John Horne Tooke | |
|---|---|
 John Horne Tooke byThomas Hardy (1757–1804) | |
| Member of Parliament forOld Sarum | |
| In office 1801–1802 Serving with George Hardinge | |
| Monarch | George III |
| Prime Minister | Henry Addington |
| Preceded by | George Yonge |
| Succeeded by | Henry Alexander |
| Constituency | Old Sarum |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Horne (1736-06-25)25 June 1736 Long Acre,Westminster, England |
| Died | 18 March 1812(1812-03-18) (aged 75) Chester House,Wimbledon, England |
| Political party | Radical |
John Horne Tooke (25 June 1736 – 18 March 1812), known asJohn Horne until 1782 when he added the surname of his friend William Tooke to his own, was an English clergyman, politician andphilologist. Associated with radical proponents of parliamentary reform, he stoodtrial for treason in 1794.
He was the third son of John Horne, of Newport Street,Long Acre,Westminster, a member of theWorshipful Company of Poulters. As a youth atEton College, he had claimed "that his father was an eminentTurkey merchant"[1] implying that, rather than a dealer in poultry, he traded with the Eastern Mediterranean. Before Eton, he had been at school inSoho Square, in aKentish village, and from 1744 to 1746 atWestminster School.[2] He was blinded in his right eye during a schoolboy fight.[3]
On 12 January 1754 he was admitted assizar atSt John's College, Cambridge, and took his degree of B.A. in 1758, as last but one of thesenior optimes,Richard Beadon, his lifelong friend, afterwardsBishop of Bath and Wells, being aWrangler in the same year.[4] Horne had been admitted on 9 November 1756, as student at theInner Temple, becoming friends withJohn Dunning andLloyd Kenyon. His father wished him to take orders in theChurch of England, and he was ordaineddeacon on 23 September 1759 andpriest on 23 November 1760.[2]
For a few months he was usher (assistant teacher) at a boarding school atBlackheath. On 26 September 1760 he becameperpetual curate ofNew Brentford, theincumbency of which his father had purchased for him. Horne Tooke retained this poorliving until 1773. During part of this time (1763–1764) he travelled on a tour in France, acting as a'bear-leader' (travelling tutor) to a wealthy man.[2]
The excitement created by the actions ofJohn Wilkes led Horne into politics, and in 1765 he brought out a scathing pamphlet onBute andMansfield, entitled "The Petition of an Englishman".[2]
In the autumn of 1765 he escorted another rich young man toItaly. In Paris he met Wilkes, and fromMontpellier, in January 1766, addressed a letter to him which began the quarrel between them. In the summer of 1767 Horne returned, and in 1768 secured the return of Wilkes to parliament for Middlesex. With inexhaustible energy he promoted the legal proceedings over theriot in St George's Fields when a youth named Allen was killed, and exposed the irregularity in the judge's order for the execution of twoSpitalfields weavers. His dispute withGeorge Onslow, MP forSurrey, who at first supported and then threw over Wilkes for place, culminated in a civil action, ultimately decided, after the reversal of a verdict which had been obtained through the charge of Lord Mansfield, in Horne's favour, and in the loss by his opponent of his seat in parliament. An influential association, calledThe Society for Supporting the Bill of Rights, was founded, mainly through the exertions of Horne and Wilkes, with the support ofJohn Wheble, in 1769, but the members were soon divided into two opposite camps, and in 1771 Horne and Wilkes, their respective leaders, broke out into open dispute.[2]
On 1 July 1771 Horne obtained at Cambridge his degree ofM.A., though not without some opposition from members of both the political parties. Earlier in that year he claimed for the public the right of printing an account of parliamentary debates, and after a long struggle, the right was definitely established. In the same year (1771), Horne argued withJunius, and ended in disarming his masked antagonist.[2]
Horne resigned hisbenefice in 1773 and began the study of thelaw andphilology. An accident, however, occurred at this moment which largely affected his future. His friend William Tooke had purchased a considerable estate, including Purley Lodge, south of the town ofCroydon in Surrey. The possession of this property brought about frequent disputes with an adjoining landowner, Thomas de Grey, and, after many actions in the courts, de Grey's friends endeavoured to obtain, by a bill forced through the houses of parliament, the privileges which the law had not assigned to him (February 1774). Horne, thereupon, by a boldlibel on the Speaker, drew public attention to the case, and though he himself was placed for a time in the custody of theserjeant-at-arms, the clauses which were injurious to the interest of Tooke were eliminated from the bill. Tooke declared his intention of making Horne the heir to his fortune, and during his lifetime he bestowed upon him large gifts of money.[2]
No sooner had this matter been happily settled than Horne found himself involved in serious trouble. For his conduct in signing the advertisement soliciting subscriptions for the relief of the relatives of the Americans "murdered by the king's troops atLexington and Concord," he was tried at the Guildhall on 4 July 1777, before Lord Mansfield, found guilty, and committed to theKing's Bench Prison in St George's Fields, from which he only emerged after a year's durance, and after a loss in fines and costs amounting to £1,200.[2]
Soon after his release he applied to becalled to the bar, but his application was rejected on the grounds that his orders in the Church were indelible. Horne thereupon tried his fortune, but without success, on farming some land inHuntingdonshire. Two tracts about this time exercised great influence in the country. One of them,Fads Addressed to Landholders, etc. (1780), written by Horne in conjunction with others, criticizing the measures ofLord North's ministry, passed through numerous editions; the other,A Letter on Parliamentary Reform (1782), addressed by him to Dunning, set out a scheme of reform, which he afterwards withdrew in favour of that advocated byWilliam Pitt the Younger.[2]
