Penalites Upon Opinion: Blasphemy

 (Blasphemy is not a focus of my study but bears some tenuous affinity with heresy as  as a crime of religion.)

Penalties Upon Opinion: Or, Some Records of the Laws of Heresy and Blasphemy (1689-1912)

Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, London, Watts & Co, 1912, Published for the Rationalist Press Association.

The author’s conclusion is cautious, and makes no claim to be exhaustive - nonetheless I have not found any list more comprehensive. Notwithstanding the title, the cases she records are exclusively those of blasphemy. 

1728 Thomas Wooston Six Discourses on the Miracles (1726)

Argued for allegorical reading of miracles 

Imprisoned till d. 1733

1756 Jacob Ilive Some Modest Remarks on the late Bishop Sherlock’s Sermons. 

Pilloried in three places around  London, then imprisoned with  hard labour for 3 years

1766 Peter Annet Articles in The Free Inquirer

1797 Williams (a bookseller) for selling Paine’s Age of Reason (Part 2)

Prosecuted by the 

“The Society to Enforce His Majesty’s Proclamation for the Suppression of Vice.”

1811 Isaac Easton selling Paine’s Age of Reason (Part 3)

18 months imprisonment, and pilloried once a month for one hour 

1817 James Williams publishing a parody of the Litany and the Athanasian Creed

4 months in prison, £100 fine, and to give security for 5 years

1817 William Hone ridiculing the Catechism, Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer

3 trials: acquitted by the jury.

1817 Richard Carlile publishing The Parodies on the Book of Common Prayer

Imprisoned, released after 18 weeks without trial

1819 Carlile arrested “on the insistence of the Society for the Suppression of Vice” 

publishing 3 parts of Paine’s Age of Reason.

Dorchester Gaol, 3 years, fine £1,500. He couldn’t pay and so served a further 3 years.

Carlile’s wife published Paine’s Age of Reason 

2yrs in prison (as a married woman she had no property & not fined)

1823 Mary Ann Carlile (Richard’s sister)  

2 years in prison & £500 fine - she couldn’t pay and therefore served a further year in prison. 

Whereupon his shop assistants and the volunteers filled their places and followed into the 

Dock and thence and to prison.

1820 Thomas Davison for “a  blasphemous libel”

1822 Lawrence ###

1822/3?    Susannah Wright “one of Carlile’s volunteers” 18 months in prison, notwithstanding

 her argument that Christianity was not part of the law of the land.

1827 / 1831 Robert Taylor, writer on Christian evidences and previously curate at Midhurst.

Arrested in October 1827 for “uttering a blasphemous discourse.”: 1 year in prison. 

1831,  imprisoned again - 2 yrs and fined £200 for the same offence.

1840 John Cleave 2 months for blasphemous libel. 

He was “released on payment of the fine and entering into his own recognizances.” (p55)

1840 Henry Heywood for publishing Haslam’s letters to the Clergy, (pp55/56)

1840 Henry Hethrington, printer of Poor Man’s Guardian (for which he was imprisoned 3 times)

arrested for blasphemy apparently on instigation of Bishop Exeter. (p.56)

1842 Charles Southwell, Bristol: “a blasphemous libel in the Oracle of Reason, 

entitled “The Jew Book.”: 12 months prison & £100 fine.

1842 George Jacob Holyoake 

(also producing Oracle of Reason) for saying  “Morality I regard, but I do not believe there is such a thing as God.” In his own defence he addressed the jury for 9 hours and 15 minutes: the  Jury said Guilty after very short deliberation. 6 months in the Common Gaol. When his wife visited him she was arrested. They had five children. A policeman took the baby away and left the remaining four.

1843 George Patterson (taking over the Oracle of Reason) 

for “exhibiting profane placards” 3mths prison. 

On his release Patterson went to Edinburgh where he was imprisoned 15 months, for “wickedly, feloniously publishing, vending, and exposing for sale certain blasphemous books containing a denial of the truth and authority of the Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion.”

Matilda Roalfe then took over and was imprisoned for 2 months. 

