Humanist Heritage celebrates success of ‘Doers, Dreamers, Place Makers’ project

An ambitious project to improve public understanding of how humanists shaped British society reached hundreds of thousands of people across 2023 and 2024, thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

‘Humanist Heritage: Doers, Dreamers, Place Makers’ was a two-year project supported by a £160,000 award to Humanists UK and Conway Hall made possible by players of the National Lottery. The project will have a lasting legacy. With help from dozens of enthusiastic volunteers, the project saw the creation of two 360° interactive virtual tours of historic Conway Hall, a tranche of new school resources, a public exhibition and summer fair, 18 oral history interviews, hundreds of pages of digitised archive material, hundreds of pages of new Humanist Heritage website content, and a large number of in-person and online events.

Doers, Dreamers, Place Makers

During the first year of the project, work focused on creating a virtual tour of Conway Hall: one of only two remaining buildings in the UK built by and for non-religious people. Working with V21 Artspace, the virtual tour’s first iteration was created especially for schools – designed to allow students to ‘visit’ a humanist space as they might a place of worship. Through imagery, interpretation, and a specially recorded voiceover, the tour introduces the history of the building, and uses the main spaces of Conway Hall to explore aspects of the humanist worldview.

From the start, teacher feedback emphasised the importance of students being able to ‘meet’ real humanists, and to hear how their humanism impacts other areas of their lives. As such, the tour also includes videos of five humanists (celebrant Audrey Simmons; humanist chaplain James Croft; historian, writer, and Humanists UK patron SI Martin; historian and activist Nan Sloane; and Humanist Climate Action coordinator Lori Marriott) reflecting on what humanism means to them. These can be found within the tour itself, or used as standalone resources. 

As well as these contemporary humanist figures, newly created stories by Isabelle King introduce eight remarkable historic freethinkers connected to Conway Hall – from Thomas Paine to Eslanda Robeson. Beautifully illustrated by Tonka Uzu, these short pieces are accompanied by questions, prompting students to explore what the diverse life stories of these individuals can reveal about themes including bravery, kindness, and community. The tour, and all of these supporting resources, are introduced in a guide for teachers, along with a range of suggested classroom activities.

What began as one virtual tour later became two, with a second iteration being developed for an adult audience. This version features additional information about the building, its history, and its collections – covering everything from a speech by George Orwell to the portraits lining the Library walls. These tours have since been viewed nearly 10,000 times. Alongside this, a team of volunteers worked to uncover and share ever more stories from humanist history, writing articles and biographies, and exploring themes from animal welfare to peace and pacifism. New pages added to Humanist Heritage in the course of this project include well known figures like Terry Pratchett, Doris Lessing, James Baldwin, George Orwell, and Jawaharlal Nehru, as well as lesser known names such as Northern Irish playwright and activist John D. Stewart, reproductive rights campaigner Janet Chance, Olympic figure skater John Curry, and writer and humanitarian Storm Jameson.

Though many of these figures lived during the 19th and 20th centuries, also launched in 2023 was the brand new Humanist Heritage animation, ‘From radical ideas to common sense’, spanning humanist history from its global and ancient origins to the work of Humanists UK and Humanists International today.

45 years of LGBT Humanists

One of the project’s aims was to improve public awareness of the history of Humanists UK’s section LGBT Humanists, coinciding with its 45th anniversary. Throughout the first year of the project, a volunteer, Kate, regularly visited the Humanists UK archive at the Bishopsgate Institute, scanning hundreds of pages of LGBT Humanists’ newsletter – dating from the group’s founding in 1979. These newsletters formed the core of celebrations around the 45th anniversary of LGBT Humanists in 2024: underpinning research, inspiring events, and prompting creative responses.

It was a bumper year for Humanist Heritage events. In April, artist and maker Alice Gabb led a banner making workshop, taking inspiration from the LGBT Humanists’ banners marched through Prides and protests throughout the 1980s and beyond. The completed banner, a co-creation between Alice and workshop participants, was held aloft at London Pride, and later hung in the Theobalds Road window of Conway Hall.

To commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (which was established in the UK by former LGBT Humanists Chair Derek Lennard), musician and activist Ted Brown recounted his decades of work for equality, including with the Gay Liberation Front, and Black Lesbians and Gays Against Media Homophobia. The following month, Laura Mosely led a zine making workshop for staff and volunteers, weaving archival imagery and oral history excerpts together to produce a collaborative zine.

In July, anniversary celebrations culminated in a landmark exhibition and a summer fair, both hosted at Conway Hall. The exhibition once again made use of the incredible archive of LGBT Humanists, as well as exploring – as the group themselves always have – the longer history of LGBT humanist presence and resistance. Also showcased were excerpts from the newly recorded oral histories: interviews with LGBT Humanists members which covered everything from humanist campaigns for equal marriage, through ceremonies and remembrance, to experiences of conversion therapy. The exhibition itself was captured in virtual form. Explore it on Humanist Heritage. 

The summer fair, titled ‘Lead Me Into Temptation, Please’ after LGBT Humanists’ popular t-shirt design, was directly inspired by fairs held at Conway Hall during the 1990s. This day-long event featured writing workshops, market stalls, a film screening, and display of archive material, while the evening welcomed performers including the Humanist Choir, David Hoyle, and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Black Peppa.

Last but not least, September saw a double bill of LGBT Humanist events at Queer Britain: a ‘queer ecology’ walk led by Connor Butler, followed by a writing workshop with Tomara Garrod. Both sessions explored new ways of seeing nature and history, making use of evidence as well as empathy.