony Collins," who was sowing
dissension among the northern Societies.
In the south Holyoake's cause was making proportion-
ate progress, and the same inevitable seeds of dissension
were beginning to germinate. The chief dissentient was a
Mr. Maughan, of the London Secular Society, and with
this critic Mr. Bradlaugh soon began to co-operate, as well
as with " Anthony Collins " in the north. The only point
that concerns us is that Maughan and Bradlaugh gave
legal and other assistance to a discharged employee of
Holyoake's, a Mr. Wilks, who caused him very serious
trouble. He had carried off with him the books of
the Holyoake firm, attempted to collect the debts due
to the firm, and professed to offer for sale his " share in
the business." The incident is a peculiar reminder that
Holyoake was from the first an ardent profit-sharer.
The state of the law in regard to co-operation was then so
unsatisfactory that Wilks based his exorbitant claims on
Holyoake's vague assurance that he was a " profit-sharing
employee." As he owed money to the firm, and declared
himself insolvent, Austin Holyoake presented himself
in court with a barrister. The Chief Commissioner
declared that " a more false and fraudulent schedule had
never been brought before the court " than that of Wilks.
He gave Austin Holyoake an assurance, under the seal
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVI7Y (1850-1860) 301
of the court, that the debts must be paid to the firm,
and peremptorily ordered the return of the books. 1
In March (1858) Johnson made an attack on him in
the Investigator, in which Holyoake found " thirty-eight
direct statements utterly untrue." Most of the points
were frivolous : as, that the Reasoner was pledged not to
advocate atheism (which one or other contributor to it
advocated every week), that it refused articles by South-
well, and so on. The sincerest grievance was, probably,
the charge that Holyoake did not use the funds of the
Fleet Street House to pay other lecturers besides himself.
We saw that Holyoake was actually making over the
profit of his lectures to the House ; and when we learn
further that this Mr. Johnson had printed funeral cards of
his own death in 1856, and had imposed on the clergy an
account of his own death-bed conversion, we can hardly
be surprised at Holyoake's neglect of his genius. The
article in which he attacked Holyoake had first been sent
by him to an American paper, and was inserted in the
Investigator as a reprint from that journal. Bradlaugh
wrote in the Investigator, and after a time became its
editor. In April, moreover, he was elected President
(in the place of Holyoake) of the London Secular
Society, of which Maughan was the leading spirit.
1 Wilks apparently relied on G. J. Holyoake's unwillingness to take
an oath, and actually appealed for the quashing of the case on the ground
that Holyoake would not come into court. Austin Holyoake did not
share his brother's view of the oath he was not clearly an atheist at
the time ; and as he was joint-proprietor, and could sue on his own
account, he had no hesitation in meeting such repellent knavery with
recourse to law. Wilks refused extra-legal arbitration. This is the
case on which Holyoake's critics rely when they say that, though G. J.
Holyoake would never take an oath, his brother was convenient for that
purpose when the business required it. They are careful to omit the
details of the one case where this was done. At other times Holyoake
suffered serious losses through his refusal to take an oath. In 1860 the
printing business became Austin's exclusive property ; and in 1861 the
publishing business. He could defend it as he liked. In fact, he kept
his views to himself, and is said to have been then a Theist.
302 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
For our purpose it is enough to note that Holyoake
bore himself with unfailing dignity, and that the move-
ment at large made him ample recompense for the pain
inflicted on him. Mr. James Robertson (of Manchester)
wrote a fiery reply to his critics, 1 and was presented by
his colleagues with a gift and address, which deplored
" the outrageous defamation of a gentleman whom it
is their pride and privilege to hail as leader." The
Manchester Society passed, and sent to Holyoake, the
following resolutions :
" Resolved, that the Manchester Secular Society,
having carefully reviewed the recent allegations in
relation to Fleet Street House, hereby express their
unaltered conviction of the high personal honour of its
Director, and of the great value of the services that
House has rendered to English Freethought."
" It was further resolved that this Society considers
the conduct of the managers of the Investigator, in
making and reiterating charges of the grossest de-
scription without proof against Mr. G. J. Holyoake,
alike unjust and ungentlemanly, and calculated to bring
the Secular movement into contempt."
Similar resolutions came to him from the West Riding
Secular Alliance, and from many of the branches. The
chief supporters of the movement expressed great sym-
pathy with him. Trevelyan wrote : " I have a thorough
belief in your integrity and judgment." But the general
feeling of the best part of the movement sought a more
emphatic expression. In August 1858 a sum of ^642
was presented to Holyoake, in the name of the whole
movement, to pay off the debts of the Fleet Street House.
Subscriptions came from all parts of the country, and all
classes even, in several instances, from clergymen. At
1 Secularists and their Slanderers.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 303
the soiree at which the presentation was made a letter
was read from Thornton Hunt, which was taken as ex-
pressing the feeling of the subscribers. Hunt gave four
curt reasons why he wished to attend :
" i. I do not know any other man who so consistently
vindicates the right of every opinion to its own free
utterance.
" 2. I do not know any other man who is so un-
swervingly firm in paying a candid, courteous, and
painstaking attention to the statement of opinions
opposed to his own.
"3. I do not know anywhere a more dauntlessly
faithful friend.
"4. And you have been assailed."
In October Mr. Bradlaugh began to edit the Investi-
gator. Holyoake made courteous reference to the change
the " rivalry in usefulness " and said he trusted the
two journals would co-operate in freethought matters.
Bradlaugh, in his first editorial, said : " If we find a rock
in our path, we will break it ; but we will not quarrel
with our brother who deems his proper work to be that
of polishing the fragments.'* Holyoake sold the paper
in his shop. Ten months later it came to an end a
sufficient proof of the real size of the new party and
the editor found himself loaded with a heavy debt. The
Secular body in the north started a subscription to assist
him in discharging it, and at London Holyoake opened his
columns for subscriptions to pay off " Iconoclast's print-
ing debts." During the following year he freely inserted
in his paper complimentary notices of Bradlaugh's
lectures, and remained silent when, in April 1860,
Bradlaugh (with the co-operation of Joseph Barker)
started the National Reformer^ and had remarkable
experiences from his co-editor. It was not until the
304 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (i8so-i8fo)
spring of 1861, when Bradlaugh offered to take the
customary oath in a Wigan court, that Holyoake wrote
severely of him. There were differences of opinion
amongst the Secularists as to the taking of the oath,
but Holyoake held the rigid view as to its impropriety,
and suffered much injustice rather than do it. He felt
it essential to the character of the movement to resist the
injustice of the compulsory oath, and protested that no
leader amongst them ought to repeat it. 1
. A few further details will enable us to finish this un-
fortunate episode. One of the personal charges against
Holyoake was that he retained an institution and journal
that he had originally promised to make the property of
the organisation. The presentation in 1858 shows how
frivolous the best men in the movement considered this
and the other charges, but there were other reasons than
the absence of any other man of like experience and
ability. We saw that the initial outlay was very great,
and the expected income seriously short of the estimate.
As a result Holyoake found himself struggling with
heavy debts, and felt bound to clear these before he
handed over the Fleet Street House. We can imagine
what would have been the cry of his young critics if he
had quitted it with a debt of ;i,ooo on it. The fund
subscribed in 1858 and a further ^500 subscribed in
May 1860 enabled him to clear the institution and paper
of debt, and he at once begged the party to make it a
limited-company concern. The only outcome was the
failure of the Reasoner (the last issue was on June 3Oth,
1861) and of the Fleet Street Institution. Holyoake's
wealthier friends were merely anxious to see him set free
from what had become a grievous burden, and had no
1 Of the works published by him to make his position clear at this
time we may note particularly his Trial of Theism^ his largest Secularist
work. A sub-title indicated that he mainly censured Theism "as
obstructing secular life."
POLITICAL AMD SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860) 305
intention of encouraging Secularism in any other form
than the one he had advocated. They thought the new
school ought to call itself candidly Atheistic, instead of
Secularistic, and wrote strong letters about its more active
representatives.
Worn with anxiety, vexation, and many labours,
Holyoake had a serious collapse in 1859. He was ill
throughout most of the year, and was badly disfigured
with acute eczema. He spent a few weeks at Carshalton
in April with Dr. Shorthouse (editor of the Sporting
Times) , and then three weeks at Paris, as the guest of
Horatio Prater. Allsop had great hope of the gaieties
and wines of Paris, but the trip does not seem to have
done him much good. On his return he became worse,
and Mr. Joseph Cowen, with whom he had been in
cordial relations since 1851, took him to Newcastle and
then to Silloth (on the Solway), where he remained four
months. Percy Greg (writing as " Lionel Holdreth ")
edited the Reasoner during his illness, but quitted the
movement on good terms with Holyoake, but very bad
terms with the movement immediately afterwards. At
the same time he heard of the death of the optician, Mr.
Ross " one of my best friends," he writes in his diary.
He returned to work early in 1860, not wholly
recovered, and it was then that the second presentation
(of ;5o) wa s made to him. Mr. J. G. Crawford was
the most active in appealing for subscriptions, and with
his were associated the names of Mr. Trevelyan, Col.
Clinton, Mr. J. Cowen, and Mr. Shaen. The extreme
generosity and tenderness of his cultivated friends, and
the wide response of the Secularist body to their appeal,
tempered the pain of seeing a few young men make so
unfortunate a use of the organisation he had laboured
fifteen years to construct. During the earlier part of
1860 he worked with difficulty, and made frequent use of
VOL. i. x
3o6 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY (1850-1860)
Turkish baths a new importation, which he did much to
popularise. His interest in Co-operation was rapidly in-
creasing, when he saw the effect of his Rochdale history.
He lectured on the subject everywhere, and had a special
section of his journal headed " Co-operative News."
The questions of temperance, education, and Sunday
recreation also furnished the subjects of a large number
of his lectures, and occupied much of the Reasoner.
His political work continued, and the substitution of an
affirmation for an oath began to call for practical work.
These things we will resume later. In the early summer
of 1860 Italian affairs once more entered on a phase of
absorbing interest, and the second half of the year
brought him a remarkable and interesting task.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GARIBALDI LEGION
IN an earlier chapter we saw how the Roman Republic
of Mazzini was brought to the dust by the troops of
Napoleon III, and Italy fell back into its old position of
a mere " geographical expression." The Austrians in
the north-east, the papal power in the centre, and the
Bourbons at Naples, resumed their sway over the ignor-
ant and distressed peasantry, and sought to extinguish
every flicker of manly thought. Garibaldi wandered
over the globe ; Mazzini grew graver and paler in
his cheerless London home. But by the time when
Garibaldi returned to Italy from America a new power
had arisen in the country. The diplomacy of Cavour
had won sympathy and credit for the government of
Victor Emmanuel. A small Italian army fought with
the French and English troops in the Crimea, and
Piedmont was represented at the Peace Congress that
closed the war. When an alliance followed between
their families, Napoleon III concluded a military alliance
with Victor Emmanuel, and in 1859 the war was renewed
with Austria.
Garibaldi was summoned by Cavour, and directed to
raise a force of volunteers. Piqued at Mazzini's blunders
at Rome, and discovering a guarantee of a speedier and
more stable unity under the crown of Victor Emmanuel,
he fell in with their plans, and led his 3,000 volunteers
with brilliant success against the Austrians, in spite of
all intrigue and all Cavour's efforts to keep his utility
307
3o3 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
within bounds. But Napoleon III had no idea of see-
ing an Italian kingdom take its place among the powers
of Europe, and a premature peace was concluded.
