William Thomas Thornton
Holyoake, George Jacob (1817–1906) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
...at Cheltenham Mechanics’ Institution, where he replied to a question and was then arrested for blasphemy. On 15 August 1842 he was tried, convicted and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment at Gloucester Assizes. He was the last man in England to be imprisoned on a charge of atheism. On his release, Holyoake opened a shop in London selling radical texts. He was secretary of the anti-persecution union, demanding freedom of theological thought and speech. Holyoake became the national figure of secularism, founding and editing The Reasoner ( 1846–61 ). He was...
Polanyi, Karl (1886–1964) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of American Economists
...before it became Romanianised in 1919 . Polanyi then became an attorney in Budapest in 1912 , just before the outbreak of the First World War. By now Polanyi entertained economic views that could be described as fully socialist, although as a staunch Catholic he rejected the atheism of Karl Marx. Socialist views in any form tended to land one in prison under the authoritarian Habsburg monarchy and Polanyi himself suffered arrest. Polanyi served in the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914 and was captured by Russian troops. At the end of the war, he returned to...
Hale, Matthew (1609–76) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
...was the direct application of the injunction to do for the ‘least’ of men as one would do to God. His calculation of the progressive increase in world population was an account of God’s bounty with respect to mankind. It was, after all, a chapter in a book designed to combat atheism. BIBLIOGRAPHY Contemplations, Moral and Divine (1677). The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature (1677). A Discourse touching Provision for the Poor (1683; repr. ed. C. Whibley , 1827). A Discourse of the Knowledge of God...
Immigration Reference library
David M. Reimers
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
...between German Americans and Anglo-Americans. German immigrants were also denounced as dangerous radicals. Many so-called 48ers—veterans of the 1848 revolutions in Europe—and their turnvereins (cultural and athletic clubs) did indeed profess radical republicanism and atheism. Some espoused Marxist socialism and anarchism. German immigrants established strong labor unions and socialist organizations modeled after those in Germany. The 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago resulted in the suppression of the German-led anarchist movement and fixed in the...
Bradlaugh, Charles (1833–91) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
...Bradlaugh had great difficulty in achieving his aim of election to parliament. His atheist views won him many enemies in parliament when he was successfully returned as MP for Northampton in 1880 . He refused to take the oath of office, preferring to affirm on account of his atheism. When he attempted to take his seat in the Commons, he was expelled and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Although both Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone were supportive of him (the latter proposing an Affirmation Bill to allow atheists to affirm the oath), Bradlaugh was...
