William Cobbett
Encyclopedia
William Cobbett was an English pamphleteer
, farmer
and journalist
, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament
and abolishing the rotten borough
s would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists
and "tax-eaters" relentlessly. He was also against the Corn Laws
, a tax on imported grain. Early in his career, he was a loyalist supporter of King and Country: but later he joined and successfully publicised the radical movement, which led to the Reform Bill of 1832
, and to his winning the parliamentary seat of Oldham
. Although he was not a Catholic, he became a fiery advocate of Catholic Emancipation
in Britain. Through the seeming contradictions in Cobbett's life, two things stayed constant: an opposition to authority and a suspicion of novelty. He wrote many polemics, on subjects from political reform to religion, but is best known for his book from 1830, Rural Rides
, which is still in print today.
William Cobbett was born in Farnham, Surrey, on 9 March 1763, the third son of George Cobbett (a farmer and publican) and Anne Vincent. He was taught to read and write by his father, and first worked as a farm labourer.
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On 6 May 1783, on an impulse he took the stagecoach to London and spent eight or nine months as a clerk in the employ of a Mr Holland at Gray's Inn
. He joined the 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot
in 1783 and made good use of the soldier's copious spare time to educate himself, particularly in English grammar
. Between 1785 and 1791 Cobbett was stationed with his regiment in New Brunswick
and he sailed from Gravesend
to Halifax
, Nova Scotia
. Cobbett was in Saint John
, Fredericton and elsewhere in the province until September 1791, rising through the ranks to become Sergeant Major
, the most senior rank of NCO
.
He returned to England with his regiment, landing at Portsmouth
3 November 1791, and obtained discharge from the army on 19 December 1791. In Woolwich
in February of 1792, he married Anne Reid, whom he had met while stationed at Fort Howe in Saint John. He had courted her by Jenny's Spring near Fort Howe.
s, and he gathered evidence on the issue while in New Brunswick, but his charges against them were sidetracked. He wrote The Soldier's Friend (1792) protesting against the low pay and harsh treatment of enlisted men in the British army. Sensing that he was about to be indicted in retribution he fled to France in March 1792 to avoid imprisonment. Cobbett had intended to stay a year to learn the French language
but he found the French Revolution
in full swing and the French Revolutionary Wars
in progress, so he sailed for the United States in September 1792.
He was first at Wilmington
, then Philadelphia by the Spring of 1793. Cobbett initially prospered by teaching English to Frenchmen and translating texts from French to English. He became a controversial political writer and pamphleteer, writing from a pro-British stance under the pseudonym Peter Porcupine.
A successful lawsuit brought against him by the eminent physician and politician Dr. Benjamin Rush
, led to his fleeing to England in 1800 to avoid punishment. He sailed from New York, via Halifax, Nova Scotia
to Falmouth
in Cornwall.
offered Cobbett the editorship of a government newspaper but he declined as he preferred to remain independent. His newspaper The Porcupine bore the motto "Fear God, Honour the King" first started on 30 October 1800 but it was not a success and he sold his interest in it in 1801.
Less than a month later however he started his Political Register
, a weekly newspaper that appeared almost every week from January 1802 until 1835, the year of Cobbett's death. Although initially staunchly anti-Jacobin by 1804 Cobbett was questioning the policies of the Pitt government, especially the immense national debt and the profligate use of sinecure
s that Cobbett believed was ruining the country and increasing class antagonism. By 1807 he supported reformers such as Francis Burdett and John Cartwright
.
Cobbett opposed attempts in the House of Commons to bring in Bills against boxing and bull-baiting, writing to William Windham
on 2 May 1804 that the Bill "goes to the rearing of puritanism into a system".
Cobbett published the Complete Collection of State Trials in between 1804 and 1812 and amassed accounts of parliamentary debates from 1066 onwards but he sold his shares in this to T. C. Hansard in 1812 due to financial difficulties. This unofficial record of Parliamentary proceedings later became officially known as Hansard
.