Austria retained Venice ; the papal power and the
Neapolitan despotism were untouched. Suddenly,
while Garibaldi fretted in his home at Caprera, there
came the news of rebellion in Sicily. Mazzini's agents
had fomented the discontent of the Sicilians, and Nea-
politan troops were pouring into the island to suppress
the small and scattered bands of insurgents. With the
hesitating assistance of Cavour, Garibaldi shipped a
thousand of his volunteers at Genoa, and landed in Sicily
on May nth to face the Neapolitan army. Within
twenty days he had driven it out of the island, and, in
spite of the prohibition of Victor Emmanuel, he crossed
to the mainland on August 2Oth, and moved northward
toward Naples, his little army swelling every day with
local insurgents and volunteers from all parts of Europe.
It was in this campaign in Southern Italy that the British
Legion intended to take part ; and his share in the
creation and dispatch of the Legion forms one of the
most adventurous of Holyoake's experiences.
In September 1856 the Reasoner published the fact
that a fund was being gathered at Genoa for the purpose
of buying 10,000 rifles for the first Italian province that
should rise against its rulers. Holyoake offered to
receive subscriptions. There is little more about Italian
matters until June 1860, when the news of Garibaldi's cam-
paign in Sicily reaches England, and fresh appeals are
made for subscriptions. In August he announces that a
Garibaldian officer, Captain Styles, has reached London
to raise men and money, and he urges suitable men to
volunteer, and offers his shop as a recruiting-room. By
the beginning of September a committee of the " Gari-
baldi Fund" is announced, with Holyoake as secretary;
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 309
and in the heart of London, in spite of Foreign Enlist-
ment Acts, a group of business men with military advice
organise a regiment for Garibaldi, equip it, and send it
out in two vessels to Sicily. With all the documents
before me, and after some research, I am able to tell the
interesting story of this British Legion in full for the first
time.
There were Englishmen fighting under Garibaldi in
the campaign of 1859. Mr. Peard, a Cornish gentleman
of Italian sympathies, was made a colonel by him, and
was long known as " Garibaldi's Englishman." Others
joined him in Sicily. Colonel Dunne commanded a
regiment of Palermitans, and Major Wyndham, Colonel
Forbes, and other officers had commissions. Garibaldi
felt himself to have the sympathies of England in a
remarkable degree. The echoes of Gladstone's terrible
impeachment of the King of the Sicilies still lingered in
the country. Lord John Russell favoured Garibaldi's
raid ; and when his soldiers were landing at Marsala,
and often afterwards when they marched near the coast,
English warships lazily sailed between them and the
guns of the Neapolitan cruisers. English captains freely
gave their men leave to spend a few hours ashore,
and refrained from seeing the wounds that they brought
back with them to the ship. Garibaldi gratefully calls
himself " the Benjamin of these lords of the ocean." He
needed little pressure to authorise the raising of a special
brigade in England. Colonel Forbes speaks of pointing
out to him on July 28th the moral and material support
such an addition to his troops would mean, but Garibaldi
had already, on July 26th, sent one of his English
officers to England with this note in his pocket :
" I give my authorisation to collect volunteers to come
out to fight for the liberties of this people. The noble
and courageous bearing shown by the Englishmen who
310 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
shared with us the dangers and the glories of this
campaign induce me to this resolution."
Garibaldi was then, just after the battle of Melazzo, in
the early stress of his campaign, and seems merely to
have meant that he would like the officer to induce many
more English volunteers to make their way out, as Peard
and Wyndham had done. He certainly did not foresee
that his hastily-scribbled note would cost him ; 10,000.
But he had made a serious blunder in his choice of a
representative, and that blunder trails over the whole
story of the British Legion.
On August nth a young, bronzed, soldierly-looking
man presented himself at Holyoake's shop, handed a
letter of introduction from Captain de Rohan (one of
Garibaldi's aides-de-camp, and known to Holyoake), and
showed his note of authorisation. Holyoake had met
Garibaldi in London in 1854, at a dinner at Stansfeld's,
and was now following his expedition with the warmest
interest. He at once took the young officer across the
street to the editor of the Daily News, and his mission
and purpose were announced on the following day
and copied into the provincial papers. The magic of
Garibaldi's name drew hundreds of volunteers, and the
mere prospect of an adventurous time in Italy brought
many hundred more reckless and courageous young
men from all parts of the country. Holyoake was just
starting on a provincial tour. He offered the use of his
premises to the recruiter, and flung himself into the work
of inspiring enthusiasm. When he returned he found
his shop crowded with young men, and a " Captain
Minchin" installed in the Political Exchange above the
shop to examine candidates. Fleet Street looked on in
amazement at this open violation of the Foreign Enlist-
ment Act, but Holyoake had little alarm. His brother
had written to him in the provinces :
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 311
" Styles leaves London for Sicily himself in the morn-
ing. He was with Lord John [Russell] this morning,
and has a special message to the General. Sir Charles
Napier took him. On Thursday I wrote to Sir Charles,
making an appointment for Friday. Captain Styles saw
him, and important results are likely to follow."
Further, in reply to questions in the House for the
London friends of Austria and Naples were not blind
Lord Palmerston had replied that the Government
had no power to prevent a party of English gentlemen,
however numerous, from going to witness the per-
formances of Mount Etna.
But the energetic " Captain Styles "was already in
deeper water than was suitable for him. The history
of Garibaldi's emissary would be interesting, if it were
available. He bore as many names as he did medals,
and they proved in time to be equally genuine. He
appeared in different places as Edward Styles, Edward
Steigel, Charles Smith, and Hugo de Bartholdy. The
last was probably nearest to the mark, as he confessed
under trial at Naples that he was a Dane, and his
experience had been obtained in a large grocer's shop
in the Borough ! It was enough for Garibaldi that he
was a good fighter, and, in fact, he was gazetted with
especial distinction afterwards by Colonel Peard. But
his business instincts revived in his new employment.
Within the first week of his arrival he made contracts
for arms and equipment to the extent of ,4,000, deduct-
ing remarkable sums for himself, and sold commissions
in the forming regiment to a number of officers, or
would-be officers. As the English fund in the charge of
Mr. Ashurst only amounted to a few hundreds nearly
three thousand pounds having been sent on to Genoa-
the situation was critical. Captain Styles had, therefore,
gone to receive instructions from Garibaldi.
312 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
Thus Holyoake found his premises inundated with
volunteers and a fine chance of aiding Garibaldi about
to be thrown away. He summoned his friends to
counsel, and found a number of them equally dis-
posed to help. As Styles wired from Messina that
he had seen Garibaldi, and it Avas "all right," they
concluded that the expenses would be guaranteed from
Italy, and they formed a " Garibaldi Fund Committee."
Mr. Crawford, M.P., was chairman, Mr. Ashurst (soli-
citor to the Post Office) treasurer, and Mr. Leverson,
Captain de Carteret, and other experienced business or
military men joined it ; while Holyoake was engaged as
secretary at a salary of five guineas a week a fee that
was amply earned. One interesting member of the
Committee was a pale and handsome young man who
gave the name of "Captain Sarsfield " a name they
were destined to hear much of in the months to come.
He was Lord Seymour, son of the Duchess of Somerset.
The only business the Committee professed to
undertake was that of raising funds in support of Gari-
baldi's military workers, but they found that they had
to go beyond this sphere, if any expedition was to start
at all. Not only did suspicions reach them in regard
to "Captain Styles," but the "Captain Minchin "
military titles sprang up like mushrooms amongst the
Garibaldians abroad he had left as his deputy was little
better. A pathetic letter came to them from Clonmel,
from a lady who wanted to know if they had "anney
news of her cruell husband," and they had to pension
Mrs. Minchin. The husband was eventually found to
have made handsome profits out of his work. There
were now hundreds of applicants for places in the
contingent, and Styles had promised most of them im-
mediate dispatch, and a wage of at least a shilling a day
(Garibaldi's troops were getting a few centesimi a day).
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 313
The Committee was therefore forced into some share
in the military arrangements. Holyoake drew up a
number of blood-red tickets, written in the spirit of
Palmerston's remark, and scattered them broadcast.
One of them runs :
"GARIBALDI EXCURSION TO SOUTH ITALY.
"A select party of English Excursionists intends to
visit South Italy. As the country is somewhat unsettled,
the Excursionists will be furnished with means of self-
defence, and, with a view of recognising each other,
will be attired in a picturesque and uniform costume.
General Garibaldi has liberally granted the Excur-
sionists a free passage to Sicily and Italy, and they will
be supplied with refreshments and attire suitable for the
climate. Information to be obtained at Captain Edward
Styles's offices, 8 Salisbury Street, Strand, W.C."
They had installed the recruiters in Salisbury Street,
where the police genially overlooked the troops of
athletic excursionists and ex-Crimean soldiers who
crowded there. About a thousand were selected from
the 1,500 applicants the number could easily have been
doubled or trebled and Holyoake's work became heavy.
Applications from volunteers, applications from volun-
teers' friends for help or information, notes and bills
of contractors, etc., came in showers ; but all this was
nothing to the angry correspondence that was soon
opened with Naples, and the mass of work entailed by
the return of the volunteers. As he wrote freely in his
own journal of the purpose of the expedition, he says
that there was some threat of a prosecution. In other
journals he usually wrote of the " Excursion " under the
name of " Landor Praed." l
1 " Landor " was a tribute to the aged poet, W. S. Landor, who was
iu IruMidly correspondence with him at the time. "Pined " was taken
3M THE GARIBALDT LEGION
The two chief reasons that moderated the first
enthusiasm of the Italians for the British contingent
were the delay in sending it and its enormous expense.
All else was sheer calumny, and was put right after
painful struggles. But the London Committee could
not be held responsible for either the delay or the
expense. Probably military authorities will allow that
it was no small thing for such a Committee in such
circumstances to form a corps of " 800 picked men,
magnificently equipped," as the Italians described them,
in less than a month. Had ships been available, they
would have been in Italy before the end of September.
As to the cost, Holyoake was told afterwards that our
own military authorities could not have done the work
for so little. 1 Some of the contractors, whom Styles
had engaged, tried to impose on the Committee. At
one meeting a Mr. Bate presented certificates of the
efficiency of weapons supplied, when Mr. Crawford
detected that they were forged, and snatched them from
casually from a Praed Street bus. A sonnet that Landor wrote for him
on the struggle must be reproduced here :
" SlCARIA.
" Again her brow Sicaria rears
Above the tombs. Two thousand years
Have smitten sore her beauteous breast,
And war forbidden her to rest.
Yet war at last becomes her friend,
And shouts aloud
< Thy grief shall end.
Sicaria ! hear me ! Rise again !
A homeless hero breaks thy chain.' "
1 I repeat this with hesitation. The entire expense, including money
appropriated, seems to have been nearly ^15,000. The chief item was
the transport. They had to pay for the conveyance of 1,050 men (for a
reason we shall see afterwards) and four Whitworth guns (presented
by a group of Manchester men), at from five to six pounds a head.
Then there were uniforms and equipment for 850 men, and rifles and
revolvers, etc., for 600. All equipment was of the finest quality
obtainable, supplied by the London Armoury and other firms.
