George Jacob Holyoake

“ His merit was, that he the method of moral resistance and accomplished by endurance what violence could not have effected. He lived to discern that sensation is not progress and denunciation is not instruction, and by his want of consideration in speech he created a dislike of the truth he vindicated. The faults of Carlile will be forgiven in consideration of his having done more than any other Englishman in his day for the freedom of the press. ”

“ Allsop to immediately surrender himself if the reward was paid to them to be applied for the necessary expenses of his defence, as he did not at all object to be tried, but objected to be put to expense without just reason. The reward was withdrawn, and Allsop returned to England. By reason of his friendships, his social position, and his boldness, he was one of the unseen forces of revolution in his day, and his sentiments are instructive. He despised those who willed the end and were so weak as not to will the means ”

“ Allsop, who had great charms of manner and mind, as Coleridge's letters to her show, made her home so attractive to her husband's eminent associates, that it was a favourite resort also of Lamb, Hazlitt, Barry Cornwall, and others of similar mark. The letters of Lamb, no less than those of Coleridge, and the remarks of Talfourd in his ‘Memorials of Lamb,’ testify to a personal estimation of Allsop different from and much higher than that which a man entertains for a mere host, however generous. ”

“ In England Edmondson opened a school at Blackburn in 1830, and a little later on one at Tulketh Hall, near Preston. At Tulketh Hall he had to refuse numerous pupils, when he was induced to take Queenwood Hall, Hampshire, erected by the followers of Robert Owen. There eight hundred acres of land enabled him to add agriculture to the subjects taught in his school, and he was able to carry out his great aim of establishing a science and technical school. ”

“ It was this alone that enabled Coleridge and Lamb to accept what Talfourd describes as Allsop's ‘helpful friendship.’ Besides men like Lamb or Robert Owen, who would remain weeks at will, the chief men of thought and action of his day, at home and abroad, were received at his house. He shared the personal friendship of men as dissimilar as Cobbett, Mazzini, and the Emperor of Brazil, who, after a pilgrimage to the grave of Coleridge, sent to Allsop a costly silver urn inscribed with words of personal regard. ”

“ Doubleday devoted himself entirely to the cause of the people, and aided the whig party by voice and pen in helping forward the reform agitation of 1832. He was secretary to the northern political union, and prominent in the agitation which the union prosecuted in aid of Earl Grey and the reforming party in parliament. At a great meeting held in Newcastle in 1832 he moved one of the resolutions. Warrants were drawn out for the arrest of Doubleday and others on the charge of sedition, but were never served, as the government went out of office in a few days. ”

“ On 9 July 1831, at his house in Kingsgate Street, he began to issue ‘The Poor Man's Guardian, a Weekly Paper for the People, price one penny.’ On the title appeared the words ‘Published in defiance of the “law” to try the power of “right” against “might.”’ It was edited, printed, and published by Hetherington. Politics as well as news were then taxed, but Hetherington refused to pay. Working men needed knowledge, and Hetherington was their foremost champion in procuring the repeal of the newspaper tax. ”

“ Out of it grew the railway clearing house, which has been of inestimable advantage in saving time and trouble. The checking machine was his invention, as well as the dating press. Blaylock, a Dublin watchmaker, helped to carry out Edmondson's idea. The first machine used at the Dublin office did not require five shillings' worth of repair in five years, and never needed more until the sheer wearing away of the brasswork necessitated replacement. The Manchester and Leeds railway first adopted Edmondson's invention, and employed him at Oldham Road for a time. ”

“ Serjeant Talfourd, who was engaged for the defence of Moxon, contended that there ‘must be some alteration of the law, or some restriction of the right to put it in action,’ but Moxon was found guilty. Hetherington was not less active in trades unionism and in chartism. Besides drawing up the ‘Circular for the Formation of Trades Unions,’ he sat in chartist conventions. He died at 57 Judd Street, London, on 24 Aug. ”

“ It was then a comparatively well-paid trade, exercised by independent workmen in their own houses. When there was some expectation of another Peterloo massacre, Lloyd Jones, like many thousands of others in the north, provided himself with arms, with a view to active resistance. He joined a co-operative society in Salford in 1829, and subsequently became the chief platform advocate of Owen's plan of village communities. For many years these views were vigorously opposed by the clergy, who regarded Owen's theories as immoral. ”

“ While there he made several improvements in cabinet-making implements, and contrived a mechanical arrangement by which a busy housewife could churn the butter and rock the cradle at the same time. Thoroughness in manufacture, completeness in detail, and adaptability to the work required, were points on which he was conscientiously particular. ”

“ In 1823 he settled at Brighton, and became known as a writer on co-operation and social questions. King, who was remarkable for his conversational power, obtained the confidence of Lady Byron. He was her adviser in schemes for improving the condition of the poor upon her estates, and she actively promoted the co-operative system, of which he was a remarkable advocate. From May 1828 to July 1830 he wrote a small monthly periodical, entitled ‘The Co-operator,’ the first which bore that name. ”

“ To distribute his paper dummy parcels were sent off in one direction by persons instructed to make all resistance they could to constables who seized them; in the meantime real parcels were sent by another road. His shopmen were imprisoned, his premises entered, his property taken, and men brought into the house by constables, who broke up with blacksmiths' hammers his press and his type. ”

“ Sir William Lawrence [q. v.] , the author of the 'Lectures on Man,' saw him in his brief illness. He left his body for anatomical purposes to St. Thomas's Hospital. He followed the example of Bentham in desiring to remove by his own example the popular prejudice against dissection. ”

“ He returned with his wife to Okta, near St. Petersburg, where they were living during the inundation in 1824. In the course of the following year the whole of the bog land around the capital was brought into cultivation. ”

“ Carlile was not without good qualities. She had business talent, which her husband never acquired, and though having but little sympathy with his opinions, sne resented the oppression directed against him, and resolutely refused to compromise him or discontinue selling his publications, though it subjected her to two years' imprisonment. Carlile died on 10 Feb. ”

“ He was a laborious student, and worked in almost every department of literature. Besides dramas and poems he wrote tracts on money. He wrote three dramas—‘The Statue Wife,’ ‘Diocletian,’ and ‘Caius Marius,’ at the suggestion, it is said, of Edmund Kean. ”

“ Besides the works mentioned above, Carlile edited two serials: ‘The Prompter,’ 1830–1; and ‘The Gauntlet,’ 1883. He was also the author of ‘The Moralist,’ a series of moral essays, and of the following (among numerous other) pamphlets: 1. ‘A Letter to the Society for the Suppression of Vice,’ 1819. 2. ‘An Effort to set at rest some little dispute and misunderstanding between the Reformers of Leeds . . .’ 1821 3. ‘To the Reformers of Great Britain (Five Letters from Dorchester Gaol) ,’ 1821. 4. ‘An Address to Men of Science, calling upon them to stand forward and Vindicate the Truth . . ”