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 Nicolas was the son of Katherine Monica (née Ratcliffe) and William Grey Walter, an American-born British neurophysiologist, cybernetician and robotician. His paternal grandfather was Karl Walter (1880-1965), a journalist, writer and translator who worked for the Kansas City Star and the Horace Plunkett Foundation. Karl married an American woman called Margaret Hardy and lived in the US from 1908 until the outbreak of the First World War. His maternal grandfather was Samuel Kerkham Ratcliffe (1868-1958), a former member of the executive of the Fabian Society. After his parents divorced in 1945, his mother Monica (1911-2012) subsequently married a Cambridge University scientist Arnold Beck with whom she brought up Nicolas.

Walter attended Rendcomb College, Cirencester. He served two years National Service in the Royal Air Force, where he learned Russian prior to working in Signals Intelligence, and then read modern history at Exeter College, Oxford. At this time he joined the Labour Party.

Alongside his work for media associated with the causes that became his personal mission, as a working journalist Walter held editorial roles at Which? and The Times Literary Supplement before working as press officer for the British Standards Institution.

Peace movement activism Walter was heavily involved in the peace movement, being a founder member of the Committee of 100.

Walter was a member of Spies for Peace, which only became known after he died, along with Ruth, who was happy to be publicly identified by Natasha Walter in 2013.

Anarchism Walter's book About Anarchism was first published in 1969. It went through many editions and has been translated into many languages. A revised edition was published in 2002, with a foreword by his daughter, the journalist and feminist writer Natasha Walter.

Walter had a long association with Freedom Press and was a regular contributor to Freedom among other publications. The last writing he did appeared in Freedom.

A collection of his writings from Freedom and elsewhere was published in 2007 as The Anarchist Past and Other Essays, edited by David Goodway.

Rationalism, humanism and secularism Walter was appointed Managing Editor of the Rationalist Press Association in 1975, but his progressive disability and the fact he was not, as Bill Cooke puts it, "a born administrator" led to difficulties.

He was a prominent member of the South Place Ethical Society and became one of its Appointed Lecturers in 1978. He resigned from this position in 1979 following a special meeting of the Society to consider a paper by Albert Lovecy and vote on the motion "that the Society has no theistic creed and does not practise worship". Peter Cadogan managed to have the motion amended to "does not practise worship of a deity" and it was passed. Walter remarked "many people ... have joined the society as part of their rejection of religion".

Publications Humanism: What's in the Word (1997). London: Rationalist Press Association. Also published as Humanism: Finding Meaning in the Word by Prometheus Books, 1998. Blasphemy, Ancient and Modern (1990). London: Rationalist Press Association. About Anarchism (1969). London: Freedom Press. Updated edition published by Freedom Press in 2002. Nonviolent Resistance: Men Against War (London: Nonviolence 63, Schools for Non-Violence, 1963).