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 315
him. A struggle ensued, but the man knew they dare
not bring in the police. All the arms, etc., were ordered
of the finest quality. Styles had contracted for 600,
and the Committee had to provide a corresponding
outfit for the remainder. The shipowners, seeing that
the payment was to be by drafts on Garibaldi, demanded
a sum proportionate to the risk. The men grew restive
in London, and many were forced to seek employment.
Nearly 300 of the applicants joined the British army, and
200 more had to be maintained in London by the Com-
mittee. In the end the "Emperor" had only 550 to
convey, yet had to be paid for the 800 who had been
enrolled. Thus the cost was unavoidably increased,
and as the Committee dare not appeal too openly, and
the time was short, they could raise only about ^ > 2,ooo. 1
The chartering of steamers was a work of difficulty
and delicacy for such an "excursion." Fortunately, as
the Committee thought, another Garibaldian officer
now arrived from Italy, as well as Styles. " Captain de
Rohan " was another of the melodramatic characters in
the play. I find him described in a letter to Garibaldi
as the General's " naval aide-de-camp " a quaint phrase
and within a few weeks he transformed himself into
"Rear-admiral de Rohan" (possibly because he was
believed to be the illegitimate son of Admiral Dalgren).
He was a man of fiery energy, his American-skipper
habits of bluff and audacity touched with the sun of
Sicily and a genuine zeal for the cause. Within a
week he had 260 men shipped on the " Melazzo " and
out at sea. Holyoake witnessed their departure, and
announced it in the Daily News. A larger steamer was
1 Mr. Ashurst had sent 2,750 to Genoa before Styles came, and a
further thousand was collected later. The total sum collected and
paid by Mr. Ashurst in connection with this campaign was I have his
MS. balance sheet 5,614 u. ox/. Mr. Hodge lent the Committee
1,000 for immediate purposes.
316 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
chartered for the remaining 800, but as the " Emperor "
was still at sea, and was delayed by an accident to its
machinery, the 800 thinned to 550 before she was ready
for them. There was no cowardice and no lack of fine
men, but they were chiefly men who lived from hand to
mouth, and many had to seek employment. At last,
towards the close of September, Holyoake and a few
others witnessed the departure of the last 550 at Shore-
ditch station. The Committee chose the quiet station
and the early hour (5 a.m.) in order to spare the feelings
of the Government and police, but the gay De Rohan
strutted boldly about the platforms in a gorgeous
admiral's uniform, trailing a long and ponderous
admiral's sword behind him.
One last accident one that was to have serious
consequences occurred at Harwich. The Committee
had summoned one of Styles's officers, " Major Beach
Hicks," to account for sums of money entrusted to him,
and his explanation was "so unsatisfactory and marked
with so much prevarication " that they decided to dismiss
him. De Rohan explained the situation to the officers,
when all were on board at Harwich, and they all signed
a demand for his expulsion. He was removed with
difficulty with force, in fact and he at once denounced
the " excursion" to the local magistrates and to the
officers of the "Pembroke," which lay off Harwich.
But British officers in those days were familiar with
Nelson's trick at Copenhagen. The "Emperor"
steamed off on September 3Oth, and a telegram was
sent to Colonel Peard to say that a man was coming
with "complete evidence that Hicks is a swindler."
Finding little opportunity for mischief at Harwich,
Hicks went straight to Sicily, and started the com-
plaints and calumnies about the British contingent that
have so much obscured its brief history. In this he
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 317
had a willing auxiliary in Lord Seymour. "Captain
Sarsfield " also had gone to Sicily, and from there he
wrote letters of so haughty and impertinent a character
to the Committee that they struck his name off their
books. He remained in Italy, and helped to mislead
the English press and the Italians in regard to the
expedition.
The " Emperor" picked up the "Melazzo" at
Cagliari, and both proceeded to Palermo, and on to
Naples. Garibaldi had taken Naples on September
7th, and put an end to the reign of the Bourbons.
But Francis II mustered his army once more at Gaeta,
and marched southward with 30,000 men. Garibaldi
had now 15,000 men, his red-shirted northerners being
lost in a motley army of blue-bloused Neapolitans and
English sailors (on leave or desertion " desertion has
become epidemic," the London papers announced), and
volunteers from all lands, with General Heber's Hun-
garian brigade. The chief army lay before Capua,
which was held by the Neapolitan and Papal troops,
when Colonel Peard and the " British Legion " landed
at Naples, and marched up the town amidst a shower
of flowers and through brilliant lines of bunting. They
" fairly astonished the Italians, who were not used to
such giants," said the correspondent of the Daily News.
"Ottocenti Inglesi, scelti uomini, tutti stupendamente
equipaggiati, sono arrivati a Napoli " (Eight hundred
English, picked men, all magnificently equipped, have
reached Naples) was wired to Garibaldi at Caserta, and
he ordered their immediate advance to the front.
The actual service of the British Legion, as it was
called the moment it was clear of the English coast, does
not properly concern us, but I may tell of their "fire-
baptism," and dismiss the rest in a line. They reached
Naples on October i6th. On the afternoon of the i/th
318 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
they marched into the lines before Capua, amidst great
enthusiasm. Garibaldi, telling them " it was the
proudest moment of his life that he had under him a
Legion of the free children of England," gave them a
position in the advance line on the extreme left, close to
Capua, and within an hour of their arrival in camp they
were in action. A Neapolitan brigade swooped on them
at once from Capua. With a ringing cheer they spread
out to receive them, and poured in so effective a fire
two or three companies charging with the bayonet that
the Neapolitans turned and fled. Ensign Tucker, an
English artist who had joined them at Naples, fell dead
at their head, and two privates were killed and eight
severely wounded. The Neapolitan artillery then turned
on them, and Colonel Peard drew them under cover.
But the engagement lasted some five hours, and the
Neapolitan brigade was driven back into the town.
Colonel Peard reported to Garibaldi that every man
fought with the most remarkable coolness and bravery,
and it was only with hesitation that he singled out for
special mention the young grocer from the Borough !
The war-correspondents, English and French, are
quite agreed that the Legion fought with the utmost
bravery and effectiveness. The only defects of the men
were the carelessness with which they exposed them-
selves and the difficulty of restraining them when re-
straint was advisable. A Parisian correspondent wrote
to his paper that they had " thrashed the Royalists
so soundly that they would never forget the Enfield
bayonets." A regiment of Bersaglieri the Piedmont-
ese troops were now taking over the war fought near
the Legion, but those fine and seasoned companies did
not eclipse them. Garibaldi addressed them with
enthusiasm. He was genuinely astonished to see a
regiment of young men, most of whom had never seen
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 319
the muzzle of a rifle pointed at them before, behave so
splendidly. In thanking Mr. Ashurst afterwards, he
wrote :
"They came late. But they made ample amends for
this defect, not their own, by the brilliant courage they
displayed in the slight engagements they shared with us
near the Volturno, which enabled me to judge how
precious an assistance they would have rendered us had
the war of liberation remained longer in my hands. In
every way the English volunteers were a proof of the
goodwill borne by your noble nation towards the liberty
and independence of Italy."
And in his memoirs he says of them :
"The coming of the English contingent, which,
though late in arriving, gave excellent proof of its
mettle in the last actions on the plains of Capua, was
greatly due to his exertions. 1 If Bonaparte and the
Sardinian monarchy had not prohibited our march on
Rome after the battle of the Volturno, the English
contingent, whose numbers increased every day, would
have greatly helped us in winning the immortal capital
of Italy."
It is more than probable that, if Garibaldi had been
permitted to fight his way to Rome, we should have to
write a long and honourable chronicle of the British
Legion, and the lateness of its arrival and cost of its
equipment would have been forgotten in Italy. But
the engagements on the Volturno were the last of the
war. While all Europe watched with astonishment
Garibaldi's progress through a country long cowed into
servility, where every priest was still a spy of the
Bourbons, there were three men who followed it with
a peculiar interest. Napoleon III knew that Rome was
1 He refers to Col. Peard a quite unmerited compliment to that brave
soldier.
320 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
his objective, and dare not, if he would, withdraw his
protection of the Papacy. Cavour was bound to wait on
the policy of France, and was equally determined to
secure Garibaldi's conquests for the Sardinian monarchy.
To him Garibaldi was " the revolution personified," and
his Dictatorship in the south must not last long. The
third man, Mazzini, looked to Garibaldi for a chance of
erecting in Sicily what the General called his " mystic
Utopia." The situation was brought to a close in
November, when Garibaldi, having taken a plebiscite
in the province he ruled as Dictator, handed over the
power to Victor Emmanuel, and departed, heavy with
sorrow-, for his island-home at Caprera. There were
those who recalled Napoleon's abandonment of his army
in Egypt, but retreat was Garibaldi's only possible
course. Yet it was the close of the brilliant phase of his
career ; and it left the British Legion in a position that
exposed it lamentably to ridicule and calumny.
But to appreciate fully this second stage of the
troubles of the London Committee we must retrace our
steps a little. The very night before the " Emperor"
sailed from Harwich, Holyoake received a disquieting
letter from Colonel Peard. It hinted at the sale of
commissions and expressed surprise at the enormous
expense that had been incurred. Lord Seymour was
by this time in Naples, and was acting as secretary to
Peard. Holyoake had to dissociate the Committee from
Styles, and disavow all knowledge of military appoint-
ments. In a few days an impertinent letter reached the
Committee from Lord Seymour, and he was struck off
the books. There was clearly trouble at Naples. Very
soon it was learned that " Major Hicks" was busy in
that town, and Peard's tone became stiffer. A con-
tractor, who had presented a draft on Garibaldi for
5,000, and got it signed by the General, was refused
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 321
payment. Further letters stated that Lord Seymour had
reviewed the men on their arrival, and addressed to
them "the most foul and unwarrantable aspersions" on
the character of De Rohan. Styles was under arrest,
and was to be court-martial led. Even De Rohan was
put under arrest, but was quickly released. " We have
been jockeyed by Hicks after all," Mr. Crawford wrote
to Holyoake. When, on November ist, the Daily News
inserted a paragraph from Colonel Peard to the effect
that the affairs of the Committee were to be strictly
investigated, their indignation was very great.
It fell to Holyoake again to expose the intrigues and
to disentangle the affairs of the Legion, though Mr.
Crawford was now equally active. They relied on De
Rohan to moderate the trouble at Naples, where
" everybody was challenging everybody to a duel,"
one correspondent says, and the common talk at a
table-d'hote was " honour and pistols." De Rohan,
after narrowly escaping arrest in France, reached Naples
on October igth. He found Hicks, whom he had
had thrown out of the ship at Harwich three weeks
before, " cutting a swell in uniform as Lieut.-Colonel,"
Seymour denouncing him (De Rohan) as " a swindler
and impostor," and, as his drafts were dishonoured, a
responsibility for ^"10,000 hanging over him. Colonel
Peard was entirely in the hands of the critics, and
Garibaldi's Italian ministers were only too willing to
believe stories that tended to relieve them from such
heavy payments. The English quarters now presented
a livelier spectacle than ever, and Garibaldi's ears were
wearied with their explanations. "He seems much
older, and is growing grey fast," said De Rohan.
" Poor fellow, he ate no breakfast this morning . . .
he seems broken-hearted." A few days later he wrote :
"As for the General, he is no longer the same man.
VOL. i. Y
322 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
He refuses to see Mazzini, or Crispi, or any one, or to
read any letters, or to go into any business whatever.
