John Wilkes

Wilkes married Mary Meade in 1747 and who gave birth to their only child, Mary. The couple separated in 1756 and he never married again. He died at the age of 72.

There are number of roads and places named after this radical activist. There is a Wilkes University, founded in 1933, in Pennsylvania in the city of Wilkes-Barre, both of which are named after him.

John Wilkes was born to a famous distiller Israel Wilkes and Sarah. For his elementary education he was sent to a school in Hertford and was later educated under a private tutor.

He went to the University of Leiden in the Dutch Republic for higher studies where he chanced upon Andrew Baxter, a Presbyterian priest whose religious ideologies influenced him.

In 1749, he was elected into the Royal Society and was appointed High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1754.

In 1757, he was elected in the parliamentary elections of Aylesbury and in 1961 he was re-elected. He became a member of the Hellfire Club, a gathering place for men and women from the high societies.

Wilkes was a supporter of the ‘Seven Years War’ in which Britain was involved and was incensed by the fact that the new PM of Britain, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, made peace talks with France. To fight against this, in 1762, he launched a weekly publication, ‘The North Briton’ which condemned the Prime Minister.

In 1963, he was accused of seditious libel as he disparaged the speech given by King George III on Paris Peace Treaty and was imprisoned on April 30. However, he was released as per the rule that as a Member of the Parliament one could not be arrested on the charges of libel.

Nevertheless, he did not retreat from his aggressive and destructive radicalism. He composed an obscene poem with Thomas Potter, a politician for which he was once again charged with seditious libel and was declared an outlaw on 19 January 1764.

When in the Parliament, he introduced the first ‘Bill’ for reforms in 1776, which was first of its kind in Great Britain.