By R.W. Morrell

ON THE WALL of my library hangs a fine watercolour painting of Thomas Paine. Painted in 1920, it was presented to me about three years ago by the artist Herbert Cutner and will serve, to me at least, as a visible and lasting reminder not only of Paine but also of the artist. 

Herbert Cutner died aged 88 in February of this year. His death is a loss not only to art but also to this Society. Cutner was a Founder Member of the Thomas Paine Society and the first individual to accept a Vice-Presidency. It was natural that when the Society was first proposed we should have contacted Herbert Cutner for advice for he was the author of many published articles supporting, defending and advocating Paine’s ideas, particularly his views on religion. 

Professor Catlin attacked the proposal for a Paine statue at Thetford; it was Cutner who publicised the challenge made to the Professor to publicly debate the charges made against Paine. The challenge had been put out by Joseph Lewis, and he had offered $2,000 to Catlin if he could substantiate the charges he had made. The Professor prudently declined. In one of his last letters to me Cutner had speculated on how Catlin could give support to a statue of Gandhi, whose political actions had much in common with those of Paine, while attacking the erection of one of Paine. 

Herbert Cutner’s political views were, strangely enough for one who so strongly supported Paine, very much to the right, indeed, one obituary has described them as “reactionary” I suspect Cutner would have made the come back to this by claiming that left-wing views were equally reactionary and little point would be served by debating the issue. In this respect I call to mind a challenge made to him to debate a particular political subject, he replied by simply stating he would maintain one side while his challenger another and thus nothing substantial would be achieved. This reluctance to debate political matters was, it seemed to me, to be a characteristic of Cutner, however, he was always willing to debate on religious subjects. 

Politically Cutner’s own description of himself was “a Gladstoneian Liberal”, a description which carries a deep meaning, the implications of which light up several aspects of Cutner’s character. 

The late G.H. Taylor in his invaluable little work, A Chronology of British Secularism (1957) gives the number of contributions Cutner made to The Freethinker since he commenced his association with that journal in 1920 until 1957 as 936. The figure perhaps must now be well over the 1000 mark as he continued to write for the paper long after Cutner was the author of several works and many of these reflected his support of the Myth Theory, a theory he presented in detail in his book, Jesus: Man, God or Myth, which was published in the United States in 1950 and is, as far as I know, still in print. Other works included Pagan Elements in Christianity (1936), History of Sex Worship (1940) and What is the Sabbath Day? (1950). 

Mention was made at the start of Herbert Cutner the artist, and it was as a free-lance commercial artist that he made his living. His speciality was pen and ink work and etching and he used his skill to produce Xmas cards for the National Secular Society as well as several etchings of the late Chapman Cohen, one rather fine signed copy of which I am happy to own. Cutner’s importance as a commercial artist was recognised when he was invited to write the volume on Commercial Art in the Teach Yourself Series. 

Naturally books interested Herbert Cutner and he assembled a fine freethought library which included many valuable and scarce titles. His knowledge of the obscure in free thought literature was really profound and many times he helped the present writer out on an obscure bibliographical point in that particular field. It was most apt that it was Cutner, representing the Thomas Paine Society, who presented the superb Ambrose G. Barker Paine Collection, to Thetford Public Library the gift of our member Miss Ella Twynam.. It is doubtful whether Cutner would have found much common ground with the late Ambrose Barker – an anarchist, but in his presentation speech he avoided comment. 

Herbert Cutner will be missed by many people. His vast knowledge in the fields he studied was used to good effect in the many controversial matters he took up, one has only to read his devastating attacks on spiritualism to gather some idea of how powerful a debater he was. Likewise when defending the Myth Theory from attack he could hit back hard as the late Archibald Robertson discovered, and he was no mean scholar. Cutner was at his best when under attack, however, it is not being unkind to voice the opinion that had he been born a few years earlier he would have been more at home for in reality he was a Victorian freethinker of the very best type. We were proud to number him among our members. 

“And he (Paine) deserves to be honored among America’s Founding Fathers for his astute and constructive statesmanship in helping to create a united nation,” 

• Professor H.H. Clark. Six New Letters of Thomas Paine. Wisconsin University Press, 1939. p.xxxii.