Identity:

Bradlaugh was the son of a solicitor's clerk.

Life:

Charles Bradlaugh was a social reformer and secularist, who founded the free-thinking National Reformer from 1860 and later associated with Annie Besant, who shared his advocacy of woman's suffrage, birth control, free speech, national education, and other controversial causes.

He was elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal in 1880, but he was refused his seat until 1886, having refused to take the bible oath, on the grounds of his atheism. This action provoked a great deal of controversy, and he was unable to take his seat until 1886, a fight which left him financially and emotionally drained. His numerous works include Land for the People (1877), The True Story of My Parliamentary Struggle (1882), and Speeches (1890).

Bibliography:

Arnstein, W. L., The Bradlaugh Case: : Atheism, Sex and Politics Among the Late Victorians, Oxford, 1965: Tribe, David, President Charles Bradlaugh, M.P, London, 1971.