page_title: Cleveland Hall, London
section_title: Secularism centre
hierarchical_section_title: Cleveland Hall, London / Secularism centre
caption_attribution_description: English: George Jacob Holyoake in later life. Русский: Джордж Якоб Холиок (1817—1906) — английский публицист и деятель рабочего движения введший в широкое употребление термины «секуляризм» (1851) и «шовинизм» (1878).
context_page_description: Cleveland Hall was a meeting hall in Cleveland Street, London that was a centre of the British secularist movement between 1861 and 1878, and that was then used for various purposes before becoming a Methodist meeting hall.
context_section_description: In the 1860s several lecturers including George Holyoake and Harriet Law who rejected the leadership of Charles Bradlaugh tried to make the hall a rival to his Hall of Science.George William Foote in his Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh recalls coming to London in January 1868 with "plenty of health and very little religion". He was taken to Cleveland Hall by a friend, and "heard Mrs Law knock the Bible about delightfully. She was not what would be called a woman of culture, but she had what some devotees of 'culchaw' do not possess - a great deal of natural ability..."
  A few weeks later Foote heard Bradlaugh speaking at the hall. Foote later became increasingly involved in the secular movement.
  An 1870 book on The Religious Life of London described Cleveland Hall as the headquarters of the Secularists. The doors would open at seven and the lectures would start at 7.30.
  There was a fee to enter, and an additional fee for seats near the front.
  The room was generally "half full of respectable and sharp working men, all very positive and enthusiastic."
  Some sample lectures were Charles Watts on An Impartial Estimate of the Life and Teachings of the Founder of Christianity; Bradlaugh on Capital and Labour, and Trades' Unions; Harriet Law on The Teachings and Philosophy of J.S. Mill, Esq., The Late Robert Owen: a Tribute to His Memory and an Appeal to Women to Consider their Interests in Connection with the Social, Political and Theological Aspects of the Times.  Each lecture would be followed by an open discussion.
  In 1869 The Gospel Magazine reported that "with feelings of revulsion, we witnessed at Cleveland Hall the reception of an infant into the Atheistic body. Its mistaken mother publicly placed the child in the arms of the notorious lecturer, Mr Bradlaugh, who bestowed upon it his Atheistic blessing..." The writer concluded that these events "clearly portend the near approach of the period when the terrible conflict which is pointed to in so many prophetic portions of the Scriptures will take place."
  The secularists let others make use of the hall. For a year from November 1865 the hall was leased for Sunday evenings so that the American Unitarian abolitionist Moncure Daniel Conway could "address the working classes." However, the audience consisted of well-dressed lower-middle-class people.
  In April 1868 there was a meeting of operative house-painters to discuss co-operation with the Manchester Alliance of Painters on a federative principle.
  In September 1868 the Artisans' Club and Trades' Hall Company held a meeting seeking funding for a hall for the use of trade, benefit and other societies.
caption: George Holyoake, a secularist lecturer who often spoke at the hall
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