Cleveland Hall, London
| Cleveland Hall | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| General information | |
| Status | Demolished |
| Type | Meeting hall |
| Address | 54 Cleveland Street |
| Town or city | London |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°31′14″N 0°08′20″W / 51.520574°N 0.138792°WCoordinates: 51°31′14″N 0°08′20″W / 51.520574°N 0.138792°W |
| Completed | 1861 |
Cleveland Hall was a meeting hall in Cleveland Street, London that was a center of the British secularist movement between 1861 and 1878, and that was then used for various purposes before becoming a Methodist meeting hall.
Cleveland Hall was built with a legacy from William Devonshire Saull, an Owenite, and in 1861 replaced the John Street Institution as the London center of freethought. The hall was controlled by its shareholders, and these changed over time, so it was not always used for freethought purposes.
The hall was at 54 Cleveland Street, Marylebone, north of Soho in an area with a large immigrant population. According to the Secular Review and Secularist in 1877 the hall was a large and commodious building with a historic repute in connection with secular propaganda. It was near Fitzroy Square, three minutes walk from the buses of Tottenham Court Road or from Portland Road Station. Another source described the location less kindly as in "Cleveland Street, a street lying in that mass of pauperism at the rear of Tottenham Court Road Chapel".
In the 1860s several lecturers including George Holyoake and Harriet Law who rejected the leadership of Charles Bradlaugh tried to make the hall a rival to his Hall of Science.George William Foote in his Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh recalls coming to London in January 1868 with "plenty of health and very little religion". He was taken to Cleveland Hall by a friend, and "heard Mrs. Law knock the Bible about delightfully. She was not what would be called a woman of culture, but she had what some devotees of 'culchaw' do not posses—a great deal of natural ability..." A few weeks later Foote heard Bradlaugh speaking at the hall. Foote later became increasingly involved in the secular movement.
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