George Jacob Holyoake

Amanda Woolley reviews an absorbing new biography

by Amanda Woolley 15th September 2017

In 1842 George Jacob Holyoake became the last person in this country to be convicted of blasphemy in a public lecture, delivered at the Cheltenham Mechanics Institute. In reply to a question from the audience, he had wondered that, in view of the cost of the church, whether we were not too poor to have a God.