John Wilkes Flashcards

Question 1

Q

Wilkes’ Life, Really basic biographical info before political career

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

(1725–1797)

Plebeian: son of a malt distiller
University of Leiden in 1744
an arranged marriage on 23 May 1747 to a bride some ten years older than himself, Mary Mead (d. 1784)
Wilkes played a dual role of country squire—he served as a local magistrate in Aylesbury—and London man about town (he was elected to two prestigious clubs, the Royal Society in 1749 and the Beefsteak Club in 1754). Wit and generosity gave him the entry into society his parents had sought for him.
Wilkes joined the Franciscans or ‘monks of St Francis’
‘Essay on woman’, an unpublished obscene parody of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, 1754
general election of 1754 with Thomas Potter a joint candidature for the two seats at Aylesbury, where Wilkes had an important interest— Wilkes county sheriff while Potter was elected with another candidate.
The prime minister, the duke of Newcastle, noting his interest in politics, sent Wilkes to fight, at his own expense, the distant borough of Berwick upon Tweed, a hopeless and costly quest.
Marriage breaks up 1756

Question 2

Q

Wilkes’ life, entry into politics up to the North Briton Case (1757-1763)

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

Unopposed by-election in Aylesbury (was an acquaintance of Pitt)
But Wilkes, so sparkling a companion, was not a fluent public speaker and remained anonymous and silent in parliament
This failure to live up to expectations doomed his various patronage requests to be a lord of trade, ambassador to Constantinople, and governor of Quebec.
At the next general election, in 1761, he avoided a contest for his Aylesbury seat by crude bribery, offering 300 of the 500 voters £5 each.
The political talent of Wilkes lay in his pen. After an anonymous pamphlet of 9 March 1762, Observations on the Spanish Papers, and some essays in The Monitor, he made his name by his political weekly the North Briton, founded on 5 June 1762 to attack the new ministry of George III’s Scottish favourite, Lord Bute. Circulation of 2000

Question 3

Q

Wilkes’ Life, The North Briton Case and exile

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

When Bute resigned on 8 April 1763 he was succeeded as prime minister by George Grenville, who had broken with Pitt and Temple in 1761.

the main focus of opposition attack was the treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years’ War, condemned as far too generous to defeated France. Grenville ended the parliamentary session by a king’s speech commending the peace,

—> North Briton no. 45 on 23 April denounced the ‘ministerial effrontery’ of obliging George III ‘to give the sanction of his sacred name’ to such ‘odious’ measures and ‘unjustifiable’ declarations.

Immediate prosecution of the paper for seditious libel ensued. But the Grenville ministry made a legal blunder by arresting Wilkes and his associates under a general warrant directed against ‘the authors, printers and publishers’ without naming any persons.
When the crowd in Westminster Hall, ignorant of legal niceties, saw their hero being freed on 6 May, the building echoed with shouts of ‘Wilkes and liberty’. Wilkite mobs on London streets became a common phenomenon during the next dozen years.
Wilkes now challenged the legality of the general warrant by actions for damages and false arrest. There already existed doubts on that point; but an expensive and sustained legal challenge was now made possible by the deep purse of Lord Temple, ironically the prime minister’s eldest brother.
15 November 1763. The House of Commons resolved that the North Briton was a seditious libel, and on 24 November that parliamentary privilege did not cover seditious libel, thereby exposing Wilkes to punitive legal action.
he crossed to France on 25 December and took up residence in Paris. Pleading ill health, he refused to attend either parliament or the law courts.

Question 4

Q

Wilkes’ life, exile to middlesex

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

The House of Commons on 19 January 1764 received evidence that Wilkes had published the North Briton, and so expelled him as unworthy to be a member, without a vote.

The trial of Wilkes for libel followed in the court of king’s bench. He was convicted of publishing the North Briton and the Essay on Woman, but no attempt was made to prove his authorship. After he had failed to answer five summonses to attend, he was outlawed on 1 November.
Wilkes was to remain abroad for four years, since his return to Britain would have meant imprisonment.
He acquired a tempestuous Italian mistress in the nineteen-year-old dancer Gertrude Corradini, but on a journey to Italy in 1765 she decamped with all she could carry. Wilkes stayed for four months in Naples, and then made his way to Geneva, spending two months in the company of Voltaire.
Wilkes unofficially visited Britain in May 1766 in a vain attempt to extort a pardon, and did so again in the autumn
Wilkes intended to obtain a parliamentary seat at the general election due by March 1768, and to do so through popular election, not by purchase or gift from an admirer.
1768 No answer was made to a request for pardon that he submitted to the king on 4 March, but neither was there any attempt to apprehend him.
Wilkes, to resolve this anomalous situation, formally announced his intention to surrender himself to justice when the court of king’s bench next met, on 20 April, and meanwhile busied himself with securing a parliamentary seat.

Question 5

Q

Wilkes’ Life, the Middlesex election

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

stood for the City of London in the election on 25 March 1768, but he came last of seven candidates for the four seats, with a mere 1247 votes, as against 2957 for the lowest successful candidate.
He blamed his failure on the shortness of his campaign, and dropped a bombshell by promptly announcing that he would challenge the two sitting members for the county of Middlesex (in effect Greater London with a rural surround).
A clockwork campaign organized both propaganda and transport to the county town of Brentford, 10 miles from the City. Superb organization was reinforced by popular enthusiasm, as crowds intimidated supporters of his two opponents,
28 March, Wilkes triumphed by 1292 votes to 827 for Cooke and 807 for the defeated Proctor.
The cabinet, headed by the duke of Grafton, promptly decided to expel Wilkes from parliament on the assumption that he would be imprisoned after his court appearance on 20 April.
Wilkes, anxious to resolve the legal situation, delivered himself into custody on 27 April, only to be freed by a mob. In a farcical sequel to this episode he stole into prison in disguise, giving rise to obvious jokes.
On 8 June his outlawry was revoked on a technicality, but six days later he was sentenced for his 1764 convictions, a year each for publishing the North Briton and the Essay on Woman. The whole Middlesex election case was played out while he remained in king’s bench prison.
3 February 1769 by a composite resolution listing five libels, two as seditious and three as obscene, the former being the newspaper item of 10 December 1768 and the North Briton, and the latter drawn from the Essay on Woman.
Wilkes was not the man to accept such treatment, and he was returned unopposed at a by-election on 16 February 1769. Next day the House of Commons resolved Wilkes to be ‘incapable’ of election, since he had been expelled, and later again voided his return in a second by-election on 16 March. To end this monthly ritual, the ministry, for the third by-election on 13 April, produced a rival candidate, Colonel Henry Luttrell, who was well protected by soldiers. Although Wilkes defeated Luttrell by 1143 votes to 296, the latter was awarded the seat by the Commons two days later.
Deprived of a Commons seat until the next general election, he intended to make London his power base, for the democratic structure of City government was open to exploitation by such a popular hero.
debts, estimated at £14,000 in February 1769. That month the Society of Gentleman Supporters of the Bill of Rights was formed, and made the settlement of these debts its first task,
. Already Wilkes himself had secured election as alderman, for the ward of Farringdon Without in January 176

