Education
University of Birmingham.
University of Birmingham.
Born in Birmingham, Blackham left school following the end of World War I, and became a farm labourer, before gaining a place at Birmingham University to study divinity and history. He acquired a teaching diploma and was the divinity master at Doncaster Grammar School. Joining the Ethical Union, Blackham drew the organisation further away from religious forms and played an important part in its formation into the British Humanist Association, becoming the BHA"s first Executive Director in 1963.
In addition he was one of the signatories to the Humanist Manifesto.
His book, Six Existentialist Thinkers, became a popular university textbook. He died on 23 January 2009 at the age of 105.