In fact, Cavour has triumphed, and G. G. falls."
When De Rohan offered Garibaldi his heap of
justificatory documents, he wearily said : " I cannot
I am worn out. Take Vecchi, and settle with him."
He handed Major Vecchi his credential, and the Italian
told him it was a worthless bit of paper. Who was
this Ashurst, etc. ? Vecchi had information that the
London Committee had received 30,000 from Glasgow
alone! " Major Styles" (at liberty once more), " Lt.-
Col. Hicks," and " Captain Sarsfield " were in high
favour. They had at one time sixteen officers of the
Legion under arrest. These were the men who supplied
the reports about the Legion to the British correspond-
ents at the time. Poor De Rohan adventurer enough,
certainly, but apparently honest, and devoted to Garibaldi
protests that he has to keep his room all day lest he
murder one of them. Mazzini was disposed to help,
but he was "living four-stair up in a miserable street,
and dare not go out by daylight." Peard "a Cornish
attorney, two years in an asylum," De Rohan says
who was certainly brave on the field, cut a sorry figure
off it ; his mismanagement and excessive eagerness to
obtain command of the Legion were responsible for
most of the trouble.
I will not follow the Neapolitan farce through all its
acts, but will be content to quote the last scene from
De Rohan's nervous script (December i5th) :
" Yesterday, at 3 p.m., the gallant Peard, surrounded
by his staff, conspicuous among whom stood the
' Countess della Torre ' (or Whorre, as Dowling calls
her), with as sweet a collection of quidnuncs, little souls,
runaway debtors, would-be-somebodies, and dandily-
dressed but most useless officers together with one or
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 323
two sympathising friends of the ' late ' Lord St. Maur
[Seymour], alias Sarsfield such as Danby Seymour,
M.P., and his brother, Sir Geo. L'Estrange, and Major
the ^honourable Stuart Wortley led 230 or 250, no
one knoweth which, on board the ' Melazzo ' Lieu-
tenants Drury, Walker, and Chippendale in command.
I was advised not to go on board, but they know me
not. So, dragging Hodge along, I tumbled like a
bomb down into the cabin, to the amazement of Peard
and Co., roared out for the steward, and eat a hearty
lunch. At 5 p.m., seeing it was getting late, and that
paying the men would occupy five or six hours (for the
gallant Peard would not trust them with money ashore), I
took command plump, and steered the little screw around
the English fleet ; and as I rounded to under the stern
successively of the ' Renown,' ' Hannibal,' ' Queen,' and
'Cressy,' stopped her, and with a ' Now, boys, three
cheers for old England,' made the whole harbour and
woods ring again, to which all the fleet responded by
dipping their ensigns, a rare honour. I then turned her
head back toward the mole, and, as night had set in,
shook hands with nearly all the men, took their letters,
and bade them ' God-speed ' for a freer land and
happier hearths. As I shoved off with Hodge, the good
lads, which they are, set up a cheer which did not die
away till I was out of sight."
It is unfortunate that the volatile De Rohan describes
them a fortnight later as "the most complete set of
scoundrels that ever went unhung." Hodge also wrote
that in Naples one heard references sometimes to "the
Brutish Legion." But Hodge loved spicy gossip, and
had some anxiety about his thousand pounds. An
adventurous trip of the kind they had embarked on
would be sure to attract a few whose courage was
greater than their sobriety. However, Cavour had rung
down the curtain on the Neapolitan comedy. The men
were given 160 francs each (six months' pay) and sent
324 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
home at the expense of his Government. Hodge
received his thousand pounds. De Rohan followed
Garibaldi, who evidently liked him, to Turin, and got
his drafts signed by the General and paid by the
Government. Garibaldi, infinitely weary, retired to
Caprera, and for two years tried to forget Italy, Cavour,
Mazzini, 1 and everybody. But he sent Holyoake an
autographed portrait with the following note :
" Caprera, 7 January, 1861.
"SIR,
" I fulfil with pleasure the duty of thanking you
for all that you have generously done for the Italian
cause, and at the same time beg you to believe me with
all esteem, yours,
"G. GARIBALDI."
The last act in the life of the " Garibaldi Fund Com-
mittee " opened on January i4th, 1861, when a troop of the
Legionists landed in London, mostly penniless, scantily
clothed, and irritable with cold and poor feeding. They
naturally laid siege to 147 Fleet Street. Their clothes had
been left on the " Melazzo " on changing steamers ; their
money either spent before they started, or exhausted in
buying additional food on board. Many wanted arrears
of pay, and most of them wanted their train-fare home.
Holyoake pointed out that the Sardinian Government
had assumed responsibility for this, in taking the victory
out of Garibaldi's hands. The siege was transferred to
the houses of the Sardinian minister and consul, and
Cavour telegraphed instructions to pay them. But for
1 His growing dislike of Mazzini gave concern in England. The
press had published in 1859 a letter in which he called Mazzini "a
coward," and said that Kossuth was "bought by the tyrants." De
Rohan asked him in Caprera, at Holyoake's request, if it was genuine.
Holyoake did not publish the reply, which was : " Yes, I did write it,
and I think as I wrote."
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 325
months afterwards Holyoake was engaged in corre-
spondence about the Legion. He has given in Sixty
Years (ch. Ixxvi) a discreet account of his trouble with
" a strange treasurer of Garibaldi." The banker whom
he there calls Mr. Marvell was Mr. Durnton Lupton, of
Leeds. There is no evidence of improper intent on his
part. He had received upwards of ^400 towards the
Garibaldi Fund, and was very unwilling to hand it over
to Ashurst, the central treasurer, who applied for it.
Mr. Crawford also fruitlessly applied for it, and Mr.
Lupton still refused when an explicit instruction was sent
him from Garibaldi, who was then back at Caprera.
Holyoake went to Leeds, industriously spread the news
of the detention of the money amongst the subscribers in
the town, and then called on Mr. Lupton. A cheque
for ^411 went to Ashurst at once. Ashurst suggests
that Lupton " has been bitten by Urquhart or Ironsides,
and believes that all moneys collected for Garibaldi are
handed over to Lord Palmerston for Russian purposes."
There were treasurers who believed this.
Another source of trouble was that sixty of the volun-
teers were left at Gibraltar by the steamer that should
have brought them home. They were eventually con-
veyed to England by the home Government. 1 The
affairs of the first Committee ended with a last pyrotech-
nic correspondence from De Rohan, who threatened to
"expose everything " because Ashurst hesitated to pay
some bill of his. But in October 1861 Holyoake an-
nounced a " new Italian committee " in his new paper,
the Counsellor. The "Garibaldi Italian Unity Com-
mittee " included many well-known names (Cowen, Page
Hopps, Trevelyan, Stansfeld, Beales, Dr. Epps, Shaen,
1 It may be accounted a triumph that only some 20 out of the 800
wrote letters of complaint in the press. I have many letters asking for a
place in a second enrolment.
326 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
etc.) besides some of the old ones ; but it was content to
gather funds, and Holyoake had no conspicuous part
in it.
To conclude his relations with Garibaldi we must pass
on to the General's visit to England in 1864. The visit
was suggested to Garibaldi in 1861, and had attraction
for him ; but Holyoake and others represented it as inad-
visable at that time. One of the obituary notices of
Garibaldi (written, I think, by Holyoake) describes him
as "a lion in the field, \)\&*. bambino in politics." How-
ever, Garibaldi made a fresh raid in South Italy in 1862,
with Rome as his objective. This time his progress
was arrested by Victor Emmanuel's army, and he him-
self received a bullet from a Piedmontese rifle. This
did not improve the political situation, but friends con-
tinued to press him, and he started for England. The
splendour and enthusiasm of the reception accorded to
him have become historic, and need not be described in
detail. From the moment he landed at Southampton
he was greeted with ovations that befitted an English
conqueror, and the whole country showered invitations
on him. There are only two episodes of the time that
call for notice here : an unfortunate experience of
Holyoake's in connection with the visit, and the cause
of its sudden termination, which is still somewhat of
a mystery.
It need hardly be said that Garibaldi landed into a
network of jealousies and intrigues at Southampton.
The numerous " friends of Italy "in this country had
the disadvantage of not being friends of each other.
One party, headed by Colonel Chambers, boarded his
vessel below the Needles, and tried to capture him, but
were shaken off ; though Colonel Chambers became, in
some unexplained way, his " secretary," and dealt dis-
creetly with all letters (including Holyoake's) addressed
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 327
to him. Nearer shore Mr. Seely, M.P., was ready to
board his vessel ; and the Southampton Corporation had
a third claim. He decided to enjoy the honours of the
Corporation and the hospitality of Mr. Seely ; while he
found himself under the tutelage of gentlemen from
London whose names and efforts had not hitherto
reached him.
Holyoake went down to Southampton with various
credentials. He went as a press-representative (Leader,
Morning Star, and Newcastle Chronicle) ; he was deputed
by the Society of the Friends of Italy to bring about
an interview between Mazzini and Garibaldi, and supply
information to the General ; he had important letters
from old friends to Garibaldi, and many invitations to
press upon him ; and he was personally acquainted, as
few were, with the General, and had done such service
for him as still fewer had done. Garibaldi himself said
to Mr. Stansfeld that Holyoake was "the person he
was most interested in seeing in England." 1 But the
" infidel " was not welcome to many of those crowding
about Garibaldi, and there were unpleasant efforts made
to keep him aloof. Mr. Seely invited him to dine at
Brooke House (Isle of Wight) on the night of Garibaldi's
arrival there from Southampton, and he had many hours
with the General during the week. But the optician,
Mr. Negretti, who was prominent amongst the com-
mittee sent by the Italians living in London, made an
extraordinary attack on Holyoake, partly on account of
his heresies and partly because he was a warm Mazzinian.
He persuaded Mr. Seely that the company of the heretic
would compromise Garibaldi in the metropolis, and
obtained from him authority to remove Holyoake from
the London train, in the press-carriage of which
1 This remarkable tribute was only told to Holyoake in 1896, by
Professor Masson, who heard it. See Bygones^ I, 231.
328 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
Holyoake naturally had a place. He entrusted this work
to the station-master at Micheldever station, who very
zealously carried it out. Mr. Forster, who had twice
previously entertained Holyoake, was on the platform,
but he turned away when Holyoake asked him to inter-
fere. Negretti, who was urging the station-master to
act, declared in a passion that his chief reason was that
Holyoake had sent word to the papers about the friendly
meeting between Mazzini and Garibaldi (Leader, August
1 3th, 1864). Holyoake was permitted to resume his seat
on promising to leave the train privately at Nine Elms.
In point of fact, the police would not allow him to leave
the station at Nine Elms, where the General detrained,
by any other than the main entrance, and he was forced
after all into the procession of carriages, and shared the
five-hours' triumphal march.
An indignant correspondence followed, which we need
not linger over. Mazzini begged him to overlook the
matter on the ground that " Negretti is, in intellect,
tendencies, and manners, belonging to that class of men
whom I call ' irresponsible.' " Several papers commented
severely on it, and Washington Wilks (of the Daily
News) attacked Mr. Forster with warmth at the House.
