Henry Hetherington (June 1792 – 24 August 1849) was an English printer, bookseller, publisher and newspaper proprietor who campaigned for social justice, a free press, universal suffrage and religious freethought. Together with his close associates, William Lovett, John Cleave and James Watson, he was a leading member of numerous co-operative and radical groups, including the Owenite British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative Knowledge, the National Union of the Working Classes and the London Working Men's Association. As proprietor of The Poor Man's Guardian he played a major role in the "War of the Unstamped" and was imprisoned three times for refusing to pay newspaper stamp duty. He was a leader of the "moral force" wing of the Chartist movement and a supporter of pro-democracy movements in other countries. His name is included on the Reformers' Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery.
Biography Early years Hetherington was born in June 1792 in Compton Street, Soho, London, son of John Hetherington, a tailor.Wiener, Joel, 'Hetherington, Henry (1792–1849)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004). Retrieved 31 March 2020.Hollis, Patricia, 'Introduction', The Poor Man's Guardian 1831-1835, A reprint of the original journal, with Introduction by Patricia Hollis: Vol. 1 (Barnes and Noble, New York, 1969)] p. vii. Retrieved 31 March 2020. At thirteen he became an apprentice printer, working for Luke Hansard, the printer of the Journals of the House of Commons.Wiener, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In 1811 Hetherington married Elizabeth Thomas, from Wales, and the marriage produced nine children, although only one, David, survived him.Hollis, 'Introduction', The Poor Man's Guardian 1831-1835, p. vii. Because work was hard to come by after his apprenticeship ended, Hetherington worked as a printer in Ghent, Belgium from 1812 to 1815, then returned to London.Hollis, 'Introduction', The Poor Man's Guardian 1831-1835, p. vii.Wiener, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Co-operation and radical politics During the 1820s Hetherington established his own business as a printer and publisher. He also became an active member of a number of radical organisations whose aims included co-operation, the provision of education to working men and universal suffrage. Through these organisations he made lasting friendships with William Lovett and James Watson, with whom he would work closely for the rest of his life.
In 1820, he became influenced by the ideas of Robert Owen after attending a series of lectures by the Owenite, George Mudie. Together with other printers he became a founder member of Mudie's Co-operative and Economical Society. The society encouraged wholesale trading and set up a co-operative community in Spa Fields.Hollis, 'Introduction', The Poor Man's Guardian 1831-1835, p. vii.R. Hunt, J. Shallard, J. Jones, G. Hinde, R. Dean, and H. Hetherington, Report of the Committee appointed at a meeting of Journeymen, chiefly Printers, to take into consideration certain propositions, submitted to them by Mr. George Mudie, having for their object a system of social arrangement, calculated to effect essential improvements in the condition of the working classes, and of society at large (London, 13 January 1821).
In 1822, he registered his own press and type at 13 Kingsgate Street, Holborn, an eight-roomed house, including shop and printing premises, costing £55 per annum rent.Hollis, 'Introduction', The Poor Man's Guardian 1831-1835, p. vii. His first publishing venture, in January 1823, was Mudie's journal, the Political Economist and Universal Philanthropist.Brake, L., and Demoor, M., (Eds.) Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (Academia Press and The British Library, 2009; ) p. 281.
Hetherington then joined the London Mechanics Institute in Chancery Lane, founded by George Birkbeck to provide adult education to working-class men. He served on its committee between 1824 and 1830 and it was there that he met Lovett and Watson.Hollis, 'Introduction', The Poor Man's Guardian 1831-1835, p. vii.Flexner, Helen Hudson, The London Mechanics' Institution: social and cultural foundations 1823-1830 (University College, London, 2014) p. 3. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
In 1828, he joined the First London Co-operative Trading Association.Hollis, Patricia, The Pauper Press: A Study in Working-Class Radicalism of the 1830s (Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 311 Newly formed co-operative societies would often ask the First London for advice and assistance, so Hetherington and others founded the British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative Knowledge (BAPCK) (18291831) to act as co-operation's educational and co-ordinating arm.Prothero, Iowerth, Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London: John Gast and his Times (Dawson, 1979) p. 242. The BAPCK rented a house in Greville Street, Hatton Garden, where they operated a co-operative bazaar on the first floor, while the First London occupied the ground floor.Lovett, William, Life and Struggles of William Lovett (New York, 1920), p. 43. Retrieved 7 April 2020. Hetherington became one of the BAPCK's most accomplished speakers and played an important role in the growth of the movement.Prothero, p. 243.
Like other leading BAPCK members such as Lovett, Watson and John Cleave, Hetherington did not believe that co-operation could be divorced from the struggle for political rights. While still members of the BAPCK he and the others joined several short-lived radical political groups, whose aims and membership often overlapped. These included, the Civil and Religious Liberty Association (CRLA), which campaigned for Catholic emancipation; the Radical Reform Association (RRA) (18291831), led by Henry Hunt to demand universal (male) suffrage; and the National Union of the Working Classes (NUWC) (18311835), which absorbed the remnants of all the other groups, to become London's leading ultra-radical force of the early 1830s.Hollis, 'Introduction', The Poor Man's Guardian 1831-1835, pp. ix-xii.Prothero, pp. 275-285.Belcham, John, Orator' Hunt: Henry Hunt and English Working Class Radicalism (Breviary Stuff Publications, 2012; ) pp. 148-162.Claeys, Gregory, Citizens and Saints: Politics and anti-politics in early British Socialism (Cambridge University Press, 1989; ) pp. 174/5, 183-189.Hollis, The Pauper Press, pp. 102/3.
