John Wade was born in London in 1788. His
first job was as a wool sorter. Wade was interested in reading and
used to visit Francis Place's bookshop at 16 Charing Cross Road.
Francis Place lent him books by Tom Paine
and Joseph Priestley. Place also introduced
Wade to other reformers such as Sir Francis
Burdett and Jeremy Bentham. Wade was
particularly impressed by Bentham who he described as the "apostle
of reason".
In 1818 Francis Place persuaded Jeremy
Bentham and Henry Bickersteth to provide the funds that would
enable Wade to publish his own radical newspaper. The Gorgon
dealt mostly with trade union matters. The newspaper gave support
to the Manchester cotton-spinners in their long strike
in 1818. Wade also complained against the Combination
Acts that had been passed by William Pitt
and his Tory government in 1799 and 1800.
As a result of this legislation all combinations of workers to press
their employers for shorter hours or more pay was forbidden. John
Wade also used The Gorgon to help John Gast organise the London
dock workers in 1819.
Although primarily interested in trade unions, John wade wrote several
articles in favour of parliamentary reform. In 1819 Wade stopped publishing
The Gorgon and instead concentrated on collecting evidence
of inequality and corruption. This information was eventually published
in The Black Book: Corruption Unmasked (1819). The book that
contained detailed information on the revenues of the aristocracy
and clergy, the Civil List, the police and the law courts, and the
relationship between government and companies such as the East
India Company.
The Black Book: Corruption Unmasked was a great success and sold
over 50,000 copies. Wade followed this with a Supplement (1823)
that gave details of what he called England's "woeful spectacle
of want, misery, embarrassment and degradation." In the Supplement
Wade produced his own reform programme including universal suffrage,
free non-sectarian education, revision of the criminal code and a
revised system of taxation.
In 1828 John Wade joined the staff of The
Spectator. He still found time to write books including An
Account of Public Charities in England and Wales (1828), Police
and Crimes of the Metropolis (1829) and History of the Middle
and Working Classes (1833).
As Wade got older he became more conservative. He attacked Henry
Orator Hunt as "a brazen-faced booby", described William
Cobbett as "a fool" and John
Cartwright as "crazy". In the 1830s John Wade took the
view that political reform would only take place with a change in
public opinion. Although he still believed that universal suffrage
was "good and just" he argued that the Radicals were wrong
to demand a change in the law because "public opinion was so
decidedly against it". Wade opposed the activities of the Chartists
claiming that their leaders were "rash and foolish" because
of their "brutish experiences". Instead of supporting the
Chartists, Wade urged the workers to join forces with the middle classes
against the corrupt aristocracy.
John Wade's radicalism declined even more after 1862 when Lord
Palmerston arranged for him to receive a weekly pension. John
Wade died on 29th September, 1875.
(1)
John Wade, The Gorgon (21st November, 1818)
We have no hesitation in saying that the cause of the deterioration
in the circumstances of workmen generally, and the different degrees
of deterioration among different classes of journeymen, depends entirely
on the degree of perfection that prevails among them, which the law
has pronounced a crime - namely, combination. The circumstances of
the workman do not in the least depend on the prosperity or profits
of the masters, but on the power of the workmen to command - nay to
extort a high price for their labour.
(2)
John Wade, The Gorgon (18th August, 1818)
The industrious orders may be compared to the soil, out of which everything
is evolved and produced; the other classes to the trees, tares, weeds
and vegetables, drawing their nutriment on its surface.
(3)
John Wade, The Gorgon (26th September, 1818)
Of the four staple manufactures, namely, cotton, linen, cloth, and
iron, perhaps, on an average, the raw material does not constitute
one-tenth of their value, the remaining nine-tenths being created
by the labours of the weaver, spinner, dyer, smith, cutler, and fifty
others. It is by trading in the blood and bones of the journeymen
and labourers of England that our merchants have derived their riches,
and the country its glory.
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