Richard Carlile (8 December 1790 – 10 February 1843) was an English radical publisher and writer. He was an important agitator for the establishment of universal suffrage and freedom of the press in the United Kingdom.
Early life and career
Richard Carlile was born on 8 December 1790. He was the second of three children of William Carlile and Elizabeth (née Brookings). His father, from a Devon family, worked variously as a shoemaker, exciseman, teacher, and soldier. William Carlile published a book on mathematics but later became a drunkard, deserted the family a few years after his son's birth, and died shortly thereafter. His mother ran a shop in Lawrence Lane, Ashburton, and was a devout Anglican, providing her children with a strict Christian upbringing.
Carlile received an elementary education at two local free schools until age 12 but did not attend the prestigious local grammar school. After leaving school, he worked at Edward Lee's chemist shop in Exeter but soon returned to his mother's shop. In 1803, through his father's family connections, he became a tinplate worker. For the next 15 years, he worked as an itinerant tinworker, making domestic items. The trade's decline forced him to move frequently in southern England, living in constant anxiety about future employment.
From 1812 to 1813, while in Portsmouth, he considered joining the Church of England, inspired by sermons from reforming theologians Lant Carpenter and David Bogue. These were difficult years for Carlile, compounded when he married Jane Cousins, of poor origins from Hampshire, on 24 May 1813 in Alverstoke. The couple moved to London, hoping for better prospects. Living in Bloomsbury, Carlile worked for Benham & Sons and Masterman, Matthews & Co. between 1813 and 1817. They had four children: Richard (1814–1854), Alfred (b. 1816), Thomas Paine (1818–1819), and Thomas Paine (b. 1819).
