SETTLE
VANCE
the Dijon Academy of Sciences, Arts, and
Letters. Professor Eobin has at various
times been President of International Con
gresses of Hydrology, Climatology, and
Geology. In the recent symposium on
Spiritualism he avowed his Materialistic
position. " Communicate with the spirits
of the dead ! " he wrote. " To do that it
is necessary that they exist, and we have
no reason whatever to suppose that our
life is prolonged under another form beyond
the grave. Let us put aside these dreams."
SETTLE, John, miner. B. 1842. Mr. John Settle was a Lancashire miner who obtained a fair competence in his later years by the purchase of property. Quite late in life he became a Rationalist, and made the E. P. A. the residuary legatee of his estate, on condition that the money should be used for the delivery of lectures in Wigan. The sum actually received was only 148, but four lectures are delivered annually in Wigan under the bequest, and very important work has been done in that town. D. Feb. 4, 1915.
SNELL, Henry, lecturer. B. Apr. 1, 1865. Ed. village school. Mr. Snell had to start work as a ploughboy at the age of nine, and he later found employment in Nottingham. He joined the Nottingham Secular Society, and became its secretary and president. In 1890 he moved to London, to work under the Charity Organi zation Society, and he lectured regularly in Secular Societies. He was the first secretary to the Director of the London School of Economics, then Hutchinson Trust lecturer for the Fabian Society. In 1898 he was appointed lecturer to the English Union of Ethical Societies, and in 1905 general secretary of the Union. He unsuccessfully contested Huddersfield at the general elections of 1910 and 1918 ; and he was elected to the London County Council in 1919. He has written a few pamphlets, and has contributed for years to the Labour and Rationalist press.
YANCE, Edith Maurice, Secularist.
B. I860. Ed. private boarding schools
("ineffectually," she says). In 1877 Miss
Vance became a Sunday-school teacher.
She visited the Hall of Science, and prayed
for the conversion of Mrs. Besant ; but
she herself became an Atheist and a
devoted follower of Mr. Bradlaugh. Revolt
ing against parental bigotry, she left her
home and toured the provinces with a
theatrical company. She joined the
National Secular Society in 1878, and in
1887 she became London Branch Secretary
and Vice-President. In 1892 she was
appointed Assistant Secretary, and later
General Secretary- Although her sight
failed in 1909, and she is now totally
blind, she still acts as General Secretary.
As representative of the National League
of the Blind she was in 1919 elected Poor
Law Guardian and Borough Councillor of
St. Pancras (London).
WALWYN, William, writer. B. about 1600. Walwyn, who was a grandson of a Bishop of Hereford, was put in the silk- trading business, and obtained the freedom of the Merchant Adventurers Company. His business was in London, and he took an active interest in the political and religious quarrel. Edwards, in his Gan- grcena, describes him as " a seeker, a dangerous man." He and his associates attacked all the sects, and professed to "seek" truth apart from them. It seems to have been an early form of Deism though they professed respect for the Bible. He was imprisoned in the Tower on political charges, and the Government writers freely accused him of Atheism and Communism. He had, they said, urged people to read Plutarch and Cicero on Sundays instead of going to church. Walwyn replied in his Fountain of Slander Discovered (1649), in which we can scarcely look for extreme candour from a prisoner. He w r as released in the same year, but is obscure after that date.
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