Cobbett, William (kŏb`ĭt), 1763?–1835, British journalist and reformer. The son of a farm laborer, he ran away from home at 14 and later joined the British army. He resigned in order to expose abuses in the military forces, but, unable to prove his accusations, he fled to France to escape suit and thence went to the United States. In America, in his Observations on Priestley's Emigration (1794), Porcupine's Gazette (1797–99), and other pamphlets and periodicals, Cobbett defended the British monarchy and praised aristocratic government in preference to democracy. His outspoken and skillful disparagement of French Jacobinism and of the pro-French party in the United States made him a major target of the Jeffersonian Republicans. Dr. Benjamin Rush Rush, Benjamin, 1745?–1813, American physician, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Byberry (now part of Philadelphia), Pa., grad. College of New Jersey (now Princeton), 1760, M.D. Univ. of Edinburgh, 1768.
..... Click the link for more information. secured a $5,000 verdict against him for libel in 1799, and shortly afterward Cobbett returned to England. As the threat of French Jacobinism dwindled, Cobbett's Tory patriotism gave way to a deep concern for the condition of the working classes, especially rural workers, in the rapidly industrializing English society, and by 1807 he had become a Radical. His Political Register, begun in 1802 and published intermittently throughout the remainder of his life, was one of the greatest reform journals of the period and achieved an unparalleled influence among the working classes. For his attacks on the use of flogging as military punishment he was fined and imprisoned (1810–12). Severe financial difficulties forced him to sell his Parliamentary Debates to Hansard's printing firm (see Hansard Hansard (hăn`sərd), name given to the official record of the proceedings of the British Parliament, named after the Hansard family
..... Click the link for more information. ). After the passage (1817) of the Gagging Acts to suppress radicalism and to hinder the circulation of reform literature, Cobbett fled once again to the United States. He settled on a farm on Long Island and wrote his famous Grammar of the English Language (1818). Returning to England in 1819, he became a central figure in the agitation for parliamentary reform, but he also found time to write many books, the most important of which, Rural Rides (1830), comprises a classic portrayal of the situation of the rural worker. After the Reform Bill was passed in 1832, Cobbett was elected to Parliament, where he became a member of the Radical minority.

Bibliography

See biographies by G. D. H. Cole (3d. ed. 1947, repr. 1971), G. K. Chesterton (1926), J. Sambrook (1973), and G. Spatr (1982).

Cobbett, William

(born March 9, 1763, Farnham, Surrey, Eng.—died June 18, 1835, London) English journalist. He joined the army and served in Canada (1785–91). He lived in the U.S. (1794–1800), where he launched his career as a journalist, fiercely attacking the spirit and practice of American democracy and winning himself the nickname “Peter Porcupine.” He returned to England and founded the weekly Political Register (1802), which he published until his death. He championed traditional rural values as England entered the Industrial Revolution; his reactionary views of the ideal society struck a powerful chord of nostalgia, and he also criticized corruption, harsh laws, and low wages.

Cobbett, William (1763–1835) journalist, publicist; born in Surrey, England. After exposing corruption in the British Army, he fled in 1793 to the U.S.A. to avoid a court-martial. There he opened a bookshop, displayed royalist and Federalist sympathies, and under the pen name Peter Porcupine sharply attacked opposing politicians and journalists in a publication called Porcupine's Gazette. Often assailed by libel actions and threats of deportation, he overreached himself in attacking the influential Dr. Benjamin Rush for treating yellow fever through bleedings and purges; he lost a libel suit brought by Rush and was assessed $5,000, but fled before the verdict had been delivered. Back in England in 1800, he published a reform-minded newspaper, the Register. Returning to America in 1817, he farmed on Long Island and avoided political journalism; in 1819, after his house burned down, he again sailed to England, where he became an extremely influential voice for reforms to help the working class.