Barbara Smoker

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Barbara Smoker
In Bloomsbury in 2017
Born(1923-06-02)2 June 1923
Catford, London, England, UK
Died7 April 2020(2020-04-07) (aged 96)
Lewisham, London, England, UK
NationalityBritish
Institutions
Main interests
Humanism

Barbara Smoker (2 June 1923 – 7 April 2020)

Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association in the United Kingdom
.

Biography

Barbara Smoker was born in

.

In 1950 Smoker joined the

World Humanist Congress in London, in 1952, to follow the conference in Amsterdam where Humanists International had been founded.[4] In this time she also worked closely with Ashton Bural, who ran the Progressive League, a humanist campaigning organisation that worked closely with the Ethical Union.[4] She became a popular humanist celebrant[3] at non-religious funerals, wedding ceremonies, gay and lesbian commitments, and baby-namings, as well as a trainer of celebrants for the British Humanist Association.[4] She also wrote the popular children's textbook Humanism, which saw widespread use in schools.[4]

Her longest stint in her career as an activist was her tenure as President of the

Voluntary Euthanasia Society; she served as chair of the latter organisation from 1981 to 1985.[6][3] She claimed to have financed the manufacture of the first Make Love, Not War badges that were popular in Britain during the 1960s.[3]

Barbara Smoker became the South Place Ethical Society's last and only female Appointed Lecturer in 1986.[7] As of May 2014, with the death of Dr Harry Stopes-Roe, she became the only living Appointed Lecturer. In 2005 Barbara Smoker received the Distinguished Humanist Service Award from Humanists International. She was also awarded Honorary Member of Humanists UK (formerly the British Humanist Association) at some stage in recognition of her activism. Smoker lived in southeast London and in 2012 was elected the Honorary life president of the South East London Humanist Group in recognition that she was its last surviving founder member.[8]

She died in

Lewisham Hospital on 7 April 2020, aged 96, from COVID-19.[1][9]

Publications

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See also

References

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