It took an intervention by supporters to stop him being walked in chains from Cheltenham to Gloucester Gaol, and there was a formal complaint to the Home Secretary, which was upheld. He was well supported by the Cheltenham Free Press at the time in his actions, but attacked in the Cheltenham Chronicle and Examiner. Those at the lecture, the second in a series, moved and carried a motion "that free discussion was equally beneficial in the departments of politics, morals and religion." In 1842 Holyoake and the socialist Emma Martin formed the Anti-Persecution Union to support free thinkers in danger of arrest.Barbara Taylor, "Martin, Emma (1811/12–1851)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 10 September 2015.
