John Trenchard (1662 – 17 December 1723) was an English writer and
Commonwealthman
The Commonwealth men, Commonwealth's men, or Commonwealth Party were highly outspoken British Protestant religious, political, and economic reformers during the early 18th century. They were active in the movement called the Country Party. They ...
.
Life
Trenchard belonged to the same
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
family as the Secretary of State Sir
John Trenchard. He was educated at
Trinity College, Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
, and became a lawyer. From 1722 until his death Trenchard was also a member of Parliament for
Taunton
Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...
. He died on 17 December 1723.
Works
As he inherited considerable wealth, Trenchard was able to devote the greater part of his life to writing on political subjects, his approach being that of a
Whig and an opponent of the High Church party.
With
Walter Moyle
Walter Moyle (1672–1721) was an English politician and political writer, an advocate of classical republicanism.
Life
He was born at Bake in St Germans, Cornwall, on 3 November 1672, the third, but eldest surviving son of Sir Walter Moyle, ...
he wrote ''An Argument, Shewing that a Standing Army is Inconsistent with a Free Government'' (1697) and ''A Short History of Standing Armies in England'' (1698 and 1731). He developed anticlerical lines of argument in ''The Natural History of Superstition'' (1709), and ''The Independent Whig'', a weekly periodical published in 1720–21 with
Thomas Gordon.
[''The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought'', ed. ]Mark Goldie
Mark Goldie is an English historian and Professor of Intellectual History at Churchill College, Cambridge. He has written on the English political theorist John Locke and is a member of the Early Modern History and Political Thought and Intellec ...
& Robert Wokler
Robert Lucien Wokler (6 December 1942 – 30 July 2006) was a British historian who was a leading scholar of the political thought of the Enlightenment.
References
* https://www.jstor.org/stable/26222117
* https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rob ...
, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 780 From 1720 to 1723, Trenchard, again with
Thomas Gordon, wrote a series of 144 weekly
essay
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
s entitled ''
Cato's Letters
''Cato's Letters'' were essays by British writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, first published from 1720 to 1723 under the pseudonym of Cato (95–46 BC), the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a famously stalwart champion of Roman trad ...
'', condemning corruption and lack of morality within the British political system and warning against
tyranny
A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to ...
. The essays were published as ''Essays on
Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
, Civil and Religious'', first in the ''London Journal'' and then in the ''
British Journal
The ''British Journal'' was an English newspaper published from 22 September 1722 until 13 January 1728. The paper was then published as the ''British Journal or The Censor'' from 20 January 1728 until 23 November 1730, and then as the ''British ...
''. These essays became a cornerstone of the
Commonwealthmen tradition.
See also
*
Republicanism
Republicanism is a political ideology centered on citizenship in a state organized as a republic. Historically, it emphasises the idea of self-rule and ranges from the rule of a representative minority or oligarchy to popular sovereignty. ...
*
Liberalism
Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostilit ...
*
Contributions to liberal theory
Contribution or Contribute may refer to:
* ''Contribution'' (album), by Mica Paris (1990)
** "Contribution" (song), title song from the album
*Contribution (law), an agreement between defendants in a suit to apportion liability
*Contributions, a ...
References
Further reading
* Jonathan Harris, 'The Grecian coffee house and political debate in London, 1688–1714', ''The London Journal'' 25 (2000), 1–13
* Margaret C. Jacob, ''The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans'' (London, 1981)
* Caroline Robbins, ''The Eighteenth Century Commonwealthman. Studies in the Transmission, Development and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II until the War with the Thirteen Colonies'' (Cambridge MA, 1959)
*
Lois G. Schwoerer, No Standing Armies!' The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England'' (Baltimore and London, 1974)
* Lois G. Schwoerer, 'The Literature of the Standing Army Controversy', ''Huntington Library Quarterly'', 28 (1965), 189–212
External links
*
John Trenchard at the Online Library of Liberty*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trenchard, John
1662 births
1723 deaths
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
Whig (British political party) MPs
British MPs 1722–1727