Cobbett intended to stand for Parliament in Honiton
in 1806, but was convinced by Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
to let him stand in his stead. Both men campaigned together but were unsuccessful, for they refused to bribe the voters by 'buying' votes; it also encouraged him in his opposition to rotten borough
s and the very urgent need for parliamentary reform.
of local militia
men by Hanoverians
. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment in infamous Newgate Prison
. While in prison he wrote the pamphlet Paper against Gold, warning of the dangers of paper money
, as well as many Essays and Letters. On his release a dinner in London, attended by 600 people, was given in his honour, presided over by Sir Francis Burdett
who, like Cobbett, was a strong voice for parliamentary reform.
Cobbett's journal was the main newspaper read by the working class. This made Cobbett a dangerous man and in 1817 he learned that the government was planning to arrest him for sedition
.
, he embarked on board the ship Importer, D. Ogden master, bound for New York, accompanied by his two eldest sons, William and John.
For two years, Cobbett lived on a farm in Long Island
where he wrote Grammar of the English Language and with the help of William Benbow, a friend in London, continued to publish the Political Register.
Cobbett also closely observed drinking habits in the United States. In 1819, he stated "Americans preserve their gravity and quietness and good-humour even in their drink." He believed it "far better for them to be as noisy and quarrelsome as the English drunkards; for then the odiousness of the vice would be more visible, and the vice itself might become less frequent."
A plan to return to England with the remains of the British radical pamphleteer and revolutionary Thomas Paine
(died 1809) for a proper burial led to the ultimate loss of Paine's remains. The plan was to give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but the bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over 20 years later. There is no confirmed story about what happened to them after that, although down the years various people have claimed to own parts of Paine's remains such as his skull and right hand.
Cobbett arrived back at Liverpool by ship in November 1819.
. He joined with other Radicals
in his attacks on the government and three times during the next couple of years was charged with libel.
In 1820, he stood for Parliament in Coventry
, but finished bottom of the poll.
Cobbett was not content to let newspaper stories come to him, he went out like a modern reporter and dug them up, especially the story that he returned to time and time again in the course of his writings, the plight of the rural Englishman. He took to riding around the country on horseback making observations of what was happening in the towns and villages. Rural Rides
, a work for which Cobbett is still known for today, first appeared in serial form in the Political Register running from 1822 to 1826. It was published in book form in 1830.
While not a Catholic, Cobbett at this time also took up the cause of Catholic Emancipation
. Between 1824 and 1826, he published his History of the Protestant Reformation, a broadside against the traditional Protestant historical narrative of the British reformation, stressing the lengthy and often bloody persecutions of Catholics in Britain and Ireland. At this time, Catholics were still forbidden to enter certain professions or to become Members of Parliament. Although the law was no longer enforced, it was officially still a crime to attend Mass or build a Catholic church.
In 1829, he published Advice to Young Men in which he heavily criticised An Essay on the Principle of Population
published by the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus.
Cobbett continued to publish controversial material in the Political Register and in July 1831 was charged with seditious libel
after writing a pamphlet entitled Rural War in support of the Captain Swing Riots
, which applauded those who were smashing farm machinery and burning haystacks. Cobbett conducted his own defence and he was so successful that the jury failed to convict him.
Cobbett still had a strong desire to be elected to the House of Commons. He was defeated in Preston
in 1826 and Manchester
in 1832 but after the passing of the 1832 Reform Act Cobbett was able to win the parliamentary seat of Oldham
. In Parliament, Cobbett concentrated his energies on attacking corruption in government and the 1834 Poor Law
.
From 1831 until his death, he farmed at Normandy
, a village in Surrey
.
In his later life, however, Macaulay, a fellow MP
, remarked that his faculties were impaired by age; indeed that his paranoia
had developed to the point of insanity.
He was buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Parish Church, Farnham.
In 1832 he was successful and elected as Member of Parliament for Oldham
.
with which he was not in sympathy. Cobbett wished England would return to the rural England of the 1760s to which he was born. Unlike fellow radical Thomas Paine, Cobbett was not an internationalist cosmopolitan and did not support a republican Britain. He boasted that he was not a "citizen of world": "it is quite enough for me to think about what is best for England, Scotland and Ireland". Possessing a firm national identity, he often criticised rival countries and warned them that they should not "swagger about and be saucy to England". He said his identification with the Church of England was due in part because it "bears the name of my country". Ian Dyck
claimed that Cobbett supported "the eighteenth-century Country Party platform". Edward Tangye Lean
described him as "an archaic English Tory".
