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Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 108 No. 4 £1.50 May 2003 ,.)•\ a4, , o 174 I ' " / 7/10/ (frt, a 03 The animals look pleased to see Charles Darwin writing his true account of their Origin, while His Omnipotence, The Deity, looks on in amazed consternation as His claims to the Genesis are disproved. Drawn by Albert Bon HYMNBOOKS OF DISSENT 1840 - 90 Jim Clayson 3 THE SPES GENES DAY -A GREAT ANNIVERSARY Chris Bratcher 10 NATURALISING ETIHCS Steve Ash 16 A LETTER FROM CANADA Ellen Ramsay 21 VIEWPOINT Vivien Pixner 22 A LIBERALISM CAUTIOUS BUT ACTIVE - Book Review Donald Rooum 23 DAVID YEULETT (1918 - 2003) David Wright 23 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 72428036 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] Officers Chairman of the GC: Terry Mullins. Hon. Representative:Don Liversedge. Vice Chairman: John Rayner. Registrar: Edmund McArthur. SPES Staff Administrative Secretary to the Society: Marina Ingham Tel: 020 7242 8034 LibrarianlProgramme Coordinator:Jennifer Jeynes M.Sc. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Hall Manager:Peter Vlachos MA. For Hall bookings: Tel: 020 7242 8032 Caretakers' Office: Tel: 020 7242 8033 Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac New Member Dr. Jeffrey Segall, London NW2 Obituary David Yeulett (1918-2003) (see page 23) SALE OF BRADLAUGH HOUSE Bradlaugh House (47, Theobalds Road) has now been sold by its owner the National Secular Society, to a firm of Human Rights lawyers. Needing more space, the previous tenants, the British Humanist Association, the Rationalist Press Association and the International Humanist and Ethical Union all moved to 1 Gower Street, WC1. The National Secular Society retains its office in Conway Hall. • INTERNATIONAL CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS' DAY The commemoration of this annual event takes place on Thursday 15 May at 12 noon in Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, WC1. Everyone invited. SPES MAY EVENING CLASS : THREE BRITISH ECONOMIC THINKERS Tutor: Dr Susan Pashkoff Tuesdays, 13, 20, 27, 1900 - 2100h £2 per meeting including refreshments Tuesday 13: ADAM SMITH Tuesday 20: MALTHUS Tuesday 27: RICARDO SUGGESTED PRELIMINARY READINGS (OFTIONAL) Adam Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (the Liberty Edition is a ppk version of the Oxford edition and is really cheap). David Ricardo (1821) Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (any edition will do, although the Cambrige University Press is the best). 2 Ethical Record, May, 2003 HYMN BOOKS OF DISSENT - 1840-90 Jim Clayson Lecture to the Ethical Society, 24 November 2002 Charles Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, believed the Devil had all the best tunes. Far be it from me to agree with a Christian, but in many respects he was right. Deists, Freethinkers, Atheists and Good Old English Pagans had some very fine songs and verse. Song and poetry had long been the province of the population at large. In the C l7th the Leveller troops had used broadsides, a single printed songsheet, to warn their comrades against the usurpation of Cromwell's Government by the Grandees. In the CI8th convivial, political and debating societies used song within their meetings. The Dissenting chapels, some of them descendants of the Cl7th sects were particularly prone to publishing their own hymnals, usually in the form of small printed texts. The population at large sang of love, adventure and their contempt for the established Church. Political Societies, expanding in numbers with the advent of access to cheap print, celebrated the French Revolution and sang tributes to Thomas Paine in ' defiance of those who deemed themselves their betters. Members of the London Corresponding Society produced several songbooks, as did Clio Rickman, a member of the Society For Constitutional Information and close friend of Paine himself. So too did the associates of Thomas Spence, members of his society publishing a volume devoted to his ideas in 1816. Freemasons had sung of Reason throughout the Cl 8th, or their allegiance to the Crown, depending on which wing of the movement they adhered to. Confusingly, they often sang of both, a conundrum I will leave to them to resolve. The Dotty Trinity Many of the more intellectually active Masons gravitated towards Unitarianism, the version of Christianity that sees the idea of God being three parts, independent yet wholly one, as slightly dotty. Not a hard conclusion to draw, but illegal at the time. No doubt it makes sense to people who can barbecue their fellow religionists over minor points of doctrine. • As early as 1775 Dr Kippis produced a hymn book of recognisably Unitarian beliefs for his congregation. It nevertheless relied heavily on Church of England and Methodist forms. The former prescribed by custom, the latter dictated by the inroads Wesleyanism was making amongst the Church of England