Question 6

Q

Wilkes’ Life, city politician

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

Influence in London:
Wilkes did not himself draft the political programme put forward by the Bill of Rights Society on 23 July 1771, but he endorsed it and personally advocated annual parliamentary elections and the abolition of pocket boroughs. In the 1771 election of City sheriffs he and his acolyte Frederick Bull defeated two ministerial candidates. As sheriff, Wilkes adopted a high profile, out of a genuine concern for ‘liberty’ as well as to cultivate his public image.
He sought to prevent government ‘packing’ of juries, and criticized the multiplicity of death sentences for trivial crimes. This role was a preliminary to the 1772 election of lord mayor. Wilkes duly headed the poll, but the court of aldermen exercised its right to choose the second candidate, the Hornite James Townsend.
A year later the ministry stood aside as Wilkites fought Hornites. Wilkes and Bull came first and second, only for an alliance of ministerialists and Hornites in the court of aldermen to choose Bull
For most of 1774 the inevitable candidature of Wilkes for lord mayor dominated London politics. The situation was complicated by the ministerial decision to call a general election in the autumn of 1774, but Wilkes gained by a bargain with John Sawbridge, hitherto a leading Hornite. Sawbridge was promised Wilkite support for a London parliamentary seat, and in return prevented radical opposition at the mayoral elections to Wilkes and Bull, who defeated two ministerial candidates. This time the court of aldermen accepted Wilkes, again top of the poll.

—> Soon afterwards Wilkes re-entered the Commons, being returned unopposed with Glynn for Middlesex

The mayoralty of Wilkes was one of the most splendid in London’s history.
He gave frequent and lavish entertainments—his expenses of £8226 exceeding by £3337 his official allowances—and he ended heavily in debt. Wilkes, as when sheriff, took his duties seriously. He concerned himself with the regulation of food prices and with charity for prisoners, and he initiated a campaign against prostitutes, thereby gaining respect and respectability; the archbishop of Canterbury attended one of his functions.
But, after persuading the incumbent to resign, he was defeated in 1776 by a ministerial candidate, for by then his seemingly unpatriotic opposition to the American War of Independence was proving to be a solvent of Wilkite control of the City.

Question 7

Q

Wilkes’ Life: Views on America

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

Contrary to legend, Wilkes never championed the cause of American independence in principle. Nor was he even always sympathetic to colonial grievances.
But during the next few years colonial adulation of Wilkes as a hero of liberty led him to adopt the idea of a common cause on both sides of the Atlantic. He offered words of encouragement to America, commending resistance to the 1767 import duties on tea and other items, and deploring the use of soldiers in Boston, by an analogy with events in London
As the colonial crisis escalated Wilkes shifted his ground from merely supporting American resistance to taxation, as in a Commons speech of 6 February 1775, to endorsement of the colonial denial of parliament’s authority, as on 26 October; but the final demand for independence he did not accept.
denounced the American war only as bloody, expensive, and, above all, futile, telling the Commons on 20 November 1777 that ‘men are not converted, Sir, by the force of the bayonet at the breast’
The failure of the 1778 peace commission led him to urge recognition of American independence, in a speech of 26 November 1778: ‘A series of four years disgraces and defeats are surely sufficient to convince us of the absolute impossibility of conquering America by force, and I fear the gentle means of persuasion have equally failed’
But the outbreak of the American war had proved the kiss of death to City radicalism. Deprived of that power base, Wilkes became more active in Westminster politics

Question 8

Q

Wilkes’ Life: Parliamentary Politics

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

The parliamentary behaviour of Wilkes on his return to the Commons in 1774 confounded all expectations. He did not create his own radical party, as he lacked the reputation and resources to do so—and indeed sufficient supporters, once dubbing them his ‘twelve apostles’. Nor did he enlist in either of the opposition parties led by lords Rockingham and Shelburne. But he was not the silent back-bencher many expected from his earlier spell in the house.
The diarist Nathaniel Wraxall recalled that

he was an incomparable comedian in all he said or did; and he seemed to consider human life itself as a mere comedy … His speeches were full of wit, pleasantry, and point; Yet nervous, spirited, and not at all defective in argument.

That Wilkes made the first ever motion for parliamentary reform, on 21 March 1776, established his radical credentials for posterity. He urged the transfer of seats from rotten boroughs to London, the more populous counties, and the new industrial towns. The motion was defeated without a vote, and afterwards, in the 1780s, Wilkes, while remaining a reformer, allowed others to take the lead.

Question 9

Q

Wilkes Life, Parliament: Toleration quote

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

‘Liberty’ for Wilkes embraced wider objectives than political aims. Although brought up a dissenter, from the 1750s he was a professed Anglican, but he held extremely liberal views on religious toleration, expounding them when supporting a Dissenters Relief Bill on 20 April 1779.

I wish to see rising in the neighbourhood of a Christian cathedral … The Turkish mosque, the Chinese pagoda, and the Jewish synagogue, with a temple of the Sun. … The sole business of the magistrates is to take care that they did not persecute one another.

