# Cambridge Intelligencer

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{{Infobox newspaper
| name               = Cambridge Intelligencer
| type               = [Weekly newspaper](/source/Weekly_newspaper)
| editor             = [Benjamin Flower](/source/Benjamin_Flower)
| founded         = 1793
| ceased_publication = 1803
}}

The '''''Cambridge Intelligencer''''' was an English weekly newspaper, appearing from 1793 to 1803, and edited by [Benjamin Flower](/source/Benjamin_Flower). The historian [J. E. Cookson](/source/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>

Flower suffered imprisonment for contempt of the [House of Lords](/source/House_of_Lords), for remarks made in the ''Intelligencer'' against [Richard Watson](/source/Richard_Watson_(bishop_of_Llandaff)), [bishop of Llandaff](/source/bishop_of_Llandaff). His case followed that of [Gilbert Wakefield](/source/Gilbert_Wakefield), followed a different procedure, and had a temporary chilling effect on radical publishing at the end of the 18th century.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Emsley |first1=Clive |title=Repression, 'Terror' and the Rule of Law in England during the Decade of the French Revolution |journal=The English Historical Review |date=1985 |volume=100 |issue=397 |pages=801–825 |doi=10.1093/ehr/C.CCCXCVII.801 |jstor=572566 }}</ref>

==Editorial policy==
The ''Intelligencer'' first appeared on 20 July 1793, and from the start opposed the [French Revolutionary Wars](/source/French_Revolutionary_Wars).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Murphy |first1=M. J. |title=Newspapers and opinion in Cambridge, 1780-1850 |journal=Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society |date=1972 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=35–55 |jstor=41154513 }}</ref><ref name="Scrivener53">{{cite book|editor=Michael Scrivener|title=Poetry and Reform|date=c. 1992|publisher=Wayne State University Press|isbn=978-0-8143-2378-6|page=53}}</ref> It was one of a number of provincial journals opposed to the administration of [William Pitt the Younger](/source/William_Pitt_the_Younger); and managed to sustain its editorial independence.<ref>{{cite book |author=John Ehrman |author-link=John Ehrman |title=The Younger Pitt: The consuming struggle|volume=3|year=1996|publisher=Constable London|isbn=978-0-09-478170-2 |pages=114 and 313}}</ref> It opposed the [Anglo-Irish Union](/source/Anglo-Irish_Union).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jupp |first1=Peter |title=Britain and the Union, 1797-1801 |journal=Transactions of the Royal Historical Society |date=2000 |volume=10 |pages=197–219 |doi=10.1017/S0080440100000104 |jstor=3679379 |s2cid=162509395 }}</ref>

The ''Intelligencer'' was considered to represent the standpoint of [rational dissent](/source/rational_dissent), and was called "the most infamous paper that ever disgraced the press", by the ''[Anti-Jacobin](/source/Anti-Jacobin)''.<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> By 1796 [James Montgomery](/source/James_Montgomery_(poet)) was asking the editor acting for him not to reprint material from the ''Intelligencer''.<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=PA74|date=25 July 2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-965780-3|page=74}}</ref> Flower was able to continue editorial work while confined to [Newgate Prison](/source/Newgate_Prison) in 1799, lodging with the jail keeper John Kirby.<ref>Whelan, p. 55 note 2.</ref>

The paper ran [editorial](/source/editorial)s, an innovation associated with the radical press of this period. Flower was anticipated in this development, which had been in use for a few years in the ''[Sheffield Register](/source/Sheffield_Register)'' of [Joseph Gales](/source/Joseph_Gales%2C_Sr.), the ''Derby Mercury'' of [William Ward](/source/William_Ward_(missionary)), and Montgomery's ''Sheffield Iris''.<ref>Whelan, p. xxiii note 26.</ref>