Cobbett has been praised by many thinkers of various political persuasions, such as Matthew Arnold
, Karl Marx
, G. K. Chesterton
, A. J. P. Taylor
, Raymond Williams
, E. P. Thompson
and Michael Foot
.
Cobbett's birthplace, a public house in Farnham named "The Jolly Farmer", has now been renamed "The William Cobbett".
The Brooklyn-based history band Piñataland
has performed a song about William Cobbett's quest to rebury Thomas Paine entitled "American Man".
A story by Cobbett in 1807 led to the use of red herring
to mean a distraction from the important issue.
An equestrian statue of Cobbett is planned for a site in Farnham.
William Cobbett Junior school in Farnham was named in his honour, whose logo is a porcupine.
Cobbett's sons were trained as solicitors and founded a law firm in Manchester, still called Cobbetts
in his honour.
Pamphleteer
A pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets. Pamphlets were used to broadcast the writer's opinions on an issue, for example, in order to get people to vote for their favorite politician or to articulate a particular political ideology.A famous pamphleteer...
, farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
and journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland...
and abolishing the rotten borough
Rotten borough
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament....
s would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists
Sinecure
A sinecure means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service...
and "tax-eaters" relentlessly. He was also against the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
, a tax on imported grain. Early in his career, he was a loyalist supporter of King and Country: but later he joined and successfully publicised the radical movement, which led to the Reform Bill of 1832
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
, and to his winning the parliamentary seat of Oldham
Oldham (UK Parliament constituency)
Oldham was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Oldham, England. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
. Although he was not a Catholic, he became a fiery advocate of Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
in Britain. Through the seeming contradictions in Cobbett's life, two things stayed constant: an opposition to authority and a suspicion of novelty. He wrote many polemics, on subjects from political reform to religion, but is best known for his book from 1830, Rural Rides
Rural Rides
Rural Rides is the book for which the English journalist, agriculturist and political reformer William Cobbett is best known.At the time of writing in the early 1820s, Cobbett was a radical anti-Corn Law campaigner, newly returned to England from a spell of self-imposed political exile in the...
, which is still in print today.
Early life and military career: 1763–1791
Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
. He joined the 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot
54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot
The 54th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army.Originally formed in 1755 as the 56th Regiment of Foot it was renumbered as the54th when the 50th Regiment and 51st Regiment were disbanded....
in 1783 and made good use of the soldier's copious spare time to educate himself, particularly in English grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
. Between 1785 and 1791 Cobbett was stationed with his regiment in New Brunswick
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
and he sailed from Gravesend
Gravesend, Kent
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
to Halifax
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
. Cobbett was in Saint John
Saint John, New Brunswick
City of Saint John , or commonly Saint John, is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 74,043...
, Fredericton and elsewhere in the province until September 1791, rising through the ranks to become Sergeant Major
Sergeant Major
Sergeants major is a senior non-commissioned rank or appointment in many militaries around the world. In Commonwealth countries, Sergeants Major are usually appointments held by senior non-commissioned officers or warrant officers...
, the most senior rank of NCO
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
.
He returned to England with his regiment, landing at Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
3 November 1791, and obtained discharge from the army on 19 December 1791. In Woolwich
Woolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
in February of 1792, he married Anne Reid, whom he had met while stationed at Fort Howe in Saint John. He had courted her by Jenny's Spring near Fort Howe.
France and the United States: 1792–1800
Cobbett had developed an animosity towards some corrupt officerOfficer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
s, and he gathered evidence on the issue while in New Brunswick, but his charges against them were sidetracked. He wrote The Soldier's Friend (1792) protesting against the low pay and harsh treatment of enlisted men in the British army. Sensing that he was about to be indicted in retribution he fled to France in March 1792 to avoid imprisonment. Cobbett had intended to stay a year to learn the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
but he found the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
in full swing and the French Revolutionary Wars
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
in progress, so he sailed for the United States in September 1792.