Question 10

Q

Wilkes’ Life, End of Wilkes’ Political Career

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

Wilkes was a conspicuous absentee when fellow radicals organized City protests against the Quebec Act of 1774 for establishing the Catholic church in Canada, and he had scant sympathy with the anti-Catholic Gordon riots in London during June 1780. He took an active role in their suppression, receiving accolades from supporters of government but incurring unpopularity in London. It signified his final transformation into respectability, one underpinned at last by financial security.
When Lord Rockingham succeeded North as prime minister in 1782 Wilkes was at last able, on 3 May, to carry his motion to erase the 1769 resolution on the Middlesex election, thereby belatedly establishing the right of voters to choose any eligible candidate. But soon there occurred a seismic change in his political career. After Rockingham’s death on 1 July 1782, Charles James Fox led the bulk of his party back to opposition when George III chose Shelburne as the new prime minister. Wilkes disliked Fox’s attempt to bully the king and chose to support Shelburne, demonstrating that his frequent professions of loyalty to the crown had not been mere formality. He therefore opposed the Fox–North coalition of 1783

—> unpopularity for both his support of government and his neglect of parliamentary duties cost him his seat without a contest at the 1790 general election. His political career ended in irony. He detested the violence and political extremism of the French Revolution; but on 11 June 1794 a loyalist mob, perhaps from folk memory, smashed the windows of his house. Wilkes refused to prosecute, saying, ‘they are only some of my pupils, now set up for themselves’

Question 11

Q

Lord Mansfield’s appraisal of Wilkes at the end of his life

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

‘Mr. Wilkes was the pleasantest companion, the politest gentleman, and the best scholar he knew’ (John Wilkes MSS, BL, Add. MS 30874, fol. 92). This 1783 tribute from Wilkes’s old adversary Lord Mansfield serves as a reminder that politics never filled his life. Pursuit of women engrossed much of his attention; he was a man of culture; and from 1779 he had duties as City chamberlain

Question 12

Q

Wilkes’ lifestyle

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

That he loved all women except his wife was his famous boast. His overt sexual promiscuity, which was emphasized by bawdy language and lack of shame, began before his arranged marriage

He did not hunt or gamble, and indeed boasted that he had ‘no small vices’. Instead he simply enjoyed company. His engagement diary records numerous occasions when he was either at private houses or at public dinners. Wraxall recalled how ‘in private society, particularly at table, he was pre-eminently agreeable, abounding in anecdote, ever gay and convivial … He formed the charm of the assembly

Question 13

Q

The Paradox of Wilkes and Liberty

Peter D. G. Thomas (ODNB)

Answer

A

Posterity has been reluctant to accept that Wilkes, a womanizer and blasphemer, and a man with a cynical sense of humour, could have possessed genuine political principles, a verdict seemingly confirmed by such stories as his comment to George III that he had never been a Wilkite, and his rebuke to an elderly woman who called out ‘Wilkes and liberty’ on seeing him in the street: ‘Be quiet, you old fool. That’s all over long ago’ (Bleackley, 376). Nor did his overnight conversion in 1782 from radical to courtier do his reputation any good, even though he received no reward in honour or office. That last twist to his career is irrelevant to his earlier political record. For two decades Wilkes fought for ‘liberty’, whether freedom from arbitrary arrest, the rights of voters, or the freedom of the press to criticize government and report parliament.

Question 14

Q

Rudé - London

Answer

A

675 000 in 1750, 900 000 in 1800
Extremes of wealth and poverty
Westminster and the City were ‘fashionable’

Question 15

Q

Rude- where were Wilkes’ supporters based?

Answer

A

The main bulk of the 10 000 or more merchants and tradesmen were spread over a wider field
‘trade and manafacture were expanding most rapidly …southwards and eastwards of the City - into Surrey and the ‘out’ - parishes of Middlesex.

–> ‘It was in these districts and among such ‘new’ trading and manufacturing elements that Wilkes was to win his most solid body of support in the Middlesex elections of 1768-69’

Question 16

Q

Rude - the City of London

Answer

A

pop 150 000
‘backbone of the City’s commercial and political life was formed by the 8,000 liverymen and 12,000-15,000 freemen attached to the sixty-odd City companies
Aldermen were not bound by a residential qualification and might be found serving as justices in widely scattered counties, the 236 members of the Common Council were obliged to be freemen householders within the wards that appointed them.
Sharp contrast between Common Council men and the majority - the ‘lower sort’ who Wilkes referred to as ‘inferior’

Question 17

Q

Rude - the majority of London’s citizens

Answer

A

‘life was hard, brutal and violent and a constant struggle against disease, high mortality and wretched economic conditions’
‘Wages varied according occupation, sex, and skill; but, in terms of cost of food and lodging, they were generally low and changed little in the course of the century’
‘Working hours were long’
People were concerned with ‘the price of bread and the price of lodgings’. Price of bread fluctuated sharply
‘Crime, drunkenness, prostitution and violence’…Gin sales rose: spirit sales more than doubled in metropolitan /middlesex area by mid century

Question 18

Q

Rude - the mob

Answer

A

‘Popular rioting was endemic throughout the eighteenth century’
against rising food prices, turnpikes, enclosures, workhouses, Smuggling and Militia Acts…
above all, they broke out in years of shortage, when the prices of wheat, flour and bread were appreciably above the average.
food rioting in London was the exception rather than the rule. Though there were deeper social under currents, the ostensible targets of thse riots were more often Roman Catholics, Jews, Scots, Irish, Dissenters, and other ‘alien’ or non-conforming elements
the Englishman’s cult of ‘freedom’ - to promote the cause of some popular hero of the day, men like John Wilkes
Gordon Riots, 1780, were most destructive

Question 19

Q

Rude Why did people riot?

