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. It was now that his real education began. He worked briefly as a clerk in a lawyer’s office, where he learned to write a clear and legible hand, a vital journalist’s skill. Next, he joined the army and read voraciously from the books in the library at Chatham. Stationed in New Brunswick and promoted to sergeant-major, he quickly learned to despise the aristocratic officers as dishonest nincompoops. He attempted to expose their corruption by initiating a court-martial, but the case backfired. His response was to flee. First he went to France, which was in a state of revolutionary turmoil and terror (this was 1792), so he hopped onto another boat and sailed to America, the land of the free. These early experiences shaped his politics. He raged against the corruption and incompetence of the privileged elite. But he hated the French Revolution even more.