[1] William Beveridge said of him: "He was a restless, inventive, constructive spirit, part author of at least three large living movements; charity organisation, working men's clubs, and garden cities".
[1] He supported many Radical causes, such as universal suffrage, free education, repeal of the Corn Laws, co-operatives, anti-slavery, and early closing for shops and Sunday opening for museums.
[1] In the early 1860s he took a leading part in founding working men's clubs, though as a teetotaller he did not want them to sell alcohol.
B. T. Hall, the secretary of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, wrote a year later: "If the work that the Clubs do, if their influence on personal character and their contribution to the sum total of human happiness be correctly appreciated...then shall the investigator reckon Henry Solly amongst the constructive statesmen of our time".
One of his students, Anna Evans, who stayed with his family later achieved fame under the pen name "Allen Raine".