Table Of ContentPalgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
General Editor: Joseph Bristow, Professor of English, UCLA
Editorial Advisory Board: Hilary Fraser, Birkbeck College, University of London;
Josephine McDonagh, Kings College, London; Yopie Prins, University of
Michigan; Lindsay Smith, University of Sussex; Margaret D. Stetz, University
of Delaware; Jenny Bourne Taylor, University of Sussex
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture is a new monograph series
that aims to represent the most innovative research on literary works that were
produced in the English-speaking world from the time of the Napoleonic Wars
to the fi n de siècle. Attentive to the historical continuities between ‘Romantic’
and ‘Victorian’, the series will feature studies that help scholarship to reassess the
meaning of these terms during a century marked by diverse cultural, literary and
political movements. The main aim of the series is to look at the increasing infl u-
ence of types of historicism on our understanding of literary forms and genres. It
refl ects the shift from critical theory to cultural history that has affected not only
the period 1800–1900 but also every fi eld within the discipline of English litera-
ture. All titles in the series seek to offer fresh critical perspectives and challenging
readings of both canonical and non-canonical writings of this era.
Titles include:
Eitan Bar-Yosef and Nadia Valman (editors)
‘THE JEW’ IN LATE-VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN CULTURE
Between the East End and East Africa
Heike Bauer
ENGLISH LITERARY SEXOLOGY
Translations of Inversions, 1860–1930
Katharina Boehm
BODIES AND THINGS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Katharina Boehm
CHARLES DICKINS AND THE SCIENCES OF CHILDHOOD
Popular Medicine, Child Health and Victorian Culture
Luisa Calè and Patrizia Di Bello (editors)
ILLUSTRATIONS, OPTICS AND OBJECTS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERARY
AND VISUAL CULTURES
Deirdre Coleman and Hilary Fester (editors)
MINDS, BODIES, MACHINES, 1770–1930
Eleanor Courtemanche
THE 'INVISIBLE HAND' AND BRITISH FICTION, 1818–1860
Adam Smith, Political Economy, and the Genre of Realism
Stefano Evangelista
BRITISH AESTHETICISM AND ANCIENT GREECE
Hellenism, Reception, Gods in Exile
Trish Ferguson (editor)
VICTORIAN TIME
Technologies, Standardizations, Catastrophes
Margot Finn, Michael Lobban and Jenny Bourne Taylor (editors)
LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LAW,
LITERATURE AND HISTORY
James Grande
WILLIAM COBBETT, THE PRESS AND RURAL ENGLAND
Radicalism and the Fourth Estate, 1792–1835
F. Elizabeth Gray (editor)
WOMEN IN JOURNALISM AT THE FIN DE SIÈCLE
‘Making a Name for Herself’
Jason David Hall and Alex Murray (editors)
DECADENT POETICS
Literature and Form at the British Fin de Siécle
Yvonne Ivory
THE HOMOSEXUAL REVIVAL OF RENAISSANCE STYLE, 1850–1930
Colin Jones, Josephine McDonagh and Jon Mee (editors)
CHARLES DICKENS, A TALE OF TWO CITIES AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Jock Macleod
LITERATURE, JOURNALISM, AND THE VOCABULARIES OF LIBERALISM
Politics and Letters 1886–1916
Sean O’Toole
HABIT IN THE ENGLISH NOVEL, 1850–1900
Lived Environments, Practices of the Self
Tina O’Toole
THE IRISH NEW WOMAN
Virginia Richter
LITERATURE AFTER DARWIN
Human Beasts in Western Fiction 1859–1939
Laura Rotunno
POSTAL PLOTS IN BRITISH FICTION, 1840–1898
Readdressing Correspondence in Victorian Culture
Deborah Shapple Spillman
BRITISH COLONIAL REALISM IN AFRICA
Inalienable Objects, Contested Domains
Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
FAIRY TALES, NATURAL HISTORY AND VICTORIAN CULTURE
Sara Thornton
ADVERTISING, SUBJECTIVITY AND THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL
Dickens, Balzac and the Language of the Walls
Paul Young
GLOBALIZATION AND THE GREAT EXHIBITION
The Victorian New World Order
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
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Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
William Cobbett, the Press
and Rural England
Radicalism and the Fourth Estate,
1792–1835
James Grande
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, King’s College London, UK
© James Grande 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-38007-4
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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The author has asserted his right to be identifi ed as the author of this work in accord-
ance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in
England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
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ISBN-978-1-349-47910-8 ISBN 978-1-137-38008-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137380081
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grande, James, 1984–
William Cobbett, the press and rural England : radicalism and the fourth estate, 1792–
1835 / James Grande, British Academy postdoctoral fellow, King’s College London, UK.