Mr. Forster wrote to Holyoake a feeble and evasive note,
pleading that he knew only that there was a dispute
between him and Mr. Negretti "as to railway arrange-
ments," and had " no power to interfere." It was many
years before Holyoake could overlook his conduct
entirely, though after a time Forster apologised. Ne-
gretti took the bold line (to Mr. Seely) that he " was
determined to prevent such a man as Mr. Holyoake from
taking the General in hand," but he found occasion to
leave the country when the Garibaldi Reception Com-
mittee called upon him for an explanation. Garibaldi's
son, Menotti, was very indignant, and took the first
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 329
opportunity of publicly associating with Holyoake. A
short time afterwards Major Woolf wrote to Holyoake :
"Mr. Negretti got a rebuke from Menotti Garibaldi
because he had the impudence to speak not respectfully of
you under the pretence that you are an atheist. I had
not yet the opportunity of speaking to the General of Mr.
Negretti's shameful behaviour to you, but I shall take
the first I can find. I already told the story to Menotti,
who was highly indignant at it." 1
We may conclude with Holyoake's view of the cause
of Garibaldi's sudden withdrawal from England. The
procession from Nine Elms to the Duke of Sutherland's
house passed between princely hedges of enthusiasts.
In the rooms at Stafford House crowds of people, from
every section of society, jostled each other in their eager-
ness to greet the revolutionary soldier, in his blood-red
shirt and crimson silk scarf. Nearly every large town in
the kingdom begged the honour of a visit from him. In
the midst of all the excitement a physician, Mr. Fergu-
son, published a letter that questioned, with apparent
gravity, whether Garibaldi's health would be equal to
the exactions of the formidable programme of receptions
and dinners that was being written for him. Mr. Glad-
stone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had a private
conversation with the General. At once the whole pro-
gramme was cancelled, and Garibaldi returned to Caprera.
Nor did he ever care afterwards to dwell on his visit to
England.
The known facts fitted so easily into a theory that the
Government had asked Garibaldi to leave, that some of
the Tory newspapers on the one hand, and many radicals
1 I have related in a previous chapter how, on one occasion, Garibaldi
described himself as "an atheist." He probably had no rigid convic-
tions on the matter, and wavered. His proclamations in 1860 use
religious language. Mr. Morley says that Gladstone was much troubled
about his unbelief.
33<> THE GARIBALDI LEGION
on the other, were not slow to inform the working men
of London that the Government had " truckled to the
French Emperor." Other writers held, and still hold,
that Garibaldi personally shrank from the ordeal of
honour that awaited him. Holyoake has written (By-
gones, I, 241) that he asked Sir James Stansfeld, who was
in the intimacy of Garibaldi and of Gladstone at the time,
about it, and Sir James (a warm friend of Holyoake's)
said " that no foreign suggestion had been made, and
that nothing whatever had been said to Garibaldi."
Holyoake adds, however, that on reading Mr. Morley's
account of the matter, in his Life of Gladstone, one would
be inclined to think " that Garibaldi did not require
much imagination to see that he was not wanted to stay
in England." The papers he has left on the subject,
though they contain no revelation, make this apparent.
That Garibaldi should tell an Italian friend, as the
manuscript notes say, that he left because he thought fit
to do so, without instigation, proves nothing in regard
to a diplomatic episode. It is known that Mr. Gladstone
received a deputation on the subject from the working
men of the metropolis. He explained to them that, when
the physician's letter appeared, he had a consultation on
the matter with the Duke of Sutherland, the Earl of
Shaftesbury, Colonel Peard, General Eber, Mr. Seely,
Mr. Negretti, and Mr. Stansfeld. They decided that
Garibaldi's programme ought to be limited, in the in-
terest of his health. Gladstone begged that the decision
should be conveyed to him by personal friends, but they
returned to say that the General wished to see Gladstone.
He accordingly went to see Garibaldi, and merely ex-
pressed to him the solicitude of them all for his health in
view of the heavy list of engagements before him.
Mr. Joseph Co wen gives a different version of this
meeting, and declares that he had it from Garibaldi, with
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 331
whom he was intimate. I will copy his version from a
manuscript in Holyoake's writing (which does not seem
to have been published at the time) :
"Mr. Cowen was asked by the Working Men's
Garibaldi Committee at London to give an account of
his interview with the General on the matter of his de-
parture. Mr. Cowen wrote from Stella House, Blaydon
on Tyne, saying : ' What I understand passed between
Mr. Gladstone and Garibaldi was this. Mr. Gladstone
said : " If the same kind of demonstrations are repeated
in the provinces that have taken place in London, they
may damage the effect of your visit and lead to unpleasant
complications." Garibaldi said: " Then I understand
that you wish me to leave?" Mr. Gladstone said : " Yes."
The General said: " Then I give you my word and
[that?] I will go."
" * I [Cowen] said there was a general impression
abroad that the request for him to leave came from
the Government, and that it was the popular belief that
the " complications " referred to were political. He said
he knew that such was the belief that was generally enter-
tained. He thought it was correct, that the Government
did wish him to leave, and that as they (the Government)
had received and treated him with so much kindness, he
could not remain to be a source of inconvenience.
" ' The conversation was in English, which the General
does not speak very fluently. But if I have not reported
the exact words that were used, I am quite certain I have
reported the sense.' '
Holyoake then wrote to draw Mr. Gladstone's attention
to Cowen's statements. His secretary replied :
"SIR,
"The Chancellor of the Exchequer desires me
to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of May 26th,
and to thank you for the expression of your trust in his
word.
332 THE GARIBALDI LEGION
" He adheres in full to his statements. No such word
as complications was ever used by him. Nor did General
Garibaldi ever ask Mr. Gladstone if he wished him to
leave ; nor did he allude in the faintest manner to his
leaving, nor was there any allusion to the Government
throughout the conversation.
" I am, Sir,
" Your obedient servant,
"C. L. RYAN."
The word " complications " may be sacrificed. It has
many diplomatic equivalents. The only formal contra-
diction is in the statement that Gladstone made no allusion
whatever to Garibaldi's departure. But this is a formid-
able contradiction. Mr. Morley has quoted a private letter
of Mr. Gladstone's to Lord Clarendon, which strongly
confirms his own judgment that nothing was said. In
that letter Mr. Gladstone expresses concern that Gari-
baldi should have put the interpretation he did on his
words, and not have openly told it to him. As Mr.
Morley seems to know the other version of their con-
versation only as a statement made by an anonymous
lady, it is quite natural for him to regard it as unworthy
of serious consideration.
Cowen's precise and repeated statement reopens the
matter, and, I fear, will leave it open. Cowen was a
zealous, a fiery politician, it is true, but a man of rigid
veracity and honour, and Garibaldi's best friend in
England. He described the conversation to Holyoake
only a few days after he heard it from Garibaldi, and
in a second letter to Holyoake (on May 3ist), which he
marks " Private," he insists that he has correctly reported
Garibaldi's words to him. He speaks of a manuscript
pamphlet by Mr. P. A. Taylor, M.P., in which his
version is incorporated, and says that Mr. Shaen has
the same account of the conversation. But Cowen is
THE GARIBALDI LEGION 333
1 'heartily sick of the entire business," and wants the
pamphlet suppressed, as it seems to have been.
There is thus no serious ground to doubt that Garibaldi
told Cowen, his intimate friend, that Gladstone expressed
a wish for his departure. The terms of the conversation
he might forget, but such a man as Cowen could not
forget or alter the important substance of it within a
week. Holyoake does not help us to reconcile the
contradiction. One note he has left stresses the fact
that Gladstone was a man of honour ; but another note
insists that Garibaldi met all his honours with perfect
composure, and seems to mean that there was no ground
whatever for anxiety about his health ; and a third note
observes that more courts in Europe than those of Paris
and Rome were "mad" at Garibaldi's triumph. On
the other hand, we do not know that Gladstone read his
secretary's letter and endorsed its terms. However, the
contradiction is irreconcilable, and I leave it to the reader.
He may prefer to strike a balance of statements. Cer-
tainly, Gladstone would not speak as an envoy of the
Cabinet, and certainly he would not talk boldly of
1 'complications." But Garibaldi's account of what he
did say, told immediately afterwards to an experienced
man of business and politics, is a much greater mystery
than his departure, if there is no truth in it. 1
1 Shortly after Garibaldi's departure Holyoake began to issue the
English Leader. In the first three issues he deals with this question.
In these articles he insists emphatically that Garibaldi was in excellent
health, and was assured by two physicians whom he consulted that there
was no ground for anxiety. Negretti whom he describes as "alleged
to be an agent of the Turin Government to spoil the effect of the visit "
and others were propagating the fiction of illness. Holyoake insists
that " any gentleman would have done as Garibaldi did" after receiving
a hint from Gladstone that "a sojourn in the provinces might weaken
the effect of his visit."
CHAPTER XV
SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS
IT is hardly necessary to observe that, while Holyoake
willingly assisted revolutionary action on the Continent,
he fully recognised the duty of constitutional procedure
in the freer province of home politics. But before we
trace his increasing interest in parliamentary work, it
will be well to glance at the changing fortunes of the
two great social movements he had done so much to
establish. The middle term of his career brought him
heavy disappointment with regard to the system of
Secularism to which he had long devoted the greater
part of his energy and hope. It passed largely into the
hands of others, who did not share his broad social ideal
of its work, and seemed to him to be in danger of falling
away into mere Southwellism. On the other hand, the
Co-operative Movement advanced with the stride of the
young giant it was, and soon displaced Secularism as
the central interest of his life.
In spite of the growing unpleasantness in the
Secularist body, and the constant, silent pressure of
nearly the whole of his cultivated friends, Holyoake
would not desist from critical work. Press cuttings, of
which bundles remain, were sent to him weekly, telling
of the incredibly harsh treatment men still endured for not
sharing the prevalent religious views ; and the growth of
a hostile scientific culture on the one hand and a Broad
Church pf strange elasticity on the other deepened his
334
SECULARIST VICISSITUDES 335
feeling for consistency. One incident of the early sixties
has been described at some length by him in Sixty Years,
and some details of it may be recounted now with more
candour. This was the suicide of Gunner Scott, of the
Royal Artillery, at Aldershot. On the I2th of August,
1860, he received a letter from Scott, complaining that
he had entered the army on the word of the recruiting
authorities that he would receive the pay of a bombar-
dier from the first. The promise was at once ruled
" unauthoritative," and he was ranked as a gunner. He
had some education, and was employed as schoolmaster.
He worked to the rank of bombardier, and was at last
allowed to present himself for an examination for the
Military Asylum at Chelsea, which he passed. But he
was discovered to have works by Holyoake and other
freethinkers in his kit, and, after a kind of trial before the
colonel and officers, " on the charge of being an atheist,"
he was sent back amongst the gunners (yth Battery),
and served through the Indian Mutiny.
Holyoake could do nothing for him, and he sought
an interview with his colonel (Fitzmayer). The colonel
said that " so long as he held those horrible opinions of
atheism he would never allow him to hold any rank or
appointment in the Royal Artillery." When Scott per-
sisted (not too politely) he was hurried to the guard-
room, and charged with " insubordination." A refusal
to go to church brought a second charge of insubordina-
tion. The court-martial that followed was one-sided,
and he was condemned with perfect technical correct-
ness. His health gave way in prison, and he was sent
to hospital, where surgeons, ladies, and chaplains tried
to convert him. At last, despairing of getting release
from the army or peace in it, he committed suicide. 1
1 A comrade informed Holyoake that Scott had left all his small
tp Holyoake, but the authorities sent nothing to him.
