Author: WILKES, John
Biography:
WILKES, John (1725-97: ODNB)
Wilkes was born to Israel Wilkes and his wife Sarah Heaton in St. James Clerkenwell parish, London, on 17 Oct. 1725. He was educated by John Worsley and Matthew Leeson and at the University of Leiden. He married Mary Mead (1715-84) on 23 May 1747, but the couple permanently separated in 1756-57. Wilkes was JP for Aylesbury from 1753, High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire for 1754, and MP for Aylesbury 1757-64. During this period, he published Essay on Woman (1763) and writings critical of John Stuart and George Grenville’s ministries and organs: Observations on the Papers relative to the Rupture with Spain (1762); eight essays in The Monitor (May-Oct. 1762); and, with Charles Churchill, The North Briton (Jun. 1762-Apr. 1763) and a letter in The Auditor (Dec. 1762). For writing and publishing The North Briton 45, a “seditious Libel,” Wilkes was in Jan. 1764 expelled from the House of Commons. In Feb. 1764 he was convicted of obscene and blasphemous libel and of seditious libel for publishing, respectively, Essay on Woman and (in a collected edition) The North Briton 45. Refused a pardon, Wilkes attacked William Pitt’s ministry in Letter to […] the Duke of Grafton (1767), and, from Apr. 1768, served two years in King’s Bench Prison. He was elected as MP for Middlesex in Mar. 1768 but expelled from the 1768-74 parliament in Feb. 1769 for his 1764 libels and for writing and publishing a “seditious Libel” against Pitt and Augustus FitzRoy’s ministries in SJC (Dec. 1768). Wilkes was re-elected and re-expelled twice Feb.-Mar. 1769. When he topped the poll for a fourth time in Apr. 1769, the runner-up was elected in his place. Wilkes engaged with this episode as an infringement of electors’ rights in A Letter to […] George Grenville (1769), English Liberty (1769), and A Letter to Samuel Johnson (1770). He was afterwards elected to London’s city corporation, as Alderman in 1769, Sheriff in 1771, Lord Mayor in 1774, and Chamberlain in 1779, and to represent Middlesex in three parliaments from 1774. By 1790, Wilkes had also published seventeen poems, an introduction to English history 1688-1714, The Observer (1779) in reply to Edward Gibbon’s Mémoire Justificatif (1779), and letters relating to his 1771 fall-out with John Horne. Wilkes died from marasmus in St George Hanover Square parish on 26 Dec. 1797. He had three children: Mary (“Polly”) Wilkes (1750-1802), by Mead; John Smith (b 1760), by Catherine Smith; and Harriet Wilkes (b 1778), by Amelia Arnold (1753-1802). (Arthur H. Cash, John Wilkes [2006]; Hugh Hanley, The Prebendal, Aylesbury [1986]; HPO 10 June 2023; Journals of the House of Commons [1742-], Vols. 29, 32; Mary Wilkes’s memorial plaque, Grosvenor Chapel; ODNB 9 June 2023; John Salisbury, John Wilkes [2006]; Peter D. G. Thomas, John Wilkes [1996]; William Purdie Treloar, Wilkes and the City [1917]) SW