The founding members were
Kate Watts,
Harriet Law,
George William Foote and Josiah Grimson;
George Holyoake had accepted the nomination of Vice President of the National Secular Society so only gave support for the formation. The group adopted the
Secular Review as their official paper. Even though
Charles Watts owned the rights to the Knowlton pamphlet (and had no intention of publishing it), Charles Bradlaugh and
Annie Besant broke with Watts and published the pamphlet anyway, subsequently facing prosecution. The issue of
birth control was a contentious one within the secular movement. Bradlaugh managed to steer opinion away from the birth control element and instead made secularism a
freedom of speech issue. Like other secular societies, the British Secular Union opened its membership to women. Aside from membership, women were also able to lecture and run for executive positions. While the British Secular Union did not have as many members as the NSS, it had strong regional representation with the largest regional secular group, the
Leicester Secular Society, joining the union. ==References==