The revenge of ‘the Thing’

What is the point of William Cobbett? Richard Ingrams claims that Cobbett was one of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived, yet his life is largely forgotten. He is remembered, if he is known at all, as the author of Rural Rides, a classic account of his travels around the English countryside in the 1820s. Previous biographers have celebrated Cobbett as a Radical politician and man of the people. Ingrams presents him in this admirably concise biography as a great journalist, who fearlessly exposed corruption in high places and championed the freedom of the press. In fact Cobbett in many ways resembles his biographer — the two men even look a bit alike.

Cobbett was self-educated and self-made. His father was a small farmer near Farnham with a violent temper. Aged 20 Cobbett ran away from home, apparently on a whim. One day he hopped onto the coach to London which happened to be passing, and he never saw his parents again.