pages cm — (Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture)
Summary: “William Cobbett, the Press and Rural England offers a thorough re-appraisal of
the work of William Cobbett (1763–1835), examining his pioneering journalism,
identifi cation with rural England and engagement with contemporary debates. It offers a
new interpretation of Cobbett as a Burkean radical, whose work cuts across the ‘revolution
controversy’ of the 1790s and combines Tom Paine’s common sense and transatlantic
radicalism with Edmund Burke’s emphasis on tradition, patriotism and the domestic
affections. To Hazlitt, Cobbett came to represent ‘a kind of fourth estate in the politics of
the country’, becoming the virtual embodiment of both rural England and the campaign for
parliamentary reform. This study draws on Cobbett’s published writings and unpublished
correspondence to show how he achieved this status. Individual chapters focus on his
writings as Peter Porcupine, publication of parliamentary debates, imprisonment in Newgat!
e, exile on Long Island, role in the Queen Caroline affair, Rural Rides, his prosecution
after the Captain Swing riots and his wide-ranging legacies”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-349-47910-8
1. Cobbett, William, 1763–1835. 2. Great Britain—Politics and govern-
ment—1789–1820. 3. Politicians—Great Britain—Biography. 4. Journalists—Great
Britain—Biography. 5. English newspapers—History—18th century. 6. English
newspapers—History—19th century. 7. England—Social life and customs—18th
century. 8. England—Social life and customs—19th century.—I. Title.
DA522.C5G725 2014
942.07’3092—dc23
[B] 2014019306
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
For my family
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Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Digging up the 1790s 1
1 From the Soldier’s Friend to Peter Porcupine 18
The Soldier’s Friend and the Revolution debate 19
Peter Porcupine in Philadelphia 26
2 William Windham and the Hampshire Hog 38
Burke’s ghost 39
The Botley farmer 51
3 Prison, Paper Money and Cobbett’s ‘Two-Penny Trash’ 60
The history of the debt 61
Between Burke and Paine 70
Newgate farming 80
4 Long Island Pastoral 92
From Adam to Crusoe 93
Grammar and emigration 99
Bones and seeds 110
5 Cobbett and Queen Caroline 114
Writing to the Queen 115
The Queen’s letter to the King 124
Addresses to the Queen 135
After the trial 141
6 Rural Rides and the 1820s 148
Writing on the road 150
Landscape, politics, aesthetics 156
Roadside meetings and Reformation history 162
7 ‘Rural War’ and the July Revolution 168
Letters from Paris 169
Swing letters 178
Reprisals 184
vii
viii Contents
Postscript: Cobbett’s Legacies 198
Notes 204
Bibliography 230
Index 244
List of Figures
Cover Trans-Atlantic Luxury, engraving by Isaac Robert
Cruikshank, from The Book of Wonders (London, 1821);
reproduced by permission of Nuffield College, Oxford
1.1 View from Portsdown Hill, aquatint engraving by William
Daniell, for A Voyage Round Great Britain (London,
1814–25); © Trustees of the British Museum 35
1.2 The Birth Place of William Cobbett, Farnham, Surrey,
drawn and engraved for Dugdale’s England and Wales
Delineated (c.1840) 36
2.1 Political-dreamings!-visions of peace!-perspective horrors!;
James Gillray (1801); © Trustees of the British Museum 44
2.2 Site of Botley House (since demolished), on the River
Hamble, Botley; author’s photograph 53
2.3 The Loyal Address!-or-the Procession of the Hampshire Hogs
from Botley to St. James’s, James Gillray (1808); © Trustees of
the British Museum 57
3.1 William Cobbett, mezzotint by William Ward, after the
portrait by John Raphael Smith (1812); © Trustees of the
British Museum 63
3.2 Midas, Transmuting all into Gold Paper; James Gillray (1797);
© Trustees of the British Museum 71
3.3 The Blessings of Paper Money; George Cruikshank (1811);
© Trustees of the British Museum 72
3.4 Plan of Hill Farm, Botley; Nuffield, XXIX/63/1; reproduced
with permission 82
3.5 Sketch of a gate; Nuffield, XXX/26/9; reproduced with
permission 83
3.6 Drawing of rural sports by William Cobbett jr; Nuffield,
XXX/29/1; reproduced with permission 88
3.7 Cobbett’s gridiron on the masthead of the Political Register;
reproduced by permission of Nuffield College 90
ix
