Leicester Secular Society

History of the Society and of Freethought

Biographical Notes

Socrates
Jesus ?

b.1650-1799
Voltaire
Thomas Paine
Robert Owen
Richard Carlile

b.1800-1849
Charles Darwin
Charles Bradlaugh
Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot)
W. H. Holyoak
G. J. Holyoake
Harriet Law
William Morris
James Thomson

b.1850-1899
G. W. Foote
The Gimsons
F. J. Gould
F. A. Ridley
J. M. Robertson
William Wilber
E. H. Hassell

b.1900-1950
Peter Miller

History of the Society

History by F. J. Gould 1900
F. J. Gould's Life Story
S. A. Gimson Recollections 1932
History by Gillian Hawtin 1972
Leicester Rationalist Trust
The Five Busts
Hymns of Modern Thought

Presidents and Vice Presidents

The following lists of presidents and vice-presidents waas compiled by Fred Lee in 2000 and is Appendix A in his draft thesis "Secularism from the Victorian Age to the Twenty-first Century; The History of the Leicester Secular Society."

Year	President	Vice-president
1889	Sydney Gimson	none recorded
1899	..	William Wilber
1900	William Wilber	Sydney Gimson
1901	Sydney Gimson	Wiliam Wilber
1914	..	E. Pinder
1916	..	W. H. Scott
1921	..	T. Cater
1922	..	F. J. Smith
1923	..	E. Harry Hassell
1938	..	..
1939	E. Harry Hassell	A. J. Essex
1940	..	J. Cooper
1943	..	J. Abbott
1945	..	J. Cartwright
1949	G. A. Kirk	..
1951	..	L. Croxtall
1952	..	J. Cartwright
1957	..	L. Hall
1973*	A. Davis	..
1974	..	L. Croxtall
1976	..	John O'Higgins
1977	..	Peter Miller
1980	Peter Miller	L. Croxtall
1982	..	D. G. Parsons
1984	..	Anthony Barron
1985	..	D. G. Parsons
1986	..	Paul Harding
1987	Rupert Halfhide	..
1988	Paul Harding	Rupert Halfhide
1989	..	B. A. Wood
1990	..	Lyn Hurst
1992	..	B. A. Wood
1993	B. A. Wood*	none elected
1994	Frederic S. Lee	none elected
1994	..	Bob Hall
2000	Lyn Hurst	Michael Gerard

* Notes: (a) From 1973 the election of officers seems to have been moved to the mid-year so the dates of end of one presidency and start of another are given as the same year. (b) When I asked Woody Wood to confirm these dates he denied that he was ever President, so there seems to have been some confusion in the 1990s.

Sources of Historical Information

Sources of information relating to the History of Leicester Secular Society are widely distributed. The purpose of this section is to draw together the various sources known to us, so far.

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First we give more details of the items available, complete or in part, on this website.

• Gould 1900: A History of Leicester Secular Society, by F. J. Gould, 1900.
• Gould 1923: The Life-Story of a Humanist, by F. J. Gould (published by Watts & Co, London 1923). Extracts are available here; the book is in the LSS Library.
• Gimson 1932: Random Recollections of the Leicester Secular Society, with Digressions. Part I 1932 (pages 1-24).
• Hawtin 1972: A Century of Progress: The Story of the Leicester Secular Society, by Gillian Hawtin, 1972.
• The Five Busts: Photographs of the five busts on the front of the hall; from the CD-Rom A Walk Round Leicester produced by Max Wade-Matthews.
• Trust papers: Reproductions of some documents relating to the Leicester Rationalist Trust.
• Biographies: See above for a series of short biographies of various people with connections to the Secular Hall. The information comes mainly from books in the Library or from the Internet.

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Records Office: There are some records of the Society which were deposited at the Leicester Record Office, Wigston, in 1968. The following list can also be viewed on five microfilm rolls kept by the Society, made in 1981.

• An historical introduction by Edward Royle, University of York, 1981, with the title: Religion, Radicalism and Freethought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
• F. J. Gould: History of Leicester Secular Society, 1900.
• G. J. Holyoake: Address on the death of Josiah Gimson 1883.
• Minute Books of Leicester Secular Society 1852-1855, 1877-1885, 1885-1902, 1902-1943.
• LSS Nomination Book 1885-1901.
• Visitor's Book 1924-1943.
• Registration of Subscriptions 1915-1917.
• Scrapbook: LSS Documents 1842-1908.
• Scrapbook: Thomas Ensor 1908-1910.
• Newspaper Cuttings 1899-1909 (five volumes).
• Records of Secular Hall Company 1873-1905 (five lists of shareholders and three cash books).
• Also available at the Records Office, but not on the microfilm are:
• Sydney A. Gimson, Random Recollections of the Leicester Secular Society. Part I 1932. Part II 1935.
• Photograph Album 1890-1977.

There are other records in the British Library and at Bishopsgate Library, in London. Details to be included in due course.