William Hone

William Hone (3 June 1780 – 8 November 1842) was an English writer, satirist and bookseller. His victorious court battle against government censorship in 1817 marked a turning point in the fight for British press freedom.

Biography

Hone has been described as one of the fathers of modern media. According to Associate Professor Kyle Grimes from the University of Alabama, "William Hone arguably did more than any other writer, printer or publisher to shape British popular print culture in the early decades of the nineteenth century."

Hone was born at Bath on 3 June 1780, one of three children to William Hone Senior (born at Homewood Farm in Ripley, Surrey) and Francis Stalwell. William's only surviving brother, Joseph Hone (1784–1861) was a Supreme Court judge in Tasmania, Australia.

William was an inquisitive child, whose father taught him to read from the Bible. For a number of years William attended a small school run by Dame Bettridge, to whom he was very close.

In 1783, William's father moved to London and found work in an Attorney's office. He encouraged William Junior to follow in this profession. After two-and-a-half years in the office of a solicitor at Chatham, William Hone Junior returned to London to become clerk to a solicitor at Gray's Inn. He disliked the law as a profession and said he spent more time reading than working for his employer. With an increasing interest in socialism, he joined the London Corresponding Society in 1796. One of the key campaigns of this Society was to gain the vote for working men. Deeply unpopular with the Government, who were not in favour of Parliamentary reform, some members were tried for treason and sedition.