International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Thomas Spence was among the best-known partisans of the French Revolution-inspired English Jacobin movement of the 1790s, and was certainly one of the most radical. He was an indefatigable theorist and propagandist whose programmatic ideas centered on advocacy of land nationalization. Spence, the son of a Scottish net-maker, was born in Newcastle in June 1750. He received no formal education but was taught to read the Bible by his father. Spence educated himself by reading a wide range of texts, particularly the political works of Harrington, Paine , Locke , and Godwin . After a brief stint in the net-making trade, Spence settled on a career as a schoolmaster. Spence's harsh and poverty-stricken upbringing instilled within him a deep sense of injustice. He was outraged that those who worked the hardest were most often the poorest. A legal battle between the Corporation of Newcastle and the freemen of the city over the leasing of the Town Moor in 1771 further angered Spence. He was disgusted that local authorities could usurp the traditional rights of the people to the use of common land and became convinced that the only way to solve the country's social problems was to confiscate and redistribute private estates. In November 1775 Spence delivered a paper to members of the Newcastle Philosophical Society in which he attacked private land ownership and outlined his land nationalization ... log in or subscribe to read full text