UCL BLOOMSBURY PROJECT

History

It was founded by James Bonar and J. H. Muirhead as a Society of like-minded rational thinkers at a meeting on 20 November 1886 at University Hall in Gordon Square

Bonar and Muirhead had been prompted to found the Society by a meeting at Toynbee Hall with Stanton Coit, an American enthusiast of the ideals of Felix Adler, who became the founder of many ethical societies in England (Susannah Wright, ‘ “There Is Something Universal in Our Movement Which Appeals Not Only to One Country, But to All”: International Communication and Moral Education 1892–1914,’ History of Education, vol. 37, no. 6, 2008)

Some of its members had previously belonged to the Fellowship of the New Life

The Society later held lectures at Toynbee Hall, and concentrated on “systematic ethical instruction in connexion with working mens colleges, clubs, and co-operative societies. It was also concerned with university extension and the education of the young” (Peter Gordon and John White, Philosophers as Educational Reformers: The Influence of Idealism on British Educational Thought and Practice, 1979)

Its members were also responsible for the formation of the independent London School of Ethics and Social Philosophy in 1897

It apparently no longer exists, having become increasingly fragmented in the late 19th century (Peter Gordon and John White, Philosophers as Educational Reformers: The Influence of Idealism on British Educational Thought and Practice, 1979)

However, it was one of the many ethical societies which prompted the foundation of the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896; this subsequently became the British Humanist Association in 1967

It also led more directly to the formation of the independent London School of Ethics and Social Philosophy in 1897, which was based at the Passmore Edwards Settlement in Tavistock Place until it was absorbed into the London School of Economics in the twentieth century