In 1869 the Society brought out the first Secular almanack ever published. It was edited by "Charles Bradlaugh and Austin Holyoake," and met with an immediate and complete success, transcending even the hopes of its promoters, the first edition being sold out in one day. This almanack has been continued without intermission until the present time. At Mr Austin Holyoake's death, Mr Charles Watts became co-editor with Mr Bradlaugh, and in 1878 he was superseded by Mrs Annie Besant. When Mr Bradlaugh resigned his office as President of the National Secular Society--in 1890, after his serious illness of the previous winter--the new President, Mr G. W. Foote, became editor of the almanack in conjunction with Mr J. M. Wheeler. With the exception of the year 1872, when Mr Arthur Trevelyan, J.P., was elected President, Mr Bradlaugh held the chief office of the Society from the time of its foundation until his resignation, and it was always a source of immense pride to him that he was chosen representative of the Freethinkers of Great Britain and Ireland. He laboured untiringly for the Society; not merely for the organisation as a whole, but for the separate branches and for the individuals which comprised it. "During thirty years," he said on the day he resigned, "I think I may say I have never refused any help to any branch that I thought was justified in asking for help." He never held any paid office, but on the contrary often paid money out of his own pocket for the purposes of the Association. He estimated that the sum he had earned and given in actual cash to the Society and its branches during the time he was connected with it amounted to £3000. The Society, on its side, released him and Mrs Besant from a payment of £420[42] due to it at the time of his resignation. [Footnote 42: At his death in 1879 Mr William Thomson of Montrose left £1000 to Mr Bradlaugh as President of the National Secular Society, which sum he was at liberty to invest in the Freethought Publishing Company, on condition that he paid the Society £5 a month while it lasted. This he did regularly from 1879 until February 1890, when the Society generously released him from the remainder.] His yearly Conference reports, although they make no pretence at being detailed records, are yet landmarks, as it were, of the work accomplished by the Society; his yearly Conference speeches[43] often give the most vivid glimpses of himself, of his pride in work accomplished, and his aspirations for work yet undone. Often, too, their terse and moving language reveals the truest, most unstudied eloquence. [Footnote 43: See Speeches by Charles Bradlaugh.]