William Cobbett (1763-1835) was an English political writer and farmer. He was born in Farnham, Surrey to Anne Vincent and George Cobbett. In 1783, Cobbett attempted to enlist in the Royal Navy, but soon found himself in the 54th West Norfolk regiment. Between 1785 and 1791, he became clerk to his regiment and rose from the rank of corporal to sergeant-major while stationed in New Brunswick.
Following his return to England and military discharge, he authored The Soldier’s Friend (1792), an anonymous pamphlet addressing the “harsh treatment and poor pay of the common soldier.” Facing retaliation from an attempt to court-martial the offending officers, Cobbett and his new wife, Nancy Anne Reid (1774-1848), fled to France and subsequently the United States.
While living in the United States (1792-1800), Cobbett served as an English tutor for French émigrés in Philadelphia. From 1794-1799, he wrote numerous anti-Jacobin pamphlets and newspaper articles under the pseudonym Peter Porcupine. Cobbett and his family returned to England in 1800 due to the threat of a libel case.
In 1801, he launched the Political Register, a weekly periodical in which he shared his political and social viewpoints. Topics included the national debt, parliamentary reform, and the economic hardship of the yeoman farmer. In 1805, he purchased a farm at Botley in Hampshire, where he lived with his wife and four children until 1817. During this time, Cobbett used the Register to advocate for the election of radical reformers to Parliament, an action that would lead to the passage of anti-reform legislation and Cobbett’s flight to the United States for fear of persecution.
Having returned to England in 1821, Cobbett continued his campaign for radical reform by traveling through the countryside to attend county meetings, conversing with villagers, and writing about his observations in the Register and publishing a volume titled Rural Rides (1830). In 1832, he was elected to the House of Commons for the borough of Oldham, serving in this role until his death in 1835.
Sources
Dyck, Ian. "Cobbett, William (1763–1835), political writer and farmer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 5 Jul. 2024.
Author: Dana Miller
| Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Creators 
Submit request (Aeon)
