James Hinton’s bigamy
In 1879 a young Henry Havelock Ellis returned to England from Australia with a burning interest in the ideas of English philosopher and aural surgeon, James Hinton. James Hinton’s writing, focused on domestic life, was outside of mainstream philosophical and cultural thought, and radical in its advocation of polygamous relationships, freer relations between the sexes, and the benefits of female nudity.
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In 1884 both Ellis and Schreiner had become members of the Men and Women’s Club, co-founded by the scientist Karl Pearson so that both men and women could meet to discuss freely the relations of the sexes. In early 1885 Pearson had invited Miss Haddon to speak about James Hinton’s philosophy, and the discussion of Hinton’s thinking within the club had prompted action on behalf of a number of its members who had, it emerged, violently different opinions of the man. The subsequent campaign against ‘Hintonianism’ revealed some uncomfortable truths.
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Firstly Emma Brooke, on the posthumous publication of Hinton’s Serving Others, a pamphlet put out by Miss Haddon with Ellis’s assistance, wrote to both Ellis and Karl Pearson to describe how, as a young girl, she had found herself staying in the company of James Hinton for a weekend. Hinton had made a series of advances towards her, at one stage hoping to entice her away from company and attempting to encourage her to ‘serve his needs’. She had rebuffed him, but was appalled at the continued currency of his ideas, having witnessed at first-hand how he practically applied them. By the end of the year, numerous witnesses to similar behaviour had emerged.
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This unconventional domestic environment now took on a more sinister appearance, as anecdote and hearsay described James Hinton as a sexual predator. His philosophical writing was dismissed as the self-serving justification of a lecher. Miss Haddon was no longer invited to give papers but was forced to defend herself in a series of letters to Karl Pearson, Elisabeth Cobb and other members of the Men and Women’s Club. It was against this background that Howard’s bigamy came to light.
https://higherspace.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/rucker-on-boole-stott-hintons-bigamy/#_ftn8