Cambridge Intelligencer Explained

Cambridge Intelligencer
Type:Weekly newspaper
Editor:Benjamin Flower
Foundation:1793
Ceased Publication:1803

The Cambridge Intelligencer was an English weekly newspaper, appearing from 1793 to 1803, and edited by Benjamin Flower. The historian J. E. Cookson called it "the most vigorous and outspoken liberal periodical of its day".[1]

Flower suffered imprisonment for contempt of the House of Lords, for remarks made in the Intelligencer against Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff. His case followed that of Gilbert Wakefield, followed a different procedure, and had a temporary chilling effect on radical publishing at the end of the 18th century.[2]

Editorial policy

The Intelligencer first appeared on 20 July 1793, and from the start opposed the French Revolutionary Wars.[3] [4] It was one of a number of provincial journals opposed to the administration of William Pitt the Younger; and managed to sustain its editorial independence.[5] It opposed the Anglo-Irish Union.[6]

The Intelligencer was considered to represent the standpoint of rational dissent, and was called "the most infamous paper that ever disgraced the press", by the Anti-Jacobin.[7] By 1796 James Montgomery was asking the editor acting for him not to reprint material from the Intelligencer.[8] Flower was able to continue editorial work while confined to Newgate Prison in 1799, lodging with the gaol keeper John Kirby.[9]

The paper ran editorials, an innovation associated with the radical press of this period. Flower was anticipated in this development, which had been in use for a few years in the Sheffield Register of Joseph Gales, the Derby Mercury of William Ward, and Montgomery's Sheffield Iris.[10]

Advertisements

The advertising content of the Intelligencer was light,[11] but included promotions related to Stourbridge Fair.[12] The publisher Martha Gurney advertised the trial transcripts of her brother Joseph.[13] A work of Thomas Oldfield on electoral boroughs was given space by Flower.[14] James Lackington advertised his second-hand book emporium.[15]

Circulation

The Intelligencer functioned for a time more like a national newspaper, with circulation handled by representatives in Carmarthen, Dartmouth, Glasgow and York.[16] The copies sold rose at times to more than 2000, when a typical provincial newspaper would expect several hundreds.[11] There was distribution during 1795–7 in Leeds, for example, by Thomas Langdon.[17]

Initially the paper cost 3d, but a change in the newspaper tax in 1797 brought the price up to 6d.; and the circulation dropped, on the paper's own figures, from about 2,700 to the region of 1,800.[4] [18] In 1798 the paper still claimed it could be bought in 45 market towns.[19] There was a significant market in Scotland.[20]

Contributors

The first issue started publishing her Sins of Government.[21]

Others who contributed or who were quoted in the Intelligencer included: George Dyer, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Christopher Wyvill.[31] Parliamentary reports were typically based on the Morning Herald.[32] There was much verse, and the publication has been seen as a place where "few poets can refuse themselves the luxury of extended moral comment or political instruction".[33]

Influence

The Leeds Mercury of Edward Baines, and then the Manchester Guardian founded by John Edward Taylor, carried on the reformist line of the Intelligencer.[34] Flower's model for a radical paper was tried again in Cambridge for a few years around 1820, by Weston Hatfield in his Cambridge and Hertford Independent Press. He had support from, among others, George Pryme.[35]

