William Cobbett was an English author,
journalist and "radical" during his time. His life and
writings represent the history of the common people
between the revolution of the 18th Century in England,
the period known as the "Victorian era."
He was born in Surrey in March 9, 1763. His father
was a small farmer and his grandfather was a day
laborer. He worked on his father's farm as a boy but
at 14 years of age he ran away to work in Kew Gardens.
At 19 he became a lawyers' clerk in London. He taught
himself grammar and writing. He was drafted into the
Armed Services shortly and went first to Nova Scotia
and then to New Brunswick, Canada, where by 1791 he
became a sergeant major.
Cobbett became involved in many disturbing
incidents both in England and America. He bought a
farm in England and realized at once the misery of the
laboring classes. This aroused his indignation and he
vehemently attacked the conditions but again this only
led to another prison term. Emerging from prison he
was financially bankrupt. He again took up the
unpopular cause of supporting improvement of the
laboring classes but in order to prevent arrest he
fled to America in 1817. He wrote his controversial
Rural Rides which described the appalling
misery and starvation of the common people in the
English countryside and in the small towns. He wrote
Cobbett's College Economy in 1822. The
English Gardener appeared in 1829. In 1820 he
settled down to rebuild his fortunes by means of
writing. Also he developed a flourishing seed farm in
Kensington and began to set up a nursery business
dealing in American trees and imported seeds and
plants. He urged the cultivation of maize ("Cobbett's
corn"), the locust tree and Swedish turnips. His seed
farm and his agricultural writings brought him a large
following among the farmers. He finally became a
member of Parliament. His persistent working at all
hours undermined his health and he died of influenza
on June 18, 1835.
G.D.H. Cole, a well known English economist writing
in the Encyclopedia Brittanica calls him "an
articulate peasant," "intensely English" and "in his
way intensely patriotic." "It was this patriotism that
aroused him to the defense of his fellow coutrymen,
trodden under by the oppressions of war and the torn
revolutions in agriculture and industry whose
devastating social effects he watched from phase to
phase." He had a "capacity to make himself express the
aspirations of a whole suffering class."
The following addendum to the original course notes
was received on September 8, 2001:
"William Cobbett was not drafted into the army. In
1784, at the time of his enlistment, conscription in
the form of a draft hadn't been invented. It was
invented coincidentally, by the French in response to
meeting the demands of the Revoltionary wars, the year
after Cobbett left the British Army.
source: Eric Bloomquist, Interpretive Programs
Asst., Old Fort Niagara Association
