The Conway Hall Ethical Society, formerly the South Place Ethical Society, based in London at Conway Hall, is thought to be the oldest surviving

freethought Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...

organisation in the world and is the only remaining ethical society in the United Kingdom. It now advocates

secular humanism Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality ...

and is a member of

Humanists International Humanists International (known as the International Humanist and Ethical Union, or IHEU, from 1952–2019) is an international non-governmental organisation championing secularism and human rights, motivated by secular humanist values. Foun ...

History

The Society's origins trace back to 1787, as a nonconformist congregation, led by

Elhanan Winchester Elhanan Winchester (September 19, 1751 in Brookline, Massachusetts – April 18, 1797 Hartford, Connecticut) was one of the founders of the United States General Convention of Universalists, later the Universalist Church of America. Life Self-e ...

, rebelling against the doctrine of

eternal damnation Damnation (from Latin '' damnatio'') is the concept of divine punishment and torment in an afterlife for actions that were committed, or in some cases, not committed on Earth. In Ancient Egyptian religious tradition, citizens would recite th ...

. The congregation, known as the Philadelphians or Universalists, secured their first home at Parliament Court Chapel on the eastern edge of London on 14 February 1793.

William Johnson Fox William Johnson Fox (1 March 1786 – 3 June 1864) was an English Unitarian minister, politician, and political orator. Early life Fox was born at Uggeshall Farm, Wrentham, near Southwold, Suffolk on 1 March 1786. His parents were strict C ...

became minister of the congregation in 1817. By 1821 Fox's congregation had decided to build a new place of worship, and issued a call for "subscriptions for a new Unitarian chapel, South Place, Finsbury". Subscribers (donors) included businessman and patron of the arts Elhanan Bicknell. In 1824 the congregation built a chapel at South Place, in the

Finsbury Finsbury is a district of Central London, forming the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London. The Manor of Finsbury is first recorded as ''Vinisbir'' (1231) and means "manor of a man called Finn ...

district of

central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

. The chapel was repaired by John Wallen, of a family of London architects and builders. This chapel later became the home of South Place Ethical Society. In 1929 they built new premises, Conway Hall, at 37 (now numbered 25)

Red Lion Square Red Lion Square is a small square in Holborn, London. The square was laid out in 1684 by Nicholas Barbon, taking its name from the Red Lion Inn. According to some sources, the bodies of three regicides—Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Hen ...

, in nearby

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest ...

, on the site of a tenement, previously a factory belonging to James Perry, a pen and ink maker. Conway Hall is named after an American, Moncure D. Conway, who led the Society from 1864 to 1885 and from 1892 to 1897, during which time it moved further away from

Unitarianism Unitarianism (from Latin language, Latin ''unitas'' "unity, oneness", from ''unus'' "one") is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian branch of Christian theology. Most other branches of Christianity and the major Churches accept the Trinity, doctri ...

. Conway spent the break in his tenure in the United States, writing a biography of

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

. In 1888 the name of the Society was changed from South Place Religious Society to South Place Ethical Society (SPES) under Stanton Coit's leadership. In 1950 the SPES joined the

Ethical Union Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious be ...

. In 1969 another name change was mooted, to The South Place Humanist Society, a discussion that sociologist Colin Campbell suggests symbolized the death of the ethical movement in England.Colin Campbell. 1971. ''Towards a Sociology of Irreligion''. London: MacMillan Press. The original name, South Place Ethical Society, was retained until 2012, when it changed to Conway Hall Ethical Society. In November 2013 Elizabeth Lutgendorff was elected Chair of the Conway Hall General Committee, becoming the youngest Chair in the society's history. On 1 August 2014 the society became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation with a new charitable object: "The advancement of study, research and education in humanist ethical principles". This replaced the previous object: "The study and dissemination of ethical principles and the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment."

Conway Hall

Conway Hall was designed by Frederick Mansford, being built on an L-shaped strip of land which the Society had acquired between Theobald's Road and

Lamb's Conduit Passage Lamb's Navy Rum is a sugar-cane based Caribbean rum popular in the UK and Canada. In 1849, 22-year-old Londoner Alfred Lamb, son of wine and spirits merchant William Lamb, blended 18 different rums from Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad to p ...

. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

built in 1929 and was Mansford's largest project. The main entrance is located on an angle with a narrow arch rising to the top of the upper floor. The arch is flanked by two columns in silver-grey brick while the rest of the building is varied with red-brick detailing. There is a lot of glass in the

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

, with wide windows to the Library on the upper level and in and above the entrance doors. The glazing bars form a distinctive tiny criss-cross pattern reflected in Conway Hall's logo. The general feel is that of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at

Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...

