john wilkes being drawn into city mob prison 1768 English radical journalist and politician
John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical, journalist and politician. On his release in March 1770 he was made a sheriff in London and in 1774 he became Lord Mayor; he was simultaneously Master of the Joiners' Company, changing its motto to Join Loyalty and Liberty. That year he was also re-elected to Parliament, representing Middlesex. He was one of those opposed to war with the American colonies and he was also a supporter of the Association Movement and of religious tolerance. His key success was to protect the freedom of the press, removing the power of general warrants and also the ability of Parliament to punish political reports of debates. His popularity fell after 1780 as he became popularly perceived as less radical. During the popular uprising known as the Gordon Riots, Wilkes was in charge of the soldiers defending the Bank of England from the attacking mobs. It was under his orders that troops fired into the crowds of rioters; seen as a hypocrite by the working classes who had previously seen him as a "man of the people" and scaring off his middle class support with this violent action, the Gordon Riots almost extinguished his popularity. When the phrase "Wilkes and Liberty!" was said to him in later years, he would turn away. While he had been returned for the county seat of Middlesex in 1784, he found so little support by 1790 that he withdrew early in the election. The French Revolution of 1789 had proved a very divisive issue, and Wilkes had been against it due to the violent scenes from France. This went against the grain of popular feeling among radicals of the time and was a view associated with more conservative figures of the period such as Edmund Burke. He spent his final years as a magistrate campaigning for more moderate punishment for disobedient household servants.
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