congregations disgusted by the alliance between Church and State in this country. A further advance was made in 1800 when the Norwich Unitarians produced a Hymn Book, edited by William Enfield, that incorporated verse written by members of his congregation. They included notable poets of the day like Anna Letitia Barbauld and the radical philosopher and Freemason, William Taylor. I3arbauld was the daughter of Norwich merchant and Divine who had gained national renown through her anti-slavery poems. Taylor was a wealthy merchant who had abandoned trade and espoused literature as a profession. He contributed to many of the leading journals of the day, most significantly The Monthly Magazine, platform of Radical Unitarianism. He was also one of the few intellectuals in the country who Ethical Record, May, 2003 3 could understand German and introduced the most notable philosophers of that country to England. The Norwich Hymn Book was a major influence on Robert Aspland, editor of and contributor to the first Hymnal to define itself as specifically Unitarian. He was supplied with a copy by Anna Barbauld and drew much of his material from it, including verse from George Dyer and William Taylor. Another contributor was William Drennan, Presbyterian and founder member of the United Irishmen. Asplanels Hymnal was the one used at South Place Chapel until Eliza Flower prepared a new one during the momentous years of the late 1830s. South Place Chapel's Hymnal South Place originated in a sect founded by Elthanan Winchester, an Evangelical Preacher from America. Amongst its later adherents was Richard "Citizen" Lee, radical poet and bookseller of the London Corresponding Society. When Winchester's congregation moved to grander buildings in Finsbury, their former premises became the home of radical London, hosting the usual agglomeration of Atheists and Deists who were to provide the backbone of the City's political and social thought for the 19th ce ntury. South Place grew in importance largely due to the presence on its platform of William Johnson Fox. From all accounts Fox was a little bit special. Reputedly a charismatic orator, yet at heart a freethinker, he was the intellectual bridge. between Unitarian dissent and the Secularist Movement that followed. Both G.J. Holyoake and W.J.Linton knew him personally and attended his Chapel. As an M.P. he was one of the few to vote in favour of the Chartist Petition when it was brought to the House of Commons. He was held in such high regard that the National Reformercarried a quote from him on its masthead. When he died it was a Freethought bookseller who handled the remains of his library. Fox is a truly seminal figure in the nineteenth century, and a sadly overlooked one. The Hymnbook compiled by Eliza Flower served South Place for over thirty years and was not revised until 1873. Even then the original one hundred and fifty Hymns and Anthems were retained. The Revision coincided with the tenure at South Place of a second "freethinking" minister, Moncure Conway. His innovation to the new Hymn Book was to incorporate verse from outside the Western European tradition. Just as the religious movements compiled their hymnbooks, so too did the movements of political dissent and revolution. The London Corresponding Society published several songs in its short lived Moral and Political Magazine. Several members, the ballad singer Richard Thompson and bookseller Thomas Williams produced political songbooks. The latter was widely circulated, one copy being discovered in the possession of men pressed into the Navy just after the mutinies of 1797. The more genteel Society for Constitutional Information had no book of its own but a member, Thomas Rickman did produce one. Like Thompson, Rickman had experience as a professional singer in the pleasure gardens of London and Bath. Thomas Spence, the political theorist and land reformer, was a member of the 4 Ethical Record, May, 2003 Corresponding Society and his followers, including the bookseller Williams were often associates of that organisation. In 1811 they produced their own songbook, for use at their "Free and Easies", gatherings for political discussion held in various London Pubs. The Owenites Many of them were involved in attempts at revolution during the ensuing decades. Some very quickly embraced Robert Owen's version of co-operative schemes and factory Reform from the 1820s onwards. It is often overlooked that Owen's ideas were formulated in order to deal with the threat of imminent revolution in the years 1817 to 1820. No doubt there were several political songbooks circulating in the early Cl9th that have been lost to us over the years. One that has survived is The Wreath Of Freedom: Or The Patriots Song Book, Being A Collection of Songs in favour of Public Liberty: published at Newcastle. some time in the 1820s. The followers of Robert Owen did produce a volume, one that ran to several printings.

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