In 1964, the Thomas Paine Society UK foundation was founded with a goal of promoting a better understanding of the man and his work. The Thomas Paine Society UK became the premier Thomas Paine historical society in the UK. In 2025, the Thomas Paine National Historical Association merged with the Thomas Paine Society UK to form the internationally-focused Thomas Paine Historical Association. This is the 2012 Number 3 Volume 11 edition of the Thomas Paine Society UK Bulletin, published from 1965 to 2013.
What the chapter relates offers is a tour of the places in the city associated with individuals known for their support either for Paine and/or his ideas. It commences with Henry Hunt, who in 1817 is said to have addressed between twelve and twenty thousand people at a gathering.
Hitchens was a man of many unresolved contradictions. How anyone could find Mrs Thatcher sexy is beyond me. And there are far better examples of the distillers’ art than Walker’s Black Label. But if his writing about Paine encourages people to read Paine’s works he will have earned his redemption.
Although both lives have been well chronicled (albeit separately), I hope there may be merit in a short selective account of the most salient features of the common radical ground shared by the two great writers, and its inspiration, a comparison that has attracted scant attention.
