Land Essays 3 Index Essays and Research Index TLIO Homepage

The Land Is Ours

a landrights campaign for Britain

I don't want to be accused of overdoing an analogy (heaven forbid!), so I won't mention revolution abroad, or the tragedies and indiscretions of the Royal Family. What I really want to do is drum up some interest in the life and works of William Cobbett.

I recently saw a small publication which, à propos his book, 'Rural Rides', described William Cobbett as 'an early travel writer'. Possibly, this is a popular conception, but, in truth, if 'Rural Rides' can be described as a travel book, then so can 'The Road to Wigan Pier' (a book which 'Rural Rides' in many ways resembles). Cobbett was many things, but he could scarcely be called a travel writer.

But William Cobbett was (at various times in his life) a reactionary, a radical, a royalist, a republican (very nearly), a soldier, a farmer, a bookseller, a publisher, a pamphleteer, a politician, and a prisoner. So, too many convictions to have any at all? Not a bit. I believe he was a great man for at least four reasons:

1. He modified his views with experience. Cobbett gives every impression, in his writing, of believing what he believed with every last fragment of his soul. And, no doubt he did. But if he discovered that a particular belief was misfounded, then he changed it; the mark of an honest and open mind. He didn't faff around like any average politico who can never admit to being wrong. He changed, and he owned up to it.

2. His major philosophical change was to start as a reactionary, and end up as a radical, and not the other way round. He started as a royalist (he was living in America at the time ­ which happened to be shortly after that country became an independent republic ­ and so made himself many enemies), yet ended as a great admirer of Tom Paine (and mislayer of Paine's mortal remains, but that's another story). Interestingly, he was fêted by the British government while a young man, on account of his writings against the US republic; later, the same government threw him into gaol for sedition.

3. He was the great champion of the rural poor, despite being himself a land-owner and farmer (in between bouts of poverty brought on by imprisonment and his commitment to publishing his cheap political pamphlets). His own fondest memories were of the time he spent at the plough­tail as a teenage boy, and, even when he had made enough money to buy his own land, he still identified most of all with the farm labourer. Cobbett witnessed the early 'yuppification' of farmers, as they aimed to emulate the landed classes with their smart sitting rooms and fine manners (watching 'Pride & Prejudice' is a different experience when you realise that every one of those amusing and sympathetic characters is riding on the back of an increasingly downtrodden rural poor. So sod D'arcy). He felt that the farmer should work and eat alongside his workers, the only acceptable difference being that the farmer might have a cup of strong ale where his labourers had none, or only small beer. According to Cobbett, every worker had the right to expect sufficient of bread, bacon, and beer, which he believed the ideal diet, and which by and large, was all he consumed himself.

4. He wrote the first guide to a self-sufficient lifestyle, which you can still buy, and which is called 'Cottage Economy'. Cobbett strongly believed that every labourer should have access to a bit of land, so that they were not wholly dependent on their employer (or the Poor Rates, which started as payments to the destitute, and ended as 'workfare': out of work labourers were forced to break stones for road-building in return for the small parish hand-out. Cobbett noticed that - surprise, surprise - the most destitute labourers were found amongst the richest farmland).

William Cobbett is still sometimes described as a romantic. A common criticism is that he yearned after a lost (and non-existent) golden age of agriculture when everyone enjoyed the fruits of their own labour. It is a charge that is also levelled at the green movement, and it is unsustainable in both cases. Cobbett actually saw himself as an agricultural innovator. He imported a number of apple varieties from the United States, and introduced maize to Britain as a human foodstuff (with his usual modesty, he always refers to maize as 'Cobbett's Corn'). He was keen to experiment with new techniques. But he disdained mechanisation - threshers and horse-powered machinery - which put people out of work, and he was appalled by the increase in inequality which he saw during his lifetime. In 'Cottage Economy' he writes, 'To live well, to enjoy all things that make life pleasant, is t he right of every man who constantly uses his strength judiciously and lawfully. It is to blaspheme God to suppose that he created men to be miserable, to hunger, to thirst, and perish with cold, in the midst of that abundance which is the fruit of their own labour.'

Oh, and Cobbett was despised by that murderer, right-wing nasty, and national hero, the Duke of Wellington. What higher recommendation can there be?

• 'Rural Rides' (Penguin Classics),
• 'Cottage Economy' (OUP),
• 'The Autobiography of William Cobbett, (ed. William Reitzel; unfortunately out of print),
• 'William Cobbett and Rural Popular Culture'.

He changed, and he owned up to it.

@nticopyright
These pages maintained by TLIO's Webslaves...
Contact us at www@tlio.demon.co.uk with any problems or suggestions concerning this website.