==Advertisements==
The advertising content of the ''Intelligencer'' was light,<ref name="WhelanR23">Whelan, p. xxxiii.</ref> but included promotions related to [Stourbridge Fair](/source/Stourbridge_Fair).<ref>{{cite book|author=Honor Ridout|title=Cambridge and Stourbridge Fair|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qmKjkoaWH5oC&pg=PT6|year=2011|publisher=Blue Ocean Publishing Ltd|isbn=978-1-907527-01-2|page=6}}</ref> The publisher [Martha Gurney](/source/Martha_Gurney) advertised the trial transcripts of her brother [Joseph](/source/Joseph_Gurney_(1744%E2%80%931815)).<ref>Whelan, p. xxxiv note 50.</ref> A work of [Thomas Oldfield](/source/Thomas_Oldfield) on electoral boroughs was given space by Flower.<ref>Whelan, p. 4 note 8.</ref> [James Lackington](/source/James_Lackington) advertised his second-hand book emporium.<ref>Whelan, p. 224 note 11.</ref>

==Circulation==
The ''Intelligencer'' functioned for a time more like a national newspaper, with circulation handled by representatives in [Carmarthen](/source/Carmarthen), [Dartmouth](/source/Dartmouth%2C_Devon), [Glasgow](/source/Glasgow) and [York](/source/York).<ref>{{cite book|author=J. R. Oldfield|title=Transatlantic Abolitionism in the Age of Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sUAoAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA130|date=8 August 2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-03076-3|page=130}}</ref> The copies sold rose at times to more than 2000, when a typical provincial newspaper would expect several hundreds.<ref name="WhelanR23"/> There was distribution during 1795–7 in [Leeds](/source/Leeds), for example, by Thomas Langdon.<ref>{{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=PA415|year=2009|publisher=Mercer University Press|isbn=978-0-88146-144-2|page=415}}</ref>

Initially the paper cost 3{{frac|1|2}}''d'', but a change in the [newspaper tax](/source/Stamp_Act_1712) in 1797 brought the price up to 6''d''.; and the circulation dropped, on the paper's own figures, from about 2,700 to the region of 1,800.<ref name="Scrivener53"/><ref>{{cite book|editor=Michael Scrivener|title=Poetry and Reform|date=c. 1992|publisher=Wayne State University Press|isbn=978-0-8143-2378-6|page=21}}</ref> In 1798 the paper still claimed it could be bought in 45 market towns.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mark Philp|title=The French Revolution and British Popular Politics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gx6SHE31nMYC&pg=PA204|date=12 February 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-89093-9|page=204 note 49}}</ref> There was a significant market in Scotland.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=Bob |title=Scotland's Newspapers, the French Revolution and Domestic Radicalism (c.1789-1794) |journal=The Scottish Historical Review |date=2005 |volume=84 |issue=217 |pages=38–62 |doi=10.3366/shr.2005.84.1.38 |jstor=25529820 }}</ref>

