John Wilkes (17 October 1725
– 26 December 1797) was an English
radical, journalist and politician.
He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1757.
In the Middlesex
election dispute, he fought for the right of
voters—rather than the House of Commons
—to determine their representatives. In 1771
he was instrumental in obliging the government to concede the right
of printers to publish
verbatim accounts of parliamentary
debates. In 1776 he introduced the first Bill for parliamentary
reform in the
British
Parliament.
Wilkes' increasing conservatism as he grew older caused
dissatisfaction among radicals and was instrumental in the loss of
his Middlesex seat at the
1790 general election. At the
age of 65, Wilkes retired from politics and took no part in the
growth of radicalism in the 1790s.
Early life and character
Born in
Clerkenwell
in London
, Wilkes was
the second son of the distiller Israel Wilkes and his wife, who had
six children. John Wilkes was educated initially at an
academy in Hertford
; this was
followed by private tutoring and finally a stint at the University of Leiden in the Dutch Republic. There he met
Andrew Baxter, a
Presbyterian clergyman who greatly influenced
Wilkes' views on religion. Although Wilkes would remain in the
Church of England for the rest of
his life, he had a deep sympathy for non-comformist Protestants,
and was an advocate of religious tolerance from an early age.
Wilkes was also beginning to develop a deep
patriotism for his country. During the
Jacobite rebellion of 1745 he rushed home
to London to join a Loyal Association - and readied to defend the
capital.
Once the rebellion had ended after the
Battle of
Culloden
, Wilkes returned to the Netherlands to complete his
studies.
Marriage and family
In 1747 he married Mary Meade and came into possession of an estate
and income in
Buckinghamshire. They
had one child Polly, to whom John was utterly devoted for the rest
of his life. Wilkes and Mary, however, separated in 1756, a
separation that became permanent. Wilkes never married again, but
he gained a reputation as a rake. He was known to have fathered at
least five other children.
He was a member of the Knights of St. Francis of Wycombe, also
known as the
Hellfire Club or the
Medmenham Monks, and was the instigator of a prank that
may have hastened its dissolution. The Club had many distinguished
members, including
the Earl of Sandwich and
Sir Francis Dashwood. Wilkes
reportedly brought a
baboon dressed in a cape
and horns into the rituals performed at the club, producing
considerable mayhem among the inebriated initiates.
Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in
England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and
protruding jaw, but had a charm that carried all before it. He
boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face",
though the duration required changed on the several occasions
Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start
of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest
in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to
insults. For instance, when told by a
constituent that he would rather vote for the
devil, Wilkes responded: "Naturally." He then added: "And if your
friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?"
The exchange between John Wilkes and
John Montagu, 4th Earl of
Sandwich ("Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the
gallows or of the pox." "That depends, my lord, on whether I
embrace your lordship's principles or your mistress.") is also
attributed to
Samuel Foote; the same
story was told of
Mirabeau, answering
Cardinal Maury, during the French
Revolution.
Radical journalism
Wilkes was at first a follower of
William Pitt the Elder and
was an enthusiastic supporter of
Britain's involvement in
the Seven Years War. When the Scottish
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute,
came to head the government in 1762, Wilkes started a
radical weekly publication,
The North Briton, to
attack him, using an anti-Scots tone.
Typical of Wilkes, the
title was a satirical take on the Earl's newspaper, The Briton, with North Briton
referring to Scotland
. He
was particularly incensed by what he regarded as Bute's betrayal in
agreeing to overly generous peace terms with France to end the
war.
Wilkes was charged with
seditious
libel over attacks on
George III's speech
endorsing the
Paris Peace
Treaty of 1763 at the opening of Parliament on
23 April 1763. Wilkes was highly critical of the
king's speech, which was recognized as having been written by Bute.
He attacked it in an article of issue 45 of
The North
Briton. The issue number in which Wilkes published his
critical editorial was appropriate because the number 45 was
synonymous with the
Jacobite uprising of
1745, commonly known as "The '45". Bute, Scottish and
politically controversial as an adviser to the King, was associated
popularly with Jacobitism, a perception which Wilkes played
on.
The King felt personally insulted and ordered
general warrants to be issued for the arrest
of Wilkes and the publishers on
30 April
1763. Forty-nine people, including Wilkes, were arrested under the
warrants. Wilkes, however, gained considerable popular support as
he asserted the unconstitutionality of general warrants. He was
soon restored to his seat, as he cited
parliamentary privilege for his
editorial. Wilkes sued his arresters for trespass. As a result of
this episode, people were chanting, "Wilkes, Liberty and Number
45", referring to the newspaper.
Bute resigned not long afterwards, but Wilkes was equally opposed
to his successor,
George
Grenville.
Outlaw
Wilkes and
Thomas
Potter wrote a pornographic poem entitled "
An Essay on Woman".
Wilkes's political
enemies obtained this parody of Alexander
Pope's "An Essay on Man", and
the John Montagu, 4th
Earl of Sandwich, who was also a member of the Hellfire Club, among those introducing it in
the House of
Lords
. Sandwich had a personal
vendetta against Wilkes that stemmed in large part from
embarrassment caused by a prank of Wilkes involving the Earl at one
of the Hellfire Club's meetings; he was delighted at the chance for
revenge. Sandwich read the poem to the House of Lords in an effort
to denounce Wilkes's moral behavior, despite the hypocrisy of his
action. The Lords declared the poem obscene and blasphemous, and it
caused a great scandal.
