John William Gott (1866 – 1922) was an atheist orator and associate of Sirfessor Malfew Seklew. In 1903 he took part in a charity debate with a theist in the club room of the local Independent Labor Party (ILP). The press later reported Gott did not hold up his end of the debate, and our man Malfew set him straight in the following letter to the editor in the Bradford Daily Telegraph Volume LXXI Number 10,709 (February 29 1903) page 3. In 1922, Gott was the last person in Britain to be sent to prison for blasphemy.

– Trevor Blake is the author of Confessions of a Failed Egoist.

Re the ILP Club Room Controversy

To the Editor of the “Bradford Daily Telegraph”

Sir, – Mr. A. T. Sutton knows as much about this affair as a pig knows about the perfumes of paradise. I would suggest that this poor misguided human document should cease to exhibit his second-hand thoughts until he has ascertained the truth concerning it. Mr. Sutton not only tramples on the truth, but murders it. He has moral delirium tremens, and cannot think clearly while in this condition. The dogmatism of A. T. S. is pitiable. He seems to be anxious to spread himself, whether right or wrong. When he denies that a member of the Girlington ILP Club called at Mr. Gott’s residence on the Sunday afternoon previous to the date for the contest, he assassinates the truth and talks through his whiskers. I was present when this committeeman called, and we three went straight away to the meeting, where Mr. Sutton and other great men of this picayune party were biting lumps off the atmosphere in their agony, trying to solve this mighty problem. I trust the day is far distant when these majestic minds will dominate the destinies of the nation. For ineptitude, vacillation, and merciless juggling with the truth they are – well, let the public judge.

Yours, etc.
MALFEW SEKLEW
Bradford, Feb 28.