Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Richard Cobden
Summary
Richard Cobden (3 June 1804 – 2 April 1865) was an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace. He was associated with the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty.
As a young man, Cobden was a successful commercial traveller who became co-owner of a highly profitable calico printing factory in Sabden but lived in Manchester, a city with which he would become strongly identified. However, he soon found himself more engaged in politics, and his travels convinced him of the virtues of free trade (anti-protection) as the key to better international relations.
In 1838, he and John Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the unpopular Corn Laws, which protected landowners' interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread. As a Member of Parliament from 1841, he fought against opposition from the Peel ministry, and abolition was achieved in 1846.
Another free trade initiative was the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between Britain and France. This campaign was conducted in collaboration with John Bright and French economist Michel Chevalier, and succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French.
Cobden was born at a farmhouse called Dunford, in Heyshott near Midhurst, in Sussex. He was the fourth of 11 children born to William Cobden and his wife, Millicent ( Amber). His family had been resident in that neighbourhood for many generations, occupied partly in trade and partly in agriculture. His grandfather, Richard Cobden, owned Bex Mill in Heyshott and was an energetic and prosperous maltster who served as bailiff and chief magistrate at Midhurst and took rather a notable part in county matters. His father William however forsook malting in favour of farming, taking over the running of Dunford Farm when Richard died in 1809. A poor business man, he sold the property when the farm failed and moved the family to a smaller farm at nearby Gullard's Oak.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.