The Great Wen is a disparaging nickname for

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 ...

. The term was coined in the 1820s by

William Cobbett William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign ...

, the radical pamphleteer and champion of

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are describ ...

England. Cobbett saw the rapidly growing city as a pathological swelling on the face of the nation. (A "wen" is a

sebaceous cyst A sebaceous cyst is a term commonly used to refer to either: * Epidermoid cysts (also termed epidermal cysts, infundibular cyst) * Pilar cysts (also termed trichelemmal cysts, isthmus-catagen cysts) Both of the above types of cysts contain kera ...

.) The term is quoted in his 1830 work ''

Rural Rides ''Rural Rides'' is the book for which the English journalist, agriculturist and political reformer William Cobbett is best known. At the time of writing in the early 1820s, Cobbett was a radical anti-Corn Law campaigner, newly returned to Engl ...

'': "But, what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called, by the silly coxcombs of the press, 'the metropolis of the empire?'"

References

City nicknames Social history of London 19th century in London {{London-stub

See also

References