Nicolas Walter
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Born
| Nicolas Hardy Walter
(
1934-11-22
)
22 November 1934
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Died
| 7 March 2000
(2000-03-07)
(aged 65)
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Education
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Occupations
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Movement
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Spouses
|
Ruth Oppenheim
(
m.
1962;
div.
1982)
Christine Morris
(
m.
1987)
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Children
| 2, including
Natasha Walter
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Parent
| |
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Relatives
| Samuel Kerkham Ratcliffe
(grandfather)
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Nicolas Hardy Walter
(22 November 1934 ? 7 March 2000) was a British
anarchist
and
atheist
writer, speaker and activist. He was a member of the
Committee of 100
and
Spies for Peace
,
[1]
and wrote on topics of
anarchism
and
humanism
.
Background
[
edit
]
Nicolas was the son of Katherine Monica (nee Ratcliffe) and
William Grey Walter
, an American-born British
neurophysiologist
,
cybernetician
and
robotician
. His paternal grandfather was Karl Walter (1880-1965), a journalist, writer and translator who worked for the
Kansas City Star
and the Horace Plunkett Foundation. Karl married an American woman called Margaret Hardy and lived in the US from 1908 until the outbreak of the
First World War
. His maternal grandfather was
Samuel Kerkham Ratcliffe
(1868-1958), a former member of the executive of the
Fabian Society
. After his parents divorced in 1945, his mother Monica (1911-2012) subsequently married a
Cambridge University
scientist
Arnold Beck
[2]
with whom she brought up Nicolas.
[3]
Walter attended
Rendcomb College
,
Cirencester
. He served two years
National Service
in the
Royal Air Force
, where he learned Russian prior to working in
Signals Intelligence
, and then read modern history at
Exeter College, Oxford
. At this time he joined the
Labour Party
.
[4]
Alongside his work for media associated with the causes that became his personal mission, as a working journalist Walter held editorial roles at
Which?
and
The Times Literary Supplement
before working as press officer for the
British Standards Institution
.
[5]
Peace movement activism
[
edit
]
Walter was heavily involved in the peace movement, being a founder member of the
Committee of 100
.
[1]
Walter married Ruth Oppenheim, another member of the Committee of 100 in 1962, who was the daughter of refugees from Nazi Germany. The couple had two children, Susannah (born 1965) and
Natasha Walter
(born 1967), but divorced in 1982.
[6]
Walter was a member of
Spies for Peace
, which only became known after he died,
[7]
along with Ruth, who was happy to be publicly identified by Natasha Walter in 2013.
[1]
[6]
In March 1963, the group broke into
Regional Seat of Government
No. 6 (RSG-6), copied documents relating to the Government's plans in the event of nuclear war and distributed 3,000 leaflets revealing their contents.
[1]
[7]
In 1966, Walter was imprisoned for two months under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Act 1860, after a protest against British support for the
Vietnam War
. As Prime Minister
Harold Wilson
read the lesson (on the subject of beating swords into ploughshares) at a
Labour Party
service at the
Methodist
Church in
Brighton
, Walter and friends interrupted by shouting "Hypocrite!"
[8]
Anarchism
[
edit
]
Walter's book
About Anarchism
was first published in 1969. It went through many editions and has been translated into many languages. A revised edition was published in 2002, with a foreword by his daughter, the journalist and feminist writer Natasha Walter.
[9]
Walter had a long association with
Freedom Press
and was a regular contributor to
Freedom
among other publications. The last writing he did appeared in
Freedom
.
A collection of his writings from
Freedom
and elsewhere was published in 2007 as
The Anarchist Past and Other Essays
, edited by
David Goodway
.
Rationalism, humanism and secularism
[
edit
]
Walter was appointed Managing Editor of the Rationalist Press Association in 1975, but his progressive disability and the fact he was not, as Bill Cooke puts it, "a born administrator"
[10]
led to difficulties.
He was a prominent member of the
South Place Ethical Society
and became one of its Appointed Lecturers in 1978.
[11]
He resigned from this position in 1979 following a special meeting of the Society to consider a paper by Albert Lovecy and vote on the motion "that the Society has no theistic creed and does not practise worship".
Peter Cadogan
managed to have the motion amended to "does not practise worship of a deity" and it was passed. Walter remarked "many people ... have joined the society as part of their rejection of religion".
