Charles Southwell
| Charles Southwell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1814 London, England |
| Died | August 7, 1860 (aged 45–46) Auckland, New Zealand |
| Occupation | Radical and journalist |
Charles Southwell (1814 – 7 August 1860) was a radical English journalist and freethinker.
Charles Southwell was born in London, the youngest of 33 children in a poor family. His father, William, was a piano maker who had married three times. His mother, Fanny (William's third wife), was William's ex-servant, and at least three decades younger than him. Charles was Fanny's only child. A difficult pupil, but well-read, Southwell left school at the age of twelve (his father died in 1825 or 1826) and got work in a piano factory. It was while working at Broadwood and Sons that Southwell, encouraged by a Christian colleague, read the Sermons of Timothy Dwight and began thinking seriously about religion, only to reject it (as had his father).
In 1830, Southwell set up as a radical bookseller in Westminster, London, and joined the radical lecture circuit.
Southwell married Mary Seaford in 1832, but the relationship was a troubled one. On Mary's death c.1835, Southwell witnessed the surgical removal of her heart, as Mary had requested.
In 1835 he fought as a volunteer with the British Legion during the First Carlist War. Returning in poverty-stricken state a couple of years later, he again found employment at Broadwoods. But he also became more involved in radicalism.
Although he had been a radical bookseller, it was not until Southwell's return from Spain that he became more deeply involved in Robert Owen's socialist movement. He was confirmed as an Owenite "socialist missionary" by the Association of All Classes of All Nations in 1840, and worked in that capacity in London and Birmingham.
In 1841, a group of "socialist missionaries" split from Robert Owen, partly over the issue of whether socialist lecturers should take the oath usually taken by dissenting ministers. Clerical opponents of Owenism were threatening to use the law to prevent money being taken at meetings on Sundays. Only religious bodies were permitted to do so. Owenite lecturers were either to stop collecting money on Sundays, or make a public profession of adherence to Christianity. In Campfield, Manchester, the Rev. J. W. Kidd took legal action against the Hall of Science near his church. The Owenite missionary Robert Buchanan consequently took the dissenter's oath. The Central Board of Owen's Universal Community Society was in favour of taking the oath, and of moderating anti-religious activity, and other lecturers followed Buchanan. But others, including Charles Southwell, refused, and resigned their positions.
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