William Cobbett's Rural Rides - Seminar Notes

William Cobbett was born in 1763 in a rural area of Surrey. He spent 15 years in the army however his discovery that a senior officer was stealing army funds led to him being branded a trouble maker and he subsequently moved to France. On returning to England Cobbett started a Conservative newspaper ‘The Political Register’ in 1802 however he gradually began calling for more political reform and swayed towards the more radical movement. Cobbett’s views led to him spending two years in prison and he caused great opinion amongst the rich which we see in Rural Rides in regards to the many people who he lists as speaking unfavourably of him.

Rural Rides has a somewhat typically English start by mentioning the weather in the opening sentence ‘I set off, in rather a drizzling rain’.

Cobbett set out to experience the countryside particularly farming areas – this could be as the industrial revolution was beginning and as a result farms and the country were perhaps becoming forgotten or deprioritised.

He is critical of those who are living of government hand outs under the poor laws of the time saying they have ‘every appearance of drinking gin’ and he may be suggesting that many of them are doing themselves no favours to improve their situation.

He mentions how at the Horse Fair cart colts are selling for less than a third of what they were 9 years before – I think that this could again show that perhaps the old methods of farming are beginning to be phased out and made redundant as machines became more prominent.

The Mr. Fox affair which Cobbett describes is critical of those in power, particularly Fox and implies that there was much greed and corruption amongst land owners which was unfair on the general public. Cobbett firmly outlines this in saying ‘such are the facts’ before inviting us to draw our own conclusion – something of a rhetorical question.

Cobbett calls for more political courage from landowners and politicians – he believes that many of them prevent reform and improvement by dismissing every new idea or reformer as ‘Jacobin’.

He blames lack of reform for ‘loan jobbers’, ‘stock jobbers’ and Jews gaining estates – Cobbett himself was anti-sematic. 

Upon entering Chilworth Cobbett describes excellent farming conditions and the potential value of goods at market with great detail. As he was from a rural area himself and worked as a farm labourer as a young man he clearly has great nostalgia about the countryside – it could perhaps be suggested that ‘blind nostalgia’ is his main motive behind his criticisms of industrialisation. The embodiment of this nostalgia could be seen in his great love and admiration of the English oak tree.

Cobbett describes the public as the ‘generous landlord’ and implies that the rich themselves are not generous – that is why they remain rich. He calls for a reformed parliament in  order to manage the public’s affairs better, though he seems to have little faith that this will happen as the ‘snug corporations’ and rich tenants tend to be the politicians as well and therefore it is in their interests to keep the poor, poor.

Upon entering Winchester Cobbett says that amongst labouring people the first thing to look for is honesty. This however, is something that cannot be expected of them unless their bellys are full and they are free from fear – this must come however from them earning wages and not from government hand outs. Cobbett again calls for the powerful to use their influence to prevent wage diminution of labourers – to be politically brave and call for reform.

In Winchester Cobbett has a dinner meeting with some of the local farmers. He says that the wealth of the church – and the wealth it bestows upon its ministers, in addition to the relief the government gives to the poor clergy despite the churches wealth is a clear example of why the current system must be reformed and changed.

Cobbett calls on the middle classes to aid the poor in taking the lead in demanding parliamentary reform.

Cobbett is also critical of the new barracks and houses that sprang up on his travels. He felt that they were not created out of a desire to help the poor and were not paid for by money – but created by labour – and the labourers were not appropriately rewarded for their efforts.

Cobbett describes the kindness that he is shown in Reading in particular and I think that this may well show that there is a certain union among the people in that they agree with many of his beliefs. This kindness is given despite the government and land owners determination to keep Cobbett out of parliament and to keep him down and this was something that seemed to spur Cobbett on throughout his travels.

Cobbett has clear dislike of taxes and this is shown when he hires a man to guide him from Hampshire into Surrey ensuring that he avoided the turnpike at Hindhead – as to use this he would have been taxed. However, the guide got lost and Cobbett ended up having to pay the tax – though he refused to pay the guide – showing again that he had a disregard for charity and felt that wages should be earnt.

Cobbett was also clearly opposed to those in beaurocratic jobs – who he calls tax eaters. This is something that is perhaps still relevant today – with many local councils and civil servants losing or having their jobs readjusted in the government cuts.

Cobbetts criticism of the Corn Laws which came in in 1815 are clear throughout the book. He seemed to suggest that this created farmers who became gentleman and as a result their workers became more like slaves. The initiative to ‘Buy British’ that the Corn Laws created meant that there was overproduction of goods in some years, despite the expanding population – as a result of this prices of crops were forced down and therefore farmers made less money than before – Cobbett is critical of this as it widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

Cobbett outlines his belief that the old system was better than the new, industrialisation whilst journeying towards Bath, when he says that ‘any man of sense feels our inferiority to his fathers’. I feel that in this aspect Cobbett is somewhat short sighted with regards to industrialisation. He appears to not see it as beneficial in any way and with hindsight I would argue that it brought many great inventions and even wealth to the British Empire – though Cobbett’s calls for this wealth to be more evenly and fairly distributed given the poverty many endured during this time is of course a very valid point.

In Tutbury Cobbett describes meeting a man who asks if he has seen a poor old man – as he is wanted for stealing cabbages from a landowners’ garden. Cobbett’s anger that this poor old man is wanted for this shows consistency with his earlier sentiment that you cannot expect a poor man to be honest if he is starving. This is an example of the consistency of opinion that Cobbett shows throughout Rural Rides and I think that to his credit he shows little or no hypocrisy of opinion throughout the book.

Cobbett shows a great sympathy and respect towards the Irish. He criticises those who are against Irish immigrants as he believes that they are a people willing to work. He instead describes the Scotch as ‘tax eaters’ (perhaps in retaliation to those whose call him a Jacobin).

Cobbett finishes his travel guide by praising the benefits of sobriety, early rising and firm resolution – something that he claims to have shown throughout his trip. This is effectively a summary of his belief in a hard-working, agricultural Britain, where such efforts and labours are rewarded.

Overall, figures such as Charles Dicken’s work and effect on British cities are perhaps better remembered, though no more valiant than Cobbett’s in the countryside. I would argue that this was perhaps Dicken’s created much more exciting and enjoyable stories. Cobbett’s journey in Rural Rides was clearly an eventful one with many hardships and astute observations made along the way however, I found it slightly tedious and his obsession with the quality of the soil and tendency to waffle on are perhaps the main reason why the book is not as widely heard of as many of Dickens’ works. It could be argued that Cobbett was trying to take things back through his reforms whereas Dickens sought to move forward – Cobbett fondness for nostalgia certainly suggests this, As well as this Dickens wrote about an expanding population in the cities, whereas Cobbett was appealing and writing about those in the countryside – an increasingly emptying area.

Cobbett could perhaps be compared in some ways to Darwin. Darwin was a great believer in travel and exploring the world for himself enabled him to form his theories on evolution. Similarly Cobbett should be praised for getting amongst the problems in the countryside and experiencing them for themselves in order to formulate his opinions and solutions. This notion that we learn through experience is also present in the theories of Locke’s Tabula rasa and much of the Empiricist movement – though his love of the countryside also mirrors Rousseau’s love of nature.