Frank Ridley (secularist)


Francis Ambrose Ridley, usually known as Frank Ridley was a Marxist and secularist of the United Kingdom.

Life

Ridley was educated at Sedbergh School and Salisbury Theological College. He did not enter the Church, though he did gain a theology licentiate at Durham University in 1920. He later abandoned Christianity completely.

Political activities

From 1925 to 1964, Ridley spoke every week at Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park.
Ridley was one of the founders of the Marxian League in 1929. This small group might have become the British Section of Trotsky's International Left Opposition, but in 1931 Ridley and another member, Chandu Ram wrote Thesis on the British Situation, the Left Opposition and the Comintern, with which Trotsky disagreed. Ridley then joined the Independent Labour Party, writing regularly in their paper. Following the Second World War, he was in close contact with the Council communist Anton Pannekoek.

Secularist activities

Ridley was president of the National Secular Society from 1951 to 1963. He edited The Freethinker from 1951 to 1954.

Selected bibliography

The Green Machine, The Assassins Mussolini over Africa.At the Cross Roads of History: On the Present Social and Economic Crisis Next Year's War? Julian the Apostate and the Rise of Christianity The Papacy and Fascism: The Crisis of the Twentieth Century The Jesuits: A Study in Counter Revolution Fascism – What Is It? Socialism and Religion Revolutionary Tradition in England The Evolution of the Papacy The Roman Catholic Church and the Modern Age Pope John and the Cold War Spartacus Reminiscences of Hyde Park
  • ''Fascism Down The Ages: from Caesar to Hitler''

Articles