The BAPCK's involvement in radical politics caused a rift with the co-operative movement's figurehead, Robert Owen, who believed that politics were irrelevant to the success of co-operation, and this led to the BAPCK's decline.Prothero, pp. 254/5. Hetherington remained loyal to Owen's social and economic views, but criticised his apolitical stance.Claeys, p. 188. The main focus of his activities during the 1830s would be universal suffrage and the campaign for a free press.
The "War of the Unstamped" In an attempt to prevent working-class people from absorbing radical ideas, the Tory government of Lord Liverpool had increased the stamp duty on newspapers to fourpence in 1815, and extended it to cover periodicals in 1819. This ensured that only the affluent could afford to buy a paper. Radical publishers such as Thomas Wooler, Richard Carlile and William Cobbett sold their publications duty paid, their sales declined and there was little attempt to defy the law during the 1820s.Weiner, Joel, The War of the Unstamped (Cornell University Press, 1969) pp. 2-8.Hollis, Patricia, The Pauper Press, pp. 96-98.
In 1830, however, the campaign for electoral reform was boosted by the July Revolution in France, which created a market for a radical working-class press. On 1 October, Hetherington published an unstamped paper, The Penny Papers for the People, Published by the Poor Man's Guardian, quickly followed by William Carpenter's Political Letters. Both were prosecuted, thus commencing the War of the Unstamped.Weiner, The War of the Unstamped, p. 138. Between 1830 and 1836 several hundred unstamped newspapers were published and over 800 people were imprisoned for distributing them.Hollis, The Pauper Press, p. 171. Hetherington published a string of such papers, the best known and most important being The Poor Man's Guardian (18311835), whose front page bore the slogan "Established Contrary To "Law" To Try The Power Of "Might" Against "Right"".Wiener, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Hetherington did not edit his own papers, using James Bronterre O'Brien and other writers to do so.Wiener, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Instead he toured the country, addressing NUWC meetings where he denounced the Whig Reform Bill for excluding working-class voters and the government for suppressing press freedom. He combined these activities with recruiting vendors and setting up distribution networks for his papers.Hollis, The Pauper Press, pp. 110/11, 282.
His high-profile made him one of the government's main targets for prosecution. He was imprisoned three times, fined and his printing presses were seized. He always defended himself in court and his defiant speeches from the dock were sold as cheap pamphlets.Wiener, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. His exploits in avoiding the police, such as adopting various disguises, were widely reported in the unstamped press and Hetherington became a hero to his readers.Weiner, The War of the Unstamped, p. 145Hollis, The Pauper Press, p. 162. At the height of its popularity (18321833), The Poor Man's Guardian sold around 15,000 copies per edition, with a readership of several times that number.Hollis, The Pauper Press, pp. 118/9.
In 1836 the government reduced the stamp duty from four pence to one penny. At the same time it increased fines for non-compliance and imposed such stringent conditions on newspaper publishing that the unstamped press could not survive.Prothero, p. 308. Hetherington converted his unstamped Twopenny Dispatch into the stamped London Dispatch and People's Political and Social Reformer, apologising to his readers for the price rise and saying that personal courage was useless against the government's new powers.Thompson, Dorothy, The Chartists: Popular Politics in the Industrial Revolution (Breviary Stuff, 2013; ) p. 30.
Chartism Hetherington remained politically active, joining William Lovett's London Working Men's Association (LWMA).Weiner, The War of the Unstamped, p. 145. This was a small organisation, most of whose members were artisans, and whose primary objective was working-class self-improvement through education. Its activities included discussion groups, research, pamphlets and public meetings.Prothero, pp. 314-316. One such meeting, at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand in February 1837, led to the LWMA drafting the People's Charter for parliamentary reform and Chartism became the main focus of its activity.Hovell, Mark, The Chartist Movement (Manchester University Press, 1918) pp. 69-76.
Hetherington and other speakers, including John Cleave and Henry Vincent, toured the country promoting universal suffrage and encouraging local groups to organise along LWMA lines.Prothero, p. 320.West, Julius, A History of the Chartist Movement (Constable & Co., 1920) p. 92. He was an elected delegate to the Chartist "General Convention of the Industrious Classes", which assembled in London and Birmingham 1839 to oversee the presentation of a parliamentary petition in support of the Charter, and to plan Chartism's response in the event of the petition being rejected.Weiner, Joel, William Lovett (Manchester University Press, 1989; ) p. 56.Chase, Malcolm, Chartism: A New History (Manchester University Press, 2007; ) p. 58. During that year he also addressed Chartist meetings in mid-Wales.Ashton, Owen, Chartism in Mid Wales (National Library of Wales, Montgomeryshire Collections Vol. 62) p. 23. Retrieved 27 April 2020.