Author: HINGSTON, John.
Title: To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, The humble Petition of the Labouring Poor of Great Britain, sheweth, ...
Description: Exeter, printed by Featherstone 1827. Two integral foolscap leaves, 4pp with gap left for an address. Folded and addressed, with post marks, to Viscount Milton with the added notation, "Petition of the Labouring Poor from Exeter". A small hole from opening the wax seal. ¶ A radical, near utopian, demand for the Labouring Poor to have half what they pay in indirect taxes spent for their benefit. The first radical part is in the method of collecting the money: it is to come from what goes to the army and navy and by whacking taxes on the nobility, gentry and landed proprietors. Then we step up a notch. The ten million pounds raised would be handed over to associations of a thousand persons and eventually lead to universal property ownership, the abolition of Negro Slavery and a "revolution ... such as few ever contemplated ... which elevates the mind above all the previous actions of mankind". We finish with a scarely veiled threat about the madness of opposing the masses - "all power flows from them, they are now confident of that power". Milton, later Earl Fitzwilliam, was long time MP for Yorkshire having been thrust by his father into Parliament when still underage. By 1827 his reputation of obstinancy and impractibility was well established and he and his family were described by Creevey as "the ugliest and most dismal race I ever beheld". Unlocated in Copac and OCLC.

Keywords: social sciences history law government political economy economics c19th England reform progress utopia