Austin Holyoake

Austin Holyoake (27 October 1826 – 10 April 1874) was a printer, publisher, and freethinker. The younger brother and partner of the more widely known George Jacob Holyoake, Austin Holyoake was himself a significant figure in nineteenth century secularism. Life Austin Holyoake was born in Birmingham on 27 October 1826 to George Holyoake (a printer) and his wife Catherine Groves (a horn-button maker). Taking an early interest in the ideas of Robert Owen and the Owenite movement, Holyoake worked for various radical papers as a printer in Birmingham and London, before taking charge of printing The Reasoner (his brother George Jacob's periodical) in 1847. The two brothers entered into a partnership, acquiring their own premises at 147 Fleet Street in 1853. Austin Holyoake was a member of multiple radical and reformist groups, including the Reform League, and the author of many tracts and pamphlets. A member of the Association for the Repeal of Taxes on Knowledge, he was the last printer in England prosecuted under the Newspaper Stamp Act. Holyoake was sub-editor of Charles Bradlaugh's National Reformer from 1866 to his death, also co-editing with Bradlaugh the Secular Almanac. The two were 'intimate friends and co-workers.' Holyoake was a vice-president, and the first treasurer, of the National Secular Society, founded by Bradlaugh in 1866. Emily Faithfull, who Holyoake instructed in printing techniques. In 1859, he assisted the founders of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women in establishing the suitability of printing as an occupation for women. His employment by Bessie Parkes and Emily Faithfull for this purpose, helped to pave the way for Faithfull's Victoria Press at Great Coram Street, London, which opened in 1860.

Family Holyoake's first wife, Lucy Pettigrew, died in childbirth in 1855 after four years of marriage. He married his second wife, Jane Baker, in 1858 and had a son and a daughter. Jane was a professional singer, who performed under the name Alice Austin.

During a debate in the House of Lords in 1876, the Marquess of Salisbury used the example of Holyoake's service as a warning about changing the rules concerning nonconformist burials I hold in my hand a burial service by Austin Holyoake, one of the first sentences of which is directed towards a repudiation of the doctrine of immortality. I may quote a single verse from a hymn - "parsons may preach and the fanatics rave / Of existence beyond the dark grave. / Their heaven, they say, is far up above, / But mine is on earth, and I call it Love." thumb Large or Small Families, a pamphlet by Austin HolyoakeIn 1882, Holyoake's close friend, the poet James Thomson, was buried in the same grave with an adaptation of the burial service written by, and given for, Holyoake.