ABSTRACT
This chapter examines that Cobbett's views on public finance were widely shared by many Chartists throughout Britain. Earlier biographies of Cobbett and histories of Chartism oft en played down influence of Cobbett, a result of a want to distance Chartism from the 'Tory-Radicalism' that came to associated with Cobbett. More recent accounts, however, have at least implied that Cobbett's critique of Old Corruption, 'the Thing' as he disparaging termed it, was central to Chartist ideology. The influential 'currents of radicalism' school has argued that Chartism represented a particular chapter in an enduring radical critique of Old Corruption, which spanned the 'long' nineteenth century. But this term can obscure as much as it reveals. The chapter argues that the early Chartist invoking of Cobbett in their onslaughts on paper Currency, the National Debt and taxation, which represented that climax, some twenty years later than Harling suggests.
