Collection : 1787-1788, 1792.

William Cobbett was born in 1762 in Farnham, Surrey, England and was known for his military and publishing careers, both as a author, usually of satirical material, journalist, and editor. 

Cobbett worked as a lawyer’s clerk in London in 1783 before enlisting in the 54th Regiment of Foot at Chatham in 1784 and by 1785 he had been promoted to the rank of Corporal and was sent to the Maritimes in what was to become Canada to serve. The 54th (West Norfolk) Regiment of Foot was Infantry regiment of the British Army that was originally raised in 1755 and served in North America during the American Revolution. Some members of the 54^th members settled in New Brunswick.

Cobbett was briefly stationed in Halifax then Windsor, Nova Scotia before going on to Fort Howe at Saint John and then in 1787 to Fredericton. Cobbett’s later Federalist views and his criticism of the American Revolution can be linked to his association with New Brunswick Loyalists.

Within two years of arriving in New Brunswick, he rose to the rank of Sergeant-Major and instructed officers and soldiers in the “Dundas system” of standardized military drill and tactics. He supervised the building of the large stone barrack in Fredericton and ghost wrote a Royal Commission report on New Brunswick and likely helped suppress riots at the Mallard House in Saint John in 1785. His other study interests included English grammar and geometry, and he wrote a number of textbooks.

Upon returning to England in 1791, Cobbett received an honourable discharge from the military. His time in the Army launched Cobbett on a lifelong career as critic of the establishment, the class system, and corruption. He claimed that many of the officers in New Brunswick were drunk, incompetent, and venal, and brought charges of corruption against his former officers. Although the attempt was unsuccessful, it formed the basis for his first published work, The Soldier’s Friend of, Considerations on the Late Pretended Augmentation of the Subsistence of the Private Soldiers in 1792. 

In 1792, he also married Anne Reid, daughter of a sergeant that had been at Fort Howe, in Woolwich, London and they later had seven children. Fearing retaliation from his criticisms, Cobbett fled to France that same year, then to Philadelphia, where he established a reputation as an outspoken anti-Jacobin and anti-Jefferson journalist, writing Observations on the Emigration of Dr. Joseph Priestley (1795) and published a daily newspaper, the Porcupine’s Gazette. He returned to England in 1800.

In 1802 he founded Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, a publication he edited until his death. From 1810 until 1812 he was imprisoned at Newgate for libeling the government; from 1817 until 1819 he resided in the United States. In 1830 he published his best-known book, Rural Rides, a description of the English countryside in the early 19th century. Other publications Cottage Economy (1821) and The Woodlands (1825) which were based on his experiences in New Brunswick. He was also known as a gardener and agriculturist. From 1832 until his death, he was Member of Parliament for Oldham dying at in Ash, Surrey in 1835.