Henry James Slack

Henry James Slack (1818–1896) was an English journalist, activist and science writer.

Life

The son of Joseph Slack, a cloth merchant, and Grace Slack, he was born in London on 23 October 1818, and educated at North End, Hampstead. He gave up a business career for journalism in 1846, and worked on the North Devon Journal and other provincial papers. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1849.

In 1852, Slack became proprietor and editor of The Atlas, where Henry White was literary editor. He also wrote for the Weekly Times, under the signature "Little John". Slack sold The Atlas back to Robert Bell at the end of the 1850s.

Slack advocated liberal ideas: opposition to slavery, the abolition of the paper duties, and the higher education of women. He was a Cobdenite, and a member of the National Education League. In December 1859 he wrote critically of the unpopularity of John Bright.

A friend of the politicians Lajos Kossuth and Giuseppe Mazzini, Slack spoke for Felice Orsini at Exeter Hall in 1856. He was closely identified with the Sunday League, was its president in 1879, and inaugurated the popular lectures for Sunday evenings. He also supported the Sunday opening of museums and picture-galleries, to promote which the Sunday Society was formed in 1875.

From 1862 Slack edited the Intellectual Observer, a development of a journal called Recreative Science, founded in 1859. From 1868 to 1871 it continued as The Student. An amateur microscopist, he was successively secretary and, in 1878, president of the Royal Microscopical Society.