William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly. He was also against the Corn Laws, a tax on imported grain. Early in his career, he was a loyalist supporter of King and Country: but later he joined and successfully publicised the radical movement, which led to the Reform Bill of 1832, and to his winning the parliamentary seat of Oldham. Although he was not a Catholic, he became a fiery advocate of Catholic Emancipation in Britain. Through the seeming contradictions in Cobbett's life, his opposition to authority stayed constant. He wrote many polemics, on subjects from political reform to religion, but is best known for his book from 1830, Rural Rides, which is still in print today.
Read more about William Cobbett: Early Life and Military Career: 1763–1791, France and The United States: 1792–1800, Political Register, Prison: 1810–1812, ‘Two-Penny Trash’: 1812–1817, United States: 1817–1819, England: 1819–1835, Parliamentary Career, Legacy, Publications
Famous quotes containing the words william and/or cobbett:
“If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am:
I’m a genuine philanthropist—all other kinds are sham.
Each little fault of temper and each social defect
In my erring fellow creatures, I endeavor to correct.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human being. His mind is necessarily rendered frivolous and superficial by the long habit of attaching importance to words instead of things; to sound instead of sense.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)