Ingersoll, Robert (Green) (1833–1899)

US lawyer and orator. He served as Illinois attorney general 1867–69, then took to the lecture circuit to promote a secular religion of scientific rationalism that Thomas H Huxley called ‘agnosticism’. Many of his lectures such as ‘Superstition’ were widely reprinted. He was also active in the Republican Party and at the 1876 convention he nominated James G Blaine as ‘the Plumed Knight’. He continued to practice law and propound his social views until his death.

Born in Dresden, New York, the son of a Congregational minister, he had little formal education; he read law on his own and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1854. He commanded a volunteer cavalry regiment during the US Civil War.