The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, or, Monthly Political and Literary Censor, was a British conservative political journal active from 1798 to 1821. Founded by John Gifford after the cancellation of William Gifford's periodical Anti-Jacobin , the journal contained essays, reviews, and satirical engravings. Its content has been described as "often scurrilous" and "ultra-Tory" and was a prominent element of British hostility to Jacobinism and the broader ideals of the French Revolution. [1]
The first edition was published on 1 August 1798 and was advertised in The Times as "containing Original Criticism; a Review of the Reviewers; Miscellaneous Matter in Prose and Verse, Lists of Marriages, Births, Deaths and Promotions; and a Summary of Foreign and Domestic Politics." [2] Gifford served as its editor until 1806. [3] The periodical was covertly funded by the British government. [4]
Contributors included Robert Bisset (1758/9–1805), John Bowles (1751–1819), Arthur Cayley (1776–1848), James Gillray, George Gleig, Samuel Henshall (1764/5–1807), James Hurdis, James Mill, John Oxlee (1779–1854), Richard Penn (1733/4–1811), Richard Polwhele, John Skinner (1744–1816), William Stevens (1732–1807), and John Whitaker (1735–1808), though as items were frequently published anonymously attributions are often unclear.[ citation needed ]
Gifford called the periodical a champion of "religion, morality, and social order, as supported by the existing establishments, ecclesiastical and civil, of this country. [3]
The periodical promoted conspiracy theories of attempts to establish Jacobinism in Britain, accusing the Monthly Review , the Analytical Review and The Critical Review of spreading Jacobinism through "secret channels, disguised in various ways." [5] It supported the passage of the Unlawful Societies Act 1799 and the Combination Act 1799, arguing that the state needed the "wisdom to repress" in order to effectively defeat "domestic traitors." [5]
It also opposed the Irish Rebellion of 1798. [6]
The periodical denounced reformers, especially the Evangelicals, and greatly angered them, as prominent politician and campaigner William Wilberforce made clear in 1800:
It is a most mischievous publication, which, by dint of assuming a tone of the highest loyalty and attachment to our establishment in church and state, secures a prejudice in its favour, and has declared war against what I think the most respectable and most useful of all orders of men—the serious clergy of the Church of England. . . . Its opposition to the evangelical clergy is carried on in so venomous a way, and with so much impudence, and so little regard to truth, that the mischief it does is very great indeed. It accuses them in the plainest terms, and sometimes by name, as being disaffected both to church and state. [7]
William Wilberforce was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, and became an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Yorkshire (1784–1812). In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an Evangelical Anglican, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform.
The Clapham Sect, or Clapham Saints, were a group of social reformers associated with Holy Trinity Clapham in the period from the 1780s to the 1840s. Despite the label "sect", most members remained in the established Church of England, which was highly interwoven with offices of state. However, its successors were in many cases outside of the established Anglican Church.
James Gillray was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810. Many of his works are held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Beilby Porteus, successively Bishop of Chester and of London, was a Church of England reformer and a leading abolitionist in England. He was the first Anglican in a position of authority to seriously challenge the Church's position on slavery.
William Gifford was an English critic, editor and poet, famous as a satirist and controversialist.
Elizabeth Hamilton was a Scottish essayist, poet, satirist and novelist, who in both her prose and fiction entered into the French-revolutionary era controversy in Britain over the education and rights of women.
Gilbert Wakefield (1756–1801) was an English scholar and controversialist. He moved from being a cleric and academic, into tutoring at dissenting academies, and finally became a professional writer and publicist. In a celebrated state trial, he was imprisoned for a pamphlet critical of government policy of the French Revolutionary Wars; and died shortly after his release.
John Jebb (1736–1786) was an English divine, medical doctor, and religious and political reformer.
John Robison FRSE was a British physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
Edward James Eliot was an English Member of Parliament.
William Smith was a leading independent British politician, sitting as Member of Parliament (MP) for more than one constituency. He was an English Dissenter and was instrumental in bringing political rights to that religious minority. He was a friend and close associate of William Wilberforce and a member of the Clapham Sect of social reformers, and was in the forefront of many of their campaigns for social justice, prison reform and philanthropic endeavour, most notably the abolition of slavery. He was the grandfather of pioneer nurse and statistician Florence Nightingale and educationalist Barbara Bodichon, a founder of Girton College, Cambridge.
Anne Plumptre was an English writer and translator sometimes collaborating with her sister Annabella Plumptre. She translated several German works into English.
John Berridge was an Anglican evangelical revivalist and hymnist. J. C. Ryle wrote that as one of "the English evangelists of the eighteenth century" Berridge was "a mighty instrument for good."
Ann Jebb was an English political reformer and radical writer who published on both political and theological topics.
Isaac Cruikshank was a Scottish painter and caricaturist, known for his social and political satire.
The Analytical Review was an English periodical that was published from 1788 to 1798, having been established in London by the publisher Joseph Johnson and the writer Thomas Christie. Part of the Republic of Letters, it was a gadfly publication, which offered readers summaries and analyses of the many new publications issued at the end of the eighteenth century.
The Anti-Jacobin, or, Weekly Examiner was an English newspaper founded by George Canning in 1797 and devoted to opposing the radicalism of the French Revolution. It lasted only a year, but was considered highly influential, and is not to be confused with the Anti-Jacobin Review, a publication which sprang up on its demise. The Revolution polarized British political opinion in the 1790s, with conservatives outraged at the killing of the king Louis XVI of France, the expulsion of the nobles, and the Reign of Terror. Great Britain went to war against Revolutionary France. Conservatives castigated every radical opinion in Great Britain as "Jacobin", warning that radicalism threatened an upheaval of British society. The Anti-Jacobin sentiment was expressed in print. William Gifford was its editor. Its first issue was published on 20 November 1797 and during the parliamentary session of 1797–98 it was issued every Monday.
John Gifford was an English political writer. He was born John Richards Green until changing his name at the age of 23.
| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
