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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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William Cobbett
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(1763–1835)
English journalist and politician, with a down-to-earth commonsensical character and a marvellously direct prose style (*Carlyle called him the very pattern of *John Bull). He was also a prime example of the radical journalist, instinctively writing in opposition to whoever was in power. His savage attacks on authority got him into frequent trouble – two years in jail for example, in 1809, for 'sedition' in denouncing the flogging of some soldiers who had complained about unjust deductions from their pay.
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His vast output was mainly published in his own journal, the weekly Political Register, which he started in 1802. Here he introduced in 1803 an account of parliamentary debates, which developed into *Hansard; and here there appeared from 1821 the pieces which formed his most lasting work, published in 1830 as Rural Rides. As Cobbett travels through the southern counties, deploring the changes in the country way of life brought about by corrupt politicians and officials and by the baleful influence of metropolitan London (which he calls 'the great Wen'), his observations provide a vivid picture of England in the years just before the *Reform Act of 1832. In the first reformed parliament he was briefly MP for Oldham.
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