Cobbett, Wm
NAME: Cobbett, William
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Fought the social effects of the Industrial Revolution
NICKNAME/ALIAS: Peter Porcupine
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: March 9, 1763, Farnham, Surrey, England
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: June 18, 1835, London, England. Aged 72
DISCIPLINE: Journalist/politician
FIELD: Politics
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: George Cobbett; Mother unknown
SIBLINGS: Three brothers
SPOUSE: Anne (Nancy) Reid
CHILDREN: Anthony; Anne; William; John; James; Ellen; Susan; Richard
EDUCATION: No formal education
MAJOR WORK: "Rural Rides"
LIFE AND TIMES:
As a youth, Cobbett read Swift*s "Tale of a Tub" and described the experience as "a sort of birth of intellect" in which he first realized the power of words.
At 19, he moved to London and two years later enlisted in an infantry regiment which sailed to Nova Scotia in 1784.
After seven years in Canada, he returned to England, where within six weeks he wrote a pamphlet, "The Soldier's Friend", which called for an increase in soldiers' pay. Indicted for insubordination, he fled to America, settling in Philadelphia, where he taught English to French immigrants.
Cobbett's first major work came in 1794 when he wrote protesting the effusive welcome given Joseph Priestley* by American republican groups. Convinced that Priestley, a radical thinker who had supported the French Revolution, was a traitor, Cobbett wrote: "Observations on the Emigration of Joseph Priestley". The immensely successful piece launched Cobbett's career as a journalist.
Under the pseudonym "Peter Porcupine", Cobbett wrote a huge number of widely-circulated pamphlets and articles between 1794-1800, supporting the pro-English American Federalists and championing England's war on France.
In 1796, Cobbett opened a bookstore and began a monthly tract: "The Censor". Eight months later, he changed the publication to a daily newspaper and its name to: "Porcupine Gazette." It ran for nearly three years. Although the paper printed anti-republican articles, it was an attack on Rush*'s proposed "purging-and-bleeding" cure for yellow fever that brought a libel suit against him in late 1799. Cobbett lost and was ordered to pay $5,000, a huge sum. Unable to come up with the money, Cobbett accepted donations from his friends. By now he was thoroughly disillusioned with America.
Cobbett moved to New York, where he published an anti-Republican monthly, "The American Rush Light," which he kept going for five issues, but got scant attention. So he gave up and returned to Great Britain in June, 1800. In London, he received a hearty welcome from Pitt*'s Tory government, which even offered to subsidize him in further publishing ventures. But Cobbett turned down the offer, preferring to put out his own daily, "Porcupine".
In 1802, Cobbett started another newspaper, the notorious "Cobbett's Weekly Political Register," which he continued publishing until his death. Although the "Register" at first supported the government, Cobbett changed his mind when the British signed the Treaty of Amiens with France in 1802. Convinced that commercial interests were dictating English policy, Cobbett called for a renewal of the war.
"The Register" became the best authority on contemporary politics, and Cobbett was at his best condemning specific abuses. In 1810, his attack on the government for using German mercenaries to quell a mutiny, and for the subsequent flogging of the mutineers, resulted in his conviction and imprisonment for seditious libel. On his release, Cobbett was welcomed by many as a hero, but he was financially ruined.
When he got out of jail, Britain was in a period of severe unemployment and agricultural distress. The government blamed revolutionaries, but Cobbett insisted the unrest was due to poverty. His "Register," read widely by the working class, argued against violence, and urged Parliamentary reform and a reduction of interest on the national debt, the two measures he considered to be the solution to the general economic distress.
In 1816, the British authorities suspended the right of habeas corpus and Cobbett, with two of his sons, was forced to flee back to the United States, where he rented a farm at North Hempstead, New York. He continued to edit and write for the "Register," still being published by his agents in England, but when his house burned down in 1819, he decided it was a sign that he should return to England.
When he got back, he found the influence of the "Register" had greatly diminished. In addition, his unusual decision to bring back to England the bones of the pro-revolutionary writer Thomas Paine* he had once attacked brought much criticism and ridicule.
The 1820s and 1830s were Cobbett's most creative period. In 15 years, he produced 50 books and pamphlets, many dealing with his journies in the countryside. Collections of his pieces became popular books, such as "Cottage Economy", "Advice to Young Men", and most famous of all: "Rural Rides," which documented political and agricultural conditions in the English countryside.
In 1832, Cobbett supported the parliamentary Reform Bill, which he regarded as the first step toward complete reform. In the same year, he was elected to the House of Commons in the first reformed Parliament. But now 69, he found the late hours and the close atmosphere oppressive, and his parliamentary career soon ended.
Cobbett made two more tours: one to Scotland in 1832, where he went to New Lanark to visit Robert Owen*'s utopian mill village (of which he disapproved) and the other to Ireland in 1833.
ASSESSMENT: Radical champion of the poor who scourged a whole range of cherished English institutions: parliament, the church, the aristocracy, the army, the courts, and the Crown itself
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Hannah More*; Belloc*; Jethro Tull.*
ONELINER: William Cobbett, English libertarian writer
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
EB, DNB, Collier’s Encyclopedia
Burton, Anthony, William Cobbett: Englishman, London: Aurum Press, 1997