John Wilkes

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John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was a British radical, journalist, politician, magistrate and writer. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of his voters – rather than the House of Commons – to determine their representatives. In 1768, angry protests of his supporters were suppressed in the Massacre of St George's Fields. In 1771, he was instrumental in obliging the government to concede the right of printers to publish verbatim accounts of parliamentary debates. In 1776, he introduced the first bill for parliamentary reform in the British Parliament. During the American War of Independence, Wilkes was an active supporter of the Patriots’ cause, and the Patriots in turn supported his ardent defense of constitutional rights. In an existential respect the Patriots found their political fate bound up with Wilkes’ overseas fight against arbitrary exercise of governmental power, and the slogan “Wilkes...

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