page_title: William Cobbett
section_title: Early life (1763–1791)
hierarchical_section_title: William Cobbett / Life / Early life (1763–1791)
caption_attribution_description: English: William Cobbett's Birthplace in Farnham, Surrey.
context_page_description: William Cobbett was an English pamphleteer, independent journalist, Member of Parliament, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He, with a popular agrarian faction, argued that reforming Parliament, including abolishing "rotten boroughs", unnecessary foreign activity and suppression of wages would promote internal peace and ease the poverty of farm labourers and smallholders. He was among the pre-party lobbies who backed lower taxes, saving and preferably reversing enclosure of the commons and resistance to the 1821-adopted gold standard.
  He relentlessly sought an end to borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters", also dismissing British Jews in a typecast by the same token. Early in life he was a soldier and loyal devotee of King and country, but he later pushed for Radicalism, which helped bring about the Reform Act 1832 and his election that year as one of two MPs for the newly enfranchised borough of Oldham. He also strongly advocated Catholic Emancipation. He surveyed British agriculture and other economic output geographically. His much-interwoven polemics cover subjects from political reform to religion. His best known book is Rural Rides.
context_section_description: William Cobbett was born in Farnham, Surrey, on 9 March 1763, the third son of George Cobbett, a farmer and publican, and Anne Vincent. He was taught to read and write by his father and he started working from an early age. He later said: "I do not remember a time when I did not earn my living. My first occupation was, driving small birds from the turnip seed, and the rooks from the peas." He worked as a farm labourer at Farnham Castle, and also worked briefly as a gardener in the King's garden at Kew. His rural upbringing gave him a lifelong love of gardening and hunting.
  On 6 May 1783, on a whim, he took a stage coach to London and spent eight or nine months as a clerk in the employ of a Mr Holland at Gray's Inn. He joined the 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot during 1783 and made good use of the soldier's copious spare time to educate himself, particularly in English grammar. Between 1785 and 1791 Cobbett was stationed with his regiment in New Brunswick and sailed from Gravesend in Kent to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Cobbett was in Saint John, Fredericton and elsewhere in the province until September 1791, being promoted through the ranks to sergeant major, the most senior rank of non-commissioned officer.
  Cobbett returned to England with his regiment, landing at Portsmouth on 3 November 1791, and obtained his discharge from the army on 19 December 1791. In Woolwich during February 1792, he married the American-born Anne Reid (1774–1848), whom he had met while stationed at Fort Howe in Saint John. His children with her were Anne Cobbett (1795–1877), William Cobbett (1798–1878), John Morgan Cobbett (1800–1877), James Paul Cobbett (1803–1881), Eleanor Cobbett (1805–1900) and Susan Cobbett (1807–1889).
caption: William Cobbett's birthplace.
exif: {}