Título: Charles Bradlaugh
Seção: Activism and journalism
Background: Born in Hoxton (an area in the East End of London), Bradlaugh was the son of a solicitor's clerk. He left school at the age of eleven and then worked as an office errand-boy and later as a clerk to a coal merchant. After a brief spell as a Sunday school teacher, he became disturbed by discrepancies between the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church and the Bible. When he expressed his concerns, the local vicar, John Graham Packer, accused him of atheism and suspended him from teaching.

Conteúdo: Bradlaugh returned to London in 1853 and took a post as a solicitor's clerk. By this time he was a convinced freethinker and in his free time he became a pamphleteer and writer about "secularist" ideas, adopting the pseudonym "Iconoclast" to protect his employer's reputation. He gradually attained prominence in a number of liberal or radical political groups or societies, including the Reform League, Land Law Reformers, and Secularists. He was President of the London Secular Society from 1858. In 1860 he became editor of the secularist newspaper, the National Reformer, and in 1866 co-founded the National Secular Society, in which Annie Besant became his close associate. In 1868, the Reformer was prosecuted by the British Government for blasphemy and sedition. Bradlaugh was eventually acquitted on all charges, but fierce controversy continued both in the courts and in the press. A decade later (1876), Bradlaugh and Besant decided to republish the American Charles Knowlton's pamphlet advocating birth control, The Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People, whose previous British publisher had already been successfully prosecuted for obscenity. The two activists were both tried in 1877, and Charles Darwin refused to give evidence in their defence, pleading ill-health, but at the time writing to Bradlaugh that his testimony would have been of little use to them because he opposed birth control. They were sentenced to heavy fines and six months' impriso

user: What political topics was he interested in?

assistant: advocating birth control,

user: Why did he become an activist?

assistant: in his free time he became a pamphleteer and writer about "secularist" ideas, adopting the pseudonym "Iconoclast" to protect his employer's reputation.

user: What years was he writing about his ideas?

assistant: 1853

user: Did he write all the articles himself or were there other writers also?

assistant: ), Bradlaugh and Besant decided to republish the American Charles Knowlton's pamphlet advocating birth control,

user: Did he get in trouble with the authorities?

assistant: They were sentenced to heavy fines and six months' imprisonment, but their conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal

user: Were they found guilty?

assistant: They were sentenced to heavy fines and six months' imprisonment, but their conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal

user: What is another topic besides birth control that he wrote about?

assistant: The Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People,

user: Were his ideas popular or unpopular with the public?

assistant: CANNOTANSWER