James Martineau, Unitarian theologian and philosopher, was an advocate of freedom of belief within the Christian tradition, and a champion of the conscience as its prompter. He was one of the leading thinkers of the nineteenth century who ably defended religion against materialism, and freedom of belief against the imposition of doctrine. He was regarded by Gladstone as ‘the first among living English thinkers’ and was one of the founders in 1868 of the influential Metaphysical Society, which embraced science and theology and whose members included Thomas Huxley (1825-92) and Alfred Tennyson (1809-92). Martineau was among Non-conformists to be touched by the Romantic Movement and to prompt the building of non-conformist chapels in the Gothic style.