William Cobbett was a political Journalist in the early to mid 19th century.
He was writing and living in the times when Britain (mainly England) was changing dramatically, due to the Industrial revolution. new cities and towns where popping up all over the country.
William Cobbett grew up in the country side in Farnham surrey.
He grew up in a farming family and from a young age he was a farmer. He was very passionate about farming and he was scarred that the rapid growth of industrialisation would ruin the country side and the farming culture.
He was born in 1763 and had to older brothers
In 1784 he joined the army and spent time in America. Once he returned to England from the army, he had found out the wages had almost halved.
Cobbett had some weird views on Potatoes, he believed that they were unfit for human consumption.
William Cobbett
He despised the government for taxes that ruined Farmers and fed the lazy, he had no time for the church and thought that the Army were freeloaders.
He also hated London, he thought that Londoners got payed for doing nothing and got fed by the sweat of rural laborers. He also thought London was unhealthy.
He loved Pigs and he believed that Pigs were the animal of the working class because he believed that if you had Pigs, you couldn't starve.
In the later years of his life, Cobbett joined parliament.
He liked machines, because he believed it showed the growth of man, but also believed that the machines and the industrial revolution on a whole would take the farmers and rural workers away from the country side and to the city to work in factories. This is what he was against.
Check out the videos below as I found it helpfull for me to understand William Cobbett's radical Journalism.
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