He was first at Wilmington
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, then Philadelphia by the Spring of 1793. Cobbett initially prospered by teaching English to Frenchmen and translating texts from French to English. He became a controversial political writer and pamphleteer, writing from a pro-British stance under the pseudonym Peter Porcupine.
A successful lawsuit brought against him by the eminent physician and politician Dr. Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian and a Christian Universalist, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania....
, led to his fleeing to England in 1800 to avoid punishment. He sailed from New York, via Halifax, Nova Scotia
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
to Falmouth
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
in Cornwall.
Political Register
The government of William Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
offered Cobbett the editorship of a government newspaper but he declined as he preferred to remain independent. His newspaper The Porcupine bore the motto "Fear God, Honour the King" first started on 30 October 1800 but it was not a success and he sold his interest in it in 1801.
Less than a month later however he started his Political Register
Political Register
The Political Register was a weekly newspaper founded by William Cobbett in 1802 and ceased publication in 1835, the year of his death.Originally propounding Tory views, and costing a shilling, Cobbett changed his editorial line to embrace radicalism, such as advocating widening the suffrage...
, a weekly newspaper that appeared almost every week from January 1802 until 1835, the year of Cobbett's death. Although initially staunchly anti-Jacobin by 1804 Cobbett was questioning the policies of the Pitt government, especially the immense national debt and the profligate use of sinecure
Sinecure
A sinecure means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service...
s that Cobbett believed was ruining the country and increasing class antagonism. By 1807 he supported reformers such as Francis Burdett and John Cartwright
John Cartwright
John Cartwright may refer to:* Major John Cartwright , supporter of American independence and British political reform* John Robert Cartwright , Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada...
.
Cobbett opposed attempts in the House of Commons to bring in Bills against boxing and bull-baiting, writing to William Windham
William Windham
William Windham PC, PC was a British Whig statesman.-Early life:Windham was a member of an ancient Norfolk family and a great-great-grandson of Sir John Wyndham. He was the son of William Windham, Sr. of Felbrigg Hall and his second wife, Sarah Lukin...
on 2 May 1804 that the Bill "goes to the rearing of puritanism into a system".
Cobbett published the Complete Collection of State Trials in between 1804 and 1812 and amassed accounts of parliamentary debates from 1066 onwards but he sold his shares in this to T. C. Hansard in 1812 due to financial difficulties. This unofficial record of Parliamentary proceedings later became officially known as Hansard
Hansard
Hansard is the name of the printed transcripts of parliamentary debates in the Westminster system of government. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard, an early printer and publisher of these transcripts.-Origins:...
.
Cobbett intended to stand for Parliament in Honiton
Honiton (UK Parliament constituency)
Honiton was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Honiton in east Devon, formerly represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It sent members intermittently from 1300, consistently from 1640. It elected two Members of Parliament until it was...
in 1806, but was convinced by Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, 1st Marquess of Maranhão, GCB, ODM , styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831, was a senior British naval flag officer and radical politician....
to let him stand in his stead. Both men campaigned together but were unsuccessful, for they refused to bribe the voters by 'buying' votes; it also encouraged him in his opposition to rotten borough
Rotten borough
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament....
s and the very urgent need for parliamentary reform.
Prison: 1810–1812
Cobbett was found guilty of treasonous libel on 15 June 1810 after objecting in The Register to the flogging at ElyEly, Cambridgeshire
Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about by road from London. It is built on a Lower Greensand island, which at a maximum elevation of is the highest land in the Fens...
of local militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
men by Hanoverians
Electorate of Hanover
The Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg was the ninth Electorate of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation...
. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment in infamous Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...
. While in prison he wrote the pamphlet Paper against Gold, warning of the dangers of paper money
Banknote
A banknote is a kind of negotiable instrument, a promissory note made by a bank payable to the bearer on demand, used as money, and in many jurisdictions is legal tender. In addition to coins, banknotes make up the cash or bearer forms of all modern fiat money...
