About Unholy Histories: The Humanist Heritage Podcast from Humanists UK
Join Andrew Copson and Madeleine Goodall—alongside a host of expert guests—as they uncover the hidden histories and untold stories of the people, places, movements, ideas, and events that helped shape British humanism, secularism and freethought.
From radical reformers to forgotten dissenters, Unholy Histories explores how reason, skepticism, science, and activism helped build modern Britain—and how these values still shape our society today.
Unholy Histories is a Humanists UK Podcast, showcasing the Humanist Heritage Project and produced by Humanise Live.
Find out more: https://heritage.humanists.uk/
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The "open conspiracy": how 94 humanists rewrote Britain’s moral laws
For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast When we think of the progressive reforms of the 1960s, we often picture youth in revolt, the sexual revolution, and a sudden explosion of freedom. But what if the real blueprint for change arose from something quite different? What if it was meticulously plotted across decades by a remarkable network of intellectuals, activists, and friends — co-conspirators in a plot to c...
8 Jul 2026
Building the common good: humanism and the British welfare state with Neil Kinnock
In 1942, at the height of the Second World War, the economist William Beveridge published his report identifying five giant evils facing British society: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. From that report grew the National Health Service, the post-war welfare state, and a new vision of what a country owed its citizens. But the welfare state did not appear from nowhere. Behind it stood a long tradition of ethical and philosophical thought – from the British idealists of the ninet...
1 Jul 2026
Imagining better futures – humanist thought and the radical power of science fiction
In her 1818 novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley asked what it meant to make a person – and what we owed to the beings we create. Two centuries later, the questions she opened are still being asked, in the time machines and starships and feminist utopias of the science fiction tradition. Humanism has long found a home in speculative fiction: a genre where the supernatural is set aside, where the world's contingency is laid bare, and where, as this week's guests put it, we can test-drive our...
24 Jun 2026
Can they suffer? Humanism beyond humans and the British animal rights tradition
In 1789, the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham asked a deceptively simple question: not whether animals can reason or talk, but whether they can suffer. That question opened a long argument about how a secular, humanist ethics should reach beyond the human — an argument that Victorian reformers like Henry Salt and his Humanitarian League turned into a campaign for animal rights, vegetarianism, the abolition of vivisection and the reform of zoos and blood sports, and that runs in a long line ...
17 Jun 2026
Radical empathy – the humanist ideas that shaped civil rights across the Atlantic
In February 1965, James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. faced each other across a packed Cambridge Union, debating whether "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro." Baldwin won the vote by a landslide. But that famous moment was one flashpoint in a much wider struggle. Across the United States and here in Britain, activists, writers and thinkers were challenging injustice, confronting systems of power, and asking fundamental questions about equality, dignity and how we ...
10 Jun 2026
Atheism Before Christianity – How Ancient Greek Philosophy Shaped Modern Humanism
Long before the Enlightenment, ancient thinkers were already questioning the gods. In the Greek world of the seventh to fifth centuries BCE, medicine, weather and the natural world began to be explained without divine intervention. Philosophers asked whether the gods existed at all, whether ethics could rest on human reason alone, and whether a meaningful life required belief in an afterlife. The answers they gave — Epicurus on the consolations of mortality, Protagoras on the limits of knowle...
3 Jun 2026
Britain's Most Secular Parliament and the Battle That Built It
In 1880 a newly elected MP walked into the House of Commons and refused to swear an oath to God. Parliament refused to let him take his seat. He was re-elected four times. The standoff lasted six years. Charles Bradlaugh's fight ended with the Oaths Act of 1888, a turning point in the recognition of non-religious conscience in British public life. This episode traces that struggle from Bradlaugh's Northampton victory to the 2024 General Election, the most secular Westminster has ever returned...
27 May 2026
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights with Bill Cooke & Francesca Klug
In the aftermath of two world wars, a new vision for humanity began to take shape, one grounded in shared dignity, freedom, and cooperation across borders. At the heart of that vision were humanist thinkers, from H.G. Wells, whose Rights of Man helped inspire the movement, to Julian Huxley, the first Director-General of UNESCO. This episode traces the ideas that shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asks why it still matters, and considers what challenges lie ahead for the univers...
20 May 2026
Born of Mary - LGBT Rights & Humanism In Britain with Lesley Hall and Peter Parker
Join Humanists UK: humanists.uk/join Throughout modern British history, the movements for sexual freedom and freedom of belief have often converged, challenging moral orthodoxy and religious authority in the name of human dignity. This episode traces how humanism and LGBT activism have evolved side by side, and what that shared legacy means today. Guests: Lesley Hall, historian and retired archivist, specialising in sexuality and gender in 19th and 20th century Britain. Author of Sex, Gender ...
13 May 2026
Moral education without religion with Lois Lee & Susannah Wright
Education has always been central to humanist thought, from the founding of the Moral Instruction League in 1897 to Margaret Knight's scandalous 1955 BBC broadcasts on raising children without religion. This episode traces the long humanist tradition of moral and civic education in Britain, and asks how children form their identities and worldviews in an increasingly non-religious society. Guests: Dr Lois Lee, senior lecturer in secular studies at the University of Kent, whose research examin...
6 May 2026
Atheism before the Enlightenment with Michael Hunter and Patrick McGhee
Many people assume humanism began with the Enlightenment. But sceptical, rational, human-centred ideas have a much longer history. This episode travels back to the centuries before the so-called Age of Reason to meet the freethinkers, doubters, and proto-humanists who challenged religious orthodoxy when doing so could mean prison, exile, or death, and asks what their courage tells us about the slow erosion of religious certainty. Guests: Professor Michael Hunter, Emeritus Professor of History...
29 Apr 2026
Heroines of freethought with Annie Laurie Gaylor & Nan Sloane
Throughout history, women have been leading voices for reason, equality, and human progress, even if their stories have too often been overlooked. Taking its title from Sara Underwood's 1876 collection, this episode sheds light on some of the women who defied religious and social convention, and asks what their legacy means for humanism today. Guests: Nan Sloane, historian, trainer, and author of Uncontrollable Women: Radicals, Reformers and Revolutionaries. nansloane.comAnnie Laurie Gaylor, ...
25 Mar 2026
Introducing Unholy Histories: The Humanist Heritage Podcast from Humanists UK
Unholy Histories is the new Humanist Heritage Podcast from Humanists UK and inspired by the research of the Humanist Heritage Project. Join Andrew Copson and Madeleine Goodall as they uncover the rebels, reformers, and freethinkers who shaped a more open and compassionate Britain. The first episodes go live very soon. Subscribe now via your preferred podcast app to be notified the moment new episodes are released. Join Humanists UK: humanists.uk/join Discover more Humanist Heritage: heritage...
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