Benjamin Flower

{{About|the English radical journalist|the American magazine editor|B. O. Flower}} {{Short description|English journalist (1755–1829)}} {{EngvarB|date=August 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}} {{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = Benjamin Flower | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | image_upright = | landscape =  | alt =  | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name =  | birth_date = 1755 | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{death year and age|1829|1755}} | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Journalist | language = | nationality =  | citizenship =  | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre =  | subject =  | movement = | notable_works = | spouse =  | partner =  | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | signature_type = | years_active = | module = | website =  | portaldisp =  }} '''Benjamin Flower''' (1755 – 17 February 1829) was an English radical journalist and political writer, and a vocal opponent of his country's involvement in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars.

==Early life== He was born in London, the son of a prosperous tradesman, George Flower, and Martha Fuller, sister of William Fuller.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Timothy D. Whelan |title=Politics, Religion and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould Flower, 1794–1808 |year=2008|publisher=National Library of Wales|isbn=9781862250703|page=xiv}}</ref> Richard Flower, who helped found Albion, Illinois and wrote on the English Settlement in the state, was his brother, and Richard's sons George Flower (cofounder of the Settlement) and Edward Fordham Flower therefore his nephews.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=9760|title=Flower, Benjamin|first=Adam I. P.|last=Smith}}</ref><ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Flower, Edward Fordham|volume=19}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Celia Morris|title=Fanny Wright: Rebel in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G7RgMU3eC9sC&pg=PA66|date=1 January 1992|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-06249-0|page=66}}</ref> His sister Mary married John Clayton.<ref name="Clayton">{{cite DNB|wstitle=Clayton, John (1754-1843)|volume=11}}</ref>

Attending several schools, from 1766 Flower was at the dissenting academy of John Collett Ryland, an associate of his father, in Northampton.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Timothy D. Whelan |title=Politics, Religion and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould Flower, 1794–1808 |year=2008|publisher=National Library of Wales|isbn=9781862250703|page=xvi}}</ref>

Flower was given a legacy in 1778, when his father died, but lost the money in speculations. John Clayton took this badly, and blackened Flower's reputation, breaking also the family link. to a share in his father's business. Flower was in business in 1783 with William Creak, a London dealer in tea, but Clayton interfered, and Flower had to take a job as a clerk.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Timothy D. Whelan |title=Politics, Religion and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould Flower, 1794–1808 |year=2008|publisher=National Library of Wales|isbn=9781862250703|page=xvii}}</ref>

==Radical and publisher== From the early 1780s Flower belonged to the Society for Constitutional Information.<ref name="National Library of Wales">{{cite book |editor=Timothy D. Whelan |title=Politics, Religion and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould Flower, 1794–1808 |year=2008|publisher=National Library of Wales|isbn=9781862250703|page=xx}}</ref> In 1785 he accepted an engagement to travel in business on the Continent for half the year, spending the other half with the textile Smale & Dennys at Tiverton.<ref name="National Library of Wales"/> He visited the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, and spent six months in France in 1791.<ref name="DNB">{{cite DNB|wstitle=Flower, Benjamin|volume=19}}</ref>

In 1793 Flower printed William Frend's ''Peace and Union Recommended'' in its second edition, and in 1794 ''The Fall of Robespierre'', by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth R. Johnston|title=Unusual Suspects: Pitt's Reign of Alarm and the Lost Generation of the 1790s|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=meyeUHrtZFMC&pg=PA355|date=25 July 2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-965780-3|pages=355–}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Richard Gravil|author2=Lucy Newlyn|author2-link=Lucy Newlyn|author3=Nicholas Roe|title=Coleridge's Imagination: Essays in Memory of Pete Laver|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HnB5xnONEYC&pg=PA167|year=1985|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-03399-2|page=167}}</ref>

In 1793 Flower became editor of the ''Cambridge Intelligencer'', and held the post to 1803.<ref name="Timothy D. Whelan 2009 83 note 152">{{cite book|author=Timothy D. Whelan|title=Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741–1845|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pwd5GuvnedgC&pg=PA83|year=2009|publisher=Mercer University Press|isbn=978-0-88146-144-2|page=83 note 152}}</ref> The historian J. E. Cookson called it "the most vigorous and outspoken liberal periodical of its day".<ref>{{cite book|author=J. E. Cookson|title=The Friends of Peace: Anti-war Liberalism in England, 1793-1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yzg8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA97|date=January 1982|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-23928-8|page=97}}</ref>

In 1799 Flower was summoned before the House of Lords, for remarks made in the ''Intelligencer'' against Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff, whose political conduct he had censured. After a short hearing he was adjudged guilty of a breach of privilege, and sentenced to six months in Newgate Prison and a fine. Flower's attempts to obtain revision of the proceedings by application to the court of king's bench were unsuccessful.<ref name="DNB"/>