, the old

Shakespeare Memorial Theatre The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) (originally called the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre) is a grade II* listed 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the English playwright and poet William Shakes ...

. Mansford was aware that his design could appear incoherent and tried to make the elevation hang together by placing six stone urns, bought from a City bank, along roof level, two of them on top of the entrance columns. The main auditorium can hold 300 plus 180 in a gallery, and in recent years has been used as a corporate events space for conferences and product launches. The use of wooden panelling nailed directly to the brickwork and of

acoustic plaster Acoustic plaster is plaster which contains fibres or aggregate so that it absorbs sound. Early plasters contained asbestos, but newer ones consist of a base layer of absorptive substrate panels, which are typically mineral wool, or a non-combustib ...

gives the hall excellent acoustic qualities; this makes it very suitable for the performance of music, and there have been regular recordings and concerts there. The ceiling of the auditorium was glazed, and this made it very light and airy for the time. It opened in 1929 and has continued in use since. Above the

proscenium arch A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

the words "To Thine Own Self Be True" (quoting

Polonius Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's play ''Hamlet''. He is chief counsellor of the play's ultimate villain, Claudius, and the father of Laertes and Ophelia. Generally regarded as wrong in every judgment he makes over the course of ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'') can be seen. These words were originally inscribed on the back wall of the red mahogany panel at the original South Place Chapel.

Film location

The hall has been used as a location for various film and television productions. The building has appeared in '' Mr Holmes'', '' Bodyguard'' and '' Hereafter''.

Humanist ceremonies

In 1935 twenty members of the Society signed a document stating that Conway Hall was their regular

place of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is somet ...

. It was therefore certified for

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

s by the

Registrar-General General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth nations and Ireland. The GRO is the government agency responsible for the recording of vital records ...

until 1977 when the Deputy Registrar-General ruled that the Hall could not be used for weddings under the terms of the Places of Worship Registration Act. This followed the report in the winter of 1975 of a marriage solemnised at Conway Hall. He was probably influenced by the 1970 ruling of

Lord Denning Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999) was an English lawyer and judge. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1923 and became a King's Counsel in 1938. Denning became a judge in 1944 whe ...

, that marriages could only be solemnised in places whose principal use is for the "worship of God or

o do O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...

reverence to a deity. Until the ruling the Society had an established tradition of performing secular

funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect ...

s, memorial ceremonies and namings of children at Conway Hall.

Sunday Concerts

The Sunday Concerts at Conway Hall can be traced back to 1878 when the Peoples Concert Society was formed for the purpose of "increasing the popularity of good music by means of cheap concerts". Many of these concerts were held at the South Place Institute, but in 1887 the Peoples Concert Society had to cut short its season through lack of funds. At that point the South Place Ethical Society undertook the task of organising concerts under the first Honorary Secretary Alfred J. Clements and Assistant Secretary George Hutchinson who continued to run them under the name 'South Place Sunday Concerts'. The thousandth concert was played on 20 February 1927, and the two-thousandth concert was held at the

Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten. The Q ...

on 9 March 1969. Clements was the Honorary Secretary for over 50 years, from 1887 to 1938. Composer Richard Henry Walthew also had a long association with the Sunday Concerts, from the early 1900s until his death in 1951. The concert series provided a rare platform for the work of women composers during its first few decades. The programming included a still small, but significant number of compositions by women compared to other concerts in London. Women composers featured in the first 1,000 concerts included Alice Verne-Bredt, sisters Amy, Annie and Jessie Grimson, Liza Lehmann, Ethel Smyth, Edith Swepstone, Josephine Troup and

Maude Valérie White Maude Valérie White (1855 – 1937) was a French-born English composer who became one of the most successful songwriters (in the English serious style) of the Victorian period. Early years Although born near Dieppe in Normandy to upper middl ...

. In 1929 the South Place Ethical Society had the Conway Hall purpose built for it, and with the exception of the war years the concert seasons have continued. The concerts have now been organised by the Artistic Director, Simon Callaghan.

Hawkins Catalogue

Frank A. Hawkins served as Treasurer of the Sunday Concerts for 24 years from 1905 until his death in June 1929. He collected nearly 2,000 pieces of sheet music of principally classical and romantic chamber music, which were bequeathed to the Society. The collection has been catalogued by composer and instrument combination and is held on the Conway Hall premises.

