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Thomas Spence ( 17508 September 1814) was an English RadicalThomas Spence
, Spartacus-Educational.com, accessed 27 February 2019
and advocate of the
common ownership Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...
of land and a democratic equality of the sexes. Spence was one of the leading revolutionaries of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was born in poverty and died the same way, after long periods of imprisonment, in 1814.


Life

Born in 1750 to a Presbyterian family, Spence later left Newcastle for London in 1787. He kept a book-stall in
High Holborn High Holborn ( ) is a street in Holborn and Farringdon Without, Central London, which forms a part of the A40 route from London to Fishguard. It starts in the west at the eastern end of St Giles High Street and runs past the Kingsway and S ...
. In 1794, with other members of the
London Corresponding Society The London Corresponding Society (LCS) was a federation of local reading and debating clubs that in the decade following the French Revolution agitated for the democratic reform of the British Parliament. In contrast to other reform associa ...
, he spent seven months in
Newgate Gaol Newgate Prison was a prison at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey Street just inside the City of London, England, originally at the site of Newgate, a gate in the Roman London Wall. Built in the 12th century and demolished in 1904, th ...
on a charge of high treason, and in 1801 he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for seditious libel. He died in London on 8 September 1814.


Land reform and Spence's Plan

The threatened
enclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
of the common land known as Town Moor in Newcastle in 1771 appears to have been key to Spence's interest in the land question and journey towards ultra-radicalism. His scheme was not for land nationalization but for the establishment of self-contained parochial communities, in which rent paid to the parish (wherein the absolute ownership of the land was vested) should be the only tax of any kind. His ideas and thinking on the subject were shaped by a variety of economic thinkers, including his friend Charles Hall. At the centre of Spence's work was his plan, which argued for: #The end of aristocracy and landlords; #All land should be publicly owned by 'democratic parishes', which should be largely self-governing; #Rents of land in parishes to be shared equally amongst parishioners, as a form of
social dividend The social dividend is the return on the capital assets and natural resources owned by society in a socialist economy. The concept notably appears as a key characteristic of market socialism, where it takes the form of a dividend payment to eac ...
; # Universal suffrage (including female suffrage) at both parish level and through a system of deputies elected by parishes to a national senate; #A 'social guarantee' extended to provide income for those unable to work; #The 'rights of infants' hildrento be free from abuse and poverty. Spence's Plan was first published in his penny pamphletbr>Property in Land Every One's Right
in 1775. It was re-issued as ''The Real Rights of Man'' in later editions. It was also reissued by, amongst others,
Henry Hyndman Henry Mayers Hyndman (; 7 March 1842 – 20 November 1921) was an English writer, politician and socialist. Originally a conservative, he was converted to socialism by Karl Marx's ''Communist Manifesto'' and launched Britain's first left-wi ...
under the title o
The Nationalization of the Land in 1795 and 1882
Spence explored his political and social concepts in a series of books about the fictional Utopian state of
Spensonia Spensonia is a fictional Utopian country created by the English author and political reformer Thomas Spence. Spence laid out his ideas about Spensonia in a series of literary works published in the late 18th century: * ''A Supplement to the History ...
.


"Rights of man"

Spence may have been the first Englishman to speak of 'the rights of man'. The following recollection, composed in the third person, was written by Spence while he was in prison in London in 1794 on a charge of high treason. Spence was, he wrote, :the first, who as far as he knows, made use of the phrase "RIGHTS OF MAN", which was on the following remarkable occasion: A man who had been a farmer, and also a miner, and who had been ill-used by his landlords, dug a cave for himself by the seaside, at Marsdon Rocks, between Shields and Sunderland, about the year 1780, and the singularity of such a habitation, exciting the curiosity of many to pay him a visit; our author was one of that number. Exulting in the idea of a human being, who had bravely emancipated himself from the iron fangs of aristocracy, to live free from impost, he wrote extempore with chaulk above the fire place of this free man, the following lines: :Ye landlords vile, whose man's peace mar, :Come levy rents here if you can; :Your stewards and lawyers I defy, :And live with all the RIGHTS OF MAN This is in reference to the story of "Jack the Blaster" at
Marsden Grotto The Marsden Grotto, locally known as The Grotto, is a gastropub located on the coast at Marsden in South Shields, Tyne & Wear, England. It is partly dug into the cliff face and fronted with a more conventional building opening onto the beach. ...
.


