His attempt to affirm as an atheist ultimately led to his temporary imprisonment, fines for voting in the House of Commons illegally, and a number of by-elections at which Bradlaugh regained his seat on each occasion.

Eventually, a parliamentary bill which he proposed became law in 1888, which allowed members of both Houses of Parliament to affirm, if they so wished, when being sworn in.

After a brief spell as a Sunday school teacher, he became disturbed by discrepancies between the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church and the Bible.

When he expressed his concerns, the local vicar, John Graham Packer, accused him of atheism and suspended him from teaching.

[4] However, refusing financial support from fellow freethinkers, he enlisted as a soldier with the Seventh Dragoon Guards hoping to serve in India and make his fortune.

A decade later (1877), Bradlaugh and Besant set up the Freethought Publishing Company[6] and decided to republish the American Charles Knowlton's pamphlet advocating birth control, The Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People,[7] whose previous British publisher, Charles Watts, had already been successfully prosecuted for obscenity.

The two activists were both tried in 1877, and Charles Darwin refused to give evidence in their defence, pleading ill-health, but at the time writing to Bradlaugh that his testimony would have been of little use to them because he opposed birth control.

They were sentenced to heavy fines and six months' imprisonment, but their conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal on the basis that the prosecution had not set out the precise words which were alleged to be obscene in the indictment.

To take his seat and become an active Parliamentarian, he needed to signify his allegiance to the Crown and on 3 May Bradlaugh came to the Table of the House of Commons, bearing a letter to the Speaker "begging respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm" instead of taking the religious Oath of Allegiance, citing the Evidence Amendment Acts of 1869 and 1870.

Prime Minister William Gladstone, alerted to the fact that a protest was possible, moved to set up a second Select Committee to examine whether it was possible to interfere with a Member wishing to take the oath.

[18] The Select Committee began deliberating on 1 June 1880, when it considered a paper put in by Sir Thomas Erskine May, the Clerk of the House.

Sir Thomas found several precedents for Members disabled to sit for refusing to take the Oath, together with Quaker MP Joseph Pease who was permitted to affirm, and Jewish MPs Baron Lionel de Rothschild and David Salomons who were eventually allowed to take the Oath while omitting the words "on the true faith of a Christian".

Sir Hardinge Giffard moved an amendment that Bradlaugh be not permitted to take either the Oath or make an affirmation.

[25] On the next day, Bradlaugh came to the Table claiming to take the Oath; in consequence of the previous night's vote the Speaker ordered him to withdraw.

Bradlaugh was permitted to address the House from behind the Bar (which was technically outside the Chamber), and treated the occasion as his maiden speech.

He based his argument on law, contending that he was not legally disqualified, and asking "as one man against six hundred" for the same justice he would receive in the Courts.

At that point Bradlaugh was summoned back to the table to be told the outcome of the debate; having relayed it, the Speaker then ordered him to withdraw.

The House agreed, on a division by 274 votes to 7 and Bradlaugh was taken to the small prison cell located under Big Ben in the Clock Tower.

Supporting Bradlaugh were William Ewart Gladstone, T. P. O'Connor and George Bernard Shaw as well as hundreds of thousands of people who signed a public petition.

The statue points west towards the centre of Northampton, the accusing finger periodically missing due to vandalism.

Since 2002, an "Annual Commemoration" has taken place beneath the statue at 3 pm on the Sunday closest to his birthday, organised by the Charles Bradlaugh Society.

[42] Displayed in the Palace of Westminster, the sculpture was designed by Suzie Zamit (who is the fourth female sculptor to have work represented in the Parliamentary Art Collection) and was donated by the National Secular Society as part of its 150th anniversary celebrations.