Richard Bithell (22 March 1821 – 4 December 1902) was an English agnostic philosopher and writer.
Bithell was born at Lewes, Sussex on 22 March 1821."Richard Bithell (1821—1902)". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 22 January 2021. When he was 11, he worked at his father's smithy in Lewes.Grayling, A. C; Pyle, Andrew; Goulder, Naomi. (2006). Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 331–332. Due to ill health he later took up teaching. He took courses at the Borough Road Training College to become a teacher of chemistry and mathematics. In 1843, he was appointed master of the British School in Chesterfield. He was transferred to Brighton, Wolverton and London.
Bithell obtained a BSc from London University and a PhD from University of Göttingen. He developed an interest in philosophy and authored a series of books on agnosticism. From 1865 he worked at the banking house of the Rothschilds until his retirement in 1898.Lightman, Bernard. Ideology, Evolution and Late-Victorian Agnostic Popularizers. In James R. Moore. (1989). History, Humanity and Evolution: Essays for John C. Greene. Cambridge University Press. pp. 285–310. His title-pages describe him as "B.Sc., Ph.D., Fellow of the Institute of Bankers". Bithell was a member of the Rationalist Press Association.McCabe, Joseph. (1920). A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists. London: Watts & Co. pp. 77–78
Bithell has been cited as one of the early popularizers of agnosticism during the late 19th century.
Selected publications
A Counting-House Dictionary, containing an explanation of the technical terms used by merchants and bankers, etc. (1882; new ed., 1903) The Creed of a Modern Agnostic (1883) Agnostic Problems (1887) A Handbook of Scientific Agnosticism (1892)
References