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THE RATIONALIST ASSOCIATION


A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RATIONALIST ASSOCIATION

Born in 1885 in Fleet Street, London, the RA has been promoting reason, science
and humanism and standing up to irrationalism and religious intolerance ever
since. We currently publish New Humanist magazine in print and online.

Rationalist Press Association Dinner, Trocadero, London. 16th of May 1936


A SLIGHTLY LESS BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RA

The Rationalist Association was founded, as the Rationalist Press Association ,
by the radical publisher Charles Watts at his print works in Johnson's Court,
just off Fleet street, London, in 1885. As a publisher of books and pamphlets
dedicated to free thinking, science and a critique of organised religion Charles
was following in the footsteps of his father, also called Charles, who was a
prominent figure in the Victorian freethought movement and founding secretary of
the National Secular Society. In 1874 Charles Snr had taken charge of a
well-established secularist publishing business and when he began spending much
of his time in North America, control of this was handed to his son.

In addition to publishing books Charles Watts put out Watt's Literary Guide, the
forerunner of New Humanist, which he set out to print "literary gossip" that
might be of interest to freethinkers, together with "a complete record of the
best liberal publications in this country". Within its pages the Christian
establishment was criticised on every imaginable front, from science and
metaphysics to history and poetry.

Watts created an organisation to support his work, initially called the
Propagandist Press Committee (later incorporated as the Rationalist Press
Association), which provided him with a large group of subscribers and enabled
him to expand the Guide until it averaged 20 large pages an issue, with
thousands of grateful readers not only in Britain but around the world.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Watts & Co started to expand from producing
the Guide and a range of propagandistic pamphlets, to publishing books,
including a celebrated series of Cheap Reprints which made the works of
sceptical Victorians like Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and John Stuart Mill
available to working people at only sixpence a volume. In 1929 Watts began
publishing another famed series of books, the Thinker's Library, which printed
140 volumes over 22 years, including works by HG Wells, Bertrand Russell, Mark
Twain and JBS Haldane.

In 1924 Watts acknowledged in the Guide some of the eminent supporters who had
been associated with the RPA over the years – these included the philosopher
Herbert Spencer, Ramsay Macdonald, and the bombastically freethinking Marquis of
Queensberry.

Charles Watts died in 1946, but this did not spell the end for the RPA. The book
publishing arm became less prolific in the post-war years, but publication of
Watt's Literary Guide continued, as did publication of the RPA Annual. This had
started as the Agnostic Annual in 1884, becoming the Rationalist Annual in 1927
and Question in 1968, before ceasing publication in 1980. Great names published
in the Annual included Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper and HG Wells.

Watt's Literary Guide dropped the name of its founder in 1894, becoming simply
the Literary Guide. This name was changed to The Humanist in 1956 and in 1972
the magazine adopted its current title of New Humanist.

One lesser known part of the RPA was the Rationalist Benevolent Fund, a
charitable arm established after the First World War for the "relief of
distressed rationalists". In an age when welfare services and relief were often
provided by the church, it seems that the trustees of the RPA sought to provide
a similar service for its members, who would not have wished to turn to
religious organisations in order to make ends meet. In 1992 the RBF was wound up
and its funds and function transferred to a new charity, the Rationalist Trust,
which was committed to the wider charitable objective of advancing rationalism,
humanism and education.

In 2002 the Rationalist Trust was succeeded by the Rationalist Association and
the RPA's membership was transferred to this new body, the RPA itself becoming
dormant. The RA is a charity whose aims are to promote reason and evidence-based
understanding of life. A great deal of this work is done through the publication
of New Humanist, but also includes public events and raising funds, for example,
for secular humanist schools in Uganda.

Part of this piece is extracted from Jonathan Rée's New Humanist article on the
history of the Rationalist Association, written to celebrate our 120th birthday
in 2005. Further details taken from Bill Cooke's The Blasphemy Depot: A Hundred
Years of the Rationalist Press Association.

 * What is the Rationalist Association?
 * Governance
 * Bishopsgate archives
 * Privacy policy
 * Cookies
 * New Humanist Magazine


JOIN: ALBERT EINSTEIN & YOU

The Rationalist Association is independent, irreverent & non-profit. We are
supported by our members.

If you value reason find out how to join us today

The Rationalist Association is a registered charity in England No 1096577 a
company limited by guarantee No 4118489

The Rationalist Association
The Green House
244-254 Cambridge Heath Road
London
E2 9DA
020 3633 4633
subs@newhumanist.org.uk