The life of George Jacob Holyoake exemplifies the development of popular Liberalism. Edward Royle analyses his biography and impact. George Jacob HolyoakE s a young artisan at the Eagle Foundry where he George Jacob following May he was promoted eager for education was subsequently apprenticed as Holyoake to social missionary in Sheffield. and self-improve- a whitesmith. Through the influ- (1817–1906) At this stage Holyoake’s opin- ment, Holyoake’s ence of fellow apprentices he was ions were still being formed. His personal journey took drawn into Birmingham politics association with the Birmingham himA through the radical protest in the early 1830s when Thomas Political Union, revived in 1837 as movements of the 1830s and 1840s Atwood organised the agitation part of the early Chartist move- to a career in journalism and for parliamentary reform through ment, marked him out as a radi- political agitation and a position of the Birmingham Political Union. cal and democrat. As a follower some importance on the fringes of Even more important was his of Owen, he looked to the trans- the Gladstonian Liberal Party. He association with the followers of formation of society by peaceful is significant today as a pioneering the socialist, Robert Owen, led means into a cooperative com- agitator for those individual civil locally by William Pare. In 1836 monwealth. In religious matters, rights and liberal values which Holyoake began attending classes early Unitarian influences at the J. S. Mill championed in his essay at the mechanics’ institute where mechanic’s institute gave way to On Liberty and which remain he soon demonstrated his apti- the deism of Robert Owen and part of the liberal programme in tude for mathematics and gained this was probably Holyoake’s our modern multi-cultural and ambitions to become a teacher, position until an incident in 1842 multi-faith society; and he is best but his association with the pushed the young lecturer into remembered as an advocate of Owenites counted against fur- declaring himself an atheist when cooperation and co-partnership as ther progress at the institute. In he was imprisoned for six months the middle way between capital- March 1839 he married Eleanor in Gloucester gaol for blasphemy ism and state socialism. Williams (1819–1884), daughter following a flippant comment Born on 13 April 1817 in of a small farmer, and in May about God at an Owenite lecture Birmingham where his father, 1840 his first child, Madeline, in Cheltenham. This punishment, George, was a whitesmith and was born. These changed fam- coming in the midst of simi- his mother, Catherine, a horn- ily circumstances and his grow- lar sentences for other Owenites button maker, Holyoake was ing aspiration to teach led him and leading Chartists in 1842–43, educated only at dame and Sun- in October 1840 to apply to the brought Holyoake’s name to the day schools. At the age of nine Owenites to become their sta- fore and gave him status as a mar- he began work with his father tioned lecturer in Worcester. The tyr to free thought, making him a Journal of Liberal History 67 Summer 2010 35 george jacob holyoakE national figure in popular radical the South Place Chapel grouping active in the campaign against circles. He now became what he around W. J. Fox and those who the so-called Taxes on Knowl- was to be for the rest of his long gravitated to the Muswell Hill edge which imposed financial life – a prolific writer, a percep- home of W. H. Ashurst, Robert constraints on a free press. In 1849 tive journalist and a public lec- Owen’s solicitor and friend of he had, with his brother Austin, turer, though his thin voice and the Italian republican, Mazzini. commenced printing on his own slight stature scarcely fitted him In 1849 Holyoake’s rising status behalf and in 1853 he took over for the latter role. His first taste of among this radical intelligentsia James Watson’s stock and began journalism had come before his of the metropolis was marked by publishing in his own right. Glad- imprisonment when he edited a an invitation to become a mem- stone’s work as Chancellor of the short-lived weekly periodical, the ber of the Whittington Club, and Exchequer, accepting in 1853 a Oracle of Reason (1841–43), whose his correspondents from the later motion to reduce the newspaper first editor – fellow Owenite mis- 1840s include such leading liber- stamp to zero, and his challenge sionary, Charles Southwell – had als as George Dawson, George to the House of Lords over the been imprisoned for a year in 1841 Henry Lewes, Harriet Martineau, abolition of the paper duty in the for attacking the Bible. After his John Stuart Mill, Francis William 1861 budget were key moments in release from Gloucester gaol in Newman and Peter Alfred Taylor the transformation of the former 1843, Holyoake then edited the as well as Ashurst