[2]Austin Holyoake was a member of multiple radical and reformist groups, including the Reform League, and the author of many tracts and pamphlets.

A member of the Association for the Repeal of Taxes on Knowledge, he was the last printer in England prosecuted under the Newspaper Stamp Act.

[1] Though he did lecture for the secularist movement on occasion, much of Holyoake's work was undertaken behind the scenes:Austin was, said the Secular Chronicle in 1872, 'one of those quiet, unostentatious workers who are the real bone and sinew of the Secular body - like the stage manager, without whose work the play would be incomplete, but who seldom comes before the curtain to receive the plaudits of the audience.'

[1] Austin Holyoake died, aged 47, from consumption on 10 April 1874 at Johnson's Court, and was buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery with the secular service he had composed.

Along with its announcement of his death, The National Reformer printed Holyoake's 'Thoughts in the Sick-Room', which stated his continuing absence of belief in any god or afterlife:As I have stated before, my mind being free from any doubts on these bewildering matters of speculation, I have experienced for twenty years the most perfect mental repose; and now I find that the near approach of death, the 'grim King of Terrors,' gives me not the slightest alarm.

[3]In 1878 The Secular Chronicle printed a profile of Holyoake, written by Harriet Law, describing 'a career of usefulness cut short'.