Radical journalist John Wilkes inspired riots when he was sent to prison for libel

WHEN a crowd supporting radical politician and journalist John Wilkes turned ugly, soldiers began firing on them resulting in an infamous massacre.

Engraving from the Chronicles of Crime by Camden Pelham, 1841, showing the 1768 St George’s Field Massacre, when people protested the imprisonment of journalist John Wilkes.

THE crowd gathered on St George’s Field outside the King’s Bench Prison became increasingly agitated. They began to chant “Damn the King! Damn the Government! Damn the Justices!” and “No liberty, no king”. They also shouted “Wilkes and liberty” in support of the politician turned journalist John Wilkes, who had been locked up in the prison.

It was May 10, 1768, 250 years ago today, and things were about to get bloody. Justices of the peace at the prison, hearing that they were also being damned by the crowd, sent word that the prison needed protection in case the crowd were planning to rescue their hero Wilkes.

A detachment of the Grenadier Guards was dispatched to keep order. When they arrived the crowd grew more rowdy, seeing this as another sign of the repressive government who would lock up an outspoken journalist and an elected parliamentarian.

As the abuse of the soldiers continued, the soldiers pursued the most annoying protester, a man in a red coat. The protester ran into a barn on a nearby farm (one account says an inn), followed by several grenadiers. The grenadiers fired at a man in a red coat but realised too late it was not their pestiferous protester. Instead, they had killed William Allen, an innocent farm worker and son of a local publican.

Journalist and politician John Wilkes.

News of the death soon circulated. Fearing the angry crowd would soon rush the prison, the grenadiers fired on the mob, killing several — accounts vary from five to 11. It became known as the Massacre of St George’s Field.

Wilkes seemed unlikely to inspire such passionate support from a crowd. Born in London in 1725, the son of malt distiller Israel Wilkes, he received a good education at Hertford and later the University of Leiden in the Dutch Republic.

In 1747 he married Mary Mead, a woman 10 years his senior who had inherited a substantial dowry from her wealthy widowed mother. Although the couple had a daughter, to whom Wilkes was devoted, they rarely spent time together and separated after 10 years.

He enjoyed his wealth, but grew tired of that lifestyle and was persuaded to enter politics. Failing to win the seat of Berwick in 1754, in 1757 he spent thousands of pounds to bribe voters to win the seat of Aylesbury but it also left him in debt.

Artist William Hogarth's 1763 caricature of journalist John Wilkes.

Engraving from the Chronicles of Crime by Camden Pelham, 1841, showing the 1768 St George’s Field Massacre, when people protested the imprisonment of journalist John Wilkes.

In 1762 when King George III appointed close friend the Earl of Bute as prime minister, Wilkes joined the chorus of politicians complaining that Bute was incompetent. Wilkes started a newspaper called the North Briton, which he used to attack the king. In the first issue he wrote that “the liberty of the press is the birthright of a Briton”. But his attacks incensed members of the establishment, especially his suggestion that Bute had relations with George’s mother.

In 1763 he wrote that the king had put his name to “odious measures” and false statements from his ministry in his speech to open parliament. Wilkes also wrote that the spirit of discord from the government would not be extinguished “but by the extinction of their power”.

The king’s ministers instituted legal proceedings against Wilkes for libel, sedition and treason. He was arrested and thrown into the Tower of London, but was released because the Lord Chief Justice deemed the arrest to be a breach of Wilkes’s parliamentary privilege.

On his release he was challenged by politician Samuel Martin to a duel and was wounded in the stomach. Meanwhile, other politicians had the chief justice’s decision overturned. With the help of a growing army of supporters, Wilkes fled to Paris.

King George III in his coronation robe, 1761-1762 by artist Allan Ramsay.

There he waited for a change of government, racking up even more debts. He returned to England in 1768 to stand for election, using the slogan “Wilkes and liberty.” But after his electoral win he was arrested and taken to King’s Bench Prison.

A crowd near the prison, resulting in the riots and the St George’s Field Massacre. Soldiers soon restored order and Wilkes served two years in prison. Expelled from parliament he made several thwarted attempts to win back a seat while behind bars.

When he was released in 1770 he campaigned for freedom of the press. Denied a seat in parliament he carried on his campaign for reform by becoming a sheriff in 1771 and lord mayor of London in 1774, the same year he was elected to the seat of Middlesex.

When war broke out with the American colonies he became a supporter of the rebels saying that government by kings was indefensible but government by kings over another country was worse. However, he earned the enmity of other radicals by becoming more conservative, including speaking out against the French Revolution when it broke out in 1789.

With his popularity declining he did not contest the seat of Middlesex at the 1790 election. He died in 1797.