References

Notes and References

  1. Book: J. E. Cookson. The Friends of Peace: Anti-war Liberalism in England, 1793-1815. January 1982. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-23928-8. 97.
  2. Emsley . Clive . Repression, 'Terror' and the Rule of Law in England during the Decade of the French Revolution . The English Historical Review . 1985 . 100 . 397 . 801–825 . 10.1093/ehr/C.CCCXCVII.801 . 572566 .
  3. Murphy . M. J. . Newspapers and opinion in Cambridge, 1780-1850 . Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society . 1972 . 6 . 1 . 35–55 . 41154513 .
  4. Book: Michael Scrivener. Poetry and Reform. c. 1992. Wayne State University Press. 978-0-8143-2378-6. 53.
  5. Book: John Ehrman . John Ehrman . The Younger Pitt: The consuming struggle. 3. 1996. Constable London. 978-0-09-478170-2 . 114 and 313.
  6. Jupp . Peter . Britain and the Union, 1797-1801 . Transactions of the Royal Historical Society . 2000 . 10 . 197–219 . 10.1017/S0080440100000104 . 3679379 . 162509395 .
  7. Book: English Dissent. CUP Archive. 37. GGKEY:UGD38TZ8G4J.
  8. Book: Kenneth R. Johnston. Unusual Suspects: Pitt's Reign of Alarm and the Lost Generation of the 1790s. 25 July 2013. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-965780-3. 74.
  9. Whelan, p. 55 note 2.
  10. Whelan, p. xxiii note 26.
  11. Whelan, p. xxxiii.
  12. Book: Honor Ridout. Cambridge and Stourbridge Fair. 2011. Blue Ocean Publishing Ltd. 978-1-907527-01-2. 6.
  13. Whelan, p. xxxiv note 50.
  14. Whelan, p. 4 note 8.
  15. Whelan, p. 224 note 11.
  16. Book: J. R. Oldfield. Transatlantic Abolitionism in the Age of Revolution. 8 August 2013. Cambridge University Press. 978-1-107-03076-3. 130.
  17. Book: Timothy D. Whelan. Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845. 2009. Mercer University Press. 978-0-88146-144-2. 415.
  18. Book: Michael Scrivener. Poetry and Reform. c. 1992. Wayne State University Press. 978-0-8143-2378-6. 21.
  19. Book: Mark Philp. The French Revolution and British Popular Politics. 12 February 2004. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-89093-9. 204 note 49.
  20. Harris . Bob . Scotland's Newspapers, the French Revolution and Domestic Radicalism (c.1789-1794) . The Scottish Historical Review . 2005 . 84 . 217 . 38–62 . 10.3366/shr.2005.84.1.38 . 25529820 .
  21. Book: William McCarthy. Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment. 23 December 2008. JHU Press. 978-0-8018-9016-1. 340.
  22. Semmel . Stuart . British Radicals and 'Legitimacy': Napoleon in the Mirror of History . Past & Present . 2000 . 167 . 140–175 . 10.1093/past/167.1.140 . 651256 .
  23. Book: Morton D. Paley. Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry. registration. 7 October 1999. Clarendon Press. 978-0-19-158468-8. 141.
  24. Book: Asa Briggs. The Collected Essays of Asa Briggs: Images, Problems, Standpoints and Forecasts. 1 February 1988. University of Illinois Press. 978-0-252-06005-2. 36.
  25. Book: Cathy Hartley. A Historical Dictionary of British Women. 15 April 2013. Routledge. 978-1-135-35534-0. 391.
  26. Whelan, p. 1.
  27. Book: John Issitt. Jeremiah Joyce: Radical, Dissenter and Writer. 1 January 2006. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. 978-0-7546-3800-1. 109.
  28. Book: Peter H. Marshall . William Godwin. registration . 1984. Yale University Press. 978-0300031751. 214.
  29. Book: Michael Scrivener. Poetry and Reform. c. 1992. Wayne State University Press. 978-0814323786. 54–5.
  30. Taylor, William (1765-1836). 55.
  31. Book: English Dissent. CUP Archive. 57. GGKEY:UGD38TZ8G4J.
  32. Wahrman . Dror . Virtual Representation: Parliamentary Reporting and Languages of Class in the 1790s . Past & Present . 1992 . 136 . 83–113 . 10.1093/past/136.1.83 . 650902 .
  33. Jarvis . Simon . Wordsworth and Idolatry . Studies in Romanticism . 1999 . 38 . 1 . 3–27 . 10.2307/25601370 . 25601370 .
  34. Whelan, xxxix, note 56.
  35. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/cambridge historyofparliamentonline.org, Cambridge, 1820–1832.

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