John Thelwall
John Thelwall was a notable figure in late 18th and early 19th century England, born in 1764 to a family facing financial instability after the death of his father. Despite experiencing physical abuse during his early life, he pursued education through extensive reading. Thelwall initially explored a career in law but shifted his focus to writing and politics, publishing his first volume of poetry in 1787, which interlinked literary expression with radical political ideas. He became an influential Jacobin writer during the tumultuous period of the French Revolution, advocating for parliamentary reform and working alongside notable reformers like John Horne Tooke.
His activism led to his arrest for sedition, resulting in significant incarceration that bolstered his reputation among reform-minded individuals. After his release, Thelwall continued to engage in political discourse, often addressing the power dynamics affecting the lower classes through his writings and speeches. In later years, he turned his attention to the field of elocution, drawing from his childhood speech impediment. Thelwall's life reflected a deep commitment to both literary and political reform until his death in 1834, leaving a legacy that intertwined the arts with advocacy for social change.
On this Page
Subject Terms
John Thelwall
Writer
- Born: July 27, 1764
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: February 17, 1834
- Place of death: Bath, England
Biography
John Thelwall was born in London in 1764. His father, a silk merchant, died when he was nine years old and his family was not financially secure. He was physically abused by his mother and older brother until he was eighteen. Despite working in a store, he managed to educate himself by doing a great deal of reading. He turned his attention to the theater and wrote his first play, The Incas, in 1792; the play was never staged. He studied divinity with his brother-in-law and became a copier for John Impey’s law practice in 1782, but he left the legal profession after three years.
In 1787, he published Poems on Various Subjects, poetic narratives that stressed the innocence of pastoral life. The volume contained a preface that tied his writing to radical politics. As a result of his literary success he became the editor of the Biographical and Imperial Magazine, for which he reviewed plays and wrote lead articles about politics and literature.
After the French Revolution began in 1789, Thelwall became a Jacobin writer sympathetic to radical causes. The revolution was understandably threatening to the English government, and for this reason, Thelwall’s ideas were unpopular with the British authorities. He campaigned on behalf of John Horne Tooke, an advocate of parliamentary reform, and helped Thomas Hardy establish the London Corresponding Society, which printed and distributed handbills critical of the government’s foreign policy. A skilled orator, Thelwall spoke out against the government’s war with France and opposed the financial hardships the war imposed on the lower classes. His book The Peripatetic: Or, Sketches of the Heart, of Nature and Society (1793), blends sentimental literature with radical politics. When members of the London Corresponding Society were arrested for attending a convention dedicated to parliamentary reform, Thelwall joined with Hardy and Tooke to organize another convention. The three men were arrested for sedition, and Thelwall spent seven weeks at Newgate prison and then seven months in solitary confinement in the Tower of London awaiting trial. While in prison he wrote Poems Written in Close Confinement in the Tower and Newgate (1795), which made him a hero with the masses and won him the respect of poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Thelwall was acquitted of the charge of sedition. Undeterred by continuing government harassment, he continued to lecture about political reform. His speeches were subsequently published in his journal The Tribune, and he published The Rights of Nature, similar to Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man in its socialist stance.
Essentially forced into exile, he and his wife, Susan, settled on a small farm in Llyswen, Brecknockshire, Wales. His Poems Chiefly Written in Retirement garnered some praise for the poetry but far less for the politics. His chief interest in later life was elocution, perhaps because he had a speech impediment as a child. Lecturing about speech defects, pronunciation, and oration, he was back in public life in 1803, and his A Letter to Henry Cline was both about speech impediments and the suppression of speech. In 1816, his wife died, and three years later he married Cecil Boyle, who later wrote his biography. He maintained his interest in politics, editing and owing both the Panoramic Miscellany and The Champion, until his death on February 17, 1834.