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George Jacob Holyoake

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
• George Jacob Holyoake
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
• Holyoake, George Jacob

GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE (1817-1906), English secularist and co-operator, was born at Birmingham, on the 13th of April 1817. At an early age he became an Owenite lecturer, and in 1841 was the last person convicted for blasphemy in a public lecture, though this had no theological character and the incriminating words were merely a reply to a question addressed to him from the body of the meeting. He nevertheless underwent six months' imprisonment, and upon his release invented the inoffensive term "secularism" as descriptive of his opinions, and established the Reasoner in their support. He was also the last person indicted for publishing an unstamped newspaper, but the prosecution dropped upon the repeal of the tax. His later years were chiefly devoted to the promotion of the cooperative movement among the working classes. He wrote the history of the Rochdale Pioneers (1857), The History of Co-operation in England (1875; revised ed., 1906), and The Co-operative Movement of To-day (1891). He also published (1892) his autobiography, under the title of Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, and in 1905 two volumes of reminiscences, Bygones worth Remembering. He died at Brighton on the 22nd of January 1906.

See J. McCabe, Life and Letters of G. Holyoake (2 vols., 1908); C. W. F. Goss, Descriptive Bibliography of the Writings of G. J. Holyoake (1908).