Spelling reform

Spence was a self-taught radical with a deep regard for education as a means to liberation. He pioneered a phonetic script and pronunciation system designed to allow people to learn reading and pronunciation at the same time. He believed that if the correct pronunciation was visible in the spelling, everyone would pronounce English correctly, and the class distinctions carried by language would cease. This, he imagined, would bring a time of equality, peace and plenty: the millennium. He published the first English dictionary with pronunciations (1775) and made phonetic versions of many of his pamphlets. Examples of Spence's spelling system can be seen on th
pages on English from the Spence Society


Rights of children

Spence publishe

in 1797 as a response to Thomas Paine's ''Agrarian Justice''. In this essay Spence proposes the introduction of an
unconditional basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive an unconditional transfer payment, that is, without a means test or need to work. It would be received independently of an ...
to all members of the community. Such allowance would be financed through the socialization of land and the benefits of the rents received by each municipality. A part of everyone’s earnings would be seized by the State, and given to others. Spence's essay also expresses a clear commitment to the rights of women, although he appears unaware of
Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Wollstonecraft (, ; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationsh ...
's 1792 ''
Vindication of the Rights of Woman Vindication may refer to: * Vindication (horse) (2000–2008), American thoroughbred race horse * ''Vindication'' (Crease album) (2000), third album of US hard rock band Crease * ''Vindication'' (Susperia album) (2002), second album of Norwegia ...
''.


Memorial and legacy

Spence is listed on the Reformers Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery in London. His admirers formed a "Society of Spencean Philanthropists," of which some account is given in
Harriet Martineau Harriet Martineau (; 12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist often seen as the first female sociologist, focusing on race relations within much of her published material.Michael R. Hill (2002''Harriet Martineau: Theoreti ...
's ''England During the Thirty Years' Peace''. The
African Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the t ...
activists
William Davidson William or Bill Davidson may refer to: Businessmen * Bill Davidson (businessman) (1922–2009), Michigan businessman and sports team owner ** William Davidson Institute The Stephen M. Ross School of Business, also known as Michigan Ross, is the ...
and Robert Wedderburn were drawn to this political group. Members of the Society of Spencean Philanthropists (including
Arthur Thistlewood Arthur Thistlewood (1774–1 May 1820) was an English radical activist and conspirator in the Cato Street Conspiracy. He planned to murder the cabinet, but there was a spy and he was apprehended with 12 other conspirators. He killed a policem ...
) maintained contacts with United Irish exiles in Paris, notably with the veteran conspirator
William Putnam McCabe William Putnam McCabe (1776–1821) was an emissary and organiser in Ireland for the insurrectionary Society of United Irishmen. Facing multiple indictments for treason as a result of his role in fomenting the 1798 rebellion, he effected a numb ...
, and were implicated in the Spa Field riots of 1816 and the
Cato Street Conspiracy The Cato Street Conspiracy was a plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London. The police had an informer; the plotters fell into ...
of 1820.Alan Smith, "Arthur Thistlewood: A 'Regency Republican'." ''History Today'' 3 (1953): 846–52.


Selected publications

* ''The Real Rights of Man'' (1793) * ''End of Oppression'' (1795) * ''Rights of Infants'' (1796) * ''Constitution of Spensonia'' (1801) * ''The Important Trial of Thomas Spence'' (1807) * ''Giant Killer or Anti-Landlord'' (1814)


See also

*
Georgism Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including ...
, an economic philosophy holding that economic value derived from land should belong equally to all members of society. *
List of 18th-century British working-class writers This list focuses on published authors whose working-class status or background was part of their literary reputation. These were, in the main, writers without access to formal education, so they were either autodidacts or had mentors or patron ...
*
Rights of Man ''Rights of Man'' (1791), a book by Thomas Paine, including 31 articles, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people. Using these points as a base it defends the ...


References


Citations


Sources

* A. Bonnett, 'The Other Rights of Man: The Revolutionary Plan of Thomas Spence', ''History Today'' 57(9) (2007), pp. 42–48. * A. Bonnett and K. Armstrong (eds.), ''Thomas Spence: The Poor Man's Revolutionary'
(Breviary Stuff Publications, 2014)
. * M. Chase, ''The People's Farm: English Radical Agrarianism 1775–1840'
(Breviary Stuff Publications, 2010)
* * T. Evans, ''A Brief Sketch of the Life of Mr. Thomas Spence, Author of the Spencean System of Agrarian Fellowship or Partnership in Land'' (Author, Manchester 1821). * E. Mackenzie, 'Memoir of Thomas Spence', in ''A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and County of Newcastle Upon Tyne, including the Borough of Gateshead'' (Mackenzie and Dent, Newcastle Upon Tyne 1827), I
pp. 399-402
(Google). * T.M. Parssinen, "Thomas Spence and the Spenceans: A Study of Revolutionary Utopianism in the England of George III" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1968). * T.M. Parssinen, 'The Revolutionary Party in London, 1816–20', ''Historical Research'' 45 (2007), pp. 266–282 * F. Podmore, ''Robert Owen: A Biography'' (1907 / Haskell, New York 1971), I
p. 230 ff
(Google). * O.D. Rudkin, ''Thomas Spence and His Connections'' (International Publishers, New York 1927
(Hathi Trust)


External links


The Thomas Spence Society
* Thomas Spence



at marxists.org * M. Beer, ed.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spence, Thomas British classical liberals English pamphleteers English political writers People from Newcastle upon Tyne 1750 births 1814 deaths Universal basic income writers English suffragists English-language spelling reform advocates