==Later life== On his release, Flower gave up his newspaper, and established himself in business as a printer at Harlow in Essex.<ref name="DNB"/> In 1808 he brought a legal action against his cousin John Clayton, junior, winning token damages.<ref name="Clayton"/> In his last years he retired to Dalston.<ref name="DNB"/> There William Johnson Fox became a family friend, touring the Highlands with the Flowers, after they had been brought together by Southwood Smith.<ref name="Fox">{{cite ODNB|id=10047|title=Fox, William Johnson|first=R. K.|last=Webb}}</ref>

Flower died at Dalston on 17 February 1829. He was buried in the non-conformist burying ground at Foster Street near Harlow. Fox became guardian to his daughters, eventually at the cost of his own marriage.<ref name="Fox"/>

==Views== An advocate of the French republic, Flower was not a republican at home.<ref name="DNB"/> His paper was identified by opponents as an organ for Rational Dissent.<ref>{{cite book|title=English Dissent|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ydw8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA37|publisher=CUP Archive|page=37|id=GGKEY:UGD38TZ8G4J}}</ref> As a publisher he undertook joint ventures with Joseph Cottle, Joseph Johnson, and Henry Symonds who had published ''Rights of Man''.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=6407|title=Cottle, Joseph|first=Ralph A.|last=Minogue}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Cyril Ehrlich|author2=Christina Bashford|author3=Leanne Langley|title=Music and British Culture, 1785–1914: Essays in Honor of Cyril Ehrlich|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wOu7n7JuuEsC&pg=PA124|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-816730-3|page=124}}</ref>

In religion Flower was a conservative Unitarian, according to the ''Dictionary of National Biography''.<ref name="DNB"/> On the other hand, E. P. Thompson identifies the Cambridge circle of Coleridge, Flower, and Frend, with George Dyer, John Prior Estlin and Gilbert Wakefield, as "radical Unitarians".<ref>{{cite book|author=E. P. Thompson|title=Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lpm8UWfehQgC&pg=PA59|date=13 October 1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-46977-7|page=59}}</ref>

Flower testified to his own background, stating that his father was a deacon at White's Row Meeting-house in Spitalfields, an Independent congregation.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Benjamin Flower|author2=John Clayton (Senior.)|author3=John Clayton|author4=Rev. William Clayton|title=A statement of facts, relative to the conduct of the Reverend John Clayton, Senior, the Reverend John Clayton, Junior, and the Reverend William Clayton: the proceedings on the trial of an action brought by Benjamin Flower against the Reverend John Clayton, Junior, for defamation, with remarks|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cVJHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR11|year=1808|publisher=Printed by B. Flower|page=xi}}</ref> St Andrew's Street Baptist Church, Cambridge, the 'Stone-Yard Chapel', was noted for the reformers in its congregation;<ref name="Whelan2009">{{cite book|author=Timothy D. Whelan|title=Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741–1845|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pwd5GuvnedgC&pg=PA440|year=2009|publisher=Mercer University Press|isbn=978-0-88146-144-2|page=440}}</ref> Flower edited the works of Robert Robinson, the pastor there.<ref name="DNB"/>

==Works== Flower wrote a work on the French constitution (1792),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Flower |first1=Benjamin|title=The French Constitution; with Remarks on Some of its Principal Articles; in Which Their Importance in a Political, Moral and Religious Point of View, is Illustrated; and the Necessity of a Reformation in Church and State in Great Britain, Enforced|url=https://archive.org/stream/frenchconstitut01flowgoog#page/n4/mode/2up |accessdate=11 January 2013|edition=Second |year=1792|publisher=G.G.J. and J. Robinson |location=London}}</ref> in fact a loose attack on the alleged defects of the British one.

Flower edited the ''Cambridge Intelligencer'', from 1793 to 1803.<ref name="Timothy D. Whelan 2009 83 note 152"/> His brother Richard, a farmer and staunch liberal, had a considerable share in establishing the publication. It was almost the only provincial newspaper in the country which denounced the war with France, and advocated the removal of the grievances of the English Dissenters on the broad grounds of religious liberty.<ref name="DNB"/> The first issue started publishing the ''Sins of Government'' by Anna Letitia Barbauld.<ref>{{cite book|author=William McCarthy|title=Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kTZL66z4CF0C&pg=PA340|date=23 December 2008|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-0-8018-9016-1|page=340}}</ref> Flower's hostility to the war was again expressed in ''National Sins Considered'' (1796).<ref name="DNB"/> Flower carried on a monthly magazine, ''The Political Register'', from 1807 to 1811. His other publications were the ''Life of Robinson'' accompanying the works, a preface to his brother Richard's ''Letters from Illinois'', and some pamphlets on family affairs.<ref name="DNB"/>

==Family== He was visited in prison by Eliza Gould, who had herself suffered for her liberal opinions. Shortly after his release he married her. She died in 1810, leaving him two daughters, the composer Eliza Flower and the poet Sarah Fuller Flower Adams.<ref name="DNB"/>

==References== {{Reflist}}

;Attribution {{DNB|wstitle=Flower, Benjamin|volume=19}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flower, Benjamin}} Category:1755 births Category:1829 deaths Category:English male journalists Category:English Unitarians Category:People from Dalston