himself. Holy- Conservative and Peelite into ‘the Movement (1843–45) followed by oake was also, with some of these People’s William’. At the same the Reasoner, which he began at people, associated with the Leader time, the struggle for Italian lib- the behest of the publisher, James newspaper, edited by Thornton eration and unification provided Watson, in 1846 to sustain the Hunt, which advocated advanced another reason for radicals like causes of democracy, republican- liberal principles in political and Holyoake to see Gladstone as their ism, Owenite socialism and free- Holyoake is social affairs. parliamentary leader. Since 1848 thinking rationalism. The paper This association with the Holyoake had been increasingly was published weekly until 1861 significant liberal intelligentsia may have involved in the European repub- and its successors continued under gratified Holyoake but his grow- lican movement where moder- various names until 1872. With today as a ing moderation caused increas- ates in England could support the revival of Chartism in 1848, ing controversy with his former foreign extremists with a good Holyoake also co-edited, with pioneering friends and allies. Chartists criti- conscience. He collected money the republican poet and engraver, cised his expediency in settling for Mazzini, tested prototype William James Linton, a short- agitator too readily for a step-by-step bombs for Orsini, and was secre- lived weekly under the title, the approach to democracy, and his tary to the committee which sent Cause of the People. for those insistence that Secularism meant a legion out to Italy to fight with In the chaos of recrimination concentrating on driving out reli- Garibaldi in 1860. By the early which followed the failures of individual gious influences in this world, not 1860s Holyoake’s work for liberty Owenism in 1846 and of Chartism civil rights undermining belief in the exist- both at home and abroad reflected in 1848, Holyoake emerged as one ence of God, alienated those who those broader shifts in political of several national figures with a and liberal believed that the latter was a nec- structures which were leading to claim to lead these movements. essary precondition of the former. the formation of the Gladstonian Through his publishing activities values which Holyoake was not a charismatic Liberal Party. and lecture tours he bid to unite public speaker and, when such Secondly, Holyoake developed the scattered local remnants of J. S. mill a person appeared in the form of through the Secularist movement latter-day Chartists and Owen- Charles Bradlaugh at the end of his connections with local groups ites in a new organisation which championed the 1850s, Holyoake found him- of former Chartists and Owen- he called Secularism. Though this self no longer recognised as the ites to form links with the infant embraced his support for democ- in his essay most important leader of what he cooperative movement. In 1858 he racy at home and republicanism always regarded as his own move- published a history of the Roch- abroad, its chief purpose was to On Liberty ment. His resentment at this never dale Pioneers Equitable Society, campaign against all religious faded, but the time had come to founded in 1844, and in so doing influences, in the law, politics and and which move on, and he did so in two fashioned their mythic role in the morality. Secularism was, above directions. post-Owenite cooperative move- all, to be a movement to secure remain part The first was in promoting ment and also made his own repu- the civil rights of all, irrespective specific agitations to secure what tation as a leading publicist for of theological persuasion. This of the liberal he regarded as the aims of true that movement. The book was to represented a shift away from the Secularism. Chief of these was go through ten English editions extremism of the earlier 1840s, to programme freedom of belief, expression and and also appeared in four differ- which he was always reluctant to in our mod- publication. Many of his aspira- ent French translations as well as admit, and grew out of his tem- tions were summed up in Mill’s ones in German, Italian and Hun- peramental discomfort with the ern multi- essay On Liberty (1859) which – garian. He also wrote histories position into which he had been notably in Chapter 2 – drew upon of cooperation in Halifax (1867) forced by circumstances in 1842. cultural and Holyoake’s own experiences of and Leeds (1897) as well as several The move was also encouraged the dead hand of prejudiced public general histories of cooperation by the links he was forging with multi-faith opinion in general and his cam- (1875–1906) and other propagan- middle-class liberal intellectu- paigns against the judicial oath dist works in the cause, including als in the later 1840s, particularly society.