On his return from Huntingdonshire he became once more a frequent guest at Tooke's house atPurley, and in 1782 assumed the name of Horne Tooke. In 1786 Horne Tooke conferred perpetual fame upon his benefactor's country house by adopting, as a second title of his elaborate philological treatise ofEpea Pteroenta — the Greek phraseἔπεα πτερόεντα ("winged words") comes fromHomer — the more popular though misleading title ofThe Diversions of Purley. The treatise at once attracted attention in England and the Continent. The first part was published in 1786, the second in 1805. The best edition is that which was published in 1829, under the editorship ofRichard Taylor, with the additions written in the author's interleaved copy.[2]
Between 1782 and 1790 Horne Tooke gave his support to Pitt, and in the election forWestminster, in1784, threw all his energies into opposition to Fox. With Fox he was never on terms of friendship, andSamuel Rogers, in hisTable Talk, asserts that their antipathy was so pronounced that at a dinner party given by a prominent Whig not the slightest notice was taken by Fox of the presence of Horne Tooke. It was after the election of Westminster in 1788 that Horne Tooke depicted the rival statesmen (Lord Chatham andLord Holland,William Pitt andCharles James Fox) in his celebrated pamphletTwo Pair of Portraits.[2]
At thegeneral election of 1790, Horne Tooke stood as a candidate for the Westminster constituency, in opposition to Fox andLord Hood, but was defeated. At a second attempt in1796, he was again at the bottom of the poll. In the meantime, the excesses of the French republicans had provoked reaction in England, and the Tory ministry adopted a policy of repression.[2]
Early on the morning of 16 May 1794 Horne Tooke was detained and conveyed to theTower of London. His was one of a series of arrests that placed him in the company of a number of prominent figures associated with theLondon Corresponding Society, its opposition to the war with France and call for democratic reform, among themThomas Hardy,Thomas Spence,Thomas Holcroft, andJohn Thelwall.[5] For thegovernment of William Pitt their trials in November for treason proved an acute embarrassment. Juries were not ready to accept mere expression of political opinion as evidence of plots against King and Parliament. When the evidence running to four printed volumes failed to impress in the case of Hardy, the courts were unable to take seriously the charges against his associates. Horne Tooke jeered at theAttorney-General and clowned in the dock.[6] His jury took only eight minutes to settle on acquittal.[2]
Horne Tooke's public life after this event was only distinguished by one act of importance. Through the influence of thesecond Lord Camelford, he was returned to parliament at a by-election on 14 February 1801 for thepocket borough ofOld Sarum.[2] When he took his seat two days later an observer described him as "very old" (he was then aged 64) and "lame", "walking about the House from bench to bench ... followed bySir Francis Burdett", his sponsor and a former pupil.[3]
Lord Temple endeavoured to secure his exclusion on the ground that he had taken orders in the Church of England, and one ofJames Gillray's caricatures delineates the two politicians, Temple and Camelford, playing at battledore and shuttlecock, with Horne Tooke as the shuttlecock. The ministry ofAddington would not support this suggestion, but a bill was at once introduced by them andcarried into law, which rendered all persons in holy orders ineligible to sit in theHouse of Commons, and Horne Tooke sat for only that parliament.[2]
The last years of Horne Tooke's life, from 1792 until his death in 1812, were spent in retirement, atChester House on the west side ofWimbledon Common.[7]
The traditions of Horne Tooke's Sunday parties lasted unimpaired up to this point, and the most pleasant pages penned by his biographer describe the politicians and the men of letters who gathered around his hospitable board. Horne Tooke's conversational powers rivalled those ofSamuel Johnson; and, if more of his sayings have not been chronicled for the benefit of posterity, the defect is due to the absence of aJames Boswell. Through the liberality of Horne Tooke's friends, his last days were freed from the pressure of poverty, and he was enabled to place his illegitimate son in a position which soon brought him wealth, and to leave a competency to his two illegitimate daughters. Illness seized Horne Tooke early in 1810, and for the next two years his sufferings were acute. He died in his house atWimbledon, London, and was buried with his mother atEaling; the tomb which he had prepared in the garden attached to his house at Wimbledon was found unsuitable for the interment. An altar-tomb still stands to his memory in Ealing churchyard. A catalogue of his library was printed in 1813.[8]
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Many of Horne Tooke's sayings are preserved in thetable talk ofSamuel Rogers and ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge; the main facts of his life were set out byThorold Rogers, in hisHistorical Gleanings, 2nd series.The Life of Horne Tooke, by Alexander Stephens, was written by an admirer who only knew Horne Tooke as an old man.[9]William Hamilton Reid made a compilation, noticed in theQuarterly Review, June 1812, byJohn William Ward. He is the subject of Coleridge's poem "Addressed to J. Horne Tooke and the Company Who Met on June 28, 1796 to Celebrate His Poll at the Westminster Election".
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Courtney, William Prideaux (1911). "Tooke, John Horne". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 13–14.| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forOld Sarum 1801–1802 With:George Hardinge | Succeeded by |