Conway Memorial Lecture

The Conway Memorial Lecture was inaugurated by the Society in 1910 to honour Moncure Conway who died in 1907. The decision to create the Lecture was made in 1908 and the first Lecture, ''The Task of Rationalism'', was given by John Russell and is presumed to have been chaired by Edward Clodd. Prominent lecturers have included

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

, Lancelot Hogben, Stanton Coit,

Joseph Needham Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, i ...

Edward John Thompson Edward John Thompson (9 April 1886 – 28 April 1946) was a British scholar, novelist, historian and translator. He is remembered for his translations from Bengali into English and his association with Rabindranath Tagore, on whom he wrote t ...

(1942),

Jacob Bronowski Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He was known to friends and professional colleagues alike by the nickname Bruno. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to sc ...

, Fred Hoyle, Edmund Leach, Margaret Knight, Christopher Hill (1989), Gilbert Murray (1915), Hermann Bondi (1992), Harold Blackham,

Laurens van der Post Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, (13 December 1906 – 15 December 1996) was a South African Afrikaner writer, farmer, soldier, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer and conservationist. He was noted for his interest in J ...

Alex Comfort Alexander Comfort (10 February 1920 – 26 March 2000) was a British scientist and physician known best for his nonfiction sex manual, '' The Joy of Sex'' (1972). He was an author of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a gerontologis ...

(1990), Fenner Brockway, Jonathan Miller, David Starkey, Bernard Crick,

AC Grayling Anthony Clifford Grayling (; born 3 April 1949) is a British philosopher and author. He was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and spent most of his childhood there and in Nyasaland (now Malawi). In 2011 he founded and became the first Mast ...

and Roger Penrose. No Lectures took place in 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, or 1966. The 2014 Conway Memorial Lecture was given by Professor

Lisa Jardine Lisa Anne Jardine (née Bronowski; 12 April 1944 – 25 October 2015) was a British historian of the early modern period. From 1990 to 2011, she was Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies and Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and ...

on 26 June 2014. It was titled "Things I Never Knew About My Father" and detailed the MI5 files kept on her father, Jacob Bronowski, who sixty years earlier had delivered that year's Conway Memorial Lecture.

Library

The Humanist Library and Archives based at Conway Hall is the UK's foremost resource of its kind in Europe and the only library in the UK solely dedicated to the collection of Humanist material.

Prominent members (past and present)

Annie Besant Annie Besant ( Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights activist, educationist, writer, orator, political party member and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human ...

* Harold Blackham * Fenner Brockway * C. Delisle Burns *

Herbert Burrows Herbert Burrows (12 June 1845 – 14 December 1922) was a British socialist activist. Early life Born in Redgrave, Suffolk, Burrows' father Amos was a former Chartist leader. Burrows educated himself using Cassell's shilling handbooks, becoming ...

* Peter Cadogan * Alfred J. Clements * Stanton Coit *

Moncure Conway Moncure Daniel Conway (March 17, 1832 – November 15, 1907) was an American abolitionist minister and radical writer. At various times Methodist, Unitarian, and a Freethinker, he descended from patriotic and patrician families of Virginia and ...

Andrew Copson Andrew James William Copson, FRSA, FCMI, MCIPR (born 19 November 1980) is a Humanist leader and writer. He is the Chief Executive of Humanists UK and the President of Humanists International. He has worked for a number of civil and human ri ...

* George Hutchinson *

Naomi Lewis Naomi Lewis (3 September 1911 – 5 July 2009) was a British poet, essayist, literary critic, anthologist and reteller of stories for children. She is particularly noted for her translations of the Danish children's author, Hans Christian An ...

* Elizabeth Lutgendorff * James O'Malley *

Samuel Kerkham Ratcliffe Samuel Kerkham Ratcliffe (1868–1958) was an English journalist and lecturer. Life Ratcliffe's father owned a King's Lynn flour mill, but moved to work as a railway clerk in Manchester when that business failed. Samuel was sent to be live with an ...

, regular lecturer 1910s–1930s * J. M. Robertson * Sid Rodrigues *

Donald Rooum Donald Rooum (20 April 1928 – 31 August 2019) was an English anarchist cartoonist and writer. He had a long association with Freedom Press who have published seven volumes of his ''Wildcat'' cartoons. In 1963 he played a key role in exposi ...

Athene Seyler Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 188912 September 1990) was an English actress. Early life She was born in Hackney, London; her German-born grandparents moved to the United Kingdom, where her grandfather Philip Seyler was a merchant in London. Ath ...