336 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
The courts of justice were still equally inclement to
extreme heretics in most parts of the country, and in the
professional or the political world one had carefully to
conceal one's views. At the same time the new scientific
culture was beginning to stand in menacing contrast to
the religious views of the early part of the century.
Lyell had published his Principles of Geology in 1830, and
in 1859 Darwin issued his Origin of Species. In 1863
came Huxley's Mans Place in Nature, and the historic
struggle was fairly opened. Holyoake followed the new
culture with interest. He obtained journalistic appoint-
ments to attend the meetings of the British Association,
and endeavoured to popularise their work. The success
of this branch of his journalistic work can be seen from
an early letter of Professor Tyndall to him in 1861 :
"MY DEAR SIR,
" I did not think I could be caused to read any
more than I have already done regarding the Dundee
meeting. But you have fairly carried me along with
you. I have rarely seen a pleasanter account of a
scientific meeting, and I think this judgment is inde-
pendent of the many kind things you say of me.
" Believe me,
" Yours very truly,
"JOHN TYNDALL."
The Newcastle meeting in 1863 he reported in the
Morning Star. With Herbert Spencer, a frequent visitor
to his house, Holyoake had long been intimate, and I
find a friendly letter from Professor L. Btichner, during
a visit to England. Of his constant correspondence with
students like Francis Newman I have already spoken.
Curiously, in the same year (1862) Holyoake had a second "bequest of
a suicide." A Pole, Theophilus Jurecki, who had had kind words from
Holyoake about some wonderful philosophy he had framed, was forced
by poverty to take his life, and left the system and his box of clothes to
Holyoake.
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 337
It will be opportune to insert a word here about the
third brother of the Newman family, who corresponded
industriously with Holyoake in 1861 and 1862. Charles
Newman was an Agnostic, but it is not the unpopularity
of his opinions that has condemned him to obscurity.
He had not only inferior ability, but was liable to mental
trouble. In sending copy for the Reasoner he would
sometimes warn Holyoake that his mind was failing, as
it often did. His abler brothers had largely to maintain
him, and the Cardinal has written in high terms of the
purity of his character. His long, closely-written letters
show wide philosophical and historical reading, but an
inevitable failure of judgment. He speaks freely of
having a " mental infirmity of a chronic character," from
infancy upwards. One of his sanest letters is on his
ailment, which he attributes to enteric trouble that was
neglected in his boyhood. At times he writes with
ability on philosophical subjects, though he says Holy-
oake only prints one-fourth of what he writes. His
metaphysical tendency is, in the circumstances, remark-
able. But the friendship was short-lived. In 1862 he
collected (at Tenby, where he lived) five pennies for the
anti-oath agitation, and added two shillings of his own.
He professed to discover that it was applied to some
other purpose, and concluded his correspondence with
several quires of closely-written argument and censure.
This agitation to substitute an affirmation for an oath
in all courts occupied much of Holyoake's time in 1861
and 1862, when Sir John Trelawny introduced a Bill to
that purport. As early as 1858 a circular was issued to
all the clergy urging them to use every effort to prevent
" the abolition of Christian government," by permitting
any such measure to pass. But the injustice suffered
by conscientious objectors in all parts, and the gross
treatment of them by many magistrates, inclined many
VOL. i. z
338 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
politicians to grant relief. A letter to Holyoake, undated
and unsigned (but with the initials of W. Coningham,
M.P., I think), says that the writer expressed a hope to
Lord Russell that oaths would soon be abolished, and
the Premier replied: "I should not be sorry." Sir
John Trelawny, after some correspondence with Holy-
oake, took charge of a Bill, and between February and
June (1862) a hundred petitions (many very small) were
presented to Parliament in its favour. But the Bill
failed, and the agitation had to be carried on for many
years more.
Amongst the contributors to Holyoake's Affirmation
fund was Mr. John Stuart Mill, who had been friendly
for some years. In 1859 he sent Holyoake a copy of his
essay On Liberty, asking him not to review it until the
other reviewers had done so. " It is likely enough to be
called an infidel book in any case ; but I would rather
that people were not prompted to call it so." He said
shortly afterwards that there had been " an amount of
response to it far beyond what he expected." In 1861
he sent ten pounds towards the fund in support of Sir J.
Trelawny's Bill, and he made further contributions after-
wards. He differed from Holyoake as to the actual taking
of an oath. Though he agreed that prominent freethinkers
who had expressed public dissent from its terms ought
not to take it, he maintained that for ordinary freethinkers
it was a legitimate way of obtaining justice. The point
offered a nice problem in utilitarian morality, and Holy-
oake differed strongly from his master. Mill's conclusion
was :
" I conceive that when a bad law has made that a
condition to the performance of a public duty, it may be
taken without dishonesty by a person who acknowledges
no binding force in the religious part of the formality ;
unless, as in your case, he has made it the special
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 339
and particular work of his life to testify against such
formalities, and against the beliefs with which they are
associated."
Another letter of Mill's to Holyoake contains an
interesting passage :
" The root of my difference with you is that you appear
to accept the present constitution of the family and the
whole of the priestly morality founded on and connected
with it which morality, in my opinion, thoroughly
deserves the epithets of ' intolerant, slavish, and selfish.' '
The letter, however, seems to belong to an earlier date
(1848), and we may postpone discussion of it until we
have occasion to touch on Mill's ethical development, in
a later chapter.
The authority of Mill, who often made public his regard
for Holyoake, and the rise of a formidable scientific
opposition to current theology, gave great force to the
popular attack conducted by the Secularists. In a different
way the growth of the Broad Church favoured them. It
could easily be described as a homage wrung perforce
from theologians to the new culture. Holyoake pointed
out the significance of the liberal theologians with his
usual temperateness, and won the respect of many of
them. Dr. Temple made pleasant reference to him in a
letter to the Times. Canon Kingsley came in time to
write him the following letter :
" MY DEAR SIR,
" I have just read your manly and sensible
letter in the National Reformer [on workers and their
Unions]. I agree with it thoroughly. ... It is a bad
business, and society owes much to a man in your peculiar
position who will have the courage to take the tone, and
to do the work, about it, which Mr. Hughes and Mr.
Ludlow tell me you have done.
340 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
" Much as we disagree, and must, I fear, on many
very important and solemn matters, your conduct in this
has made me sincerely respect you, independently of, and
indeed long before, the kind expressions, etc., from you
in your letter about a book of mine with much of which
you must utterly disagree.
" Believe me,
" My dear Sir,
" Yours sincerely,
"C. KINGSLEY."
We shall see that Professor Maurice and Judge Hughes
came to adopt a similar tone.
One episode in the liberal theological movement of the
time had an especial effect on the popular mind, and more
closely interests us. This was the widespread agitation
in regard to the biblical heresies of Bishop Colenso. It
is not yet entirely known it would possibly pain many
people to know how much Colenso owed to freethinkers.
Some ten years ago an aged solicitor (Mr. Domville)
showed me a list he had compiled in the sixties of many
hundreds of agnostics. The sole purpose of compiling
it was to obtain subscriptions from them in aid of the
Bishop of Natal's cause. Holyoake has given an in-
teresting account of his connection with the bishop's
heresies, and left papers and letters concerning it.
The carpenter who taught heresy to the Zulus who
popular legend had it taught it to the Bishop of
Natal, was a Secularist follower of Holyoake's. He took
a Secularist library with him to Natal, where he worked
for Colenso, and the bishop borrowed Holyoake's writings
from him. It is not improbable that Ryder lent him also
Lecount's Hunt after the Devil, which contained a number
of the arithmetical criticisms of the Pentateuch that
Colenso afterwards popularised. In 1858 he sent an
account of the liberal bishop to the Reasoner^ and, although
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 341
Holyoake suppressed all names of persons and localities,
it reached the eye of a rival Dissenting missionary, and
led to trouble. The clergyman based on it an article,
published in the Natal Mercury, on " Atheistic Socialism
in Natal." Colenso dismissed his carpenter, but retained
respect for Holyoake. In an earlier year Holyoake
had found that the bishop was advertised to lecture at
the Secularist Hall of Science in City Road. He at once
wrote to him and pointed out the danger he incurred
amongst his colleagues from the character of the place,
and Colenso took the hint. When his friend Mr.
Thomas Scott spoke to him disparagingly of Holyoake,
Colenso told him to call at Fleet Street, and he " would
find the devil not so black as he was painted." Scott
became a life-long friend of Holyoake.
When (in 1863) Holyoake contributed to the contro-
versy his little pamphlet, Gumming wrong, Colenso right,
the bishop ordered two dozen copies of the publishers,
and wrote as follows to Holyoake :
" The Bishop of Natal is much obliged to Mr. Holyoake
for a copy of his reply to Dr. Cumming's publication on
the Pentateuch.
"As so much has been said by Dr. Cumming and
others totally ignorant of the subject which they are
discussing of ( the want of scholarship,' * ignorance of
Hebrew criticism,' etc., which is exhibited in the Bishop's
books, and as even Matthew Arnold has allowed himself
to speak of it in Macmillan's Magazine as ' going forth
amidst the titters of educated Europe ' a phrase which
he seems to have borrowed from Mr. McCaul of the
Record, who has been so smartly handled in the last
number of ' Evangelical Christendom,' a journal in the
service of his friends the Bishop thinks it right to
forward for Mr. Holyoake's perusal two or three letters
which he has received from scholars of high character
and European reputation. . . ."
342 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
The letters were from Kalisch, Huffeld, and Kuenen. A
passage from Holyoake's reply shows the temper in which
he corresponded with many of the clergy at the time :
" My own views on many points are such as your Lord-
ship would deeply dissent from. My very praise would
be perilous to your Lordship, yet I cannot refrain from
expressing how much I honour the Christian chivalry
displayed in your works. I can reverence forms of faith
not my own, and I can feel that the human spirit of
Christianity, set free from Mosaical fetters, would be a
ministration of mercy in English homes as well as Kaffir
kraals. I cannot but regard your Lordship's courageous
efforts as adding new dignity to the English Church and
The correspondence afterwards became less formal, but
has no particular interest. Colenso sent him a sub-
scription for the fund for abolishing the oath. In a long
letter he describes it as " demoralising," " superstitious "
(" as it implies that the Divine Judge will be more pres-
ent when appealed to by an oath, than when a deliberate
lie is told in ordinary circumstances"), " illiberal,"
" unjust," and " impolitic." He said that " the best
comment on the practical value of the system of taking
oaths " was found in the statement of Baron Martin that
"the offence of perjury was becoming exceedingly
common : he did not believe there was a single day in
which perjury was not committed in Courts of Justice."
He thought the oath should be abolished altogether.
These different tendencies in the thought of the time
gave opportunities for popular criticism of theology
that had never existed before, and the audiences at
Secularist meetings greatly increased. But the rift
within the Secularist body that we considered in an
earlier chapter now grew wider. In June 1861 the
Reasoner was brought to a close, partly owing to Holy-
oake's illness and partly (I assume) to lack of support.
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 34}
It is difficult to understand on what grounds he started
an entirely similar paper (but monthly) in August with
the name of the Counsellor. There were only five issues
of it. Mr. Bradlaugh was in the meantime having
unpleasant experience with the National Reformer which
he had begun in April 1860. He had as co-editor
a freethinking lecturer of great popularity, Joseph
Barker, who had just returned from America. Rumours
of Barker's conversion to theistic views had preceded
him, and were openly discussed in the Reasoner ; but
he seems to have evaded inquiries, if not equivocated,
and he readily entered into editorial partnership with
Bradlaugh, the most explicit atheist in the country.
