The Letters of Richard Cobden (1804-1865) Online: an exploration in Active Citizenship

Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was one of the most influential British statesmen of the nineteenth century.  He is most well-remembered as the leader of the Anti-Corn Law League, which campaigned against import duties on grain at a time of high food prices and a cost-of-living crisis.  However, his interests and legacy were much wider.  Among other things, he campaigned for the creation of Manchester’s first democratically elected municipal government; a national system of education to maintain Britain’s industrial competitiveness and empower the working-classes; to free the press from the ‘taxes on knowledge’, which kept newspapers out of the hands of the poor; and for extension of the franchise and the introduction of the secret ballot.  He was a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s administration during the American Civil War, and a constant critic of British imperialism.  Although free trade was central to ‘Cobdenism’ this was always the means to wider ends: the creation of prosperity for all, and the establishment of international peace as trade rendered war more and more damaging to those waging it. 

Throughout his life, Cobden kept up a voluminous correspondence with friends, family and co-workers, in which he outlined his ideas and tactics, organised campaigns and cajoled and persuaded would-be supporters.  His letters are therefore the perfect medium through which to explore the life of an active citizen, who supported numerous causes and worked tirelessly to improve the society in which he lived.  Although technologies have changed, many of the basics of constitutional political campaigning have remained the same: the importance of lobbying influential opinion formers, including newspaper editors and journalists; the use of petitioning to keep causes at the forefront of political opinion; and above all the need to persuade legislators in local and national government to effect reform.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by scholars from Leeds Beckett University (LBU) and the University of East Anglia (UEA), The Letters of Richard Cobden Online makes the bulk of Cobden’s surviving letters available to all for the first time as an online resource.  The resource has been developed with technical support from the world-leading Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Sheffield.  It complements the four-volume selected edition of Cobden’s correspondence edited by Professor Anthony Howe and Professor Simon Morgan and published by Oxford University Press from 2007 to 2015.  While this earlier edition made around 1,300 letters available, the website contains digital transcripts of more than 5,500 letters drawn from well over 100 libraries which are now available for all to explore free of charge.  It also includes an online exhibition of scanned letters from over half of the 150 archives and libraries worldwide that hold at least one of Cobden’s letters.

The launch of the website and its associated resources is the culmination of a year of activities including an exhibition on “Richard Cobden: Manchester Citizen to International Man”, hosted by Archives+ at the Manchester Central Library from April to June 2023; a series of workshops with teachers and pupils at schools in Leeds, Bradford and Rochdale; and a school essay competition in association with the History of Parliament Trust.  The school project involved groups of year 9 pupils being coached in leadership skills by Rachel Wood and Mark Jamieson of the GreenWing project, before leading groups of year 8 or year 7 pupils to deliver presentations on how political campaigners of the past have inspired them to become more active citizens in the present.  The results included campaigns demanding ‘education for all’ inspired by Cobden’s interests in education, and for gender and racial equality inspired by the women’s suffrage movement.

Tuesday’s event is hosted by the History of Parliament Trust and includes a tour of the Houses of Parliament for some of the school pupils involved in creating the teaching resources, a demonstration of the website, and the announcement of the winners of the History of Parliament Trust competition.

Principal Investigator Professor Simon Morgan of Leeds Beckett University describes the project as a great example of how the Humanities are still relevant to the problems and challenges of the present day: "It has been a privilege to work with the pupils of the various schools to develop the resources, and fantastic to see the impact it has had on the confidence of the Year 9 leaders in particular."

The project team comprises:

Professor Simon Morgan, Leeds Beckett University (Principal Investigator) s.j.morgan@leedsbeckett.ac.uk Tel. 0113 8125567.

Professor Anthony Howe, University of East Anglia (Co-Investigator) a.c.howe@uea.ac.uk

Dr Helen Dampier, Leeds Beckett University (Co-Investigator) h.dampier@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

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