Answer

A

1760s, the London crowds who, in 1768, gaily smashed their opponents’ windows and assaulted their property to shouts of ‘Wilkes and Liberty!’ may have been as filled with anger at the high price of bread and hatred of the Scots as with anger at the high price of bread and hatred of the Scots as with enthusiasm for the cause of John Wilkes’.
tended to be wage earners rather than self employed…but they were rarely criminals, vagrants or the poorest of the poor

Question 20

Q

Rude - the middling sort

Answer

A

‘The ideas underlying or accompaning the violent actions of ‘the inferior set of people’ were often those more lucidly and decorously expressed by the ‘middling sort’ - the merchants, tradesmen and master craftsmen…
Nowhere did the opinions of these elements find such vocal and consistent expression as in the Common Hall or Common Council (although less frequently in the Court of Aldermen) or the City of London
Men of ‘the middling sort’ were not only to prove an invaluable asset in helping to return Wilkes to Parliament a few years later; they were also to give proof of continued loyalty at a time when more substantial and highly placed supporters deserted him on return from exile in 1768

Question 21

Q

Wilkes to friend after being appointed High Sherrif of Buckingham in 1754

Answer

A

‘You see, I declare myself throughout a friend of liberty and will act up to it’

Question 22

Q

Wilkes and the retirement of Pitt

Answer

A

‘marked the end of any hopes of an office under the Crown’
War with spain, 1762, rapid victories in the Caribbean
Duke of Bedford was negotiating a peace which, by the surrender of Guadaloupe and other conquests, bitterly disappointed the merchants of london and Liverpool

Question 23

Q

Rude, the North Briton

Answer

A

John Wilkes, Charles Churchill, eds. first edition 6 June 1762
Lord Bute’s administration was running ‘The Briton’
‘The North Briton’ was a satire of the Scot dominated and Scot friendly administration
‘to expose and ridicule the new government’s conduct of affairs; to harry the Scots on each and every occasion; to heap all manner of abuse and ridicule on the government and its friends’

Attitues towards it

Lord Temple: hope ‘to live to see Mr Monitor and Mr N. Briton treated as they deserve’
Some felt it was the centre of parliamentary opposition

Question 24

Q

The North Briton #45

Answer

A

‘Every friend of the country myst lament that a prince of so many great and admirable qualities ….can give the sanction of his sacred name to the most odious measures…from a throne ever renowned for truth, honour, and an unsullied virtue’
- ‘despite Wilkes’ disclaimers, the King was being accused of being a liar’

Question 25

Q

The North Briton #45, the Gvt’s immediate response

Answer

A

George Grenville, two Secs of State, Lord Egremont and Halifax meet with solicitor to the Treasury on 24th April, the day after publication, who says they can prosecute for seditious libel
26th April, warrant for arrest of ‘the authors, printers and publishers of a seditious and treasonable paper
Printer and publishers arrested, who confirm Wilkes authored it
Wilkes outside of pmentary privilege as the libel is a breach of the peace
27th April, Wilkes arrested, destroys original copy of 45, evades questions of Halifax, imprisoned in Tower

Question 26

Q

Wilkes, letter to daughter, Polly, whilst imprisoned in tower for publication of no 45

Answer

A

‘As an Englishman I must lament that my Liberty is so wickedly taken away from me’

Question 27

Q

The North Briton #45, Wilkes in court

Answer

A

Wilkes taken from Tower to Westminster court on 3rd may
- Newcastle told that ‘the whole City of London would attend Wilkes to Westminster Hall’
- Says ‘liberty of an Englishman should “not be sported away with impunity”’
- He leaves court to shouts of “Liberty!” and “Wilkes for ever!’
- Remarks were ‘carefully calculated to evoke a response among the varied throng of gentlemen, shopkeepers and craftsmen’
- ‘My Lords, the liberty of all peers and gentlemen, and, what touches me more sensibly, that of all the middling and inferior set of people, who stand most in need of protection…’
- Question of ‘whether English liberty shall be a reality or a shadow’
-

Question 28

Q

North Briton, Wilkes leaves court, who comes with him?

Answer

A

George Onslow: ‘the many thousands that escorted Wilkes home to his house as being ‘of a far higher rank than the common Mob’
‘Whigs for ever! No Jacobites!’
‘WILKES AND LIBERTY!’

Question 29

Q

Implications of the North Briton Affair, legality of general warrants?

Answer

A

April 1766, house resolution declares general warrants ‘illegal and obnoxious’

Question 30

Q

Wilkes’ Essay on Women

Answer

A

House condemned it on 15th Nov 1763 as ‘a most scandalous, obscene and impious libel’

But Wilkes’s supporters among ‘the middling and inferior set of people’ were not to be so easily swayed from their loyalties. While the Lords were condemning the Essay, the Commons debated The North Briton and, by 273 to 111 votes, ordered it be burnt by common hangman

Question 31

Q

Burning of Issue 45

Answer

A

But Wilkes’s supporters among ‘the middling and inferior set of people’ were not to be so easily swayed from their loyalties. While the Lords were condemning the Essay, the Commons debated The North Briton and, by 273 to 111 votes, ordered it be burnt by common hangman
On 3rd December, large crowd pelts sheriffs

Question 32

Q

After burning of issue no 45

Wilkes reputation and impact by early 1764 ?

Answer

A

WIlkes gets £1000 damages from London jury, shouts of’Wilkes and Liberty’ outside Westminster Hall

20th Jan 1764, expelled from P.ment
Grand Jury in the Court of King’s Bench found him guilty of printing Essay on Women and reprinting #45,
Didn’t appear before Nov 1764 –> OUTLAW
‘Opposition had…made remarkably little capital out of ‘the unlucky affair of Wilkes’, and it seemed as if public opinion, even in the turbulent southern counties, might rally more firmly to the side of Administration. Wilkes would soon be forgotten. ‘The unfortunate gentleman’, wrote a journalist, might now be regarded as irrevocably ruined’

Question 33

Q

Evidence that Wilkes had sustained impact in 1764-66?

Answer

A

Two years after departure to France, Edmund Burke’s election as MP for Wendover, toasts of ‘Wilkes and Libertty’
Essay on Woman ‘disastrous to the reputation of his pursuers’ - WHY??

Question 34

Q

Why did Wilkes return from exile?

Answer

A

‘Factors favoured his return to political life’

Rising bread and wheat prices in early 1768
‘Exceptionally severe winter’
Spitalfield weavers and coal heavers of Shadwell/Wapping in disputes with emploers

Question 35

Q

Did Wilkes mobilise a political movement in 1768?

Answer

A

In fact, a popular movement of considerable proportions was already under way before Wilkes’ return to the political scene. His own activities and subsequent events were undoubtably to spread and to intensify this movement, but he can in no sense be held responsible for its origins.
Nevertheless, Wilkes’ intervention was dramatic enough and had startling consequences

Question 36

Q

Return to politics

Answer

A

Wasn’t pardoned by King
Joined the joiners guild
Election address to the London livery stressed ‘questions of public liberty, respecting General Warrants and the Seizure of papers’
Popular support but comes last of eight candidates!

