In 1802 William Cobbett started his newspaper,
the Political Register. At first
Cobbett's newspaper supported the Tories
but he gradually became more radical. By 1806 Cobbett used the newspaper
to campaign for parliamentary reform.
William Cobbett was not afraid to criticise the government in the
Political Register and in 1809
he attacked the use of German troops to put down a mutiny in Ely.
Cobbett was tried and convicted for sedition and sentenced to two
years' imprisonment in Newgate Prison.
When Cobbett was released he continued his campaign against newspaper
taxes and government attempts to prevent free
speech.
By 1815 the tax on newspapers had reached 4d. a copy. As few people
could afford to pay 6d. or 7d. for a newspaper, the tax restricted
the circulation of most of these journals to people with fairly high
incomes. Cobbett was only able to sell just over a thousand copies
a week. The following year William Cobbett
began publishing the Political Register
as a pamphlet. Cobbett now sold the Political
Register for only 2d. and it soon had a circulation of
40,000.
Cobbett's journal was the main newspaper read by the working class.
This made William Cobbett a dangerous
man and in 1817 he heard that the government planned to have him arrested
for sedition. Unwilling to spend another period in prison, Cobbett
fled to the United States. For two years Cobbett lived on a farm in
Long Island but with the help of William Benbow,
a friend in London, continued to publish the Political
Register.
William Cobbett arrived back in England
soon after the Peterloo Massacre. Cobbett
joined with other Radicals in his attacks on the government and three
times during the next couple of years was charged with libel.
In 1821 William Cobbett started a tour of Britain on horseback. Each
evening he recorded his observations on what he had seen and heard
that day. This work was published as a series of articles in the Political
Register and as a book, Rural
Rides, in 1830.
Cobbett continued to publish controversial material in the Political
Register and in July, 1831, was charged with seditious
libel after writing an article in support of the Captain Swing Riots.
Cobbett conducted his own defence and he was so successful that the
jury failed to convict him.
Even after his election to the House of Commons in 1832 William
Cobbett continued to publish the Political
Register. Cobbett wrote his last article for the newspaper
on 13th June 1835. Cobbett died five days later on 18th June 1835.
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