Several others, most unknown but including a Thomas Finlay (who lasted 5 months before arrest) followed byHenry Robinson 

1843 ‘Briggs v. Hartley’ 

A bequest was left in a will for the best essay on the subject of natural theology treated as a science, ie based on evidence, 

“demonstrating the truth, harmony, and infallibility of the evidence on which it is founded, and the perfect occurrence of such evidence with reason; also demonstrating the adequacy and sufficiency of natural theology, when so treated and taught as a science, to constitute a true, perfect, and philosophical system of universal religion (analogous to other universal systems of science, such as astronomy, etc.) founded on immutable facts and the works of creation, and beautiful addressed to man’s reason and nature, and tending as other sciences do, but in a higher degree, to improve and elevate his nature, and to render him a wise, happy and exalted being.”   

invalidated by Vice-Chancellor Shadwell: “I cannot conceive that the bequest in the testator’s will is at all consistent with Christianity, and, therefore, it must fail.” 

1857 Thomas Pooley - described as ‘not exactly sane’ given 21 months for blasphemy and transferred to an asylum 

1859 Charles Bradlaugh arrested for opening a lecture with words “Friends, I am about to address you on the Bible.” Won his case for wrongful arrest.

1867 Police annulled a booking of a tea-room to commemorate the birthday of Thomas Paine and associated lectures. No case to answer. Action to recover costs - 1 farthing costs.

Organisers appealed to the Court of the Exchequer and lost.

1883 March 1 - George William Foote, W.J. Ramsey, H.A. Kemp

Charged with publishing blasphemous libel in the Freethinker, (as editor, publisher and printer)

April 10 - Prosecution of Bradlaugh, Foote & Ramsey, for articles in the Freethinker opened 

 Bradlaugh was charged separately from the other two: NOT GUILTY

Consequently a new trial of Foote and Ramsey was heard before Lord Coleridge. The law of blasphemous libel at length /89 No longer true that Christianity is part of the law of the land.  

1883 May 3 1882 Henry Seymour, Secretary of the newly formed National Secular Society, Tunbridge Wells

 - summoned by superintendent of police & charged with blasphemous libel. Ie a placard for a concert to be held on Easter Sunday & containing the line “Hamlet and the Holy Ghost.” - Police cut out or covered the word ‘Holy’.  Case heard Maidstone Assizes the following July (1883). Defended by the Natl Secular Society. 

Jury cld come to no agreement (after 10 minutes) >

New trial: Guilty to all three. Foote - /p86 12months in prison; Ramsey 9 months, Kemp 3months

 “if the decencies of controversy  are /p90 observed, even the fundamentals of religion may be attacked without the writer being guilty of blasphemy.” [Said who?]

1889 Bradlaugh - Bill in HoC that “after the passing of this Act no criminal proceedings shall be instituted in any Court against any person for schism, heresy, blasphemous libel, blasphemy at common law, or atheism.” Moved April 12 /rejected 143:48 & Bradlaugh d. 2 yrs later

1908 99/100 Harry Boulter charged - Blasphemous libel - speech delivered at Highbury Corner, Islington, Dec 1,8. & 15 1907 Defence: Law of Blasphemy effectively obsolete - Phillimore, summing up, dismissed this. Law was the law, whether good or bad,  Echoed Lord Coleridge: “a man was free to think, to say, and to teach that which he pleased about religious matters, though not about morals.” - /101 Guilty  Boulter said sorry, & won’t do it again. But he did - June 1909, 1mnth in prison & LCC fined him £10 & costs for “using improper language on Clapham Common”.

1911 101 Mr Jackson  in Shanghai China, for “deriding /p102 mocking, and insulting the Christian religion.” under an Order in Council of 1904. The judge observed that jackson’s words had had no consequences, but fined him 100 dollars, and bound him over for 2 years. His employer dismissed him.

 

103 One Thomas William Stewart was charged with blasphemous libel, defended himself and lost. Sentenced to 3 months in prison.

And, at the same Assize court session:

John William Gott was given 4 months in prison for a publication - Rib Ticklers, or Questions for Parsons - that had been on sale for some time before attracting adverse attention: 4 months imprisonment.

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Wherafter both heresy and blasphemy ceased to be prosecuted in the secular courts and