Journalist and radical reformer, born in Ashburton, Devon, SW England, UK. A disciple of Thomas Paine, he sold the prohibited radical weekly Black Dwarf throughout London in 1817. He was imprisoned several times for his publications, which included his Political Litany, Paine's works, and a journal, The Republican (181926).
Richard Carlile (9 December 1790 – 10 February 1843) was an important agitator for the establishment of universal suffrage and freedom of the press in the United Kingdom.
Early life
He was born in Ashburton, Devon, the son of a shoemaker who abandoned the family in 1794 leaving Richard's mother struggling to support her three children on the income from running a small shop.
Politics and publishing
His interest in politics was kindled first by economic conditions in the winter of 1816 when Carlile was put on short-time work by his employer creating serious problems for the family: "I shared the general distress of 1816 and it was this that opened my eyes."
As a way of making a living he sold the writings of parliamentary reformers such as Tom Paine on the streets of London, often walking "thirty miles for a profit of eighteen pence". To make political texts such as Paine's books The Rights of Man and the Principles of Government available to the poor he split them into sections which he sold as small pamphlets, similarly publishing The Age of Reason and Principles of Nature.
He took on distributing the banned Radical weekly The Black Dwarf at a time when the government was prosecuting publishers: "The Habeas Corpus Act being suspended ...
Carlile then brought out a radical journal, Sherwin's Political Register, which reported political meetings as well as including extracts from books and poems by supporters of the reform movement such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.
Peterloo and The Republican
Carlile was one of the scheduled main speakers at the reform meeting on 16 August 1819 at St. Peter's Fields in Manchester. Carlile escaped and was hidden by radical friends before he caught the mail coach to London and published his eyewitness account, giving the first full report of what had happened, in Sherwin's Weekly Political Register of 18 August 1819.
The government responded by closing Sherwin's Political Register, confiscating the stock of newspapers and pamphlets. Carlile changed the name to The Republican and in its issue of 27 August 1819 demanded that "The massacre...
Carlile was prosecuted for blasphemy, blasphemous libel and sedition for publishing material that might encourage people to hate the government in his newspaper, and for publishing Tom Paine's Common Sense, The Rights of Man and the Age of Reason (which criticised the Church of England). While he was in jail he continued to write articles for The Republican which was now published by Carlile's wife Jane, and thanks to the publicity it now outsold pro-government newspapers such as The Times.
To curb newspapers the government had raised the ½d tax on newspapers first imposed in 1712 to 3½d in 1797 then 4d in 1815. At a time when workers earned less than 10 shillings (120d.) a week this made it hard for them to afford radical newspapers, and publishers tried various strategies to evade the tax.
By 1821, Carlile was a declared atheist and published his Address to Men of Science, in favour of materialism and education. In the same year Jane Carlile was in turn sentenced to two years imprisonment for seditious libel, and her place as publisher was taken by Richard Carlile's sister, Mary. The process was repeated with eight of his shop workers, and over 150 men and women were sent to prison for selling The Republican. In the next edition of The Republican he expressed the hope that his long confinement would result in the freedom to publish radical political ideas.
He then published further journals, The Lion which campaigned against child labour and The Promptor.
The Devil's Chaplain
He joined up with the Revd.
Carlile then opened a ramshackle building on the south bank of the River Thames known as The Rotunda, and in widespread public unrest in July 1830 this became a gathering place for republicans and atheists.
Jailed again
In 1830 he was jailed again for seditious libel, given two and a half years for writing an article in support of agricultural labourers campaigning against wage cuts and advising the strikers to regard themselves as being at war with the government. He left prison deeply in debt, and government fines had taken from him the finances needed to publish newspapers.
After living for some years in extreme poverty in Enfield, Carlile returned to Fleet Street in 1842, dying there the following year.
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