The rise and dissolution of the infidel societies in this metropolis : including, the origin of modern deism and atheism; the genius and conduct of those associations; their lecture-rooms, field-meetings, and deputations; from the publication of Paine's Age of reason till the present period / [William Hamilton Reid].

  • William Hamilton Reid
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The rise and dissolution of the infidel societies in this metropolis : including, the origin of modern deism and atheism; the genius and conduct of those associations; their lecture-rooms, field-meetings, and deputations; from the publication of Paine's Age of reason till the present period / [William Hamilton Reid]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ 11 ] Their fittings were afterwards alternately held at a houfe in Windmill-ltreet, Finibury-fquare; and at the George, in Eaft Hardingdlreet, Fetter- lane, which, being a very commodious room, the noife made by the clapping of the fpeakers, and the late hours kept by the company, occalioned a complaint, that, being immediately attended to, by a worthy officer of the ward, not tar from the fpot, the club was removed to the Fountain, in Fetter- lane, and again hunted from its new retreat, till they ultimately fettled at the Scots Arms, in Little Britain, and were as numeroully attended as at any former period : here they continued the greateft part of the winter of 1797, but being compelled . to leave it, through the magiftrate’s interference, the landlord was afterwards deprived of his licence for entertaining them. Its next ftage of exigence was at the Golden Key, near Moor-lane, Moor- fields ; but here it attracted fo great a concourfe ot attendants, that the landlord, dreading the confequences, warned them away: this was alfo the cafe at another houfe, near Union-Free t, Moorfields; till, adjoining to the Britiffi Wine- houfe, near Hoxton, beyond the limits of the city-officers, they carried on their difquifitions, near two months, without meeting with any new embarraffment. In the interval, between the fpring of 1795 and the period l'aft fpoken of, feveral other fo- cieties, upon a fmaljer fcale, had been fet on toot: one of thefe, the next, in point of promife, to that of the Green Dragon, was inti tied, “ Tne Moral and Political Society,” who, like the former, converted their place of meeting, near Bunhill-row, into a Debating-room. A few revolutionary pamphlets, written and printed at the fociety’s C 2 expence.