1828 and All That

The year 2008 marks the 180th anniversary of The Spectator. The original Spectator, founded by Addison and Steele, ran only briefly from 1711 to 1712, although its spirit lives on in our Coffee House blog. Today’s Spectator was founded by Robert Stephen Rintoul, in 1828, and we shall be inviting readers to a series of events this year to celebrate.

In the year of this magazine’s foundation, the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister; Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States; Goya, Schubert and the 2nd Earl of Liverpool died; and Jules Verne, Ibsen, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Tolstoy were born. Agitation for parliamentary reform became ever more insistent, paving the way for the 1832 Reform Act.

In the first days of 2008, we survey a domestic scene overshadowed by economic storm clouds and drained of energy by Gordon Brown’s decision not to hold an election. Labour’s task is to prove that it has a mission other than to cling to power for as long as possible, in the ignominious tradition of John Major.