–> Announces plan to challenge contested Middlesex seat

Question 37

Q

Wilkes’ address to the Guildhall on 16th March 1768

Answer

A

I have no support but you (the crowd).I wish no other support. I can have none more certain, none more honourable

‘Enthusiasm was particularly great among the small City masters and craftsman

Question 38

Q

Expressions of popular support for Wilkes’ return to politics ?

Answer

A

Third day of polling, master of public house hires hackney coach no 45, which circulates London with cries of ‘Wilkes and Liberty’
Carried to HQ at King’s Arms Tavern, Cornhill
‘By God Master Wilkes, we’ll carry you, whether you carry your election or not!’

Question 39

Q

Wilkes, the Middlesex Election

Answer

A

250 coaches filled with Wilkite supporters attend the first hustings
40 000 hand bills to encourage good order: ‘to convince the world that Liberty is not joined with licentiousness’

Question 40

Q

Middlesex election comment by Annual Register: ‘

Answer

A

‘There has not been so great a defection of inhabitants from London and Westminster to ten miles distant, in one day’ (for a while)

Question 41

Q

Disorder after the Middlesex election 1768

Answer

A

Austrian ambassador had wilkes and liberty chalked on his boots

No 45 chalked on doorways

Windows of gentleman and tradesmen smashed

Question 42

Q

Burke on Wilkes Middlesex election victory

Answer

A

The crowd always wants to draw themselves from abstract principles to personal attachments since the fall of Lord Chatham there has been no hero of the mob but Wilkes

Question 43

Q

Richmond, Newcastle on Middlesex election

Answer

A

He has carried his election by being a supposed friend to liberty

Wilkes Merit is being a friend to liberty and he had suffered for it

Question 44

Q

How did the cabinet respond to Wilkes victory in 1868

Answer

A

Split between moderates and those who wanted to pursuе Wilkes so he took initiative and surrendered himself for outlawry

Question 45

Q

Wilkes appears in court and at Westminster after middlesex 1768

Answer

A

Popular support and shouts of Wilkes and liberty

Taken in his coach and paraded back to the City

Later surrendered himself

Question 46

Q

Riots after Wilkes’ imprisonment after the Middlesex election, 1768

Including incident on 10th May?

Answer

A

a fortnight of rioting
vandalism and rioting outside the prison
Assemblies of crowds at the Court of the King’s Bench, The King’s Bench prison

ST GEORGE’s FIELDS’ MASSACRE, 10th May

‘provide[d] the Wilkite cause with its first martyrs’
opening of Parliament, authorities assembled in the field to support magistrates at the King’s Bench prison
The Lord Mayor called on master tradesmen to keep journeymen and apprentices off the streets in view of the period of rioting
1000 in early morning, later 20 000/40 000 (unclear?)
‘Venal Judges and Ministers combine/Wilkes and english Liberty to confine.
Riot act read by Justice Gillam, who was injured by a thrown stone. guards pursue and shoot William Allen, the publican’s son in error (WHat is a publican?)
Foot soldiers ordered to shoot into the crowd, killing 5/6, injuring 15. Further deaths by shot/stabbing
Later, southwark magistrates were targeted
Riots spread to other parts of the capital, new saw mill for prosperous merchant pulled down in Limehouse

Question 47

Q

How did the government, and Wilkes, respond to the Massacre at St. George’s fields?

Answer

A

Wilkes published instructions sent by Lord Weymouth to magistrates in April instructing them to use military in case of riots

–> ‘Thus the ‘massacre’ was made to appear among the public mot merely as the mishandling of a difficult situation by a weak though well-intentioned administration, but as an affair deliberately staged by a brutal and tyrannical executive

The stronger this mood, of course, the stronger the sympathy that the public…felt for the cause and person of John Wilkes.

Question 48

Q

Wilkes’ imprisonment and the Middlesex candidacy

Answer

A

Sentenced in June 1768 for his ‘various misdemeanours’ to 22 months
lived in comfort
‘His popularity with the London ‘inferior set’ remained undiminshed, ‘
Disturbances on his bday, 28th October
After fellow MP for Middlesex died, Sir William Beauchamp Proctor had dual support of Court and Opposition, but STILL couldn’t win against Wilkite Sgt. John Glynn
More disturbances.

Question 49

Q

Wilkes elected unopposed to alderman of ward of Farringdon Without on…

Answer

A

27th Jan 1769

Question 50

Q

Society of Constitutional Info

Founded when and why?

Answer

A

20th Feb 1769

‘To maintain the legal, constitutional liberty of the subject.’
To pay of Wilkes’ debts

Question 51

Q

Wilkes’ expulsion from P.ment and what followed

Answer

A

Long decided since 22nd April 1768, by King and members
Expelled by 219 to 137 on 3rd Feb 1769

Riots in Drury Lane

He was returned, unopposed on 16th Feb, expelled 17th Feb
This repeated on March 16th, 17th
Returned March 20th

Question 52

Q

Wilkes vs Henry Luttrell

Answer

A

Chosen to seek nomination against Wilkes in Middlesex
‘it was a straight conflict between Luttrell and Wilkes - between the Court party and the rising force of radicalism
Popular unrest
Wilkes returned 1143 to 296
but LUTTRELL RETURNED BY HOC!
Popular protest against the decision in London AND OUTSIDE (at Epsom races 6th May)
Bill of Apprehensions and Grievances prepared by supporters, rejected

Question 53

Q

Wilkes’ support base

Answer

A

Urbanites more likely to vote for radical candidate than rural dwellers
‘the mainstay of Wilkite support lay not so much in the urban area as a whole - still, less, of course, in the rural districts - as in the populous commercial parishes lying to the east and north of the City
Office holders/clergy voted AGAINST Wilkes
the ‘middling sort’ tended to support the radical candidates
radical candidates had some higher level support, ‘George Byng MP, voted for Proctor against Glynn in Dec 1768 but Wilkes against Luttrel in 1769’
Wilkes did not lack the sympathy of some and the active support of others among the wealthier property owners of both rural and urban parishes’ - ‘BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY’ but NOT WILKITES

