Charles Southwell was born in London, the youngest of 33 children! The only child of his Father's third wife Charles was a difficult but clever child. After being introduced to religion by a Christian colleague, who encouraged him to read the Sermons of Timothy Dwight, he thought seriously about it but rejected it. In the great tradition of English dissenters and radicals Charles started many periodicals and pamphlets and was eventually arrested under the blasphemy laws which were so in favour of the Church in those times. Fined and sent to prison for a year in 1842 it did not dilute his passion. In 1846 he published the now classic work An Apology For Atheism which we present here for you.