User:Dan huck/Henry albert seymour

Henry Albert Seymour - Secularist and Anarchist

Henry Albert Seymour was born in Hayes, Kent in 1860. Little is known of his early childhood but it is known that he was living in Dover with his parents and siblings by the census of 1871. By the time of the 1881 census Seymour was living in Tunbridge Wells, Kent with his wife Clara and young daughter. It is in 1882 that Henry Seymour first acheived noteriaty, he was convicted of Blasphemy at the Maidstone Assizes Court in summer 1882. He had produced placards which he had posted around Tunbridge Wells on Easter Sunday 1882. The placards included the line 'Hamlet and the Holy Ghost.'1 This clearly upset local Christians and at the behest of Canon Hoare of St John's Church, Tunbridge Wells, the local police where instructed to investigate.

There were a series of lectures in Tunbridge Wells throughout the summer of 1882 given by Canon Hoare and other local Christians at which Seymour and other members of the Secular Society spoke against religion. There was a ongoing debate in the local press as well as a report on the seizure of the Secular Hall in Camden Road due to non payment of rent.

In 1883 Seymour published the first English translation of Bakunin's 'God and the State'2

The press is virtually silent on the activities of the Secular Society until the middle of 1884 when there are a number of reports on a 'free speech' demonstration held on Tunbridge Wells common, just below the site of the Mount Edgecumbe public house. The reports suggest there were up to 5000 people present, including preachers giving sermons and the Salvation Army band!

By 1885 Seymour is producing the first British Anarchist publication, 'The Anarchist.' It appears that the first few issues were produced and printed in Tunbridge Wells before printing was moved to Newington Green Road in Islington, London.

Soon after the paper started appearing it was announced that an 'English circle of Anarchists' was to be formed and after his release Kropotkin joined Seymour as co-editor.

Charlotte Wilson and others were also in involved in the 'English Circle of Anarchists' and contributed to 'The Anarchist'.

The cooperation only lasted to 1886, there seems to have been some kind of disagreement, and Wilson, Kropotkin etc. split with Seymour and went on to form 'Freedom'.

References

1. Word crimes: blasphemy, culture, and literature in nineteenth-century England By Joss Marsh 2.