Holyoake, GEORGE JACOB

Holyoake, GEORGE JACOB, a zealous labourer for bettering the condition of working-men, a writer on co-operation, and the founder of 'Secularism, a system which bases duty on considerations purely human, relies on material means of improvement, and justifies its beliefs to the conscience, irrespective of atheism, theism, or revelation.' He was born at Birmingham on 13th April 1817. During the course of his life he has filled various offices and taken an active share in various public movements. He taught mathematics at the Mechanics' Institution in Birmingham, lectured on Robert Owen's socialist system, acted as secretary to the British contingent that went to the assistance of Garibaldi, edited the Reasoner, was chiefly instrumental in getting the bill legalising secular affirmations passed, projected the light on the clock tower of the Parliament House, and exerted himself on behalf of settlers in Canada and the United States, services recognised by Mr Gladstone and the Canadian government. Holyoake was the last person imprisoned in England on a charge of atheism (1841). He was president of the Carlisle Congress of the Co-operative Societies, 1887. On the subject of co-operation he has written History of Co-operation in Rochdale (2 parts, 1857-72), History of Co-operation in England (2 vols. 1875-79; new ed. vol. i. 1886), and Self-help a Hundred Years Ago (1888). Other works from his pen are The Limits of Atheism (1861), Trial of Theism (1877), Life of Joseph Rayner Stephens (1881), Hostile and Generous Toleration, a History of Middlesborough, Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life (1892), &c.