==Contributors==
*[Anna Letitia Barbauld](/source/Anna_Letitia_Barbauld): The first issue started publishing her ''Sins of Government''.<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>
*[William Burdon](/source/William_Burdon), pro-Napoleon letters, leading to ''Various Thoughts on Politics, Morality and Literature'' (1800)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Semmel |first1=Stuart |title=British Radicals and 'Legitimacy': Napoleon in the Mirror of History |journal=Past & Present |date=2000 |issue=167 |pages=140–175 |doi=10.1093/past/167.1.140 |jstor=651256 }}</ref>
*[Samuel Taylor Coleridge](/source/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge), who wrote his 1796 political poem ''[Ode on the Departing Year](/source/Ode_on_the_Departing_Year)'' for the ''Intelligencer''; also ''Parliamentary Oscillators'' of 1798, as "Laberius"<ref>{{cite book|author=Morton D. Paley|title=Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry|url=https://archive.org/details/apocalypsemillen0000pale|url-access=registration|date=7 October 1999|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-158468-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/apocalypsemillen0000pale/page/141 141]}}</ref>
*[Ebenezer Elliott](/source/Ebenezer_Elliott), ''The Vernal Walk'' (1798)<ref>{{cite book|author=Asa Briggs|title=The Collected Essays of Asa Briggs: Images, Problems, Standpoints and Forecasts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cWhS4-t_xp0C&pg=PA36|date=1 February 1988|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-06005-2|page=36}}</ref>
*[Eliza Gould](/source/Eliza_Gould), letters in 1795;<ref>{{cite book|author=Cathy Hartley|title=A Historical Dictionary of British Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uY2B224NwmYC&pg=PA391|date=15 April 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-35534-0|page=391}}</ref> she suffered for her distribution of the ''Intelligencer'' in Devon<ref>Whelan, p. 1.</ref>
*[Jeremiah Joyce](/source/Jeremiah_Joyce), ''Account'', in 1795<ref>{{cite book|author=John Issitt|title=Jeremiah Joyce: Radical, Dissenter and Writer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xQvMDB3lrvgC&pg=PA109|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-0-7546-3800-1|page=109}}</ref>
*[Henry Crabb Robinson](/source/Henry_Crabb_Robinson), in 1795, defending [William Godwin](/source/William_Godwin)'s ''[Political Justice](/source/Political_Justice)'' as "Philo Godwin" <ref>{{cite book|author=Peter H. Marshall |title=William Godwin|url=https://archive.org/details/williamgodwin0000mars |url-access=registration |year=1984|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300031751|page=[https://archive.org/details/williamgodwin0000mars/page/214 214]}}</ref>
*[John Towill Rutt](/source/John_Towill_Rutt), who contributed for example a poem against the press gang, and referencing the radical [Thomas Cooper](/source/Thomas_Cooper_(American_politician%2C_born_1759))<ref>{{cite book|editor=Michael Scrivener|title=Poetry and Reform|date=c. 1992|publisher=Wayne State University Press|isbn=978-0814323786|pages=54–5}}</ref>
*[William Taylor](/source/William_Taylor_(man_of_letters))<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Taylor, William (1765-1836)|volume=55}}</ref>

Others who contributed or who were quoted in the ''Intelligencer'' included: [George Dyer](/source/George_Dyer_(poet)), [Mary Wollstonecraft](/source/Mary_Wollstonecraft), and [Christopher Wyvill](/source/Christopher_Wyvill_(reformer)).<ref>{{cite book|title=English Dissent|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ydw8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA57|publisher=CUP Archive|page=57|id=GGKEY:UGD38TZ8G4J}}</ref> Parliamentary reports were typically based on the ''[Morning Herald](/source/Morning_Herald)''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wahrman |first1=Dror |title=Virtual Representation: Parliamentary Reporting and Languages of Class in the 1790s |journal=Past & Present |date=1992 |issue=136 |pages=83–113 |doi=10.1093/past/136.1.83 |jstor=650902 }}</ref> There was much verse, and the publication has been seen as a place where "few poets can refuse themselves the luxury of extended moral comment or political instruction".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jarvis |first1=Simon |title=Wordsworth and Idolatry |journal=Studies in Romanticism |date=1999 |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=3–27 |doi=10.2307/25601370 |jstor=25601370 }}</ref>

==Influence==
The ''[Leeds Mercury](/source/Leeds_Mercury)'' of [Edward Baines](/source/Edward_Baines_(1774%E2%80%931848)), and then the ''[Manchester Guardian](/source/Manchester_Guardian)'' founded by [John Edward Taylor](/source/John_Edward_Taylor), carried on the reformist line of the ''Intelligencer''.<ref>Whelan, xxxix, note 56.</ref> Flower's model for a radical paper was tried again in Cambridge for a few years around 1820, by Weston Hatfield in his ''Cambridge and Hertford Independent Press''. He had support from, among others, [George Pryme](/source/George_Pryme).<ref>[http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/cambridge historyofparliamentonline.org, ''Cambridge, 1820–1832''.]</ref>

==References==
*{{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=978-1-86225-070-3}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

Category:Defunct newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Category:1793 establishments in Great Britain
Category:1803 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Category:Newspapers published in Cambridgeshire

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Cambridge Intelligencer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Intelligencer) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Intelligencer?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.