Henry George Atkinson
| Henry George Atkinson FGS | |||||||||||||||
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| File:Atkinson, Henry George.jpg | |||||||||||||||
| Born | 1812 | ||||||||||||||
| Died | 1890 | ||||||||||||||
| Residence |
18 Upper Gloucester Place, Regents Park [1863] 61 Upper Gloucester Place, NW [A6:2] | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation | architect | ||||||||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
ASL Council 1866 Trustee
ASL Council 1867 Member, Trustee
ASL Council 1869 Member
LAS Council 1874 Member
House Notes
A5 20 Henry George Atkinson, FGS, 18 Upper Gloucester Place, NW, 18 Dec. 1865 – on the identification of a cast; unable to attend meeting next day
21 Ibid., 11 Jan. 1866 – encloses subscription; discusses phrenology. 4 pp.
Notes From Elsewhere
Henry George Atkinson was the son of a wealthy London architect born in 1812 and died in Boulogne around 1890. Educated at Charterhouse in 1827 he became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1836 though later resigned in 1877. Atkinson became a freethinker and interested in mesmerism, phrenology, materialism and naturalism. He was a member of the Phrenological Association. He published extensively on phrenology and phreno-mesmerism. In the 1860s he published on spiritualism. He was an ardent admirer of Francis Bacon and warmly supported the theory that Bacon was in fact the author of the works of Shakespeare. These views were published in Charles BRAY's National Reformer. Through mutual friends, the Basil Montagus, Atkinson related instructions on mesmerism to the well-known author Harriet MARTINEAU during her five years illness. She attributed her recovery in November 1844 to mesmerism. MARTINEAU and Atkinson met in 1845. They later published their correspondence as Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development (1851) a book that promoted a radical form of materialistic and even atheistic naturalism. It was essentially an extreme and uncompromising version of George COMBE's philosophy as seen in his Constitution of man (1828) with whom Atkinson also corresponded. Atkinson wrote the majority of the letters and it was by far his most influential work. The book had a great impact especially amongst MARTINEAU's Unitarian circle as the book boldly proclaimed the inadequacy of the Unitarian compromises with orthodox Christianity. Instead radical views of the purity and rectitude of natural laws were proclaimed. In this light many social conventions, such as marriage, which contravened nature's law caused only misery and should therefore be abolished.
[membership of Phrenological Association 1840] May 20.-Henry G. Atkinson, architect, 18 Upper Gloucester Place, London, F.G.S.
The earliest template matches located by QI [QUOTE INVESTIGATOR] referred to Harriet Martineau and Henry George Atkinson who together published a controversial work titled “Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development” in 1851. 1 Contemporaries believed that the duo was espousing atheism, and both faced tremendous criticism; in April 1851 a periodical about mesmerism printed a statement referring to Atkinson.
A celebrated wit declares the great religious view of the book to be, There is no God, and Mr. Atkinson is his prophet.—Zoist.
In July 1851 a piece in “The Worcestershire Chronicle” of Worcestershire, England discussed an essay that analyzed the pair’s book. The following jest was aimed at Martineau: 3
Two valuable essays on “The History of Logic” and “Primitive Alphabets” are followed by one on “Materialism,” in which Miss Martineau and her tutor, “Henry George Atkinson, F.G.S.,” are treated to a little commonsense criticism. Her theory—so ably epitomised by a popular writer of the present day—”that there is no God, and that Miss Martineau is his prophet,” finds no quarter at the hands of the talented reviewer…
Phrenology, like some other sciences, has been misunderstood, and has often been injured by people within the ranks who have tried to apply its principles without knowing much about them. Dr. Henry George Atkinson, F.G.S., of England, saw this danger when he said of popular phrenologists: "All were professors and few were students." The progress of phrenology has also been retarded by teachers of psychology who condemned it without knowing much about its principles.
The book The impostor; or, Born without a conscience, by the author of 'Anti-Coningsby'. was dedicated to Atkinson as a mark of sincere friendship and esteeem
Publications
External Publications
Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development. By Henry George Atkinson, F.G.S., and Harriet Martineau
National Reformer