[11]
Walter was editor of the Rationalist Press Association's magazine
New Humanist
from February 1975 until July 1984, when
Jim Herrick
took over.
In 1989, in the aftermath of the
fatwa
on
Salman Rushdie
and his book
The Satanic Verses
, Walter (along with
William McIlroy
) re-formed The Committee Against
Blasphemy Law
. It issued a
Statement Against Blasphemy Law
, signed by more than 200 public figures. Walter and
Barbara Smoker
were attacked while counter-demonstrating during a Muslim protest against the book in May 1989. Walter's book
Blasphemy Ancient and Modern
put the Rushdie controversy into historical context.
Walter also served as company secretary of G. W. Foote & Co., publishers of
The Freethinker
, and was a vice-president of the
National Secular Society
.
Walter occasionally wrote or spoke about how
secular humanists
might face death ? he had done so himself. In a letter to
The Guardian
in 1993 (16 September, p. 23) he explained:
All of us will die, and most of us will suffer before we do so. "The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play may be," said Pascal. Raging against the dying of the light may be good art, but is bad advice. "Why me?" may be a natural question, but it prompts a natural answer: "Why not?" Religion may promise life everlasting, but we should grow up and accept that life has an end as well as a beginning.
[12]
Publications
[
edit
]
- Humanism: What's in the Word
(1997). London: Rationalist Press Association,
ISBN
0-301-97001-7
. Also published as
Humanism: Finding Meaning in the Word
by Prometheus Books, 1998,
ISBN
1-57392-209-9
.
- Blasphemy, Ancient and Modern
(1990). London: Rationalist Press Association,
ISBN
0-301-90001-9
.
- About Anarchism
(1969). London:
Freedom Press
. Updated edition published by Freedom Press in 2002,
ISBN
0-900384-90-5
.
- Nonviolent Resistance: Men Against War
(London: Nonviolence 63, Schools for Non-Violence, 1963).
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
Walter, Natasha (13 April 2013).
"Protest in an age of optimism: the 60s anarchists who spilled nuclear secrets"
.
The Guardian
.
Archived
from the original on 6 September 2018
. Retrieved
19 December
2017
.
- ^
"Katharine Monica Ratcliffe - Arnold Hugh William Beck"
.
slatters.org.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 11 September 2022
. Retrieved
11 September
2022
.
- ^
Goodway, David (2001).
"Nicolas Walter1934-2000"
(PDF)
.
Ethical Record
.
107
(6): 3?9. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 17 December 2017
. Retrieved
16 December
2017
.
- ^
Martin, Douglas (19 March 2000).
"Nicolas H. Walter Dies at 65; Feisty Atheist and Anarchist"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on 16 December 2017
. Retrieved
16 December
2017
.
- ^
"Nicolas Walter: Journalist and philosopher devoted to the unflinching pursuit of atheism and anarchism"
.
The Guardian
. 13 March 2000.
Archived
from the original on 6 August 2018
. Retrieved
2 June
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Walter, Natasha (14 February 2018).
"Ruth Walter"
.
The Guardian
.
Archived
from the original on 3 March 2018
. Retrieved
15 February
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Walter, Natasha (20 May 2002).
"The NS Essay - How my father spied for peace"
.
New Statesman
.
Archived
from the original on 22 December 2017
. Retrieved
19 December
2017
.
- ^
Walter, Nicolas (2011).
Damned Fools in Utopia: And Other Writings on Anarchism and War Resistance
.
ISBN
9781604862225
.
Archived
from the original on 29 January 2022
. Retrieved
29 January
2022
.
- ^
"ABOUT ANARCHISM by Nicolas Walter (with and intro by Natasha Walter)"
Archived
24 October 2014 at the
Wayback Machine
. ChristieBooks.
- ^
Cooke, Bill (2003),
Blasphemy Depot: A Hundred Years of the Rationalist Press Association
. London: Rationalist Press Association.
ISBN
0-301-00302-5
. Published in the United States as
The Gathering of Infidels: A Hundred Years of the Rationalist Press Association
. New York: Prometheus Books.
ISBN
1-59102-196-0
- ^
a
b
MacKillop, I. D. (1986),
The British Ethical Societies
, Cambridge University Press, [online]. Accessed 13 May 2014.
- ^
Walter, Nicolas (1993). "Death". Letter to The Guardian.
Further reading
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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