Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 113 No. 10 £1.50 November 2008 EDITORIAL: THE CREATIONISTS HAVE NOT EVOLVED — THEY ARE LIVING FOSSILS When our Appointed Lecturer E.W.Swinton lectured here on dinosaurs (see Mike Howgate's article on him on page 4), there was little audible opposition to the concept of evolution of life on earth over billions of years. There were then (in the UK) only a pathetic handful of believers in the literal tnith of Genesis - that around 10,000 years ago, God had specially created each species of plant and animal which then William Elgin (Bill) Swinton reproduced 'after their kind' and did not evolve. Mike's tiny (3 person) Association for the Protection of Evolution (APE) had trouble in finding anyone to argue with in those days. Today the clamour for teachers to spend the same time discussing Creationism as they do expounding evolution has even disturbed the calm deliberations of the Royal Society. The Library here has just been given a massive 15Ib expensively produced tome entitled Atlas of Creation by Harun Yahya, full of factual errors. However, it accepts the scientific figure for the age of theearth and the life on it but proclaims on almost every page 'God did it' ie special creation of each species which never subsequently evolved. It seems that ideas follow life - new ideas (or new species) emerge but the original ones often can keep going. ROBERT BLATCHFORD Terry Liddle 3 WILLIAM ELGIN (BILL) SWINTON Mike Howgate 4 THE BANKING DEBACLE Chris Brateher 8 VIEWPOINT: Jennifer Jeynes 14 ILSE MEYER (1906 — 2008) JenniferJeynes 15 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 16 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: librarygethicalsoc.org.uk Chairman: Giles Enders Hon. Rep.: Don Liversedge Vice - chairman: Terry Mullins Treasurer: John Edwards Registrar: Donald Rooum Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Executive Officer: Emma J. Stanford Tel: 020 7242 8034/1 Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7242 8034 Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7242 8032 LibrarianIProgmmme Coordinat or: Jennifer Jeynes M.Se. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Lettings Assistant: Marie Aubrechtova Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova (i/c); Tel: 020 7242 8033 together with: Shaip Bullaku, Angelo Edrozo, Nikola lvanovski, Alfredo Olivio, Rogerio Retuema, David Wright Maintenance Operative: Zia Hameed New Members We welcome to the Society: Dr Donald Beal of London E2; Christopher Byrne of London SEI9, who generously donated £200; Stephen Clarke; Dr Colin Leakey of Lincoln; David Lyons of Haddenham in Buckinghamshire; Huseyin Murad of London NI1; Adrian Peeler of London N14; Bill Wheeler of Uxbridge Obituary We regret to report the death of Mrs L Blegvad ANNUAL ART SOIREE CHANCE AND COLOUR: Rules and Rulers Illustrated talk by Chris Gough who has a 33 year background devising imaginative ways of teaching visual art and visual thinking to adults in London and the South East. The talk teases out some formal, sensuous and procedural threads that weave into his work. The focus will be on the interaction of material, number, sequence and control. A chance to ask questions after the lecture. Wine ••• all welcome ••• no charge 1930h Friday 21 November 2008 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Reg. Charity No. 251396 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the renowned South Place Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal, Ethical Record, is issued monthly. Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is £18 (El 2 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65). 2 Ethical Record, November 2008 ROBERT BLATCHFORD Terry Liddle Lecture given to the Ethical Society 28 September 2008 The last two decades of the 19th century saw the revival of socialism as a national movement. The Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) were all founded in this period. While some socialists such as Edward Aveling and Annie Besant came from the ranks of secularism, others such as Keir Hardie and Philip Snowden were evangelical Christians. In Manchester a Unitarian minister John Trevor founded a Labour Church. Naming one of these churches after William Morris was as absurd as suggesting he become Poet Laureate after the death of Tennyson. Among the lecturers at the Labour Church was South Place's Stanton Coit and a Manchester joumalist Robert Blatchford. Blatchford was born in Maidstone on St Patrick's day 1851 into a family of itinerant entertainers. His father died when he was very young and his mother's life was a hard struggle to survive. Determined to follow a respectable trade, his mother appenticed him to a brushmaker. Bored with this he ran away to