, as well as many Essays and Letters. On his release a dinner in London, attended by 600 people, was given in his honour, presided over by Sir Francis Burdett
Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet
Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet was an English reformist politician, the son of Francis Burdett and his wife Eleanor, daughter of William Jones of Ramsbury manor, Wiltshire, and grandson of Sir Robert Burdett, Bart...
who, like Cobbett, was a strong voice for parliamentary reform.
‘Two-Penny Trash’: 1812–1817
By 1815 the tax on newspapers had reached 4d. per copy. As few people could afford to pay 6d. or 7d. for a daily newspaper, the tax restricted the circulation of most of these journals to people with fairly high incomes. Cobbett was only able to sell just over a thousand copies a week. The following year Cobbett began publishing the Political Register as a pamphlet. Cobbett now sold the Political Register for only 2d. and it soon had a circulation of 40,000. Critics called it ‘two-penny trash’, a label Cobbett adopted.Cobbett's journal was the main newspaper read by the working class. This made Cobbett a dangerous man and in 1817 he learned that the government was planning to arrest him for sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
.
United States: 1817–1819
Following the passage of the Power of Imprisonment Bill in 1817, and fearing arrest for his arguably seditious writings, he fled to the United States. On Wednesday 27 March 1817, at LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, he embarked on board the ship Importer, D. Ogden master, bound for New York, accompanied by his two eldest sons, William and John.
For two years, Cobbett lived on a farm in Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
where he wrote Grammar of the English Language and with the help of William Benbow, a friend in London, continued to publish the Political Register.
Cobbett also closely observed drinking habits in the United States. In 1819, he stated "Americans preserve their gravity and quietness and good-humour even in their drink." He believed it "far better for them to be as noisy and quarrelsome as the English drunkards; for then the odiousness of the vice would be more visible, and the vice itself might become less frequent."
A plan to return to England with the remains of the British radical pamphleteer and revolutionary Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
(died 1809) for a proper burial led to the ultimate loss of Paine's remains. The plan was to give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but the bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over 20 years later. There is no confirmed story about what happened to them after that, although down the years various people have claimed to own parts of Paine's remains such as his skull and right hand.
Cobbett arrived back at Liverpool by ship in November 1819.
England: 1819–1835
Cobbett arrived back in England soon after the Peterloo MassacrePeterloo Massacre
The Peterloo Massacre occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation....
. He joined with other Radicals
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
in his attacks on the government and three times during the next couple of years was charged with libel.
Coventry (UK Parliament constituency)
Coventry was a borough constituency which was represented in the House of Commons of England and its successors, the House of Commons of Great Britain and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom....
, but finished bottom of the poll.
Cobbett was not content to let newspaper stories come to him, he went out like a modern reporter and dug them up, especially the story that he returned to time and time again in the course of his writings, the plight of the rural Englishman. He took to riding around the country on horseback making observations of what was happening in the towns and villages. Rural Rides
Rural Rides
Rural Rides is the book for which the English journalist, agriculturist and political reformer William Cobbett is best known.At the time of writing in the early 1820s, Cobbett was a radical anti-Corn Law campaigner, newly returned to England from a spell of self-imposed political exile in the...
, a work for which Cobbett is still known for today, first appeared in serial form in the Political Register running from 1822 to 1826. It was published in book form in 1830.
While not a Catholic, Cobbett at this time also took up the cause of Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
. Between 1824 and 1826, he published his History of the Protestant Reformation, a broadside against the traditional Protestant historical narrative of the British reformation, stressing the lengthy and often bloody persecutions of Catholics in Britain and Ireland. At this time, Catholics were still forbidden to enter certain professions or to become Members of Parliament. Although the law was no longer enforced, it was officially still a crime to attend Mass or build a Catholic church.
In 1829, he published Advice to Young Men in which he heavily criticised An Essay on the Principle of Population
An Essay on the Principle of Population
The book An Essay on the Principle of Population was first published anonymously in 1798 through J. Johnson . The author was soon identified as The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus. While it was not the first book on population, it has been acknowledged as the most influential work of its era...
published by the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus.
