Barbara Smoker

{{Infobox philosopher

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| image = File:Barbara Smoker.JPG

| caption = In Bloomsbury in 2017

| name = Barbara Smoker

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| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1923|6|2}}

| birth_place = Catford, London, England, UK

| death_date = {{death date and age|2020|4|7|1923|6|2|df=y}}

| death_place = Lewisham, London, England, UK

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| nationality = British

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| main_interests = Humanism

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Barbara Mary Smoker (2 June 1923 – 7 April 2020)[https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2020/04/former-nss-president-barbara-smoker-dies-at-96 "Former NSS president Barbara Smoker dies at 96", National Secular Society, 8 April 2020]. Retrieved 8 April 2020 was a British humanist activist and freethought advocate. She was also President of the National Secular Society (1972–1996), Chair of the British Voluntary Euthanasia Society (now known as Dignity in Dying) (1981–1985) and an Honorary Vice President of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association in the United Kingdom.

Biography

Barbara Smoker was born in Catford, London in 1923 into a Roman Catholic family. She served in the Women's Royal Naval Service from 1942 to 1945 in southeast Asia. In 1949 she became an atheist,{{cite news| url = https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/in-bed-with-susan-de-muth-barbara-smoker--stranglers-in-the-night-1448717.html | title = In bed with Susan De Muth: Barbara Smoker / Stranglers in the night | accessdate = 2010-12-10 | date = 1994-09-14 | newspaper = The Independent}} inspired by the writing of Hector Hawton,{{Cite book |last=MacKillop |first=I. D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mqgsFS_MN9UC |title=The British Ethical Societies |date=1986-02-27 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-26672-7 |language=en}} managing director of the Rationalist Press Association and editor of The Humanist.

In 1950 Smoker joined the humanist movement when she became a member of the South Place Ethical Society, and the West London Ethical Society. As a volunteer with the Ethical Union (later known as the British Humanist Association and as Humanists UK), she became a close friend of Harold Blackham and worked with him to organise the first World Humanist Congress in London, in 1952, to follow the conference in Amsterdam where Humanists International had been founded.{{cite web|url=https://humanism.org.uk/2020/04/08/humanists-uk-mourns-barbara-smoker-1923-2020-prolific-activist-for-humanism-secularism-abortion-rights-peace-and-the-right-to-die/|title=Humanists UK mourns Barbara Smoker (1923-2020), prolific activist for humanism, secularism, abortion rights, peace, and the right to die|date=8 April 2020|accessdate=26 May 2020|work=Humanists UK}} In this time she also worked closely with Ashton Bural, who ran the Progressive League, a humanist campaigning organisation that worked closely with the Ethical Union. She became a popular humanist celebrant at non-religious funerals, wedding ceremonies, gay and lesbian commitments, and baby-namings, as well as a trainer of celebrants for the British Humanist Association. She also wrote the popular children's textbook Humanism, which saw widespread use in schools.

Her longest stint in her career as an activist was her tenure as President of the National Secular Society, spanning nearly 25 years (1972 {{cite web | url = https://conwayhall.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ETHICAL-RECORD-JULY-AUGUST-1972.pdf | title = Kindred organisations, Ethical Record, July/August 1972, p27 | accessdate = 2016-12-14 | archive-date = 21 December 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161221122125/https://conwayhall.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ETHICAL-RECORD-JULY-AUGUST-1972.pdf | url-status = dead }}–1996). In that capacity, she represented atheist and secularist viewpoints in print, on lecture platforms, speaking tours, on radio and television. As well as leading the NSS, she was also active in various social campaigns, such as the abolition of the death penalty, prison reform, nuclear disarmament, legalisation of abortion and for the Voluntary Euthanasia Society; she served as chair of the latter organisation from 1981 to 1985.{{cite news |last= Copson |first= Andrew |date= 1 May 2020 |title= Barbara Smoker obituary |url= https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/01/barbara-smoker-obituary |work= The Guardian |access-date= 17 March 2022}} She claimed to have financed the manufacture of the first Make Love, Not War badges that were popular in Britain during the 1960s.