London. Being penniless he joined the Army. He gave his recruitment pay to a homeless girl. He served six years, becoming a sergeant. Sadly. many of the militaristic and jingo attitudes he imbibed in the army remained with him. He later became a time keeper on a canal and by dint of self-education a journalist on the Sporting Chronicle. At first he opposed socialism, declaring it would mean a society where Hyndman was Lord Protector, Bradlaugh Archbishop and Kropotkin the Messiah. But an investigation of Manchester's slums and a pamphlet by Hyndman and Morris converted him. His nomination as a socialist candidate led to a parting of the ways and with little capital he started a penny weekly, The Clarion, nickdined 'the perisher'. This became the most popular socialist paper of its day, a better example of radical political journalism than Hyndman's dogmatic Justice or Keir Hardie's moralising Labour Leader. Blatchford's Clarion The Clarion was more than a paper, it was a movement, almost a way of life. There were field clubs, handicraft guilds, vocal unions, a cycling club (this is still going) and propaganda vans; the hostile reception these sometimes received is depicted in Tressell's Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. More people were converted to socialism by the writings of Blatchford, in particular his Merrie England which sold over a million copies, than by those of Marx. Among the converts was the Countess of Warwick. It was rumoured she blackmailed her lover, the Prince of Wales, for funds for the socialist cause. Her stately home became the venue for the ILP's summer schools. In 1903 The Clarion published a review of Haeckel's Riddle Of The Universe which led to a rush of orders to its publisher the Rationalist Press Association. The review was welcomed in JW Gott's Truthseeker. later Blatchford attacked Gott, who accused him of jealousy. Blatchford's close colleague Alexander Thompson had been greatly influenced by the Secularist lecturer Charles Watts and that year Blatchford published a series of articles critical of Christianity which were issued as a book, God Ethical Record, November 2008 3 and my Neighbour. Blatchford must have been well frequented with secularist literature as he recommends several books and pamphlets published by the RPA and Watts including works by JM Robertson and GW Foote. In the tradition of Thomas Paine and in the same strong, plain English, Blatchford mercilessly criticises both books of the Bible. Like Paine, he says 'my religion is to do the best I can for humanity'. He sees his socialism as part of the sum of Humanism. '1 oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian religion is beneficial to mankind and because I think it is an obstacle in the way of Humanism', he wrote. He attacks the Judeo-Christian God Jehovah (YI-IWH) as immoral, unjust and cruel, writing : 'It is time to have done with this nightmare fetish of a tribe of murderous savages...We should think him too horrible and pitiless for a devil, this red-handed, black-hearted Jehovah of the Jews.' In examining the New Testament, he asks whether the documents had been tampered with and concludes: 'Since alterations have been made in the text of scripture we can never be certain that any particular text is genuine, and. this circumstance militates seriously against the value of the evidence for the Resurrection.' WILLIAM ELGIN (BILL) SWINTON Lecture to the Ethical Society 25 May 2008 Mike Howgate William Elgin (Bill) Swinton was an Appointed Lecturer. for the South Place Ethical Society for most of the 1950s. He was also a palaeontologist who spent most of his career working at the Natural History Museum mainly on Plesiosaurs, the marine reptiles which look like the fabled Loch Ness monster. But if you remember when dinosaurs were dinosaurs, when they were up to.their necks in the primordial swamps, dragging their tails around in the mud, every colour, just as long as it was some shade of grey and unremittingly dim, then you will remember Bill Swinton. He wrote the world's first dinosaur book in 1934 and is probably best remembered by people of my generation for the trilogy of booklets he wrote for the British Museum (Natural History) on 'Dinosaurs', 'Fossil Reptiles and Amphibians' and 'Fossil Birds'. William Elgin Swinton was bom in Kirkaldy, Scotland on the 30th. of September 1900. Educated at the Morgan Academy•in Dundee, Whitehill School, Glasgow , then Trinity College, Glenalmond (The school which has has recently been in the news for the thav hunting' video produced as an end of year prank by a group of their posh students.) He joined Glasgow University in 1917, gaining the equivalent of a First (Principal Standard) in 1922 and even played Rugby for the University in 1917, 1918 &1919.