WILLIAM COBBETT

(1763 - 1835)

Contemporaries of William Cobbett, who was born in Farnham and is buried in St Andrew’s churchyard,would have known of him as a radical politician and the foremost political journalist of the age. Writing in the 1790's under the pseudonym of Peter Porcupine in the United States, and then under his own name in England from 1800 onwards, Cobbett was the scourge of successive governments. In pamphlets, newspapers and books he mercilessly exposed corruption and maladministration in high places, cried out about the miserable conditions of the labouring people, and, undeterred by fines and imprisonment, repeatedly called for a radical reform of Parliament and the Church. His efforts were rewarded by the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, and he spent the last two and a half years of his life as the Member of Parliament for Oldham, fighting on the floor of the House of Commons for his "beloved country­men", the labourers of the United Kingdom.

Today, Cobbett is probably best remembered for such books as Cottage Economy, The English Gardener and A Grammar of the English Language, though the 89 volumes of his weekly newspaper The Political Register are greatly valued as much by social historians as by students of nineteenth century politics. Best known of all is his bookRural Rides, an account of a series of rides on horseback in the 1820's in which he combines brilliant political polemic with marvellous descriptions of the English countryside.

COBBETT SKETCHES HIS
TURBULENT LIFE

Talk of rocks and breakers and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever escaped from amidst so many as I have! Thrown on the wide world (by my own will indeed) at an early age without money to support and without book-learning to assist me; then becoming a common soldier and leading a military life for eight years; marrying, going at once to France to acquire the language, thence to America; passing eight years there, becoming bookseller and author and taking part in all the important discussions of the interesting period from 1793-1799; returning to England in 1800, resuming my labours here, suffering during these past twenty-nine years, two years of imprisonment, heavy fines, three years self-banishment to the other side of the Atlantic and a total breaking of fortune, so as to be left without a bed to lie on; and during these twenty-nine years, writing and publishing every week of my life a periodical paper containing matter worthy of public attention, publishing books of great and continued sale, and introducing into England several valuable trees and the cultivation of the Corn-plant, so manifestly valuable as a source of food; and having during these same twenty-nine years of troubles, embarrassments, prisons, fines and banishments, bred up a family of seven children to man's and woman's state - if such a man be not, after he has survived and accomplished all this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, no man is qualified for that task.

From Advice to Young Men, published in 1829

1833 - 1835

Cobbett in his seat in the House of Commons.

1796

Cobbett laying low one of his detractors outside his bookshop in

Philadelphia.

1806

Cobbett beating the drum for the radical candidate for Middlesex in the General Election of 1806.

1810 - 1812

Newgate gaol, London, where Cobbett served a two year sentence for sedition.

1820

Cobbett entering the town of Coventry, where he stood unsuccessfully as a radical candidate in the General Election of 1820.

1817 - 1819

Cobbett in exile on his farm on Long Island, where he continued to write his weekly newspaper.

For even more, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cobbett