The House of Lords moved to expel Wilkes
again; he fled to Paris
before any
expulsion or trial. He was tried and found guilty
in
absentia of obscene
libel and seditious
libel, and was declared an
outlaw on 19
January 1764.
Wilkes hoped for a change in power to remove the charges, but this
did not come to pass. As his French creditors began to pressure
him, in 1768 he had little choice but to return to England. He
returned intending to stand as a
Member of Parliament on an
anti-government ticket; the government did not issue warrants for
his immediate arrest as it did not want to inflame popular
support.
Wilkes stood in London and came in bottom of the poll of seven
candidates, possibly due to his late entry into the race for the
position. He was quickly elected MP for
Middlesex, where most
of his support was located. He surrendered to the
King's Bench in April. On waiving his
parliamentary privilege to immunity,
he was sentenced to two years and fined £1,000. The charge of
outlawry was overturned.
When
Wilkes was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison
on 10 May 1768, his
supporters appeared before King's
Bench, London, chanting
"No justice, no peace." Troops opened fire on the unarmed
men, killing seven and wounding 15.
Middlesex election dispute
Wilkes was expelled from Parliament in February 1769, on the
grounds that he was an outlaw when he was returned. He was
re-elected by his Middlesex constituents in the same month, only to
be expelled and re-elected in March. In April, after his expulsion
and another re-election, Parliament declared his opponent,
Henry Luttrell, to be
the winner.
In defiance Wilkes was elected an
alderman
of London in 1769, using his supporters' group, the
Society for the
Supporters of the Bill of Rights, for his campaign. Wilkes
eventually succeeded in convincing Parliament to expunge the
resolution barring him from sitting. While in parliament, he
condemned the government's policy towards the American colonies
during the
American
Revolution. In addition, he introduced one of the earliest
radical Bills to parliament, although it failed to gain
passage.
Later life
On his release from prison in March 1770, Wilkes was appointed a
sheriff in London. In
1774 he became
Lord
Mayor; he was simultaneously Master of the
Joiners' Company, where he changed the
motto to "Join Loyalty and Liberty". That year Wilkes was
re-elected to Parliament, representing Middlesex. He was one of
those opposed to war with the American colonies. He was also a
supporter of the
Association
Movement and of
religious
tolerance. His key success was to protect the
freedom of the press by gaining passage
of a bill to remove the power of
general
warrants and to end Parliament's ability to punish political
reports of debates.
After 1780, his popularity declined as was popularly perceived as
less radical.
During the uprising known as the Gordon Riots, Wilkes was in charge of the
soldiers defending the Bank of England
from the attacking mobs. It was under his
orders that troops fired into the crowds of rioters. The working
classes who had previously seen Wilkes as a "man of the people",
then criticized him as a hypocrite; his middle class support was
scared off by the violent action. The Gordon Riots nearly
extinguished his popularity.
While he was returned for the county seat of Middlesex in 1784, he
found so little support that by 1790, he withdrew early in the
election. The
French Revolution of
1789 had proved extremely divisive in England, and Wilkes had been
against it due to the violent murders in France. His position was
different from that of many radicals of the time and was a view
more associated with conservative figures such as
Edmund Burke.
Wilkes worked in his final years as a magistrate campaigning for
more moderate punishment for disobedient household servants.
Influence
The Dutch politician
Joan van der Capellen tot den
Pol (1741–1784), who advocated the
American Revolution and criticized the
Stadtholder regime, was inspired by Wilkes.
British subjects in the American colonies closely followed Wilkes's
career. His struggles convinced many colonists that the British
constitution was being subverted by a corrupt ministry, an idea
that contributed to the coming of the
American Revolution. In reaction, after
the Revolution, representatives included provisions in the new
American constitution to
prevent Congress from rejecting any legally elected member and to
proscribe general warrants for arrest.
John Wilkes's brother was the grandfather of U.S. Naval Admiral
Charles Wilkes.
Eponyms
- The
city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
was named for John Wilkes and Isaac Barré.
- Wilkes University
, a four-year, independent, non-sectarian college in
Wilkes-Barre is named for John Wilkes.
- Wilkes County, Georgia
and Wilkes County, North Carolina
were named in his honor.
- Wilkes Street in Alexandria,
Virginia
, USA, is named for John Wilkes.
- Fox & Wilkes Books, the publishing arm of Laissez Faire Books, is named for John
Wilkes.
- American actor and assassin John
Wilkes Booth, a distant relative, was named after John
Wilkes.
References
- Cash p.13-16
- Cash p.9
- Yale Book of Quotations, p. 281-2 doubts; but it is
ascribed to Wilkes by Henry Brougham, Lord
Brougham and Vaux in 1840 (Historical Sketches, third
series), who claims to have heard it from an ear-witness, and by
Charles
Marsh (Clubs of London) in 1828.
- http://www.joinersandceilers.co.uk/
Bibliography
- P. D. G. Thomas. John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty
(1996).
- Holdsworth, William (1938). A History of English Law
Vol. 10, pp. 659–672, ISBN 0-421-05100-0.
- Rudé, George (1962). Wilkes and Liberty: A Social Study of
1763 to 1774, ISBN 0-19-881091-1.
- Williamson, Audrey (1974). Wilkes, A Friend of
Liberty, ISBN 0-04-923064-6.
- Cash, Arthur (2006). John
Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty, ISBN
0-300-10871-0.
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