Question 54

Q

Industrial unrest around Wilkes’ Middlesex election dispute

Answer

A

were more than just weavers and coal heavers
Sailors, wages dispute spread from London to northern ports
Vandalism of Charles Dingley’s saw mill in Limehouse was not political, but was ‘an early instance of luddism’
Petitions by London’s journeymen tailors, coopers, glass-grinders, higher wages and reduced hours
‘The movement of 1768 was simply a further instalment in this long-protracted engagement’
‘The disturbances of 1768 arose essentially from a dispute over wages’
20th April 1769 (?) at the Court of the King’s Bench, ‘Wilkes and coal-heavers for ever!’
Coal heavers, weavers disputes more ‘violent’ and ‘protracted’
no evidence suggests ‘any continuous political direction - either by Wilkites or anyone else - of these complex and protracted disputes, both of which had their own particular history

Question 55

Q

Petitions to the King after Luttrell’s election

Answer

A

15 counties, 12 cities, presented petitions between May 1769 and Jan 1770.
60 000 petitioners were more than a quarter of the electorate
‘had to be organised’, not ‘spontaneous’
not necessarily Wilkite: the Rockingham Whigs wanted to petition on the sole issue of the Middlesex election, not to

Supported by the Rockingham Whigs and Supporters of the Bill of Rights

E.g. Bristol, ten grievances, signed by 2445 of 5000, inspired by London, against the decision to tax British manufactures imported into America.

Liverpool, promoted by ‘lower freemen’, against Middlesex election, signed by 1100

Question 56

Q

Who controlled the petitions of 1769?

Answer

A

‘The Rockinghamite influence was predominant in the counties (notably so in the North) and the influence of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights was more strongly felt in the cities

Evidence of support from the middling sort in commercial cities like London, Bristol, Liverpool
In Middlesex, can compare petitioners to voters in previous elections. Similar voter make up
Bristol, Hertford, Exeter, Worcester, Liverpool - no ‘marks’ indicate high literacy/education

Question 57

Q

Briefly, who supported Wilkes in 1768 and why? Rude

Answer

A

When Wilkes stood for election in the City in March 1768, he had already roused widespread sympathy among both livery and smaller tradesmen for his courageous stand over general warrants and for his continued challenge to Administration during his years of exile….he would have carried the election with a large majority had it depended on the smaller craftsmen and journeymen who hailed him in the streets and on the hustings; among the livery, too, he attracted considerable support (though not enough to secure election); but he made little impression as yet on the Common Council or Court of Aldermen

Question 58

Q

Wilkes position in the City in April 1770, just before the PC

Answer

A

‘when Wilkes returned to the City to resume his aldermanic seat in April 1770, he was assured of a considerable following both among the livery and within the Common council.’

Question 59

Q

In the case of so colourful and arresting a phenomenon as John Wilkes it is easy to be misled both as to he measure of his historical importance and to the scope of the social and political movements that sprang up in his wake

Answer

A

In the case of so colourful and arresting a phenomenon as John Wilkes it is easy to be misled both as to he measure of his historical importance and to the scope of the social and political movements that sprang up in his wake…

….TEMPTING TO PRESENT A FALSE AND EXAGGERATED PICTURE

Question 60

Q

The geographical boundaries of Wilkes’ support ?

Answer

A

STRONGLANDS

Sprung up in London and the Home Counties
London, Westminster, Middlesex, Surrey

NORTH

‘The north country as a whole remained largely untouched by the agitation associated with Wilkes or the City radicals.
Some sympathy (evidenced in gifts) whilst confined in King’s Bench prison

EAST AND WEST

No petition from Essex
Support in Lynn, Norwich
‘Wilkes and Liberty’ heard in Exeter
Substantial following in Bristol and Hereford, in supportive local news coverage, ‘Wilkes and Liberty’
‘Substantial following in Bristol, led by the Independent Society

Question 61

Q

The Life and Political Writings of John Wilkes, esq.

Answer

A

‘History can furnish no one instance of any private man being so long and so extensively the subject of public attention and discourse as Mr. Wilkes has now been for seven years.’

Question 62

Q

The social boundaries of Wilkes’ support

Answer

A

GENTRY AND CLERGY

Among the gentry, as among the clergy, Wilkes found only occasional and exceptional support
Noteable exceptions: 65 MPs who promoted/signed/presented petitions in 1679.
Difficult to term these Wilkites: men like Henry Crabb Boulton who signed against Wilkes’ incapacity, but voted for Proctor or Cooke against Wilkes or Glynn

MIDDLING SORT

‘far more solid’ support
wealthy merchants like Richard Oliver and Samuel Vaughan in London, Samuel Peach (East India Merchant) in Bristol
BUT hardcore Court of Aldermen and City’s ‘monied’ were ‘hostile’
bulk in Middlesex ‘freeholders’ with freeholds valuing 40s to £10/year
Wilkite street riots ‘overwhelmingly composed of ‘the lower orders of the people’

Question 63

Q

When did Wilkes FINALLY get his seat for Middlesex?

Answer

A

General election of 1774

Question 64

Q

L. Namier, J. Brooke, on Wilke’s election in 1774

History of P.ment

Answer

A

Still, Wilkes and his followers had won five out of the eight seats for the county of Middlesex: an extraordinary achievement for a man who seven years before had been a political outcast.

Answer 65

A

‘What prompted so many people, drawn from so wide a range of social classes, to centre their political hopes, loyalties and aspirations over so long a period on a man whose reputation was consistently blackened by those in authority, who was no orator, who offered no social panacea, whose political ideas were without originality, who never attained public office outside the City of London, and whose career within Parliament had, up to 1774, been brief, undistinguished and uneventful?