Barbara Smoker became the South Place Ethical Society's last and only female Appointed Lecturer in 1986.See image of the Appointed Lecturer Board at Conway Hall As of May 2014, with the death of Dr Harry Stopes-Roe, she became the only living Appointed Lecturer. In 2005 Barbara Smoker received the Distinguished Humanist Service Award from Humanists International. She was also awarded Honorary Member of Humanists UK (formerly the British Humanist Association) at some stage in recognition of her activism.

Smoker lived in southeast London and in 2012 was elected the Honorary life president of the South East London Humanist Group in recognition that she was its last surviving founder member.{{cite web|url=http://www.selondon.humanist.org.uk/index.php/aboutus/honorary-life-president |title=Honorary Life President |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140324063425/http://www.selondon.humanist.org.uk/index.php/aboutus/honorary-life-president |archivedate=2014-03-24 }}

She died in Lewisham Hospital on 7 April 2020, aged 96, from COVID-19.{{Cite web | title=Mark Smoker Art - The extraordinary Barbara Smoker (b. 2... | url=https://www.facebook.com/marksmokerart/posts/the-extraordinary-barbara-smoker-b-2-jun-1923-died-yesterday-in-lewisham-hospita/510803442934668/ | access-date=2024-12-26 | website=www.facebook.com}}

Publications

Good God! a string of verses to tie up the deity (1977) B & T, London, {{ISBN|0-905934-01-6}}
Atheism on a Soap-Box (1985). London: National Secular Society.
Humanism (2017, 7th edition), Barbara Smoker. G. W. Foote & Co. Ltd. {{ISBN|978-1-911578-04-8}} (an introduction to Humanism for secondary education)
Blackham's Best (2007, 3rd edition), edited by Barbara Smoker. Published by British Humanist Association. {{ISBN|978-0-901825-84-1}} (Excerpts from the work of Harold John Blackham).
Freethoughts (2002), Barbara Smoker. G.W. Foote & Co. {{ISBN|0-9508243-5-6}}. (Selections of contributions to The Freethinker).
My Godforsaken Life - Memoir of a Maverick (2018) Thornwick Press {{ISBN|978-1-912664-02-3}} (autobiography)

Editor:

The Future of our Past: from Ancient Greece to Global Village, by Harold Blackham (1996). Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1-57392-042-8}}

Contributor:

{{cite news|last1=ROBINSON|first1=PATRICIA|title=Street lighting is too bright in Lewisham|url=http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/opinion/11463972.Street_lighting_is_too_bright_in_Lewisham/?ref=var_0|accessdate=18 November 2016|work=News Shopper|date=10 Sep 2014}}
{{cite news|last1=Read|first1=Carly|title=Elderly woman suffers sleepless nights as Lewisham Council changes lamppost light which beams through bedroom|url=http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/11419464.Elderly_woman_blames_Lewisham_Council_for_sleepless_nights_after_lamppost_light_changed/?ref=var_0|accessdate=18 November 2016|work=News Shopper|date=19 Aug 2014}}
{{cite news|title=Birthday salute to veteran secular campaigner Barbara Smoker|url=http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/jun/birthday-salute-veteran-secular-campaigner-barbara-smoker|accessdate=18 November 2016|publisher=Camden New Journal|date=6 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161119055726/http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/jun/birthday-salute-veteran-secular-campaigner-barbara-smoker|archive-date=19 November 2016|url-status=dead}}
{{cite news|last1=Smoker|first1=Barbara|title=Letters to the editor: Vote Leave to beat the bureaucrats|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/letters/letters-to-the-editor-vote-leave-to-beat-the-bureaucrats-a3251501.html|accessdate=18 November 2016|newspaper=Evening Standard|date=18 May 2016}}

References

Biography based on an entry in [https://web.archive.org/web/20010202124900/http://rationalistinternational.net/ Rationalist International]

External links

[http://www.barbara.smoker.freeuk.com Barbara Smoker]
[http://www.secularism.org.uk/ National Secular Society]
[http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/ Dignity in Dying] (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society)
[http://www.galha.org/ Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (UK)]

Category:1923 births

Category:2020 deaths

Category:20th-century atheists

Category:21st-century atheists

Category:British abortion-rights activists

Category:British anti–death penalty activists

Category:British anti–nuclear weapons activists

Category:British atheism activists

Category:British critics of religions

Category:British women activists

Category:British critics of Christianity

Category:Critics of the Catholic Church