| William Cobbett |
Article Index for William |
Website Links For William |
Information AboutWilliam Cobbett |
|
William Cobbett ('', 1830. EARLY LIFE (1783-1791) On May 6 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 enlisted in the army in 1784, and made good use of the soldier's copious spare time to educate himself, particularly in English grammar. His regiment was posted to New Brunswick and he sailed from Gravesend to Halifax , Nova Scotia . Cobbett was in St John , Frederickton and elsewhere in the province until September 1791. He rose through the ranks to become Sergeant Major . He returned to England with his regiment, landing at Portsmouth 3 November 1791 and obtained his discharge from the army on 19 December 1791 . On 5 February 1792 he married Anne Reid in Woolwich: he had met her whilst in Canada. FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES (1792-1800) He had developed a disdain for the corrupt officer class, gathering evidence while in New Brunswick, but his charges against officers were sidetracked. He fled to France in March 1792 to avoid retribution. Intending to stay a year to learn the language he found the French Revolution breaking out so Cobbett sailed for the United States in September 1792. He was first at Wilmington and 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 with a pro-British stance under the pseudonym 'Peter Porcupine'. A disastrous lawsuit led to his financial ruin in 1799 and he returned to England in 1800 sailing from New York, via Halifax, to Falmouth . RETURN TO ENGLAND Cobbett was greeted warmly by the British establishment on arrival but refused all offers of reward for his propagandising in the United States. He began publishing the ''Parliamentary Debates'' in 1802. This unofficial record of Parliamentary proceedings later became officially known as Hansard (see External link below). Cobbett stood for Parliament in Honiton in 1806. He was unsuccessful as he refused to bribe the electorate by 'buying' votes; it also encouraged him in his opposition to Rotten Boroughs and the need for parliamentary reform. PRISON (1810-1812) Cobbett was found guilty of treasonous Libel on June 15 1810 after objecting in 'The Register' to the flogging at Ely of local militiamen by Hanoverians. He was sentenced to two years in 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, for 600, was given in his honour, presided over by Sir Francis Burdett, a strong supporter of parliamentary reform like himself. 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 Liverpool he embarked on board the ship IMPORTER, D. Ogden master, bound for New York, accompanied by his two eldest sons, William and John. A plan to return to England with Thomas Paine 's remains for a proper burial led to the loss of his predecessor's remains (the full story is in the Biography linked below). Cobbett arrived back at Liverpool by ship in November 1819. ENGLAND (1819-1835) In 1820 he stood for Parliament in Coventry but finished bottom of the poll.
In 1829 he published ''Advice to Young Men'' in which he heavily criticised the Principle of Population published by Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus . In 1830 he was charged with seditious libel for writing a pamphlet entitled ''Rural War'' which applauded those who were smashing farm machinery and burning haystacks: he won the case. From 1831 until his death, he farmed at Normandy , a village in Surrey . In 1832 he was finally elected a Member of Parliament for Oldham in Lancashire in 1832. By now however Macaulay , a fellow member, remarked that his faculties were impaired by age; indeed that his paranoia had developed to the point of insanity. He was a gifted journalist, though later generations have taken offence at his some of his apparently Anti-Semitic and Racist views. He is considered to have started as an inherently conservative journalist and later became increasingly more radical and sympathetic to social ideals. He provides an alternative view of rural England in the age of an Industrial Revolution with which he was not in sympathy. STANDING FOR PARLIAMENT In his lifetime Cobbett stood for parliament five times, four of which attempts were unsuccessful:
EXTERNAL LINKS
PUBLICATIONS
REFERENCES
|