Answer 66

A

‘charm, wit, ready pen, colourful personality, consistency of his political principles, brazen defiance of authority, courage in the face of adversity
bcus of corruption, ‘small wonder’ that wilkes was favoured given he’d been targeted so much by the new administration

Answer 67

A

‘His success was partly due to chance and to the deep emotions already stirred by the ‘palace revolution’ of 1761.
accession of George III
resignation of Pitt
promotion of Lord Bute
Peace with France and Spain
Cider Acts applied to West Country in 1768,
Attempts by the Ministry in the General Election of 1768 to impose Sir James Lowther, Bute’s son in law, on the electors of Cumberland (who didn’t carry the vote)
Corruption: the work of ‘Favourites and ‘King’s Friends’’-
Enclosure/tithes
NB ‘impossible’ to say whether above two factors caused ppl in the counties to sign petitions 1769

Answer 68

A

evidence of a concordance between the movement of food prices and of certain phases of the Wilkes and Liberty movement in the metropolis
‘low and stable prices’ 1763-4
rising and erratic prices around 1768-9
House of Lords, 10th May 1768, ‘Wilkes and Liberty!’ but also ‘It was as well to be hanged as starved!’
It is surely no coincidence that the numerous industrial disputes of that year, prompted by a similar concern at the rising cost of living, should have come to a head at the same time - and thus appearing to be related to the Wilkite political movement

BUT

Next stage, (late 68, 69, early 70s) bread prices low and stable and so Middlesex Election Dec 1768, rioting March 1769 in Lindon, petitioning, CANNOT BE EXPLAINED IN SUCH TERMS

1771-3: food prices MAY HAVE CONTRIBUTED

ADDED VOLUME AND VIGOUR TO THE RIOTS AND DISTURBANCES OF 1768-1771-3.

Answer 69

A

‘we must look to a complex of political, social and economic factors, in which the underlying social changes of the age, the political crisis of 1761, the traditional devotion to ‘Revolution principles’ and Wilkes’s own astuteness, experiences and personality all played their part’

Answer 70

A

‘His re-entry into Parliament’ in dec 1774 ‘marked…by a gradual change of political allegiance and a cooling of his relations with the most loyal and vociferous of his old supporters of the days of ‘Wilkes and Liberty’’
Wilkes shot down rioters in the Gordon riots of June 1780 - the same ppl who had supported him!!

Answer 71

A

Yes but so was everyone else except George III (Burke, Pitt, Charles James Fox) - says Rude

Answer 72

A

Wilkes contribution…did not lie in the originality of his ideas, which were part and parcel of the traditional stock-in-trade of Whigs and other upholders of the Good Old Cause. He was certainly no revolutionary, either in purpose or in practice.

Answer 73

A

It was one of Wilkes’ great achievements not only to win to his cause many freeholders and freemen who had been stirred by the earlier agitation, but to harness the political energies and support of many thousands more - extending beyond London and its adjourning countries - who had previously been considered outside the ‘political nation’ and had remained untouched by parliamentary or municipal elections.

Answer 74

A

a ‘political slogan’ that was ‘something new in the nation’s political life and raises the popular movement associated with Wilkes above the level of the mere food riot.

Answer 75

A

‘The reform movements of this period have customarily been seen as the ancestor and origin of the reform movements of the early nineteenth century and thus of the Reform Act of 1832.

In the face of such an emotive, thematic interpretations, a few warnings need to be issued. Most contemporaries were in fact content with their parliamentary system and the electoral structure which underpinned it….the old electoral system…lasted as long as it did because it me[t] contemporary standards.

‘radical reform was not simply a response to an increase in population’

‘the demand for reform was not simply a product of rapid industrialisation: in the 1760s industrialisation had hardly begun’

not linked to urban activity specifically as it could be found in rural areas

Not to do with Middle Class - many in middle classes unsympathetic to reform

Answer 76

A

‘More plausible is the view that the origins of many aspects of the radical reform movement of the many 18th century had to some extent been anticipated by the Tory party, and, to a more limited extent, by the opposition Whigs, of the first half of the century.
Similarities between Tory strong boroughs (Bristol, London, Coventry, Newcastle) and boroughs that would later be identified with reform
As early as 1722, constituencies demanding from their members that they would support a triennial act
By 1750s, Tories the party of redistributed seats, abolition of rotten boroughs/redistribution to counties.

Answer 77

A

‘After the demise of the Tory Party in the earl 1760s its traditions of extra-parliamentary political action and its programme of parliamentary reform were available for any political group that wished to protest against the men and measures of the governments of George III.

Answer 78

A

It was becoming harder for the government and the political elite to restrict political debate while numerous contacts between high politics and opinion out of doors were developing. The growth of the press, the spread of coffee and tea houses and the foundation of political clubs expanded the opportunities for political debate.

Answer 79

A

‘All that was needed to mobilise discontents was a political crisis and a popular figure who could work on the materials of protest. The first was provided by the accession of George III and the ending of the Seven Years’ War; the second was furnished by the astonishing figure of John Wilkes.

Answer 80

A

WILKES
- the astonishing figure of John Wilkes.

CONTEXT
- ‘The social and economic background - post-war depression, declining trade and lower wages, rising unemployment and higher prices - did not create the Wilkite agitation, but did much to provide an audience and not a few participants.

Answer 81

A

‘Wilkes returned to England for the general election of 1768, hoping that his election to a seat would save him from a sentence of outlawry which had been passed against him. Furthermore, he hoped for better treatment from the Chatham administration than he had received at the hands of George Grenville.

Answer 82

A

‘The importance of John Wilkes is that he became not merely a national figure but the first ‘popular’ politician to create a distinctive political movement. He appealed directly to the mass of the people, not just the political nation, in a campaign which he was to sustain over many years on a succession of issues.

He masterfully worked upon some of the principal elements in popular culture, appealing to popular traditions of self-expression and of resistance to power, identifying himself with English liberties and English rights.

Answer 83

A

’ There was little that was particularly modern or progressive about John Wilkes. He was no orator, no thinker - not even a competent administrator.

‘He kept his informers constantly informed, tailoring his material…to vastly different audiences, geographical and social.’ - 40 000 handbills for electorate of 4000

use of his personal experiences as triggers for huge exhibitions of popular enthusiasm….The Wikites exploited the popular love of display by distributing cockades, ribbons and colours, Wilkite consumables - ‘a commercialisation of polities’

Answer 84

A

’ Wilkes Career was a succession of crises..,of instances of victimisation at the hands of governments, sometimes goaded beyond endurance by Wilkes himself. He could thus present himself as the champion of the people and as a martyr for liberty.

