George Jacob Holyoake, social reformer and Co-operator lived here from 1881 to his death in 1906

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/10/religion-typical-briton-fuzzy-believer in the Guardian Online says that, "It marks the former home of George Holyoake, the last man to be jailed for refusing to believe in God and an overlooked hero of the secular cause.Holyoake, a free-thinking radical, was jailed in Cheltenham in 1842 after suggesting, at the end of a lecture on socialism, that religion was a luxury the poor could not afford. The town's conservative establishment prosecuted him for his outspokenness – one priest called it devilism – and it is said he was threatened with being taken from Cheltenham to Gloucester jail in chains.After his release from prison, he retreated for the last part of his life to Brighton. It was an appropriate refuge: the city is now, according to demographers, the least religious place in Britain."