The ''Poor Man's Guardian'' was a penny weekly newspaper published in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England by

Henry Hetherington 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 asso ...

from July 1831 to December 1835. Hetherington published his ''Poor Man's Guardian'', a successor to his earlier (1830–31) penny daily ''Penny Papers for the People'', as an outright challenge to authority. Published at the low price of a penny per weekly copy it bore the explicit heading: Published contrary to 'law' to try the power of 'might' against 'right'.Asa Briggs,''Chartist Studies'' (Macmillan, 1959) The paper represented a fight against the consequences of the

Six Acts Following the Peterloo Massacre on 16 August 1819, the government of the United Kingdom acted to prevent any future disturbances by the introduction of new legislation, the so-called Six Acts aimed at suppressing any meetings for the purpose of r ...

of 1819, imposed by the

Tories A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...

. The Acts aimed to combat the free, radicalized press seen as representative of a period of radicalism from 1816, which continued until 1820. They imposed a stamped (taxed) press; all publications appearing at less than 26-day intervals had to bear a government stamp and retail at 7 d (3p) each. The ''Poor Man's Guardian'' was hugely influential upon the decision by the Whig government of

Lord Melbourne William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, (15 March 177924 November 1848), in some sources called Henry William Lamb, was a British Whig politician who served as Home Secretary (1830–1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835–1841). His first pre ...

to lower the tax to a point where newspapers could retail at 4d (1.5p). The paper claimed that the newspaper stamp was a

tax on knowledge Taxes on knowledge was a slogan defining an extended British campaign against duties and taxes on newspapers, their advertising content, and the paper they were printed on. The paper tax was early identified as an issue: "A tax upon Paper, is a t ...

; it had the significant motto '

Knowledge is power The phrase "" (or "" or also "") is a Latin aphorism meaning "knowledge is power", commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. The expression "" ('knowledge itself is power') occurs in Bacon's ''Meditationes Sacrae'' (1597). The exact phrase "" ( ...

'. Hetherington's paper was enormously successful and achieved sales of 15,000 copies a week all over the country despite being London-based. Bronterre O'Brien, later a regular contributor to the '' Northern Star'', edited the ''Poor Man's Guardian'' from 1832.

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