Chapman Cohen

Chapman Cohen was an English freethinker, atheist, and secularist author and lecturer. Chapman Cohen was the older son of Enoch Cohen, a confectioner, and his wife, Deborah. He was born in Leicester, but the family relocated to London in 1889. He attended a nearby elementary school but was largely self-taught. He had read Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and Plato by the age of eighteen. He was a bibliophile who collected books throughout his life. Cohen described having "little religion at home...See more

Chapman Cohen was an English freethinker, atheist, and secularist author and lecturer. Chapman Cohen was the older son of Enoch Cohen, a confectioner, and his wife, Deborah. He was born in Leicester, but the family relocated to London in 1889. He attended a nearby elementary school but was largely self-taught. He had read Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and Plato by the age of eighteen. He was a bibliophile who collected books throughout his life. Cohen described having "little religion at home and none at school" after being withdrawn from Religious Instruction lessons. He described his own attitude toward religion as "easy-going contempt". A few weeks later, he came out against the same lecturer on their invitation. Shortly after, he was invited to speak by the local National Secular Society chapter. After a year of speaking on freethought, he joined the NSS. In 1895, he was elected as vice-president of the NSS. Cohen began submitting weekly essays to G. W. Foote's Freethinker in 1897, after previously writing on his lecture trips. He joined The Freethinker as an assistant editor in 1898 and was promoted to editor after Foote's death in 1915. Cohen had previously written for various freethought magazines and briefly edited The Truthseeker, which was owned by J.W. Gott. Cohen also replaced Foote as President of the National Secular Society. See less