Before long the two halves of the paper presented a
most grotesque spectacle of contradiction, and Mr.
Bradlaugh rightly sought relief from the shareholders,
who dismissed Barker.
This was in August 1861, the month in which Holy-
oake began to issue his Counsellor. It appears that the
northern Secularists were now eager to bring about
a co-operation of the two leaders, and very shortly
afterwards Holyoake received an invitation from Mr.
Bradlaugh to merge his Counsellor in the Reformer, and
assist him in the production of the paper. What the
precise terms of the co-operation were to be is a matter of
dispute, and gave serious trouble afterwards. Bradlaugh
contended that he invited Holyoake to take the position
of " chief contributor," and Holyoake maintained that he
was engaged as joint editor of the Reformer. The draft
of agreement that Holyoake drew up, with an eye to
possible differences, was not discoverable when such
differences actually arose. It was at all events agreed that
Holyoake should supply three pages of uncontrolled copy
each week, and for this Bradlaugh would pay him two
pounds out of the five allotted to him by the company.
344 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
Holyoake was eager to restore unity in the movement,
but he consulted first a number of his more judicious
friends at London. As far as the letters remain, they
made an effort to dissuade him from abandoning his
paper and joining the Reformer. Mr. Crawford, a well-
known barrister (one of the prosecuting counsel to the
Mint), and chairman of the Garibaldi Committee, wrote
an insistent letter to turn him from his proposal. He
reminded him, in strong terms, of the Wilks episode of
four years previously (see p. 300), and urged that he had
no security against the recurrence of some such un-
pleasantness. Others, observing the vagueness of the
terms of the engagement, represented to him that, if he
accepted the post of a mere contributor, he would " lower
himself in the eyes of his friends " by occupying a
position lower than the one Barker had held on the
paper. This difficulty seems (from letters I find in
Holyoake's papers, written to him by shareholders in
the company) to have been removed by a definite offer
of dual editorship of the journal.
Holyoake disregarded the advice of his friends. He
closed the Counsellor, and in January 1862 began to
work on the National Reformer. " One Paper and One
Party" was the attractive message he gave out to his
followers in the last issue of the Counsellor (December
1861). The circulation of the paper at once arose to
8,000, with prospect of increase. But Crawford was
right. In less than three months Bradlaugh represented
to a meeting of the shareholders that the arrangement
he had made had miscarried, and the schism reopened.
Bradlaugh was confirmed in his editorial capacity, and
he asked Holyoake to write two columns each week,
instead of supplying and controlling three pages, at
the same salary as before. Holyoake naturally resented
the change as lowering his position, and maintained that
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 34$
he had been engaged for twelve months on the original
basis. He claimed the balance of the salary due to him
on their first contract a sum of Si i8j. od. They
agreed to settle the dispute by arbitration, if possible ;
but as Bradlaugh appointed W. J. Linton, who had
neither legal training nor an impartial feeling to Holy-
oake (the reader will remember his vicious attack in the
Liberator), and Holyoake appointed Mr. Crawford, whose
feeling towards Bradlaugh I have indicated, an agreement
was impossible. For the delicate office of umpire they
chose Mr. Shaen, a distinguished solicitor of progressive
sympathies, whose character and friendship for Holy-
oake were well known to both. His rigid feeling of
justice and his legal skill were unquestioned before the
verdict was given, at all events. The only comment
on the result that Holyoake has left is one line in his
diary (July 3ist, 1863): "Arbitration awarded to me,"
and we may leave the matter there.
The Secular World and Social Economist had been pro-
jected by Holyoake in 1861, and was started by him as
soon as he quitted the Reformer. It went entirely on
the lines of the Reasoner, except, perhaps, that it gave
even more attention to politics and to Co-operative
matters. He was at once assured of considerable
support. His older friends, Mr. Gwynne, Mr. Trevelyan,
etc., generously contributed. The Yorkshire Secular
Societies, the strongest branch of the movement, held
a conference, and unanimously resolved to support
Holyoake's paper. The Sheffield delegates were es-
pecially indignant with Mr. Bradlaugh because he had,
they alleged, suppressed the report of a meeting of
Sheffield shareholders in his paper. But the scission
seems to have weakened the movement generally. In
August the Secular World was reduced to a monthly
issue, and in January 1865 it was renamed the Reasoner
346 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
(as a monthly organ). On the other hand, Mr. Brad-
laugh abandoned the Reformer in February 1863, the
company that owned it being liquidated some months
previously. 1
From the middle of the sixties Bradlaugh had the
greater influence over the Secular movement as a
whole. In a popular movement the powerful physique,
sonorous voice, and real gift of oratory that Bradlaugh
possessed were decisive advantages. The fact, too,
that religious interest of a critical character was ex-
ceptionally inflamed at that time by the tendencies of
culture that I have noted favoured Bradlaugh's pro-
gramme. Holyoake was not willing, as his critics
said, to dissemble his views on religion ; his position
in the press and political life was one of constant
sacrifice because he would not do this. His position
was that he "would not make atheism the badge of
the party." In truth, however, he wanted criticism
to be so subordinated to positive culture that theists
might join them. His ideal was an impossible one.
In spite of all their respect for him, the Secularists
felt that their distinctive work was criticism of theology,
and Bradlaugh's plan suited them. Not, indeed, that
Holyoake ceased to be one of their chief lecturers.
His provincial tours continued year after year, though
there was less adventure in them now that his manner
was mature. The Yarmouth Independent, to quote one
of many provincial notices, spoke of him in 1862 as
" a gentleman whose courtesy in debate, sincerity,
eloquence, and intrepidity have won him the respect
1 The Unitarian Inquirer made friendly reference to the Secular World,
as the Saturday Re-view had done to the Reasoner. In 1864 Holyoake
simultaneously conducted the English Leader, of which we shall see a
little in the next chapter. He was, of course, writing" for half a dozen
ordinary journals all these years.
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 347
of many eminent Christians." His subjects were
u secular" in his broad sense of the word, and many
a clergyman took the chair for him, or entertained
him. At London his detractors were silenced, and
he lectured regularly. There is a letter written by
one of them in 1863 the end is unfortunately missing,
but it seems to be from Maughan expressing sorrow.
" Misled in some particulars," the writer says, " I
wrote of Mr. Holyoake with more impetuosity and
firmness than I should in my calmer moments have
done. . . . Let me say distinctly that any imputation
on Mr. Holyoake's personal honour I never intended
to cast. ... Mr. Holyoake has, for a long series of
years, advocated Freethought with rare tact, ability,
and courtesy. While some have gloried in edifying
a mob with fustian and advocating infidelity with the
same brutal ferocity that characterises the converted
costermonger, he has invariably aimed at something
higher." One by one the frivolous calumnies were
disposed of. With the co-operation of a London
barrister, Mr. J. Clark, Holyoake founded a new centre
in Fitzroy Square (the " Metropolitan Institute"), and
here and at other metropolitan centres continued to
"aim at something higher."
From his wearying experience with the Secularist
body Holyoake turned with relief to the consistent
growth of the Co-operative Movement. In the early
sixties the northern Co-operative Societies were ham-
pered by the generally disastrous effect of the American
War and the Cotton Famine, but it was noticed that
their members suffered less than improvident neigh-
bours. The story of Rochdale, told in attractive
manner by Holyoake in 1857 (and before that in the
Leader), was slowly moving over the country, and
indeed the Continent. His friend Talandier translated
the Rochdale history into French. Several inquirers
348 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
wrote to him from Italy in 1861. The editor of the
Popolo d* Italia asked him for further information about
the " Pionieri di Rochdale," and Dominico Longo
wrote from Sicily. Longo seems to have thought it
was quite sufficient to put on his envelope,
"Au tres Illustre Philosophic,
Monsieur Holyoake,
Londres,"
and our admirable postal servants discovered the
" illustrious philosopher." A few years later Luigi
Cossa (Professor of Political Economy at the Pavia
University) sought Co-operative information of him.
In this country he was recognised as the chief
writer and propagandist of Co-operative principles.
The Paddington Equitable Society asked him to be
one of its arbitrators in 1860, and we find him in
constant touch with Societies throughout the sixties.
At the Social Science Congress in London in 1862 he
read a paper on " The Moral Mistakes of Co-operators,"
which the section (including the Rev. W. Molesworth)
begged him to publish. 1 In 1863 he took a more im-
portant step. There were at that time some 20 or
30 no one was quite sure Co-operative Societies in
the metropolis, out of about 460 in the country at
large. The Christian Socialist organisation had long
since disappeared, and these stores fell into individual
ways, which were often peculiar. Organisation was
urgently needed, and Holyoake took the initiative.
For more than ten years he had been almost the one
journalistic link of the English Societies. The
Lancashire and Yorkshire Societies were represented
in a little weekly Co-operator, of private ownership, after
1860, but the real chronicle of the progress of the
1 It appeared, in less drastic form, as a penny pamphlet entitled Moral
Errors "which Endanger the Permanence of Co-operative Societies.
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 349
Cooperative Movement from 1850 to 1868 is to be
found in Holyoake's columns in the Reasoner, Leader,
and Secular World. The Secular World made a special
feature of its Co-operative section, and this was edited
by a Secularist friend of Holyoake's named Edger.
The two now joined in an attempt to unite the stores
that were scattered over London, and a meeting of
secretaries was convened at a coffee-house in Theobald's
Road, kept by a Co-operator and Secularist with the
Dickensonian name of Jaggers. Eleven secretaries
attended, and presently they started a " London As-
sociation for the Promotion of Co-operation," with
Francis Newman, J. S. Mill, and E. Vansittart Neale
as honorary members. From the coffee-house the
Association found it possible to pass to the Whitting-
ton Club (in the Strand) for its meetings, and J. S.
Mill was induced by Holyoake to deliver to the
members there his first public speech.
But at this juncture Holyoake met a man whose
association with him in the Co-operative Movement has
become historic. His diary notes that in the spring of
1863 he " first met Mr. E. O. Greening" at Manchester. 1
Holyoake was lecturing at Manchester, and staying at
the house of a wealthy young German, Max Kyllman,
who had taken the house built for himself by the archi-
tect Waterhouse on Oxford Road. Kyllman was in-
terested in Co-operative matters, and Greening was then
editing a small Co-operative journal, the Industrial Part-
nerships Record. Both Greening and Holyoake held
firmly to what one may call apostolic Co-operation the
sharing of profits with employees and care for education
and they at once entered upon their life-long and
cordial friendship. Events were then occurring in the
1 Mr. Greening tells me that he had certainly seen Holyoake, and
they had probably met, before 1863: chiefly at the Socialist or Secularist
Hall, where Mr. Greening was, I fancy, a polite young opponent.
350 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
Lancashire Co-operative world that drew closer together
all men with these ideas.
I have previously related how the Rochdale Pioneers
had applied their surplus capital to productive enterprise.
In the mills they erected they adhered to the original
principle of profit-sharing. The mills had a period of
great prosperity, with the result that workers in it shar-
ing all the profits between them after five per cent, had
been paid on capital found themselves in a singularly
fortunate position. The mill could have paid 25 or 30
per cent, on the quarter of a million capital sunk in it.
