Author: Cobbett, William
Biography:
COBBETT, William (1763-1835: ODNB)
Farmer, political writer, champion of parliamentary reform. His father George was a farmer and publican in Surrey. Raised to farm, William enlisted in the army in 1783 and was stationed in New Brunswick for six years. After returning to England and being discharged, in 1792 he married Nancy Anne Reid, a woman he had met in Canada: they were to have seven children. Fearing prosecution for a pamphlet that denounced the harsh treatment of soldiers, they fled first to France and then to the US, where they lived until 1800. Here Cobbett developed his pen-name Peter Porcupine and published many anti-Jacobin pamphlets and articles, including one poem, French Arrogance, which did not sell well (Spater). His first venture on returning to England, a newspaper entitled The Porcupine, was short-lived, but his next, the weekly Political Register, was enormously influential and ran for the rest of Cobbett's life, continuing even while he was in the US again 1817-19 to avoid prosecution. After 1820 he directed his energies to farming, reporting on rural life around the country, and campaigning for the reform in parliament that came at last in 1832. He died at his farm near Farnham--his birthplace--where he was buried. (ODNB 27 Mar. 2018; George Spater, William Cobbett [1982], 1:82)