Charles Bradlaugh
| Charles Bradlaugh | |
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| Member of Parliament for Northampton |
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In office 1880–1891 |
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| Preceded by | Charles George Merewether |
| Succeeded by | Sir Moses Philip Manfield |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
26 September 1833 Hoxton |
| Died | 30 January 1891 (aged 57) London |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Liberal |
Charles Bradlaugh (/ˈbrædlɔː/; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist, atheist and British republican. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866.
In 1880, Bradlaugh was elected as the Liberal MP for Northampton. His attempt to affirm as an atheist, rather than take a parliamentary Oath of Allegiance which assumed a new MP was a Christian (and a Monarchist), ultimately led to his temporary imprisonment, fines for voting in the Commons illegally, and a number of by-elections at which Bradlaugh regained his seat on each occasion. He was finally allowed to take an oath in 1886. Eventually, a parliamentary bill which he proposed became law in 1888 which allowed members of both Houses of Parliament to affirm, if they so wished, when being sworn in. The new law also resolved the issue for witnesses in civil and criminal court cases.
Born in Hoxton (an area in the East End of London), Bradlaugh was the son of a solicitor's clerk. He left school at the age of eleven and then worked as an office errand-boy and later as a clerk to a coal merchant. After a brief spell as a Sunday school teacher, he became disturbed by discrepancies between the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church and the Bible. When he expressed his concerns, the local vicar, John Graham Packer, accused him of atheism and suspended him from teaching. He was thrown out of the family home and was taken in by Eliza Sharples Carlile, the widow of Richard Carlile, who had been imprisoned for printing Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. Soon Bradlaugh was introduced to George Holyoake, who organised Bradlaugh's first public lecture as an atheist.
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