Richard Cobden
Richard Cobden (3 June 1804 – 2 April 1865) was an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace. He was associated with the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty.
Richard Cobden
2 April 1865 (aged 60)
Suffolk Street, Westminster, London, England
West Lavington, Sussex
Politician
Manufacturer
Campaigner
As a young man, Cobden was a successful commercial traveller who became co-owner of a highly profitable calico printing factory in Sabden but lived in Manchester, a city with which he would become strongly identified. However, he soon found himself more engaged in politics, and his travels convinced him of the virtues of free trade (anti-protection) as the key to better international relations.
In 1838, he and John Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the unpopular Corn Laws, which protected landowners' interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread. As a Member of Parliament from 1841, he fought against opposition from the Peel ministry, and abolition was achieved in 1846.
Another free trade initiative was the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between Britain and France. This campaign was conducted in collaboration with John Bright and French economist Michel Chevalier, and succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French.
Life[edit]
Early years[edit]
Cobden was born at a farmhouse called Dunford, in Heyshott near Midhurst, in Sussex. He was the fourth of 11 children[1] born to Millicent (née Amber) and William Cobden. His family had been resident in that neighbourhood for many generations, occupied in trade and agriculture. His grandfather, Richard Cobden, owned Bex Mill in Heyshott and was a prosperous maltster who served as bailiff and chief magistrate at Midhurst. His father William however forsook malting in favour of farming, taking over the running of Dunford Farm when Richard died in 1809. A poor business man, he sold the property when the farm failed and moved the family to a smaller farm at nearby Gullard's Oak.[2] Conditions did not improve and by 1814, after several more moves, the family eventually settled as tenant farmers in West Meon, near Alton in Hampshire.[3]
Cobden attended a dame school and then Bowes Hall School in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Early business career[edit]
When fifteen years of age he went to London to the warehouse business of his uncle Richard Ware Cole where he became a commercial traveller in muslin and calico. His relative, noting the lad's passionate addiction to study, solemnly warned him against indulging such a taste, as likely to prove a fatal obstacle to his success in commercial life.[4] Cobden was undeterred and made good use of the library of the London Institution. When his uncle's business failed, he joined that of Partridge & Price, in Eastcheap, one of the partners being his uncle's former partner.
In 1828, Cobden set up his own business with Sheriff and Gillet, partly with capital from John Lewis, acting as London agents for Fort Brothers, Manchester calico printers. In 1831, the partners sought to lease a factory from Fort's at Sabden, near Clitheroe, Lancashire. They had, however, insufficient capital between them. Cobden and his colleagues so impressed Fort's that they consented to retain a substantial proportion of the equity. The new firm prospered and soon had three establishments – the printing works at Sabden and sales outlets in London and Manchester. The Manchester outlet came under the direct management of Cobden, who settled there in 1832, beginning a long association with the city. He lived in a house on Quay Street, which is now called Cobden House. A plaque commemorates his residency. The success of the enterprise was decisive and rapid, and the "Cobden prints" soon became well known for their quality.
Had Cobden devoted all his energies to the business, he might soon have become very wealthy. His earnings in the business were typically £8,000 to £10,000 a year. However, his lifelong habit of learning and inquiry absorbed much of his time. Writing under the byname Libra, he published many letters in the Manchester Times discussing commercial and economic questions. Some of his ideas were influenced by Adam Smith.[5]
Personal life[edit]
In 1840, Cobden married Catherine Anne Williams, a Welsh woman. They had five surviving daughters. Of these, Jane, a British Liberal politician, married the publisher Thomas Fisher Unwin and was known as Mrs Cobden Unwin;[36] Ellen was the first of the painter Walter Sickert's three wives; and Anne married the bookbinder T. J. Sanderson and he added her surname to his.[37] In 1856, their only son died aged 15 after a short scarlet fever illness.[38] Two other children died in infancy.[39]
Cobden was committed to his family, although his public life was absorbing.[40]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the : 1878 Encyclopædia Britannica
