He founded the journal Watts's Literary Guide, which later became the New Humanist magazine, and the Rationalist Press Association.

Charles Watts co-founded the National Secular Society in 1866, and became a leading spokesman for the group after his brother's death, but broke with Bradlaugh in 1877 and, in 1883, emigrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, leaving his son Charles Albert to run his publishing house and continue his editorial work.

In the first issue, which sold for one penny, the then-anonymous editor set out his ambition to fill it with "literary gossip" of interest to freethinkers, together with recording "the best liberal publications in this country".

It also contained details of his father's speaking tours of Canada and the US, and regular criticisms of the Christian establishment on every front, from science and metaphysics to history and poetry.

He edited the regular journal for over 60 years until his death, writing editorial content himself and drawing on contributors from a wide range of disciplines, including Annie Besant, Walt Whitman, and H. G.