Cobbett, William

b. 1762; d. 1835

British author and politician, born at Farnham, Surrey; worked on his father's farm as a boy, but at the age of 20 became a solicitor's clerk. Finding the life uncongenial, he enlisted and went with the 54th Regiment to New Brunswick. He was soon promoted sergeant-major, and secured his discharge in 1791. After a brief stay in France he went to the USA, where he found full play for his talents as a pamphleteer. He became well known, and his fame spread to England, where many of his writings were reprinted. His hatred of shams and dishonesty eventually made him the defendant in a libel action, which, being decided against him, ruined him. He returned to England in 1800, and was taken up by the Tory leaders, Wyndham and Dr Lawrence providing him with funds to start the Political Register in 1802, which was published weekly until his death.

His industry, as he was never tired of pointing out, was prodigious, and his output enormous. Besides writing the greater part of the Register, he was the author of many books, mostly of a utilitarian nature, such as Cobbett's Cottage Economy, 1822, and The English Gardener, 1829. His most characteristic book is Advice to Young Men, 1830; his best, Rural Rides, 1830. He also wrote A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, 1824-27. His great merit as an author was his clear, vigorous style. An active politician, he was always on the side of the oppressed.

After 1804, when he was prosecuted for an article he had written on Ireland, Cobbett became a violent critic of the administration. He was prosecuted by the government in 1810, and imprisoned in Newgate for two years; and in 1817, on the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, he went to America to escape a period of imprisonment. He was one of the most strenuous advocates of parliamentary reform, one of the most valuable of his publications, the Register, reaching to a vast public. Appropriately enough, he was returned to the first Reform Parliament as member for Oldham, but he was then too old to achieve any marked success in any new sphere of activity. His opening remark was, however, typical of the man: 'It seems to me that since I have been sitting here I have heard a great deal of unprofitable discussion'.

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