Interesting burial notice for George Fullerd

[Stanwix England]

I've been researching a property in the historic newspapers to try and find out some details about my ancestors, who at one point lived at 23 George Street in Sunderland. Unfortunately this particular snippet turned out to have nothing to do with my family but I it caught my eye as being a bit unusual.

It was published in the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette on Tuesday 17th March 1891.

FULLERD - On the 14th inst. at 23 George Street, aged 82 years, George Fullerd. Interment on Wednesday; cortege to leave at 2pm. Free thinkers please attend. Secular burial service.

What an interesting man, I would have loved to know more about him.

[Viktoria]

Perhaps “ free thinkers “ were agnostics or atheists as it was a secular service.
Freethinkers reject the authority of The Church.
Pretty courageous in those days..
Viktoria.

[Stanwix England]

I find it fascinating, he must have been born about 1809. He was born into a world without many alternative views.