Cobbett continued to publish controversial material in the Political Register and in July 1831 was charged with seditious libel
Seditious libel
Seditious libel was a criminal offence under English common law. Sedition is the offence of speaking seditious words with seditious intent: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel...
after writing a pamphlet entitled Rural War in support of the Captain Swing Riots
Swing Riots
The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising by agricultural workers; it began with the destruction of threshing machines in the Elham Valley area of East Kent in the summer of 1830, and by early December had spread throughout the whole of southern England and East Anglia.As well as the attacks on...
, which applauded those who were smashing farm machinery and burning haystacks. Cobbett conducted his own defence and he was so successful that the jury failed to convict him.
Preston (UK Parliament constituency)
Preston is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...
in 1826 and Manchester
Manchester (UK Parliament constituency)
Manchester was a Parliamentary borough constituency in the county of Lancashire which was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its territory consisted of the city of Manchester.- History :...
in 1832 but after the passing of the 1832 Reform Act Cobbett was able to win the parliamentary seat of Oldham
Oldham (UK Parliament constituency)
Oldham was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Oldham, England. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
. In Parliament, Cobbett concentrated his energies on attacking corruption in government and the 1834 Poor Law
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, sometimes abbreviated to PLAA, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Lord Melbourne that reformed the country's poverty relief system . It was an Amendment Act that completely replaced earlier legislation based on the...
.
From 1831 until his death, he farmed at Normandy
Normandy, Surrey
Normandy is both the name of a civil parish in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England and the name of the largest village in that parish. It lies close to the western edge of the county of Surrey close to the border with Hampshire and just north of the chalk hill known as the Hog's Back...
, a village in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
.
In his later life, however, Macaulay, a fellow MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, remarked that his faculties were impaired by age; indeed that his paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
had developed to the point of insanity.
He was buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Parish Church, Farnham.
Parliamentary career
In his lifetime Cobbett stood for parliament five times, four of which attempts were unsuccessful:- 1806 HonitonHoniton (UK Parliament constituency)Honiton was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Honiton in east Devon, formerly represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It sent members intermittently from 1300, consistently from 1640. It elected two Members of Parliament until it was...
- 1820 CoventryCoventry (UK Parliament constituency)Coventry was a borough constituency which was represented in the House of Commons of England and its successors, the House of Commons of Great Britain and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom....
- 1826 PrestonPreston (UK Parliament constituency)Preston is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...
- 1832 ManchesterManchester (UK Parliament constituency)Manchester was a Parliamentary borough constituency in the county of Lancashire which was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its territory consisted of the city of Manchester.- History :...
In 1832 he was successful and elected as Member of Parliament for Oldham
Oldham (UK Parliament constituency)
Oldham was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Oldham, England. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
.
Legacy
Cobbett is considered to have begun as an inherently conservative journalist who, angered by the corrupt British political establishment, became increasingly radical and sympathetic to anti-government and democratic ideals. He provides an alternative view of rural England in the age of an Industrial RevolutionIndustrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
with which he was not in sympathy. Cobbett wished England would return to the rural England of the 1760s to which he was born. Unlike fellow radical Thomas Paine, Cobbett was not an internationalist cosmopolitan and did not support a republican Britain. He boasted that he was not a "citizen of world": "it is quite enough for me to think about what is best for England, Scotland and Ireland". Possessing a firm national identity, he often criticised rival countries and warned them that they should not "swagger about and be saucy to England". He said his identification with the Church of England was due in part because it "bears the name of my country". Ian Dyck
Ian Dyck
Ian Dyck was a Canadian historian noted for his work on William Cobbett, an English radical journalist and politician....
claimed that Cobbett supported "the eighteenth-century Country Party platform". Edward Tangye Lean
Edward Tangye Lean
Edward Tangye Lean was a British author and original founder of the Inklings literary club in Oxford.Lean's father was Francis William le Blount Lean and his mother was Helena Annie Lean, who were married in 1904, separated by 1927, and were both Quakers...
described him as "an archaic English Tory".
