G. W. (George William) Foote

Born in Plymouth in 1850, he became one of the best-known secularist writers and speakers in Britain. He worked as a journalist, editor, publisher, and lecturer, and built a reputation for energetic debate and plain, forceful prose.

His name is closely tied to The Freethinker, the paper he founded in 1881, as well as to the wider freethought movement of the late nineteenth century. He also helped lead organized secularism in Britain, serving for many years as president of the National Secular Society.

Foote’s career was marked by conflict as well as influence. In 1883 he was convicted of blasphemy over material published in The Freethinker and served a prison sentence, an episode that made him a symbol to supporters of freedom of speech and belief. He died in 1915, leaving behind a large body of polemical writing and a lasting place in the history of British secularism.