ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the popular transmission of Thomas Robert Malthus ideas during his lifetime and thus to remedy a significant oversight in the historiography of his thought and influence. Harriet Martineau was clearly intent on proselytizing the Malthusian cause to a mass audience. Given her astonishing level of sales, she no doubt gained many converts among the middle class and those with Whig propensities. William Cobbett's mass readership testifies to the widespread animosity to Malthus he promoted among the working class. Further evidence of his influence is provided by an examination of the pauper press. Cobbett received much personal praise and adulation in such papers. His arguments against Malthus and the New Poor Law and his advocacy of the legal right to relief were often repeated — with or without specific credit — especially his argument that such subsidies were the property of the poor.
