The story of William Cobbett is important both to Farnham, who celebrate him as their most famous son, and on a national and international level for his roles as a journalist, radical and political reformist. Born in Farnham in 1763, he was the son of a farmer and innkeeper. He was in the army between 1784 and 1791, but blowing the whistle on military corruption forced him to flee to America. There he began his career as a journalist, publishing 12 volumes of attacks on American democracy and becoming known as Peter Porcupine, as his quill was a sharp as a Porcupine’s Quills.
Cobbett used his newspaper, the Porcupine Gazette, to support the Federalist party and to rail against the French and their American supporters during the period of increased tensions between the United States and France generally known as the “Quasi War.” His contentious articles thrived in the politically charged atmosphere, though Cobbett often found himself on the receiving end of libel suits. The newspaper is filled with articles on national and local politics, foreign policy, news from Europe, economics, and advertisements for Cobbett’s other works.
He returned to England in 1800 and began publishing a weekly newsletter, the Political Register, a weekly newspaper that appeared almost every week from January 1802 until 1835, the year of Cobbett’s death. Originally propounding Tory views, and costing a shilling, Cobbett changed his editorial line to embrace radicalism, such as advocating widening the suffrage. It had a large circulation for that time of 6,000 copies. The government was alarmed by its radicalism and tried to prevent mass circulation by adding stamp duty on all newspapers putting them out of reach of all but the wealthiest. From November 1816 Cobbett also published the Register in a cheap 2d. pamphlet, which kept political comment but evaded stamp duty by excising news. The price of the paper gave it the nickname “Tuppenny Trash”, nevertheless it soon gained a circulation of 40,000 and was the main newspaper read by the working class.
Not content to let newspaper stories come to him, Cobbett 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 today, first appeared in serial form in the Political Register running from 1822 to 1826. It was published in book form in 1830.
Cobbett believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers. He was one of the most influential radicals in the decades before the Reform Act (1832) and supported labourers’ riots in 1830, leading to him being tried for sedition but aquitted. In his lifetime Cobbett stood for parliament five times, of which four attempts were unsuccessful. He was elected to Parliament as MP for Oldham in 1832 but died in 1835.
Cobbett’s legacy is varied. Although his political ambitions were cut short by his death, he fought until the end for the cause of the poor by rigourously opposing the Poor Law of 1834. His written legacy is broad and still appreciated today, with his Rural Rides, Cottage Economy and Political Register most well known. But within England he is poorly recognised, despite the important role he played in securing political reform within this country. Ironically in America he is better known, for his role as a political agitator and a voice for England in a time which was staunchly anti-English.
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