Cobbett has been praised by many thinkers of various political persuasions, such as Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
, A. J. P. Taylor
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor, FBA was a British historian of the 20th century and renowned academic who became well known to millions through his popular television lectures.-Early life:...
, Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts...
, E. P. Thompson
E. P. Thompson
Edward Palmer Thompson was a British historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is probably best known today for his historical work on the British radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class...
and Michael Foot
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...
.
Cobbett's birthplace, a public house in Farnham named "The Jolly Farmer", has now been renamed "The William Cobbett".
The Brooklyn-based history band Piñataland
Piñataland
Piñataland is a Brooklyn-based musical group created by David Wechsler and Doug Stone. Their songs are often about obscure historical events and people, including, among others:*The pygmy Ota Benga...
has performed a song about William Cobbett's quest to rebury Thomas Paine entitled "American Man".
A story by Cobbett in 1807 led to the use of red herring
Red herring
A red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....
to mean a distraction from the important issue.
An equestrian statue of Cobbett is planned for a site in Farnham.
William Cobbett Junior school in Farnham was named in his honour, whose logo is a porcupine.
Cobbett's sons were trained as solicitors and founded a law firm in Manchester, still called Cobbetts
Cobbetts LLP
Cobbetts LLP is a law firm in England, with offices in Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester. Its main areas of work are dispute resolution, real estate, corporate and employment law-History:...
in his honour.
Publications
- Cottage Economy
- Cobbett, William. (1822). Cottage Economy. C. Clement (reissued by Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 2009; ISBN 9781108004077) Also at ISBN 0-9538325-0-3 - Cobbett, William. (1830). Rural Rides in the Counties. Cobbett (reissued by Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 2009; ISBN 9781108004084) Also at ISBN 0-14-043579-4 - Advice to Young Men, and (Incidentally) to Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life
- A History of the Protestant Reformation In England and Ireland ISBN 0-89555-353-8
- Rural Rides - Complete text of book at A Vision of Britain through Time.
- Rural Rides - Chapter on Hertfordshire, and Buckinghamshire: To St. Albans, Through Edgware, Stanmore, and Watford, Returning by Redbourn, Hempstead, and Chesham. - June 1822.
- The Poor Man's Friend; or, Essays on the Rights and Duties of the Poor. (1829) at The McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought
- A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and misdemeanors:from the earliest period to the year 1783, with notes and other illustrations, vol. 4 of 21, compiled by Thomas Bayly HowellThomas Bayly HowellThomas Bayly Howell FRS was an English lawyer and writer who edited and lent his name to Howell's State Trials.-Life:Born, in Jamaica, his family returned to England in 1770 to settle at Prinknash Park near Gloucester...
, London : T.C. Hansard for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1816. - Google Books - The Life of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, New York: Harper & Bros., 1834.
- A Year's Residence in the United States of America Printed by B. Bensley, Andover and published by the author, 183 Fleet Street, London, 1828 (based on his life in 1818 USA)
- Cobbett, William, A Grammar of the English Language, New York, 1818. Facsimile ed., introd Charlotte Downey and Flor Aarts, 1986, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 9780820114101.
- The Woodlands. 1825. From Google Book Search
- Emigrant's Guide: In Ten Letters, Addressed to the Tax-Payers of England. London: Mills, Jowett, and Mills, 1829.
See also
- Tilford - an ancient oak tree described by Cobbett.
Further reading
- Journoblog: A Brief History, Analysis and Discussion of Cobbett and Rural Rides
- G.D.H. Cole, The Life of William Cobbett, (1924).
- G. K. ChestertonG. K. ChestertonGilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
, William Cobbett, (1925) ISBN 0-7551-0033-6 - Richard IngramsRichard IngramsRichard Ingrams is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine Private Eye, and now editor of The Oldie magazine.-Career:...
, The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett, (2005) ISBN 0-00-255800-9
External links
- Biography
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Biography by G. K. Chesterton
- Brief history: gives additional reference to The Political Register
- History of Hansard
- "Prickly protester" article on the life and writings of William Hone by Kelly Grovier in the Times Literary Supplement
- William Cobbett and his home town of Farnham
- William Cobbett's Rural Rides on Vision of Britain