* Barbara Smoker * Harry Snell *

Reginald Sorensen Reginald William Sorensen, Baron Sorensen (19 June 1891 – 8 October 1971) was a Unitarian minister and Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for over thirty years between 1929 and 1964. Early li ...

* Dr Harry Stopes-Roe *

Nicolas Walter Nicolas Hardy Walter (22 November 1934 – 7 March 2000) was a British anarchist and atheist writer, speaker and activist. He was a member of the Committee of 100 and Spies for Peace, and wrote on topics of anarchism and humanism. Background ...

Other notable people associated with the Society

Charles Bradlaugh Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851. In 1880, Bradl ...

, founder of the National Secular Society, and his daughter

Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner (31 March 1858 – 25 August 1935) was a British peace activist, author, atheist and freethinker, and the daughter of Charles Bradlaugh. Early life and teaching She was born Hypatia Bradlaugh, at 3 Hedger's Terrace, H ...

* Sophia Dobson Collet, who contributed hymns; her brothers Charles, the Society's musical director, and Collet Dobson Collet * Eliza Flower and her sister

Sarah Fuller Flower Adams Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (or Sally Adams) (22 February 1805 – 14 August 1848) was an English poet and hymnwriter. A selection of hymns she wrote, published by William Johnson Fox, included her best-known one, " Nearer, My God, to Thee", repor ...

, who contributed hymns * Peter Fribbins, C20 director of Sunday concerts formerly held at Conway Hall * Philip Harwood, assistant minister to Fox in 1841 * Gerald Heard, lecturer from 1927 *

James Hemming Dr. Clifford James Hemming FBPS FRSA (9 September 1909 – 25 December 2007) was a British child psychologist, educationalist and humanist. Biography Born in Ashton-under-Lyne, James Hemming's childhood education was patchy, and he later obta ...

, in whose name the Society administers an annual prize since 2009 *

Laurence Housman Laurence Housman (; 18 July 1865 – 20 February 1959) was an English playwright, writer and illustrator whose career stretched from the 1890s to the 1950s. He studied art in London. He was a younger brother of the poet A. E. Housman and his s ...

, C20 pacifist and socialist *

Harriet Law Harriet Teresa Law (née Frost, 5 November 1831 – 19 July 1897) was a leading British freethinker in 19th-century London. The daughter of a small farmer, she was raised as a "Strict Baptist" but later converted to atheism. She became a salarie ...

, C19 freethinker *

Harry Price Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. He is best known for ...

, C20 psychic researcher, born on the site * John Pye-Smith, C19 theologian, tutor to Fox * Rosemary Rapaport, who launched what would become the

Purcell School The Purcell School for Young Musicians is a specialist music school for children, located in the town of Bushey, south Hertfordshire, England, and is the oldest specialist music school in the UK. The school was awarded the UNESCO Mozart Medal i ...

at the Hall in 1962 * Archibald Robertson, popular lecturer 1945–60 *

Samuel Sharpe Samuel Sharpe, or Sharp (1801 – 23 May 1832), also known as Sam Sharpe, was an enslaved Jamaican who was the leader of the widespread 1831–32 Baptist War slave rebellion (also known as the Christmas Rebellion) in Jamaica. He was proclai ...

, who joined South Place Chapel in 1821 *

Timothy West Timothy Lancaster West, CBE (born 20 October 1934) is an English actor and presenter. He has appeared frequently on both stage and television, including stints in both ''Coronation Street'' (as Eric Babbage) and ''EastEnders'' (as Stan Carte ...

, C20 actor * Anna Wheeler, 1820s speaker on women's rights

Journal

Front page of December 2012 edition of the Ethical Record

The journal of the society, which records its proceedings, is the ''Ethical Record''. The issue shown for December 2012 was volume 117, number 11. This edition outlines the procedure that took place for the historic change of name the previous month.

Sunday Assembly

Since 2014, Conway Hall has been host to the Sunday Assembly, a popular secular service which takes place on the first and third Sunday of every month.

References

Sources

* *Conway, Moncure Daniel. ''Centenary History of the South Place Society: based on four discourses given in the chapel in May and June, 1893''. London/Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1894 *MacKillop, Ian (1986). ''The British Ethical Societies''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links

Conway Hall Ethical SocietyThe Ethical Record OnlineConway Memorial Lectures
with texts * {{Authority control Humanist associations Ethical movement Freethought organizations Organizations established in 1793 Secular humanism Charities based in London Skeptic organisations in the United Kingdom