William Cobbett Part 6 – He Got A Lot Wrong

Autodidacts tend to have a lot of self-confidence and will often be prepared to take positions that are a long way from the mainstream. Cobbett saw things his way. And that way was often completely wrong. One of his theories was that clouds originate as fog. He claims to have seen a cloud forming on the South Downs. “These fogs are certainly the white clouds that we sometimes see aloft.” This thought occurred to him on October 30th in 1821. He didn’t pursue it any further.

Cobbett’s conspiracy theories about vaccination provide perhaps the most direct parallel with modern “alternative” health movements. Like today’s anti-vaccine activists, Cobbett was deeply suspicious of medical interventions promoted by government authorities. He was convinced that smallpox vaccination was not only ineffective but actively harmful, and he spent considerable time and energy arguing against vaccination programmes.

His opposition to vaccination wasn’t based on scientific analysis – Cobbett had no medical training and made no attempt to understand the biological mechanisms involved. Instead, his scepticism was rooted in his general distrust of government initiatives and his conviction that authorities routinely lied to the public about important matters. If the government said vaccination was beneficial, then it was probably harmful. If medical experts supported vaccination, then they were probably part of the conspiracy.

The parallels with contemporary conspiracy thinking is just sitting there. Like modern conspiracy theorists, Cobbett combined genuine insights about institutional corruption with completely unfounded theories about specific mechanisms. His distrust of government motives was often justified – authorities did frequently lie to the public, and powerful interests did manipulate policy for their own benefit. But his specific explanations for how these manipulations worked were usually nonsensical.

This packaging of truth with nonsense is characteristic of successful conspiracy theorists across the centuries. They begin with genuine grievances and real problems, then construct elaborate explanatory frameworks that go far beyond what the evidence supports. The result is a worldview that feels compelling because it contains elements of truth, even though its overall structure is fundamentally flawed.

Perhaps the most embarrassing episode in Cobbett’s career involved his acquisition of the bones of Thomas Paine. Paine, the great radical writer and pamphleteer, had died in America in 1809 and been buried there in relative obscurity. Cobbett, seized by the romantic notion of bringing Paine’s remains back to England for a proper memorial, travelled to America in 1819 and exhumed his remains. Cobbett had started as a critic of Paine incidentally. But he had come around to his radical viewpoint. That Paine was too dead to argue with probably helped too.

The plan was to create a magnificent monument to Paine that would serve as a rallying point for the radical cause. Instead, Cobbett managed to lose the bones somewhere between America and England, creating one of the most bizarre mysteries in the history of political activism. The bones simply disappeared, leaving Cobbett with the humiliating task of explaining to his supporters how he had managed to misplace one of the most important radical thinkers of the age.

The incident perfectly encapsulates Cobbett’s genius for transforming genuine political insights into farcical disasters. His instinct to honour Paine was admirable, his understanding of Paine’s importance was correct, and his desire to create a physical memorial was inspired. But his execution was so spectacularly incompetent that the entire enterprise became a source of mockery rather than inspiration.

The ultimate tragedy of Cobbett’s conspiracy thinking is that it undermined his legitimate insights and damaged his credibility on issues where he was actually right. His predictions of financial collapse were wrong, but his concerns about the growing power of financial interests were prescient. His theories about deliberate depopulation were nonsensical, but his observations about the social costs of rapid economic change were valuable. His opposition to vaccination was misguided, but his scepticism about government claims was often justified.

Cobbett was wrong about almost everything, but he was wrong with such confidence and such moral clarity that his errors felt more compelling than other people’s truths.