Answer 85

A

London

Portsmouth, Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne
west Midlands, the West Riding of Yorkshire
market towns and cathedral cities like Worcester and King’s Lynn

Answer 86

A

‘it is not strictly accurate to regard the Wilkes phenomena as a ‘radical’ movement. Wilkes himself had no political programme. The movement that takes his name was mobilised in order to support and protext him in his disputes with successive governments; it was not intended either to profess or prosecute a programme of reform.

Reform only rlly issue in 1769..here ‘moving beyond the boundaries of a protest movement’

BUT ‘robust ideological foundations’

Attack on Bute/the Scots poised him as ‘the Guardian of English civil liberties’

Answer 87

A

general warrants declared illegal 1865
Printers case
Wilkes in p.ment by 1774
Middlesex election resolutions expunged in 1782
‘politicising effect of the Wilkite phenomenon’
stimulated sharp criticisms of the gvt from 1760s onwards
large numbers of people were drawn into national/local politics, ‘many for the first time’

Answer 88

A

John Wilkes, unlike his rivals in the Constitutional Association, was uninterested in perpetuating the political organisations which he created once they had served his immediate purposes…

Answer 89

A

‘In the end the movement ran out of steam when the man who was essential to it lost interest, when serious divisions weakened its momentum and when events overtook it.’

Answer 90

A

‘Wilkes conceived of the Society in personal terms. Its sole functions were the payment of his debts and the redress of specific grievances relating to his career.’

Answer 91

A

‘Wilkes for the most part treated the House of Commons simply as a platform from which to propound those views on ‘liberty’ that maintained his popularity.
Radical ideas (Death of Charles I should be marked as ‘feast’ not ‘fast’, shorter p.mentary terms

What did he do?

got declaration of Feb 69 expelling him from p.ment rescinded
‘the freedom of election is the common right of the people’
21st March 1776, motion for ‘more equal representation of the people’ - 254 MPs could be elected by only 5000 voters!
put forward ‘general ideas’ - all to be represented in P.ment (such as boroughs with more ppl should receive greater share of representation.
abolish votes attached to property

IMPORTANT ‘It could never be said of Wilkes that he lacked political pernacity; but even he saw no purpose then in further advocacy of electoral reform, and he took little part in the reform campaigns of the next decade’

Answer 92

A

‘[His speeches] were all prepared, before they were delivered; and Wilkes made no secret of declaring, that in order to secure their accurate transmission to the public, he always sent a copy of them to William Woodfall, before he pronounced them.

Answer 93

A

However, the crucial support of the middle classes was not conjured by John Wilkes overnight: it was arising from within the societies, or ‘clubs’ and the wave of consumerism developing throughout the century. By 1768, 291 British masonic lodges had been founded, of which 87 were in London and 61 were abroad and in the military. Pre-existing and new societies became affiliated to the Wilkes campaign, such as; The Forty-Five Society, Retribution Club, Liberty and Beefsteak Club and the Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights. Clubs provided a formal and physical place to meet like-minded people, organise and foster a common political identity. The right to vote was not necessary, just the cost of subscription and membership: this would become the dangerous power of the later London Correspondence Society in 1792. Unlike alehouses, these societies could mobilise funds not only demonstrate their support, but consistently prove their role in the ‘infra-politics of urban life’. Voluntary associations presented the middle classes with a ‘cultural choice’ of membership to a common political culture. v

Brewer and Rogers

Answer 94

A

Obituary: ‘A patriot in the truest sense of the word, his exertions and intrepidity added legal security to the liberties of Englishmen…with all his faults, Wilkes possessed something more than the vapour of patriotism
Hostility from Whig Historians
Lord John russey; ‘a profligate spendthrift without opinions or principles’
Lord Macaulay: Wilkes was a nobody

Answer 95

A

‘reluctance to accept that such a man, notorious as a womaniser and a blasphemer, and with a cynical sense of humour, could possibly have possessed political principles.’
‘Wilkes has too often been judged by standards not applied to such of his contemporaries as Charles James Fox, whose range of deplorable habits was far wider’ - but ‘vices are weighed, not counted’
His alleged lack of political principle, supposedly implied by this personal immorality, was seemingly confirmed by both his tongue-in-cheek humour and his instantaneous 1782 conversion from an opponent into a supporter of government

Answer 96

A

(on speech about Middlesex 22nd Feb 1775) ‘Though he called the resolutions of the last Parliament a violation of Magna Carta, he said, in a whisper to Lord North, he was forced to say so to please the fellows who followed him.’

Answer 97

A

’ ‘How changed are the notes you now sing’

Answer 98

A

After Wilkes the Georgian political world was never to be the same again. His career widened the political dimension beyond the closed world of Wesminster.
Wilkes was swimming with the political tide, and the ‘fourth estate’ was henceforth a factor in politics, but these circumstances do not explain how one man had so successfully confronted the power of government. Sheer audacity was part of the answer. The legality of general warrants had been a matter of some doubt before 1763; but it took John Wilkes, backed by the purse of Lord Temple, to challenge their validity.

Wilkes had ‘tactical skill’ and outmanouvered the gvt.

In the early decades of George III’s reign advocacy of any change in the much-revered constitution was a daring innovation.

Answer 99

A

‘Detailed assessments establish that John Wilkes was a genuine Radical as well as an undoubted rascal.’

Answer 100

A

The war was succeeded by a serious economic slump which clearly demonstrated the uneven distribution of economic rewards in the age of enterprise. The period was marked by a series of violent industrial disputes which created unrest in urban centres such as Manchester and Newcastle,….

In this atmosphere the activities of John Wilkes found ample support

Answer 101

A

Wilkes’s historical reputation as an amiable rogue has, to some extent, obscured his political shrewdness and inventiveness.

Answer 102

A

The middle class, the crucial element in their campaign, had no unified politics

their part in the Wilkesite movement unmistakably signalled their importance in the politics of George III’s reign.

Answer 103

A

The old Whigs, by their readiness to use any weapon of revenge against George III, did much to legitimize the new spirit of popular opposition to the court. Without this collaboration from highly respectable elements in the ruling class, the popular convulsions associated with Wilkes would have been of less consequence.

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