The capitalists were, of course, to a great extent the
workers of Rochdale, and they soon came to reflect un-
easily on the large sums that went to the minority of
them who could be employed in their own mill. An
agitation against the original basis of profit-distribution
was started, and after a fierce struggle it was abolished. 1
The decision has affected the whole history of the Co-
operative Movement. The " practical men," as the
victors at Rochdale styled themselves, obtained control
of the movement, and the " theorists" who fought for
the original idea of sharing profits among the employees
after paying a moderate interest on capital were kept
in a critical minority. We shall see how their doctrine
afterwards found embodiment in a separate Co-Partner-
ship movement. It is even claimed by them that the
fatal decision at Rochdale led to a rapid growth of modern
Socialism. Certainly F. Lasalle in Germany used it as
a powerful argument in persuading the workers that
Co-operation was only a slightly modified form of capi-
talism, and that they must turn to industrial Collectivism.
Holyoake and Greening were prominent amongst the
idealists. Their first answer to the Rochdale decision
1 Molesworth says that during the cotton-famine many had sold
their shares to people who had not the Co-operative ideal at heart, and
that these mere speculators were responsible for the change. Hist.
Engl., Ill, 214.
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 351
was to establish a mill at Manchester on the original basis
of profit-sharing. Holyoake could have little to do with
this remote experiment, but Mr. Greening was deeply
interested in it, and Kyllman provided the capital. Un-
fortunately, the tide of prosperity had by this time
turned, and their undertaking struggled in shallow water,
and shortly failed. The failure was wholly due to extrin-
sic causes, but it naturally strengthened their opponents.
The Wholesale Department, which began in 1864, fell
under their influence, and its vast organisation its pro-
fits grew from ^267 to ^19,963 in the first ten years (and
to more than three millions in 1904) is framed on their
principle.
Holyoake and Greening now united their forces in the
presentment of the original Co-operative doctrine. In
1868 they brought out together the first national organ
of the Co-operative societies, the Social Economist. Mr.
Walter Morrison promised the small capital required
(^300), and Mr. Greening merged his journal in the
Economist. He stipulated that Holyoake should be
" editor, conductor, and manager, "and he himself would
take care of the accounts ; though I find him also doing
valuable work in promoting the circulation. " In truth,"
he wrote to Holyoake, " I feel as regards the paper that
it is the only concern I have to do with, or have had to
do with for some time, in which I have a strong man to
lean upon, and you must not take it ill if I leave you
pretty much alone in the management." The paper
proved of great value to the movement, which was now
spreading rapidly. " A good, respectable-looking paper
is of some benefit to the Co-operative cause, like living
in a decent house is good for self-respect," Morrison
wrote. Mill wrote to him : " I always look through the
Social Economist, and have been struck with the great
improvement in its quality."
Mr. Greening was convinced that a closer co-operation
352 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
amongst the idealists of the south and the business men
of the north was desirable, and in the later sixties he re-
moved to London. He had seen the modern movement
in Manchester arise from the fusion of the Owenite
Socialist and Christian Socialist workers, and he exerted
himself to effect a similar junction at London. With the
help of W. Morrison, Thomas Hughes, Cowper-Temple,
and others he started, in 1867, the Agricultural and Hor-
ticultural Association in Long Acre, on a labour co-part-
nership basis, of which he is still the presiding genius.
In the first ten years its membership rose from 174 to
1,113. Finally, in 1869 was celebrated the first of the
series of Congresses of the modern Co-operative move-
ment, and it was attended by the Comte de Paris, the Earl
of Lichfield, the Hon. E. Lyulph Stanley, Mr. Fawcett,
and many other distinguished social students. Holyoake
was made a member of the first Central Board.
Thus there was on the Co-operative side some com-
pensation for the distress experienced in other sections
of Holyoake's work. Indeed, his position had now so
greatly improved that in his fiftieth year (1867) he must
have looked back with genial pride on the strenuous ex-
ertions of the preceding thirty years. He had begun his
public career, little more than twenty years before, in such
obscurity that he could be described in an official docu-
ment as " a labourer" and treated with the brutality that
it is customary to show to hardened felons. From the
shadow of the jail he had come, penniless, to try his for-
tune in the life of the metropolis. By conviction and
sympathy he was detained amongst the most derided and
despised bodies in the country, and was forced to asso-
ciate with social outcasts, poor workers, and, too often,
vulgar adventurers. But in those ranks of ungentle
warriors, superciliously dismissed by cultivated journals
as " familiar with every jail in the country," he had found
inspiring examples of self-sacrifice and moral heroism.
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 353
Their phrases struck stridently on the ears of the wealthy
and the politician, but he knew well the pervading misery
and injustice that had given edge to them. Melodious
periods would not form in that world of moral and social
discord. It was his distinction that he learned to utter
the warmest sympathy with "the people" in terms that
the middle and the wealthier class could entertain, and to
move with respect amongst deeply religious men and
women while he maintained an unflinching protest
against what he thought to be false in their beliefs.
So much of the labour we have considered was so ill-
paid, or wholly unpaid, that his income was still poor,
and his bank empty. One grows accustomed to reading
in his diary such lines as: "The past two years have
been eleemosynary, propagandic, and precarious, to
terminate early, I trust, in their unsatisfactory respects."
As long as he retained his strength those features never
did fall from his years. With his journalistic skill,
which was well appreciated in his fiftieth year, he might
have earned much, but he chose to keep his freedom to
utter unwelcome truths. He was content to earn enough
to support a bright little home and to educate his children;
though in this friends were helpful. In the beginning of
1862 he had removed from Tavistock Square to a small
villa in the Oval Road, Regent's Park. He wrote to
J. S. Mill:
" I have a pleasant home here, surrounded by more
than half an acre of plantation. Mr. Das Haldar, a
Bengal gentleman who visited me, called it a Bungalow.
... In summer it is a Paradise."
" Dymoke Lodge" "the nunnery," his daughter called
it had many interesting visitors. Amongst them were
so mixed a company as Karl Blind, W. Hale White,
Herbert Spencer, W. Coningham, F. Newman, T.
Cooper, Stopford Brooke, Somerset Beaumont, T. Allsop,
VOL. I. A A
354 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES AND
J. G. Crawford, T. Hughes, Major Bell, Mr. Pulzsky,
Col. Clinton, Dr. Shorthouse (editor of Sporting Times),
Toulmin Smith, Cowen, Ashurst, Shaen, Sir J. Stansfeld,
and others. 1
How he found time for social engagements it is difficult
to see, but one is glad to find that he did. Mr. Ashurst
had succeeded to his father's friendship as well as ability,
and there was open house for Holyoake at Norfolk
Crescent. Asking Holyoake to a New Year dinner in
1863, he invites him to bring his daughter, but warns :
" We are frivolous in our unguarded moments and
young ladies nowadays are not frivolous, but intellectual,
d d intellectual, I think ! "
Stopford Brooke was one of the clergymen with whom
he formed a warm friendship, as his letters tell. He
was brought to Dymoke Lodge by his brother-in-law,
Somerset Beaumont, and both became very friendly.
Toulmin Smith (son of his old Unitarian tutor, and an
able barrister) writes to him :
" Be assured that henceforth you will be the one man
in all London who will be most cordially welcome at my
house, and with whom I shall feel that I have the most
genuine sympathies, present and past."
His old Chartist friend, T. Cooper, wrote warm letters :
" Oh, that these things [the Bradlaugh trouble] might
drive you to Christ. The whole Christian Church would
welcome you and rejoice over you."
There was no lack of varied interest. One day it is
an invitation to lunch with the engineer Mr. Francis
Train, the inventor of the tram-car. Another day (or
week) is spent with the sporting editor, Dr. Shorthouse,
1 At Woburn Buildings and for some years at Dymoke Lodge he had
the artist Merritt living- with them. Merritt, who was of a sensitive and
irritable nature, left them in 1866, and, though I find friendly relations con-
tinued between them, it was suggested after Merritt's death that Holy-
oake had profited unduly by his lodging with them. This is very clearly
the reverse of the truth, as the figures and entries in the diaries show.
CO-OPERATIVE PROGRESS 355
his neighbour in Fleet Street. Shorthouse hears that
he has " drawn Lord Lynn" in some handicap his
neighbours have induced him to try, and says : " Don't
be an ass, I'll give you ten pounds for it." At Mrs.
P. A. Taylor's, where he is a constant visitor, he meets
Bishop Colenso, and other religious and philosophical
thinkers. Mr. Garth Wilkinson sends on Henry James
to see him, and Moncure Conway writes : " In my own
work far away in the west I have seen the good results
of your labours as a thinker and a friend of man. 1
Mr. W. Hale White (" Mark Rutherford") dedicates
a pamphlet to him in 1866, and when Holyoake modestly
protests, says : " You are all wrong as to the * honour '
done you. The honour is rather mine than yours."
The eminent politician, Mr. Roebuck, writes: " Seeing
your name, I read the article, to do which was contrary to
my usual custom, as generally I read nothing respecting
myself. . . . Your critique not only demands my
warmest thanks, but excites my special wonderment."
Charles Forster, the biographer of Landor and Dickens,
wrote: "I beg you to believe that I shall at all times
have an ?/wprofessional pleasure in seeing you here upon
these subjects."
The next chapter, on his political activity, will greatly
enlarge the circle of those who esteemed him, when we
shall find him in friendly correspondence with Lord
Elcho, Lord Amberley, Lord Stanley, and others. In
view of his earlier experiences and his actual views,
expounded weekly in the press and on the platform,
there is biographical significance in these letters. In
1867 Lady Strathmore wrote to thank him for some
journalistic reference, and sent a portrait from her " little
boy." In the following year the dowager Lady Buxton
invited him to join a British Association party that was
1 Holyoake's daughter Eveline was married to Mr. Praill by Dr.
Conway in 1866, at South Place Chapel.
356 SECULARIST VICISSITUDES
visiting her place at Northrepps. Sir Charles B-uxton
often wrote to him. In 1863, when he was on a lecturing
tour in the north, he spent a day or two with Mr. and
Lady Beaumont, and was taken by them down their
lead mines. Lord and Lady Suffield, Sir John Shelley,
and other guests, were staying at Allenheads at the time.
I will conclude with the citation of a passage from the
Westminster Review (January 1869), though it more pro-
perly belongs to the following chapter. It is taken from a
comment on Holyoake's election manifesto at Birming-
ham in 1868. But it is more valuable as an indication
of the place that he had won in public regard, and may
close the series that I have chosen from the many letters
before me.
" We are glad to be able to take for our text so
excellent a piece of true literature as the report of Mr.
Holyoake's speech at Birmingham. He must be a very
mean man or a very ignorant man who can read this
speech without the sincerest admiration for the energy,
the calmness, the penetrative sagacity, and yet withal
the delicate appreciation of all that is not wholly bad in
those he would oppose, evinced by the speaker."
With these many assurances ot success about him,
and a long record of useful public service behind him,
Holyoake entered on the period of mature manhood.
He was very far yet from having reached the highest
point of his career. More than half his public life, and
the great bulk of his literary work, still lie before us.
But it is clear that he had passed so far through
struggles that test character no less than frame without
falling from the high standard he had set up in obscure
Halls of Science thirty years before.
END OF VOL. I.
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